The European Visual Artists (EVA) regrets that the European Parliament’s plenary did not endorse the report by the Legal Affairs’ Committee on the Copyright Directive in the Digital Single Market.

The vote seriously undermines the serious work of the rapporteur Axel Voss and the rest of the Members of the Legal Affairs Committee and on the same time shows that the European Union is reluctant to protect the rights of its own creators in the digital world. This is a rather important timing for Europe as it marks the last year of the current mandate of the European Parliament and the beginning of the pre-election period, and unfortunately the EP didn’t manage to send a strong message of unity and solidarity towards its huge creators’ sector which is one of the most profitable sectors generating millions of employments all over Europe.

EVA is supporting the almost 38.000 creators’ that signed the makeinternetfair petition (http://makeinternetfair.eu/) on their continuous battle for the establishment of a fair and proportionate remuneration for authors from the exploitation of their works, including online (new Article 13c). We need to stop the transfer of value which is the subject to article 13. Differently from what it is claimed in some media, the directive does not impose a general content control but invites platforms to conclude license agreements with rights holders. Only those platforms choosing not to take a license have to prevent that protected works are displayed without permission and they should apply appropriate measures. Upload filters are not mentioned. How do platforms handle their risk of being held liable: they shift their liability on the consumer’s shoulders with their general terms and conditions! Moreover, new rules on contracts will protect authors from the effects of buy-out contracts which today leave them with close to nothing when transferring their rights to intermediaries. Without the JURI report adopted, authors will lose this opportunity and continue to be treated unfair.

It is therefore crucial that the European Parliament’s plenary concludes to a report that will be favorable to the European creators and creates a legislation based on the existing JURI report that will not allow tech giants to benefit from the ever growing on-demand exploitation of copyright-protected works without remunerating appropriately the creators.

Today’s vote might be considered as a major setback on the ongoing discussions but we would like to thank all the Members of the European Parliament that supported our cause and to call them to continue standing on the side of European authors as this battle is not over yet.

Fiind the official press release of the European Parliament here: https://bit.ly/2tX6J3D

and the final voting results here: https://bit.ly/2tX6J3D