Wikimedia Conference 2017/Program/31

31: The Council Strikes Back

How to move forward

Dimi & participants

What was this session about?

Originally planned as a workshop for drafting campaign letters to national governments, the session became basically a working of the involved community working on the current state of the EU copyright reform.

What are the next steps to be taken?

Big Fat Brussels Meeting 4 at the end of April. Follow-up session at Wikimania 2017.

Photos

see the Commons category

Slides

Audience: Wikimedians who want to work on EU copyright reform and get in touch with their national governments.
Session Format: Workshop
Length: 60 min
Description

After the European Commission proposed the EU copyright reform at the end of 2016, this year it is the European Parliament’s and the Council’s turn to work on the wordings and improve the text.

And while lobbying the European Parliament is something we have built up considerable capacity at and are enjoying the benefits of already existing networks, the Council is a tougher challenge. It is made up of EU Member States’ governments and in order to “speak to the council” we need to talk to the relevant ministries in all the national capitals. For this, we need chapters and user-groups to get actively involved.

Desired Outcome

Each participant has a draft for a letter explaining Wikimedia’s challenges in the EU copyright reform and requesting a meeting with the respective national ministry or agency.

Next Steps and Milestones: Sending out letter. Big Fat Brussels Meeting 4 at the end of April. Planning proper national campaigns in some countries.

Speakers: Dimitar Dimitrov

Documentation

The Wikimedia public policy group received an in camera update about the state of the EU copyright reform. Information about our tactics and planned action was shared that is too sensitive for public mailing lists. An assessment of the chances of success for our individual issues was made. The Slovak group joined the discussion and agreed to reach out to their government as well. A lot of attention was given to the Council and possible ways through which to improve on our lack of engagement with this body of EU legislation.(Written by Dimitar Dimitrov)