Droits d'auteur dans la société de l'information

Message urgent du 12 février 2001

La directive européenne sur l'harmonisation de certains aspects du droit d'auteur et des droits voisins dans la société de l'information est discutée ces jours-ci en séance plénière du Parlement Européen. Le vote a lieu le mardi 13 février 2001 à Strasbourg.

Or les derniers amendements proposés semblent particulièrement destructeurs pour l'accès public aux documents électroniques. Il est donc très important qu'à l'instar de l'ABF et de l'ADBDP, qui se sont associées ce jour dans une démarche commune, le plus grand nombre possible de bibliothécaires puissent, à titre individuel ou au nom de leur institution ou association, saisir les parlementaires européens afin qu'il ne soit pas porté atteinte au libre accès à l'information et à la culture, notamment par le biais des bibliothèques.

La Fédération européenne des association de bibliothèque et de documentation EBLIDA (http://www.eblida.org) alerte les professionnels par le message en anglais ci-dessous. Elle propose sur son site un modèle de lettre en anglais :
http://www.eblida.org/plenary.rtf
ainsi que les cordonnées postales et électroniques de tous les parlementaires européens 
http://www.eblida.org/plenary.rtf

Cette lettre est disponible en français sur le site de l'ADBDP aux formats HTML et RTF.

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Copie du message d'EBLIDA
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ACTION PLAN

Please contact (email/fax/phone) your national MEPs in their constituency over the weekend urging them to reject the amendments below! Or contact them in Strasbourg before the vote on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning. Go to: http://www.eblida.org/allmeps.xls (Excel file) for Strasbourg contact details. Draft letter at: http://www.eblida.org/plenary.rtf For MEPs who have not been following the directive, it is important to keep the message simple. Optional extras are that they will be banned from their local public library for life and that you will never vote for them again.

THE LATEST NEWS Our lobby must continue for a couple more days. There have been 45 amendments tabled for the second reading of the draft copyright directive, 15 compromise amendments from Boselli which were adopted by the Legal Affairs Committee and 30 further amendments. This is unusually large for a second reading. Some MEPs tried to re-table amendments which were rejected but did not get the required support. ;-) But some of our old friends teamed up and have tabled even worse amendments, especially for libraries.

The worst offenders are: Amendment 22 by MEP Medina Ortega on Article 5.2c which limits copying by libraries to that which is needed for 'archiving and conservation purposes' only.

Amendment 37 by MEP Echerer on Article 5.2c This is even worse that AM22,as it stipulates that the information must be for 'strictly internal use'. So a library would be prohibited from providing a service to its users! In addition, educational establishments would NO LONGER BENEFIT from this exception.

Amendment 26 by MEP Medina Ortega on Article 5.3o. This is a *new* amendment and is truly awful. I have checked with the Commission and it seems that he is allowed to table such a new amendment. This refers to the lending directive and affects existing library services which concern *print* material, and is aimed at preventing libraries from sharing resources (ILL).

There are many other bad amendments affecting Article 5.1 (temporary fleeting copies), Article 5.2b (private copying) and others. Medina Ortega has tabled the worst of Rothley's amendments, instead of his own. Medina Ortega and Echerer have both re-tabled their amendments that if you tape your favourite (digital) TV programme to watch it at a more convenient time, you should pay. Don't you look forward to the digital age?! For these people, digital = pay.

So, we need to make some noise. If you have journalists pals, please try to get coverage in the press. The debate will take place between 21.00-24.00 on Tuesday and the vote will either be on Tuesday after the debate or on Wednesday.

Sorry this comes late in the day. If you or an MEP needs more information, I am available over the weekend on my mobile: 0031 6 204 16579.

Thank you for your support.

Message posté à biblio-fr le 12 février 2001