Alexandre
Dulaunoy, Association Electronique Libre ASBL (Alexandre.dulaunoy/at/ael.be)
The draft legislation is an update to the
Author Rights law of
On
The last examination of the draft was
done by the “Commission Finance et
Affaires économiques” on
As stated in the proposal’s explanatory text, the Belgian legislation already includes nine of the twenty proposed exceptions. It argues that the existing remuneration system is built upon the nine exceptions and extending this would cause the existing private remuneration system to collapse:
“...Si
l'on accepte d'étendre les exceptions au droit d'auteur, il faut être d'accord
d'abandonner le système du droit d'auteur pour entrer dans celui des
subventions publiques. Ce n'est pas le choix qui est proposé. Le système actuel
est maintenu mais adapté à la société de l'information. Selon nous, il importe
uniquement d'adapter les exceptions existantes aux conséquences du
développement de la société de l'information.”
Regarding caching, an amendment[3] to section 3 of the law has been proposed in order to remove the restriction proposed on caching in the first legislative draft.
The proposal also states that two of the nine existing exceptions conflict with the Directive and should be updated during the implementation:
The proposal explicitly includes the three-step test from Article 5.5:
“Les exceptions
prévues dans la loi du 30 juin 1994 relative au droit d'auteur et aux droits
voisins, ont été maintenues, adaptées ou reprises en tenant compte du test à
trois étapes. Les Cours et tribunaux doivent également prendre en compte
l'article 5.5 de la directive précitée comme ligne directrice pour
l'application de la loi. ”
The proposal implementation includes the protection of “Technical Protection Measures” (Article 6) in section 7 of the proposed text. They include legal protection of technological protection measures (Article 6.1); a legal protection against devices and services that circumvent technical measures (Article 6.2); and access to a protected work to benefit from an exception (Article 6.4). The enabling of such access is defined by the author.
They proposal does not discuss conflicts between technological protection measures and the exercise of exceptions, but this was brought up by an oral question[4] in the Senate during March 2000. The authors of the proposal considered that the use of technical protection measures is part of the exercise of the author’s rights:
“Le
principe du respect des mesures techniques de protection des oeuvres est donc
indissociable.”
They note that the protection of technical protection measures in the proposed text could be “surprising” but consider that these measures are necessary for the information society.
The government has proposed an amendment regarding the definition of “effective technical protection measures” and uses the definition of WIPO (20 December 1996 Treaty). The government amendment[5] tends to take into consideration the notion of “playability”. The current proposal does not protect this “playability” (we think that this is related to interoperability) although this is not clearly stated.
The procedure to reconcile protection for TPMs with copyright exceptions will be specified by an “arrêté royal” (decree) after the primary legislation has passed. This should provide a mechanism by which the TPM may be circumvented.
Regarding levies, Belgian law is evolving to tax only the media and not the hardware used to make a reproduction. A specific amendment of the government[6] has been proposed in order to remove the references to the hardware used for copying and only the media is specified in the proposed text. The main reason is the difficulty of taxing multi-purpose hardware such as personal computers. The remuneration system is a key part of the balance with the private copy in the current scheme.
Regarding rights management information, an amendment[7] to section 8 of the law has been added by the initial requestor of the draft legislation about the legal obligation to include identification in a work. The initial amendment was only the transposition of Article 7 of the Directive on the legal protection against the removing of rights-management information. Section 8bis goes further by adding protection for a request from the author to include information in the copies.
There is a penal sanction in the new section 79.1 for the circumvention of technical protection measures and the import, distribution etc. of circumvention devices. The current penal sanction in the author right law[8] is between 100 and 100,000 BEF (2.5—2500€) for the first offence. A repeat offence is punishable by 3 months to 2 years imprisonment and the 100—100,000 BEF (2.5—2500€) fine.
The ABD-BVD, the Belgian library and documentation association, has made a statement[9] on free access to information including digital information. It stresses the importance of equality of access to the information and the education in Belgian society.
The current author rights law has a specific exception for public loans (section 22, §1, 6) and private copies (section 22, §1, 5) are permitted for loaned material. The draft legislation will reduce the scope of both exceptions and will complicate the services to the public provided by these types of organisation. This will be a major problem for public access to information and education.
The Association Electronique Libre has complained several times to the various commissions about issues in the implementation of the Directive. Its main concern is the protection of technical protection measures and Article 6 of the Directive. These could cause difficulties of for the distribution of free software (e.g. the DeCSS case), damage the overall security of computer systems, reduce interoperability in computer systems and more generally, limit access to information and education.
AEL proposed a specific amendment[10] to the transposition of Article 6 that would exclude “technical methods”. The amendment has been accepted in the legislative draft 2-704/8. It will not solve all the issue around the conflict between Articles 5 and 6 but it will help to avoid problems such as with the distribution of the DeCSS software, and prevent usage of the legal framework to impose monopoly on the distribution of “technical methods”.
AEL also criticized the new section 8bis in the proposal on privacy grounds because the type and scope of tagging is not specified at all.
The draft law for the implementation of the Directive focuses on a strong transposition. The discussion regarding technological protection measures is at a low level; most attention is paid to the various remuneration issues, and keeping exceptions at the lowest possible level.
Debate has been confined to the association of authors (SABAM) and the lobbies for strong enforcement of author rights. As the matter is so complex (in both legal and technical aspects), the general public cannot easily understand the real dangers of the implementation of the Directive.
The draft law is only a proposal for the moment and we hope that the new government will focus on the central issue of the balance between author rights and the public interest.
[1] Loi du 30 juin 1994, Droit d’auteur et droits
voisins, Codes Larciers.
[2]
http://www.senat.be/www/?MIval=/publications/viewPub.html&COLL=S&LEG=2&NR=704&VOLGNR=1&LANG=fr,
2-704/1, Proposition de
loi, 23/3/2001
[3]
http://www.senat.be/www/?MIval=/publications/viewPub.html&COLL=S&LEG=2&NR=704&VOLGNR=8&LANG=fr,
2-704/8, Amendements à
la proposition de loi,
25/2/2003.
[4] http://www.senat.be/www/?MIval=/publications/viewSTBlok&COLL=B&DATUM=05/23/2000&DOSID=33555262&MINID=421&LEG=2&NR=16&VTYPE=svid&LANG=fr,
Questions de Mr.
Monfils et
Réponses
de Mr. le Ministre de la Justice, SESSION DE 1999-2000,Sénat de Belgique
[5] http://www.senat.be/www/?MIval=/publications/viewPub.html&COLL=S&LEG=2&NR=704&VOLGNR=4&LANG=fr,
2-704/4, Amendements à
la proposition de loi,
18/10/2002.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Supra note 44
[9]
http://www.abd-bvd.be/misc/lib/ds-fr.html, Libre accès à l’information même numérique,
Position des bibliothécaires et documentalistes, Vlaamse Vereniging voor Bibliotheek-, Archief-
en Documentatiewezen; Association
Belge de Documentation -
Belgische Vereniging
[10] http://www.ael.be/docs/eucd/proposition/clarificationeucd.pdf, Proposal to clarify the article 7 in the proposal law of the implementation of the directive 2001/29/CE in Belgium.