Re: European Copyright Directive

["Anthony Watkinson" <anthony.watkinson@btinternet.com>]

I have been away which explains why this comment is out of sequence.

Readers may like to know that (as has often been stated but always
ignored) the publishing lobby was not concerned to prevent fair use or
fair dealing in print. Fred Friend knows this very well because he has
been closely involved in the discussions between UK publishing bodies and
JISC which resulted in an agreed interpretation of fair dealing. The way
in which this Directive emerged is something really understood by a
handful of specialists but I have been told from a leading library
consultant that the "nasty last-minute amendments" did not come from
publishers. There are a lot of different interests involved not all of
whom are nice bedfellows for either scholarly publishers or scholarly
librarians

However this is not the point of this interposition which is to inform
liblicense-l that publishing bodies in Europe are also not unhappy with
the final wording of the Directive and publishers also think that harmful
amendments were rejected. "Workable compromise" is exactly the sort of
language being used by publishers.

Where does this leave us all? Undoubtedly there will be skirmishing at a
national level about national implementation but is it possible that we
are reaching a sort of consensus in Europe at least and, if we are, let us
all be pleased about it.

Anthony Watkinson 
Visiting Professor in Information Science at
City University London 
14, Park Street, Bladon, Woodstock, Oxon, England OX20 1RW 
phone +44 1993 811561 and fax 1993 810067


----- Original Message -----
> Subject: European Copyright Directive
>
> You might like to know that the European Parliament yesterday approved the
> new Copyright Directive and that, although not ideal, the text should
> enable most fair use by librarians and library users to continue. A number
> of nasty last-minute amendments were rejected by Members of the European
> Parliament as a result of intense lobbying by library groups across
> Europe, led by EBLIDA. For several months we have been sending faxes and
> e-mails to MEPs and we have been told that they have received more
> messages about copyright than about any other issue. The threats to
> library services in the text proposed by the European Commission were
> highlighted for us several years ago by Emanuella Giavarra, and Barbara
> Schleihagen and Teresa Hackett of EBLIDA together with Emanuella have done
> a tremendous job in mobilising librarians and academics across Europe to
> secure changes to the original text, which would have resulted in payment
> to the publisher for every single copy made by a librarian or library user
> in paper or electronic format. We found that we were tarred with the same
> brush as Napster and illegal copying of films and music. The result of all
> the lobbying is a compromise but a workable compromise. The next stage is
> for national parliaments to enact the European directive into national
> legislation but we are not anticipating any major threats to fair use at
> that level.
>
> xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Frederick J.Friend,
> Director Scholarly Communication,
> University College London,
> Gower Street,
> London WC1E 6BT,
> England.
> Telephone/Fax  020 7679 4529
> Mobile 0774 762 7738
> E-mail       ucylfjf@ucl.ac.uk   or    f.friend@ucl.ac.uk
> Web         http://www.ucl.ac.uk/scholarly-communication/
> xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx