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Copyright Update: New brief offers perspective on recent Parliamentary copyright vote

14th September 2018News, Open Science

Earlier this week, the European Parliament voted on its proposed amendments to the draft directive of the controversial Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market. At this point, following this most recent vote, significant concerns remain for the academic community.

These concerns are articulated in a brief released today by SPARC Europe which has been advocating heavily for the past year for reform that will not impede science, research and innovation in Europe.

Among the more troubling aspects of the amendments as they currently stand: in Article 11, though academic publications are excluded, a new ancillary right for press publishers and news agencies for hyperlinks on third-party platforms was supported in this vote; also approved was a measure to formalize efforts to crack down on copyright infringement occurring on internet platforms by requiring that user-generated content be monitored and filtered. The latter in particular could have dire consequences for repositories.

Now that this vote on amendments has occurred, negotiations between the European Council of Ministers, the European Commission and the European Parliament are next on the agenda. The resulting draft will then be presented to the full Parliament for a final vote.

Download the Brief.

Read more about the Coalition’s efforts of the past year.