OFE Joins Coalition to Welcome EU Parliament Draft Report on Copyright

OpenForum Europe (OFE) has jointly signed today an open industry statement, together with Digital Europe, EDIMA, Bitkom and CCIA. The statement supports the European Parliament copyright report drafted by MEP Julia Reda, which was presented in the Legal Affairs Committee, on 19 January 2015. OFE had previously published a press release following that meeting. The statement welcomes the report’s “forward-looking policy suggestions”, and stresses that “copyright law needs to function as an enabler of innovation and growth and needs to be in line with the vibrant and fast changing digital economy”. More specifically, it welcomes the proposed recognition of the ability to freely link to publicly available material, preventing further copyright rules from impeding automated analytical tools (also known as “text and data mining”), and suggests to “look for solutions to archaic anomalies of the current rules, such as copyright levies”. The draft report, it concludes, is a ”good first step” in the upcoming revision of EU copyright rules.

• Download the full Statement