EU policy/Big Fat Brussels Meeting 4

For the 2017 Big Fat Brussels Meeting the EU copyright reform is alive and kicking. We will be in the middle of the hottest phase in the European Parliament before the committee votes and after the amendments have been tabled. A major focus will be our work on the Council of the EU, where we need to convince a majority of Member States' governments to support whatever gains we make in the European Parliament.

The newly opened "Europa Building" in Brussels. The home of the Council, commonly referred to as the Euro Death Star.
Group photo of the participants.

Practical Information

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Dates

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22 and 23 April 2017 (Saturday & Sunday)
The date was chosen through an online poll.

Venue

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BeCentral
Rue Cantersteen 10 Kantersteenstraat
Bruxelles 1000 Brussel

Public transport

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  • Busses: 29, 38, 48, 63, 65, 66, 71
  • The metro station is "Gare Centrale/Centraal Station"
  • The train station Bruxelles-Central/Brussel-Centraal is directly connected to Bruxelles-Midi/Brussel-Zuid and Bruxelles-Nord/Brussel-Noord by all trains stopping there. You can just hop on any train with a regular public transport ticket. International high speed trains only stop at Midi/Zuid or Nord/Noord, never at Central/Centraal.
  • There are direct trains from Bruxelles-Central/Brussel-Centraal to the Brussels Airport (Zaventem) that run approximately every 15 mintues.

Travel Assistance

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Limited financial travel assistance can be provided to a small number of volunteers who would like to come to the event but don't have the resources. Please contact: dimitar.dimitrov@wikimedia.bg with you requests.

Focus

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Background

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A EU copyright reform has been Wikimedia's top goal since the beginning of our EU policy activities. At the time of this year's meeting the European Parliament's competent committee (Legal Affairs) will be considering which amendments it wants to apply to the European Commission's proposal. At the same time, Wikimedia needs to step up its efforts to talk to Member States' governments in order to influence the Council. A "Council Strategy" will be the key goal of our meeting.

Format

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We will have a one-day-and-a-half participatory workshop. The first day is meant to give everyone an in-depth understanding of the ongoing debate in Brussels, while the second day will be focused towards creating coherent tactics and to-dos for national/regional Wikimedia groups.
The key desired outputs are:

  • Alignment of the Free Knowledge Advocacy Group EU's focus towards Member States' goals on copyright policies and creation of a "Council strategy"
  • Developing cohesive tactics for advocating on EU copyright policies in all participating Member States

Programme

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This year we are working with the fabulous Dirk Slater from FabRiders who will facilitate the Big Fat Brussels Meeting. Dirk will get in touch with a number of the participants to see what everyone's needs and expectations are. We are also planning to remain flexible in order to accommodate the developing group dynamics and to best pursue our desired goals. This is why the schedule will remain a draft until the actual event.

Day 0 - Friday - 21 April
Welcome drinks
A la Mort Subite
Montagne-aux-Herbes Potagères 7 Warmoesberg
from 20:30, Reservation: "Dimitrov"

Day 1 - Saturday - 22 April

Wrapping your heads around the EU Copyright Reform
10:00 Coffee & Opening Circle
10:30 Motivations & Controversies on Copyright

See: Aspiration's Spectrogram Facilitation Notes

11:45 Break
12:00 Our Aims and Goals for the Meeting and the Wikipedia Movement

See: Strategy Brief

13:30 Lunch
14:30 Our long term goals for Copyright
16:00 Break
16:15 National Campaigns' Strategies

See: FabRiders' Stakeholder Mapping Exercise

18:00 Wrap-up, after-work drinks, dinner

Day 2 - Sunday - 23 April

Getting Serious
10:00 Coffee & Opening Circle
10:30 How does the national work support the EU work?
11:15 A Calendar of Copyright Events
12:00 Break
12:15 Collaboration Opportunities and Communicating in the Future
13:30 Closing Circle: Where from here?
14:00 Wrap-up, goodbyes

Participant Preparation

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Confirm you presence

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Please sign here if you'll attend the meeting:

Comfirmed by mail:

  • Heikki
  • Jenny (Saturday)
  • Eric
  • Neville

Call with facilitator

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Dirk will have a number of calls with several participants to better gauge the needs and expectations of the group.

Chat with Dimi

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Similarly, Dimi will reach out to you to make sure you don't have any open questions. Please don't hesitate to get in touch with him first!

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Preparing for sharing

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Coming to this meeting, you have likely (but not necessarily) already done some public policy work in your country. Whether you wrote to a politician, published a position paper or ran campaign - please share it with other Wikimedians over the week-end! If you can, bring some examples or materials that demonstrate your work. We are excited to see them!

Past Meetings

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Big Fat Brussels Meeting - Episode 3
Big Fat Brussels Meeting - Volume 2
The inaugural Big Fat Brussels Meeting
Brussels Before It Was Big And Fat

Documentation

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The workshop aimed at gathering the wishes, needs and planning the actions of national groups. As a second step we worked on figuring out how national actions can support our EU efforts in Brussels and vice-versa.

In 2030...

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As a first step we tried to wrap our heads around how we imagine Wikimedia, the EU and the individual countries in 2030.

Global Make Copyright as predictable as possible. Have some global framework. Public Domain in Governemnt is the World Wide Standard The attitude around publishing shifted from control to sharing Wikimedia Legitimally represents "users" in IP Discussions Copyright Focus on User rather Than Industry. A 'right to use' has been recognised alongside the right to intellectual property Reduce Copyright term Coalition Built to make big changes possible: Wikimedia and authors have a shared vision of copyright Wikimedia Should fight Against unlawful barriers for contributors and access to knowledge By 2030 Wikimedia Editors should be Safe Legally if they have followed policies, contributors should be protected Free access to Information should be a human right Policies supporting free expression
Europe Unified Title' of Copyright: One copyright to rule them all Copyright does not suck even more Public Domain = Public Domain Forever Wikimedia has copyright activists in every country Peaceful Prosperous Equal Opportunities The EU will have moved to a more positive copyright position and harminisation will be possible (and good) Focus on Application of Law/ European Court of Justice By 2030 Wikimedia has achieved a full harmonisation of EU Copyright By 2030 the EU has introduce a 'right to use' in copyright The FKAGEU And Author's Societies are Allies
Country Italy Poland Finland UK France Malta Germany Switzerland Czechia Belgium
Defamation Laws are not used to try to control the content of Wikipedia Creative works (movies, paintings, music...) paid by the government are public domain Collaboration with WMFI and Open Knowledge Finland & Others User Centred Policy Legislation (not run by GB LTD - Commercial IAPLLD Knowledge Commons Defined in the Law Position Wikimedia Malta as a primary stakeholder on relevant policy issues The general public is much mroe adept in handling open content and licenses, knows about do's/don'ts The general public is much mroe adept in handling open content and licenses, knows about do's/don'ts Copyright is more in centre of focus. More tolerence towards open knowledge/licenses All content created by or with majority funding by the government is public domain
Freedom of Panorama & No More restrictions on reproduction of Cultural Heritage All research is open access Knowledge Commons Defined in the Law Being more represented in public consultations and hearings Create a local coalition of like minded organisations for effective lobbying Open by Default is much more established (inc. OER everywhere) Open by Default is much more established (inc. OER everywhere) PD-GOV for Open Data to be CC-O or PD Wikimedia Belgium is actively digitising fontent of major cultural heritage institutions (eg, Royal Library
Better access to public information in law -> public domain Keep censorship away from Internet Progressive and Innovative Copyright Laws End of Copy fraud (with law enforcement) Government Funded work to be open Open Paradigm is not a thing anymore Open Paradigm is not a thing anymore Geopolitical Instability Wikimedia Belgium and SABAM are allies


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We worked on our top goals for the current EU copyright reform and how to best coordinate our national and European efforts.

Freedom of Panorama Public Domain USER GENERATED CONTENT
ID Supports Brussels Needs From Brussels ID Supports Brussels Needs From Brussels ID Supports Brussels Needs From Brussels
FR Weakening the French Position: Improving the French FOP by adopting a FOP with Less Restriction in EU level PL Providing info about copyright situation with gov. works in Poland and why it cannot be solved internal Lucy I'm into this!
IT Similarities beteen FOP and Cultural Heritage law -> Improvements in one can help the other PL Providing contacts to opposition MP's to help put the issue to agenda Suggest copyright ammendment to make government works PD in all EU
WLM Provide Access to national groups of volunteers Share national contacts in non-WLN countries ? UK? Advocating for PD works to be released under open license (w/ Glam and Highered
WLM Provide use case/stat Broaden momentum beyond FOP to sharing more cultural stuff DE REM Case Pro Video a great story for explaining why PD needs protection
WLM Help Keep Cultural Umbrella orgs on the Good Side Build a lively community that cares about Panorama DE Case also might lead to a law change in DE by way of precedent Change of the EU Framework makes legislatvie change on national leve much easier
FI FOP UCG PD? Information to taget Groups When Directive is given the need of information increases Malta More resources on how to communicate PD issues and how to work with orgaisations to digitise their material in PD The campaign generates greater understanding of benefits of PD within cultural orgs and general public
WMSE will have to work with Freedom of Panorama after we know the result of the court case with BUS (society for 'image copyright') If an unconditional FOP is included in EU that will enable WMSE to continue Public Arts Project as well as making our court case in Sweden irrelevant CZ We trying to circumvent the lack of Czech or EU PD-GOV Making PD-Gove an harmonized exception
Text and Data Mining Upload Filtering Ancillary Copyright
ID Supports Brussels Needs From Brussels ID Supports Brussels Needs From Brussels ID Supports Brussels Needs From Brussels
Fr Information from EU can be shared with other NPO's in France (about EDM for example) De Advise re: timing of national activities DE host campaign events that produce statements or info Dimi can use
DE Connect alied stakeholders with Suitable Players in BXL ? UK? WCHMS Added cuk voice to lobbying against article 13 and has some connections
BE Have info materials ready to translate to hand out
UK Sharing Case studies of Text and Data minint in UK Experts
PL Sharing positive examples of creative re-use of public data
BE Highlight the problems with good examples

National Campaigns

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Based on the overlaps between national and EU goals, we worked on devising campaigns in Member States that support both local and continental objectives. We paid extra attention to finding new allies.

Calendar

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We created a calendar with relevant events that our group should keep in mind and participate in during the next 12 months.

We should...

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We gathering to-dos that we will work on within the next 12 months.

  • Do an Update in Montreal
  • Engage volunteers more in advocacy work
  • Meet more often
  • Have a list of communication models for campaigns
  • Have a policy session at the CEE meeting with our help
  • Get media and press to support our case/report on our work
  • Find a good way to document
  • Find more liquid lobbyists
  • Build on momentum from this weekend
  • Help Luxembourg introduce FOP
  • Keep each other updated better
  • Build a stronger networks with FKAGEU people
  • Connect with even more other orgs in the field