On 16 – 18 November, VareseNews organised the Festival Glocal, one of the biggest Italian events on digital journalism and online press. Two of the Coalition of Media Publishers’ Members were involved in the activities, ANSO as organiser and AEEPP as key speaker. Together with the other participants and speakers, they stressed the need of avoiding adopting a new neighbouring right and discussed the impact of new filtering obligations on online platforms.
Matteo Rainisio, ANSO, and Victor Sanchez del Real, AEEPP, spoke at the Roundtable on “Copyright reform and the impact on start-ups, publishers and online platforms” where the Copyright proposal was tackled from different viewpoints.. The panel, included Members of European Parliament Brando Benifei (S&D, IT) and, Julia Reda (GREENS, DE), Pietro Guindani from Confindustria Digitale; and Guido Scorza a lawyer specialized on copyright.
While discussing the ” “AEDE fee” or Canon in Spain ” and the proposal for a EU wide neighbouring right, the Coalition’s members stressed the risks for freedom of press and freedom of expression and for the future of internet .Victor Sanchez Del Real called on Italian press publishers and encouraged them to “learn about the implications of this new legislation, learn about the Spanish case through the reports disseminated by AEEPP, and become actively involved in the defense of freedom of business and opinion in Europe; the Spanish case, with its enormous impact, is only an experiment and demonstrated not to be the way forward for European journalism.”
The coalition members highlighted the failure of the Spanish and German experiences, which was also acknowledge by MEPs Julia Reda and Brando Benifei. In this regard, MEP Reda said “We are still on time to not approve the terms that would lead to repeat the failure of the models tested in Germany and Italy.”
Panelists marked the need for joint action at the European level and announced the organisation of a Brussels event aimed at raising awareness about these issues, taking place at the beginning of 2018.