Debate during the plenary session of July in Strasbourg on the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society. Statements by Julia REDA (Greens/EFA, DE), Rapporteur, G&uuml;nther OETTINGER, Member of the EC for Digital Economy &amp; Society, Jos&eacute; BLANCO L&Oacute;PEZ (S&amp;D, ES), Catherine STIHLER (S&amp;D, UK) and Mary HONEYBALL (S&amp;D, UK)

Strasbourg

debate

plenary session

copyright law (T)

HONEYBALL, Mary (S&D, UK)

REDA, Felix (Greens/EFA, DE)

OETTINGER, Günther (DE, EC)

STIHLER, Catherine (S&D, UK)

BLANCO LÓPEZ, José (S&D, ES)

Harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society: extracts from the debate

SOUNDBITE (English), Julia REDA (Greens/EFA, DE), Rapporteur , (on the users restrictions and the report in general): "Converting those restrictions is illegal even for legitimate purposes, so it is illegal to make a book that has a technological look available to a blind person but the terms of service that simply erase an exception to copyright are completely legal. The copyright directive so far protects digital locks more than it protects the people. This report calls for a clear set of consumer rights. It states that copyright exceptions must not be overwritten by a contract and that you can't charge a levy for private copying on the one hand and then on the other hand use technology that makes private copying impossible. This report calls for interoperability and cross border access so you should be able to buy and to use works on any device and in any country."

SOUNDBITE (English), G&#252;nther OETTINGER, Member of the EC for Digital Economy &amp; Society, "As football, basketball, volleyball or tennis etc their business models are also based on territoriality, you cannot simply get rid of this in one day or the next, but here again, we must ensure that we do not punch a blow to our sports associations, so this is also one of the principals of our proposals."

SOUNDBITE (English), G&#252;nther OETTINGER, Member of the EC for Digital Economy &amp; Society, "If you are involved in education and science and you take them seriously then you need to ensure that there is unlimited access, even free access to the digital world. We need to create that kind of access, here we are still analysing whether that should be a public interest issue or if even industrial research should be part of this access."

SOUNDBITE (German), G&#252;nther OETTINGER, Member of the EC for Digital Economy &amp; Society, "What citizens can see on our public streets and public spaces should be something that they can photograph."

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Jos&#233; BLANCO L&#211;PEZ (S&amp;D, ES), "Authors rights are those which need to guarantee the remuneration of this crucial work for our cultural heritage and wealth. We need to develop a cultural industry in this new digital world; we need to tap in that potential to create new jobs and have innovative industry, but the Commissioner is putting forward a reform for author rights which is a conflict between authors and users where some loose in order for others to gain."

SOUNDBITE (English), Catherine STIHLER (S&amp;D, UK), "There are still too many barriers to libraries being able to provide books in any format and I hope that we will see concrete proposals from the Commission later this year trying to address one of these problematic issues. Publishers and libraries have been seeking to work together to find solutions and these discussions must continue."

SOUNDBITE (English), Mary HONEYBALL (S&amp;D, UK), "My focus and the focus of the Socialist and Democrat group has always been on creators, to give creators fair remuneration to make sure that they are adequately paid, because if they are not we will not have music as we know it , we will not have much television and radio and we will have few new books, this is really a matter for our culture across the European Union and we need to see it in that light."