Copyright under review in Europe

By John Freeman on February 23, 2014

The European Commission are running a public consultation on the future of copyright and they’re asking everyone – which includes comic creators – to get involved.

The full consultation, which ends on 5th March 2014, is here: http://youcan.fixcopyright.eu

The Open Rights Group, set up to preserve and promote your rights in the digital age says this could be a really exciting opportunity to reshape the way culture and technology interact in the digital age, but, at the same time, some of the Internet’s most fundamental building blocks could be under threat.

“We’ve got the chance to reform copyright to remove some of the restrictions on what we can do with digital products that we purchase< says the organisation. “And we can change copyright terms to help put copyrighted works into the public domain sooner so they can be re-used in all sorts of creative ways.

“The copyright consultation gives us a big opportunity to tell the European Commission how to improve copyright.

“Unfortunately, the consultation could also put crucial functions of the Internet in jeopardy. It asks whether you should need the permission of the rights holder of a work before linking to that work or viewing it. If that happened, ordinary everyday web browsing would become a lot more complicated.

“Lobbyists from big rights holder groups are taking part in the conversation and telling the European Commission that we should have to get the authorisation of the rights holder before linking or viewing their work.

“If we don’t get involved, the Commission will just get the views of the large rights holder lobby.

• Tell the European Commission why browsing and viewing copyright works shouldn’t need the permission of the rights holder: www.openrightsgroup.org/campaigns/tell-europe-your-views-on-copyright

• The ORG is focusing its campaign on a small part of the consultation. The full EU consultation is here: http://youcan.fixcopyright.eu

John Freeman

The founder of downthetubes, which he established in 1998. John works as a comics and magazine editor, writer, and on promotional work for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He is currently editor of Star Trek Explorer, published by Titan – his third tour of duty on the title originally titled Star Trek Magazine.

Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine, Babylon 5 Magazine, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics. He has also edited several comic collections, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”.

He’s the writer of “Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies” for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs” with Dave Hailwood.