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EU Parliament voted last week on the Copyright Directive. Find out what they decided, how this affects software, and what you can do next.
Last week, we put out a call to action leading up to the EU Parliament’s vote on the Copyright Directive. Read on to learn what they decided, how this affects software, and what’s next in the process. (It’s not over.)
On September 12, the EU Parliament voted to:
If Parliament’s version of the Copyright Directive becomes the law:
But remember, Parliament doesn’t have the final word. We still need to keep an eye on the negotiations as they move to the next stage with the Council and Commission—and continue advocating to protect software.
There’s a lot to fix in the current copyright proposal. We’re looking at software because that’s where developers can speak with authority. Our focus now is on the negotiations among Parliament, Council, and the Commission (trilogues) to ensure exclusion for “open source software developing platforms” isn’t only limited to “non-for-profit” platforms. This was our goal back in April too, when both Council and Parliament proposed excluding only “non-for-profit open source software developing platforms.” With your help, we were able to show Parliament why a non-for-profit limitation would undermine their effort to protect software because most open source software development is built on platforms, like GitHub, that aren’t non-for-profit.
Now it’s time to make this clear for the Council. After hearing from developers, Parliament realized it didn’t make sense to limit the software exclusion to only non-for-profit software development platforms. We need to make sure the Council understands this, too. EU developers, contact your Council members and explain why they need to exclude all open source software development platforms from filtering obligations—not only non-for-profit ones—if they want to effectively protect software development in the EU.
Copyright law hasn’t kept up with the digital age, and we support greater copyright reform that protects how software development happens around the world today. But as we’re fixing copyright law, it’s important to make sure that we aren’t actually creating more problems. Although the Copyright Directive may be a step forward, we have to continue advocating for fair and balanced change that protects software—and the economy it powers—in the process.
