By Daniel Michaels
BRUSSELS -- A new European push to rein in tech giants through
copyright legislation is sparking fierce debate and questions about
whether the proposed law would accomplish its goals.
The fight pits big publishers, music companies and movie
directors against internet giants including Facebook Inc. and
Alphabet Inc.'s Google, as well as open-internet advocates and some
small publishers.
It is coming to a head because the European Parliament plans to
vote Wednesday on a draft copyright directive that supporters say
would bolster media producers against internet platforms and hold
those platforms more responsible for paying for content, such as
copyrighted music playing in the background of an uploaded home
video.
The vote, which also will include more than 200 proposed
amendments, will set parameters for potentially protracted
negotiations among the parliament, the EU's executive body and
European governments. If a law is ultimately agreed, EU countries
would have up to two years to implement the new rules, which would
be enforced by member countries.
Critics of the draft, including both technology giants and
individuals who want to maintain easy sharing on the web, contend
the law would have many negative consequences, including stifling
free expression, hampering innovation and forcing new expenses on
small startups required to filter content for copyright
material.
Fighting over the law has been unusually fierce, say veterans of
EU legislative battles. Celebrities including Paul McCartney and
Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales have lobbied for and against the law,
respectively. EU legislators say they've received hundreds of
emails against the draft text on some days.
Media companies, particularly publishers, say their business has
been gutted by Facebook and Google through their sharing of
published materials that provide little or no revenue or user data
back to the publishers. The platforms' behavior amounts to theft,
said Mathias Döpfner, chief executive of German publisher Axel
Springer SE. The new law would give news publishers the right to
negotiate payment for " digital use" of their content by tech
firms.
"If somebody else can just steal what you have created," he told
a conference organized by German rival Hubert Burda Media in
Brussels, "then this is just a hopeless case for content
creators."
Burda CEO Paul-Bernard Kallen said the principle "is a matter of
justice."
News Corp, publisher of The Wall Street Journal, supports the
law's copyright protection.
A Google spokesman declined to comment on the draft law. When it
was first proposed in 2016, Google's head of public policy said in
a blog that the draft contained "worrying elements" that could mean
"everything uploaded to the web must be cleared by lawyers before
it can find an audience."
A spokeswoman for Facebook said that its platform offers tools
for rights holders to protect their content, adding "We hope that
the debate going forward will focus on the original mission of
protecting copyright and ensuring a vibrant marketplace for content
creation."
Opponents also include Julia Reda, a member of the European
Parliament from the Pirate Party, which advocates open access and
personal privacy on the internet. She has called the copyright law
a "link tax," warning the law could force internet users to pay for
content accessed through hyperlinks that they now get for free. In
July she helped derail the law from fast-track approval because it
"would have massively restricted our freedom of expression," a
statement on her website says.
Hyperlinks have been explicitly excluded from the law, say
advocates, meaning there would be no "link tax."
The fight is raging even though some backers acknowledge the
law, if enacted, would face tough odds in changing how news is
presented on the internet. Similar laws in Germany and Spain had
little impact and in Spain prompted Google to stop its Google News
service. Still, backers say, a law covering the EU's 28 countries
would force platforms to change their behavior.
"Having something at the European level creates a new dynamic,"
said Angela Mills Wade, executive director of the European
Publishers Council, a trade group.
Print publishers say the law would give them rights similar to
those held by copyright owners of music and video material. "Legal
recognition gives us better legal standing against the platforms in
negotiations on usage" of published material, said Miruna Herovanu,
an adviser at News Media Europe, a trade group.
Some small publishers, individuals and academics who want broad
distribution more than revenue fear the law would restrict
publication of their materials.
Mathias Vermeulen, a spokesman for Dutch EU lawmaker Marietje
Schaake, who is critical of the law, said she received about 3,000
emails before a vote on the law earlier in the summer. He said
publishers ignored concerns of more than 200 academics about the
law.
"In the end this was a very sad debate to watch," Mr. Vermeulen
said.
Sam Schechner and Valentina Pop contributed to this article.
Write to Daniel Michaels at daniel.michaels@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
September 10, 2018 09:22 ET (13:22 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2018 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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