Statement on Copyright reform

As a facilitator and advocate of Finnish science and research, CSC – IT Center for Science is extremely concerned with the content of the proposed reform and its impact on European data economy, research and innovation. CSC calls for the European Parliament to reject the proposal in its current form and continue its preparation, particularly regarding articles 3, 11 and 13.

The proposal is problematic in many ways and its consequences are in conflict with both its own aims, as well as with the strategic aims of the EU Digital Single Market.

• Restricting text and data mining (article 3) only for academic organisations for research purposes will undermine European SMEs and their opportunities for RDI, harming European competitiveness. In particular, the operating conditions of European data-based SMEs and start-up companies will be weakened, increasing the competitive advantage of companies operating outside Europe.

• In its proposed form, Article 11 would require the author to authorise the distribution of all digital journalistic content for 20 years from publication. It would prevent, for example, sharing news links in social media as protection would cover all editorial content, including headlines.

• If Article 13 is implemented as proposed, service providers would be obliged to monitor in advance and, where appropriate, remove material uploaded by their users in order to reduce copyright infringements. This would apply to all content despite their format. Article 13 is in conflict with promoting Open Science and Innovation, which are key strategic priorities for EU.

The full statement is available here (PDF).