Brussels, 13 November 2013 – On the occasion of today’s Licences for Europe (L4E) “plenary” meeting, the C4C Coalition urges the European Commission to finally turn the page of the L4E process and begin work towards revising the copyright and database Directives.

‘The process was flawed from the start’, said Caroline De Cock, coordinator of the C4C Coalition. ‘We warned this would be a missed opportunity as licensing is in many cases part of the problem, not of the solution. Now is the time to properly review the European copyright rules, and choose the right options to promote innovation through copyright flexibility. We have offered a constructive way forward repeatedly, including in our 4^th of July Declaration, that looks at balanced ways to improve accessibility of information and content – of which licensing is only one mechanism’.

The Text and Data Mining Working Group of the L4E process has proven to be a major source of dissatisfaction. The clear failure of this group is a particular disappointment, considering it is about the future of research and data-driven innovation in Europe – including in the area of medical discoveries – and about jobs, growth and reduction of costs (a McKinsey report estimates that government expenditure in Europe could be reduced by €100 billion a year thanks to effective use of ‘big data’[1]).

As a result, on 12 November C4C organised an event on Text and Data Mining in order to ‘have the conversation that the L4E process did not allow us to undertake’. Organised in the European Parliament, the event was co-hosted by Members of the European Parliament of different political groups, including Pawel Zalewski (Polish, EPP), Marietje Schaake (Dutch, ALDE) and Amelia Andersdotter (Swedish, Greens/EFA), and looked at the changes required to ensure the copyright framework in the European Union becomes fit-for-purpose for the digital society we live in.

Download this press release here.

Background

Licences for Europe was announced in the Communication on Content in the Digital Single Market (18 December 2012) and is a joint initiative led by Commissioners Michel Barnier (Internal Market and Services), Neelie Kroes (Digital Agenda) and Androulla Vassiliou (Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth) to “deliver rapid progress in bringing content online through practical industry‐led solutions”.

Licences for Europe aims to engage stakeholders in four areas:

1. Cross‐border access and the portability of services;
2. User‐generated content and licensing;
3. Audiovisual sector and cultural heritage; and,
4. Text and Data Mining (TDM).

On February 26^th, over 60 organisations addressed a letter to European Commission Vice-President Kroes and Commissioners Barnier, Geoghegan-Quinn and Vassiliou voicing their concerns. As no changes were made, several organisations withdrew from the TDM Working Group on May 22^nd, includingthe Association of European Research Libraries (LIBER), the Coalition for a Digital Economy (Coadec), the European Bureau of Library Information and Documentation Associations (EBLIDA), the Open Knowledge Foundation (OKFN), Communia, Ubiquity Press Ltd, the Trans‐Atlantic Consumer Dialogue (TACD), the National Centre for Text Mining, the University of Manchester (NaCTeM), the European Network for Copyright in support of Education and Science (ENCES), and Jisc, followed shortly thereafter by the European Research Infrastructure Consortium on Common Language Resources and Technology Infrastructure (CLARIN ERIC).

 About the C4C Coalition

Created in 2010, C4C is a broad-based coalition that seeks an informed debate on how copyright can more effectively promote innovation, access, and creativity. A short infographic summarising what C4C stands for can be found here, and the C4C declaration is available here.

Press Contact

Caroline De Cock

Coordinator

C4C Coalition

Kreupelstraat 33, 1703 Dilbeek (Brussels), Belgium

T : +32 (0)474 840515

@ : cdc@n-square.eu

https://coalition4creativity.org