Lobby groups attack deal on copyright

Date: 08/06/2000

By Peter Chapman

INDUSTRY lobby groups have lambasted the deal on the EU's draft copyright code struck by Union diplomats this week.

The agreement was hammered out at a meeting of EU deputy ambassadors yesterday (7 June) after years of wrangling, with only 'tidying up' work left to be done before it is rubber-stamped by ministers.

Townsend Feehan, secretary general of the European Association of Consumer Electronics Manufacturers (EACEM), said the draft deal was "a complete hotchpotch", and claimed it would pave the way for member states to implement the directive in different ways.

The deal also came under fire from Frances Moore, EU affairs director of the music lobby group the International Federation for the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), who said too many of the sector's rights had been given away.

As Portugal worked frantically to broker an accord before the end of its presidency, it had to find ways round a host of obstacles which stood in the way of a deal.

It had to meet French, Spanish and Belgian demands that authors' and creators' rights must be protected from the threat of wholesale digital copying of their works, while addressing the concerns voiced by other member states - including the UK and Netherlands - that tough rules would stop consumers making private digital copies of content such as music and television programmes for innocent 'time-shifting' purposes.

Lisbon also faced demands from many governments for the right to retain the lists of exemptions from copyright rules for digital works which they already have in the analogue world.

The result was a compromise which would give member states a great deal of leeway in implementing the planned legislation.

It would allow governments to keep their current lists of exemptions, such as those granted to libraries and the disabled, backed up by an EU-wide requirement for member states to act if rights-holders use technical measures to thwart them. Private copying would be allowed, but governments would be able to decide for themselves whether to step in to enforce that right or not.

EACEM claims this would undermine the market for digital playback and recording equipment being developed by its members, because some Union countries, such as the UK, would almost certainly ensure that rights-holders could make home copies while others more sympathetic to artists' demands would not. "It is a classic Euro-deal. Every member state gets what it wants. But it is bad law because you are going to end up with 15 different regimes," said Feehan.

The Coalition of Rights-holders, a group of 31 content providers and artists, also claimed the deal would drive a wedge through their efforts to go digital - for different reasons. The IFPI's Frances Moore said if the directive was adopted in its current form, individual EU member states would have the right to define what level of private copying was acceptable and to interfere with the way rights-holders used technical measures to thwart illegal copying if they thought it was too restrictive.

But the battle is not yet over. MEPs must now give their views on the deal struck between Union governments before it can be put onto the EU's statute book.

Industry lobby groups have lambasted the deal on the EU's draft copyright code struck by Union diplomats on 7.6.00.