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Deutsch: EP: Bericht zum Online-Vertrieb audiovisueller Werke birgt Überraschu...

On 10 July 2012, the Culture and Education (CULT) Committee in the European Parliament (EP) voted on the own initiative report of Jean-Marie Cavada (EPP, France) on the online distribution of audiovisual content. The own initiative report follows the Green Paper from the European Commission dated 13 July 2011 and the public consultation that closed in November 2011 (for which the result is not yet available).

Mr Cavada’s draft report contained a paragraph calling for consideration of “how to block access to pay platforms offering unauthorised services.” This provision was removed by Mr Cavada as a result of widespread opposition. This removal is welcome as the Committee has consistently rejected blocking a way of combating the dissemination of platforms offering unauthorised services.

As good news never comes without bad news (or at least not as often as we would wish for...), the report contained a very surprising paragraph on the liability of network operators. The additional paragraph (amendment 147) that was voted, was proposed by the Mr. Cavada. It “calls on the Commission to consider ways (...) reverse the current trend of removing responsibility from these operators regarding consumer protection, implementation of intellectual property and ensuring Internet privacy”. The adoption of this text is surprising for at least three reasons.

Firstly, it is factually not true that there is a trend that diminishes the responsibility of network operators. The rules concerning the responsibility and liability of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are provided by the e-Commerce Directive in Articles 12 to 15 and have been in place since 2001. The only discernible trend has been in the opposite direction, as courts in some EU Member States have been making rulings that have narrowly interpreted ISP liability provisions

Secondly, the risk is really high that this provision could be understood as promoting privatised censorship in exactly the way that was suggested by ACTA., As liability increases, it is logical that ISPs will be willing to avoid legal problems by “voluntarily” enforcing copyright legislation outside the rule of law. This will lead to privatised enforcement at the detriment of fundamental rights such as freedom of expression, the right to privacy but also the freedom to conduct business.

Finally, the role of the whole initiative was to encourage the development of new legal offers and to improve the access to content for users – it is a symptom of a broader problem that, even when the policy is so positive, the reflex is to fall back on repressive measures as the only solution.

During the discussions of this dossier in Parliament, the online distribution of audiovisual works’ report has raised lots of attention and the number of amendments proposed for an own-initiative report shows that the subject creates a huge amount of controversy. The attention brought on the report need to be looked at in the larger debate on copyright.

The final version of the Report is not available yet.

Amendment 147 in the Report
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/commissions/cult/amendments/2012...(2012)487679_EN.pdf

Directive on electronic commerce 2000/31/EC
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:32000L0031...

(Contribution by Marie Humeau - EDRi)