Rowing The Digital Boat

Michael Hedges September 20, 2016 - Follow on Twitter

The future is digital, everyone likes to chant in asymmetrical rhythm. Nobody wants to skip a beat lest storms and tides sink the boat. While the technology-blessed surf the waves to greater and greater riches, legacy media operators fear being stranded, friendless and penniless, on islands no longer safe havens, tax or otherwise. Rules, however, are like life preservers, buoyancy confused for safety.

Upgrading its Digital Agenda to the 21st Century the European Commission (EC) proposed last week new rules and an augmented reality. Observers were divided, as usual; cheers from some, groans from others. The former see the internet being tamed, the later fear a European digital dividend pushed further out to sea. New and, arguably, improved copyright rules have been a long time coming with a still longer journey.

All interested parties have now had a few days to examine the message from EC vice president for the Digital Single Market Andrus Ansip and Commissioner for the Digital Economy and Society Günther Oettinger. They spoke, respectively, of “transforming Europe’s copyright rules in light of a new digital reality” and “a copyright environment that is stimulating, fair and rewards investment.” If all this passes the European Parliament and legislatures of each Member State, perhaps including the UK and perhaps not, folks living within the European Union will be able to more easily snag TV shows across borders. TV people looking to monitize catch-up and VoD services were horrified. Earlier that same day EC president Jean-Claude Juncker proposed free WiFi for all and “fully deploy” 5G networks by 2025. (See more on that story here)

After that, the EC proposed putting the brakes on user-generated content. Platforms like YouTube, Dailymotion and SoundCloud would be required to implement “effective content recognition technologies” to keep folks from sharing - or accessing - any audiovisual content, or parts thereof, under copyright. Google already applies its Content ID recognition technology to YouTube uploads. “We are saying to these platforms, you have to use them,” said Commissioner Ansip. The proposal includes a dispute resolution process.

As contentious is the proposal, widely expected, to create a neighboring or ancillary right for publishers to claim title to the famous little snippets used by online news aggregators to describe what might be behind the appropriate link. The design, meant to “recognize publisher’s important role” and “level the internet playing field,” borrows from German and Spanish legislation, respectively, a tactical flop and strategic disaster for publishers. This ancillary right, if all approvals are gained, will have a twenty year lifetime.

“Publishers will be better able to negotiate with news aggregators,” said Dutch news service NDP Nieuwsmedia director Tom Nauta, quoted by Financieele Dagblad (September 14). Dutch MEP and digital freedom advocate Marietje Schaake hesitated: sharing news could be inhibited. “Publishers have legitimate concerns about falling revenue, but a reactionary adaptation of copyright law is not the right answer to this problem.” Earlier she said the copyright proposal would “break the internet as we know it.”

The EC proposal also asks publishers for “transparency” in reporting revenue streams claimed from online aggregators as well as the presumed advertising revenues and show how much of that is distributed downward to actual creators; writers, reporters and such, also known as galley slaves. If a follow-through takes place, news publishers will effectively become like music publishers, distributors of royalties for an appropriate fee, of course. “Oettinger’s proposal reads like it was guided by lobbyists for the publishers,” complained German Journalists Association chairman Frank Überall, quoted by horizont.net (September 15).

Google people are not pleased at being singled out, seemingly, for EC scorn. “Innovation and partnership, not subsidies and onerous restrictions, are the key to a successful, diverse and sustainable news sector in the EU,” wrote Google VP for global policy Caroline Atkinson in a blog post. “And for both European creators and consumers, it’s vital to preserve the principles of linking, sharing and creativity on which so much of the web’s success is built. The appropriate balance has not yet been struck, and Google is committed to playing its part in the discussions.”

If the recent past is any indication, Google people will not be entertaining any discussion of a “snippet tax”. The Google News aggregator, widely used across the globe, does not attach ads. Hence, it has no revenue stream. When the Spanish government passed a law, initially adored by newspaper publishers, to force Google to pay publishers that “snippet tax” Google simply picked up and left the country. Google’s accountants are not fools. Big Spanish publishers, reportedly, forfeited €10 million each that year (2014) from lost traffic and associated ad revenues.

A particularly scathing criticism of the EC’s new audiovisual proposals came from the venerable business publication Financial Times (September 19), which sees it all as not simply pushing big media tech platforms to cough up more money but, ominously, “rewarding a select few at the expense of many others… replacing one bad system with another that is equally bad. “

“The kindest interpretation one can place on these proposals is that the Commission has simply misunderstood the digital marketplace,” the FT observed. ”A more cynical view is that it has caved in to fierce lobbying by a number of powerful European publishers such as Axel Springer.

“It is in the interest of Jean-Claude Juncker, the Commission president, to look again at this proposal. His flagship ‘digital single market, the internal market’s extension to digital goods and services, will simply not turn into reality if the Commission simultaneously imposes rules that make it harder for budding digital firms to compete.”

The Digital Single Market copyright revision proposal is just that. The European Parliament will have a go at the details as will every EU Member State. After that it all goes back to the EC for legal tightening up. All that could take a couple of years and, oh, how the digital space will be different. Interestingly, for the UK at least, due to the looming BREXIT they may not even be consulted but, once passed, the UK will be required to adhere lest access to the Digital Single Market be lost.

See also in ftm Knowledge

Media Laws – New and Revised

Policy makers and politicians are writing and rewiting media laws and rules at a breakneck pace. As broadcasters and publishers grapple with changes brought about by digital development, new business models and financial distress, the new media is feeling rules tightening around it. From licensing and public broadcasting to privacy, piracy and copyright this ftm Knowledge file Media Laws – New and Revised summarizes new laws and revised laws from a media perspective. 135 pages PDF (December 2010)

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