European Parliament Committee Draft Cuts EC Ancillary Copyright Text That Drew CTA, Others' Concern

The European Parliament Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee deleted a proposed pan-EU ancillary copyright aimed at allowing publishers to claim royalties from news aggregation services like Google News (see 1609140010), in a published draft opinion Thursday on the European Commission's proposed copyright directive for the digital single market. The proposed ancillary right drew flack from the Computer and Communications Industry Association, Center for Democracy and Technology, CTA, Mozilla and other U.S. stakeholders (see 1608290062, 1609060078, 1609120026 and 1609150053). Catherine Stihler, MEP for Scotland, deleted the ancillary or “publisher's right” in the draft opinion, saying it lacked “sufficient justification.” Some EU-based groups also opposed keeping the ancillary right in the copyright directive, saying this month it was “fundamentally misconceived.” The EP committee's draft opinion also amends language on intermediary liability and filtering, adds a user-generated content exception to copyright, and broadens the scope of the copyright exception for text and data mining. CCIA “welcomes” the EP committee's draft opinion as a “good first step in the right direction,” said Europe Public Policy Manager Maud Sacquet in a news release. “CCIA urges the Parliament and Member States to follow this first step, to stand up for the deletion of the publishers’ right in the EU and to go even further by entirely deleting all provisions undermining the e-Commerce Directive.”