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On 30 November, over 80 organisations (see the full list below) sent this open letter<\/a>\u00a0to the Ministers attending the Competitiveness Council<\/a><\/span>. \u00a0This is the 1st time that such a broad spectrum of organisations \u2013 representing human and digital rights, media freedom, publishers, journalists, libraries, scientific and research institutions, educational institutions including universities, creator representatives, consumers, software developers, start-ups, technology businesses and Internet service providers \u2013 join forces to send a strong signal to the Member States packaged into one sentence.<\/span><\/p>\n The signatories warn the Member states that the discussion around the Copyright Directive are on the verge of causing irreparable damage to our fundamental rights and freedoms, our economy and competitiveness, our education and research, our innovation and competition, our creativity and our culture.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n To show the substance behind that sentence, the letter refers in annex to 29 letters and analyses sent previously by various European stakeholders and experts for more details (see some of the statements below), and which notably emphasise the negative impact of the copyright overhaul proposed notably in Articles 13 (monitoring and censoring of user uploads), 11 (press publishers\u2019 rights, aka ancillary copyright) and, 3 (text and data mining), 4 (education), 5 (cultural heritage preservation) and 7 to 9 (out-of-commerce works).<\/p>\n \u2018At this stage, all arguments have been set out repeatedly by all affected stakeholder, and this from all possible angles. This letter is a warning that the copyright downwards spiral must be stopped before it is too late<\/em>\u2019, states Caroline De Cock from Copyright for Creativity<\/a>.<\/p>\n The open letter signatories represent:<\/strong><\/p>\n –\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 European and global organisations, as well as national organisations from across 16 EU Member States;<\/p>\n –\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 over 40 human, privacy, civil rights and media freedom organisations;<\/p>\n –\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 almost 70.000 libraries across Europe and about 100 million European library users;<\/p>\n –\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 1000\u2019s of startups across Europe;<\/p>\n –\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 more than 850 higher education institutions in 47 countries (including all EU Member States);<\/p>\n –\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 100\u2019s of Internet service providers and hosting companies across Europe that serve millions of users; and many others.<\/p>\n Some of the points that were previously brought to the EU legislators\u2019 attention:<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cArticle 13 (\u2026) is disproportionate and irreconcilable with the fundamental rights guarantees in the Charter [of Fundamental Rights of the EU]\u201d (p. 14) and \u201ccontains imbalanced, undefined legal concepts that make it incompatible with the existing acquis\u201d (p. 23).<\/p>\n 20 October, 2017<\/b> \u2013 Recommendation cosigned by over 50 respected academics<\/a> on measures to safeguard fundamental rights and the open Internet in the framework of the EU copyright reform. \u201cArticle 13 of the proposal on Copyright in the Digital Single Market include obligations on internet companies that would be impossible to respect without the imposition of excessive restrictions on citizens\u2019 fundamental rights.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n 16 October, 2017<\/b> \u2013 Open letter from over 50 NGOs<\/a> representing human rights and media freedom asking the EU legislators to delete Article 13. \u201cThese filtering algorithms will ultimately decide what material software developers should be allowed to share<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n 29 September, 2017<\/b> \u2013 Open letter launched by the Free Software Foundation Europe<\/a> and OpenForum Europe to secure the free and open source software ecosystem in the EU copyright review. \u201cArticle 11 will (\u2026) have serious negative effects on the quality of the press, freedom of opinion and freedom of expression of EU citizens<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n 25 September, 2017<\/b> \u2013 Open letter from the coalition of innovative media publishers<\/a> to Members of the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union on the introduction of a new neighbouring right under Article 11 of the Copyright Directive. \u201c(\u2026) ensure that Articles 3 to 9 support new forms of research and education and not work against them<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n