This week the EU Parliament has voted to pass the copyright reform, a proposal that was first presented in 2016 and that aims to adjust the legislation on authors’ rights to the digital single market. Since then, lobbies, political parties and companies have campaigned both in favor and against the directive, on the one hand claiming that it is a much-needed reform that will protect contents’ producers against those platforms that monetize its share without paying for it, and on the other arguing that it will be the end of the free web.
The directive passed with 348 votes in favor and 274 against. More than 90 MEPs were absent at the time of the vote. The outcome of the vote remained uncertain until the end, and the yes to the reform only won by a slight majority. When the first draft law was presented in September 2018, it was approved by 438 votes, but it lost endorsement by the time it was voted within the Parliament.
Now member states have two years to implement the new obligations that come with the reform. It will be the biggest change on the web since the GDPR, the General Data Protection Regulation. Platforms like YouTube, Facebook and Google will have to adapt to a new set of rules that will force them to make deals with content producers in order to keep sharing their material. In this way, the interests of creators will be protected, and the right of receiving an economic remuneration for their work will be secured. The giants of the Silicon Valley, which are behind the largest sharing platforms worldwide, and the copyrighted content producers, like media companies or record labels, will have to negotiate licenses to regulate the circulation of such product within the Internet.
The most talked about and controverted articles were number 11 (which then became number 25 in the official draft law) and the number 13 (now 17). The first one concerns journalistic publications, obliging sharing platforms to pay for news content that is digitally spread, while the second impose the installation of filters that automatically rule out copyrighted material. Campaigners against the reform argued that the new directives will imply the end of the free web, as a space for freedom of expression. However, the norm is addressing just bigger companies, and at the same time, non-commercial entities like Wikipedia will be exempt.
The defense of copyrighted content is not intended as a threat to the right of expressing and sharing ideas, information and material. It is rather an effort to protect and dignify the work of many people in many different fields. The Commission underlined the urgency to regulate the news sector particularly, a fundamental one for the public debate which is undergoing a deep crisis since the coming of the Internet.
On the very same day, Italy also took on a national project that goes in a parallel line. The country wants to reform the publishing system, and from the next few months, it will host a series of meetings where representatives from the government together with all the stakeholders will discuss what needs to be done for the business. Prime minister Giuseppe Conte said that one of the biggest challenges that affected the sector is social media, which are spreading misinformation concealed as actual news material.
Then, of course, there is the problem of the economic model. As other European newspapers, many Italian ones are supported by public funding. In a time where the relationship between the government and the press has not been at its best, authorities have suggested cutting the funding, saying that the model has not proven to be sustainable and should be therefore substituted with one that better adapts to the future ahead.
