Hello! Nerdy copyright questions are back in more than one way! Child protection is here to stay. We will start working on the EU budget over the summer break (unenthusiastic yey!).
Dimi and Michele === Child Protection === Guidelines on Child Protection: On 14 July the European Commission adopted its DSA child protection guidelines <https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-say/initiatives/14352-Protection-of-minors-guidelines_en>. A non-exhaustive list of recommended, but nonobligatory, measures on how to protect children from online risks such as harmful content, addictive behaviours, or cyberbullying. — Some of the recommendations that struck yours truly were to set minor accounts to private by default, limiting visibility to contacts, to disable geolocation and microphone/camera access by default and to restrict unsolicited messages and group additions without consent. — There was a feedback gathering period and the Wikimedia Foundation responded <https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-say/initiatives/14352-Protection-of-minors-guidelines/F3496424_en>. The tenor of the response was that one size fits all approaches are inappropriate, considering how diverse platforms can be. One concrete example in the guidelines is the recommendation that minors shouldn’t be easily found or contacted by accounts they have not previously accepted as contacts/friends. This is obviously not easily applicable to Wikipedia. — EP Report on Child Protection: The draft report <https://oeil.secure.europarl.europa.eu/oeil/en/procedure-file?reference=2025/2060(INI)> by Christel Schaldemose (S&D DK) and its proposed amendments <https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/IMCO-AM-774602_EN.html> are published. Refresher: This is a own-initiative, non-legislative report that will basically end up as a sort of declaration. It can still indicate what actions the parliament can get majorities for. — A first skim: Many MEPs seem to agree that addictive features of social media platforms need to be restricted, especially when it comes to minors. Centre-right (EPP) MEPs are also suggesting personal liability for higher management should platforms systemically breach child protection provisions. — SHAMELESS WIKIMANIA PLUG: We are organising a child safety training <https://wikimania.wikimedia.org/wiki/Event:Wikimania/Day_Zero_Child_Safety_Training> at Wikimania during the pre-conference day. We have found a trainer with heaps of law enforcement and trust & safety experience. Please feel welcome to join! === Copyright === EP Report on AI & Copyright: And just because own-initiative reports are such a blast, the parliament is working on another one (see draft <https://communia-association.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Draft-Report-INI-on-Copyright-and-generative-artificial-intelligence.pdf>), on AI and copyright, led by Axel Voss (EPP DE). — Here’s what stood out to us: - Voss claims that the training of generative AI systems is “currently not covered” by the existing TDM exceptions and requires clarification, e.g. by extending the exception to generative AI training (when opt-out is not invoked by publisher). - Voss suggests a levy/licensing scheme for generative AI outputs that infringe intellectual property rights. - Voss insists that AI-generated content should remain ineligible for copyright protection, and that the public domain status of such works be clearly determined We like some parts of the above and are watching this :) — AI Code of Practice: The European Commission has published its AI Code of Practice <https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/contents-code-gpai>, a delegated act under the AI regulation. It has a transparency section, a copyright section and a safety & security section. On copyright input it asks developers to "identify and comply with other appropriate machine-readable protocols to express rights reservations". On copyright output it says nothing specific, rather sticking to a "proportionate technical safeguards to prevent infringements" language. — So far OpenAI, Google, Anthropic and Aleph Alpha have signed up, Meta has declined, Microsoft is still pondering. If you want a closer read, the Communia Association offers an excellent assessment <https://communia-association.org/2025/07/21/our-thoughts-on-the-final-version-of-the-gpai-code-of-practice/> . — Denmark is working on updating its copyright law to include: 1. A general protection against realistic, digitally generated imitations of personal characteristics. This intends to protect the general public against the sharing of imitations of people's personal characteristics (appearance, voice, etc.) without consent. 2. An imitation protection for performers, which aims to protect artists against the sharing of realistic, digitally generated imitations of their performances or artistic achievements without consent. Think of someone using an actor’s AI generated voice to dub an unlicensed film, for instance. — There is a public consultation process <https://hoeringsportalen.dk/Hearing/Details/70269>. WMDK and WMEU are still considering whether it makes sense for us to submit something. The main puzzling bit is that these protections sound like personality rights, not copyright. The draft does say that all copyright exceptions should be respected, which again raises some further questions. The stated goal of the Danish government is to give statutory protection, currently this protection exists in Denmark only based on caselaw. — Italian Cultural Heritage Laws: German toymaker Ravensburger used the Vitruvian Man, copyright long expired, on a jigsaw puzzle. Italy claimed that its Cultural Heritage Code extends protection, even beyond Italy, and sued. A German court now ruled against this. I will again refer you to Communia’s excellent write-up <https://communia-association.org/2025/07/10/higher-regional-court-of-stuttgart-confirms-territoriality-of-italian-cultural-heritage-code/> . === EU Budget === The MFF <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiannual_Financial_Framework> (Multiannual Financial Framework) is the EU's long-term budget framework. It allocates resources over a 7-year period. The European Commission proposed <https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/eu-budget/long-term-eu-budget/eu-budget-2028-2034_en> the new framework mid-July, outlining a draft EU budget for the 2028–2034 period.The negotiations will now begin after summer and will involve both the European Parliament (majority needed) and the Council (unanimity needed). It is expected that negotiations will last all of next year and even seep into 2027. —- Wikimedia Europe will for the first time try to be part of these discussions. Of particular interest to us are the successor to Horizon Europe, the EU’s R&D program (priority areas, licensing, less bureaucracy), the “education and democratic values” sections (details pending) and what the EU plans to fund in terms of digital public infrastructure, citizen engagement. — Perhaps noteworthy is that there will be a European Competitiveness Fund <https://commission.europa.eu/publications/european-competitiveness-fund_en> which explicitly backs pan-European public digital infrastructure and interoperable and sovereign systems, which is defined to include open‑source systems and platforms. === Democracy Shield === One of the political priorities of the Von der Leyen 2.0 Commission is the protection of EU democracy & values <https://commission.europa.eu/priorities-2024-2029/democracy-and-our-values_en> as stated in the Political Guidelines 2024-2029 <https://commission.europa.eu/priorities-2024-2029_en>. In light of this, the EU Commission planned to put forward the so-called European Democracy Shield <https://www.europarl.europa.eu/thinktank/en/document/EPRS_BRI(2024)767153>, a non legislative initiative that should be adopted in autumn. The initiative wants to address key issues such as foreign manipulation and interference, ensuring fairness of electoral processes, social resilience and citizen participation. The Commission opened a public consultation. — Given the importance of the topic we have submitted <https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-say/initiatives/14587-European-Democracy-Shield/F3557291_en> feedback as Wikimedia Europe. We mainly highlighted that supporting and protecting Wikimedia communities and projects can help protect and advance democracy in the digital sphere <https://wikimedia.brussels/european-democracy-shield-we-shared-our-views-with-the-commission/>. We also called for the application of the Wikipedia Test <https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2025/06/27/the-wikipedia-test/> and the protection of Wikimedia volunteer editors from strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs). === EMFA === Last year, the EU adopted the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA) <https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2024/1083/oj/eng>, a regulation that recognises the unique role of independent media services in the internal market and whose aim is to safeguard media freedom and pluralism. — In view of the full entry into application of the new rules, which is foreseen in August 2025, the European Commission launched a targeted consultation on Article 18, the *so-called media exemption*. Article 18, indeed, establishes that providers of very large platforms will have to *wait 24 hours before taking down or restricting content by self-declared media providers* that may breach their own housekeeping rules — giving them time to challenge the decisions. — The rule should only apply to Very Large Online Platforms (VLOPs) that are used by media providers to allow access to their content. — We took this opportunity to share our views with the Commission <https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WMEU_Submission_Guidelines_Article_18_EMFA.pdf>, mainly asking to clarify the specific nature of the platforms in scope (thus excluding Wikipedia) and to acknowledge and safeguard Wikipedia’s distributed and community-led model of content moderation. ===END=== -- Wikimedia Europe ivzw
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