Another open letter has been sent to the members of the European Parliament, this time by academics from 25 leading intellectual property research centres in Europe. They request them to stop the legislation process altogether if it continues to progress in the form proposed by the recent drafts of the Bulgarian Presidency and JURI rapporteur Voss.
The signees point out the scientific consensus
- that the proposed exception for text-and-data-mining in Art. 3 will not achieve its goal to stimulate innovation and research if restricted to certain organisations,
- that the proposals for a new publishers’ right under Art. 11 will favour incumbent press publishing interests rather than innovative quality journalism,
- and that the proposals for Art. 13 threaten the user participation benefits of the eCommerce Directive (2000/31/EC) which shared the responsibility for enforcement between rightholders and service providers.
While the draft report by former MEP and rapporteur Therese Comodini Cachia is praised as "balanced" and "the most workable basis", the compromise amendments proposed by the new rapporteur MEP Axel Voss (EPP, Germany) only pay lip service to authors' interest but respond in effect to the agenda of powerful corporate interests. The same goes for the drafts emerging from the Bulgarian Council presidency. These proposals "will not serve the public interest."
The full text of the open letter can be downloaded here.