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European Parliament approves draft of Digital Services Act which is a mixed bag for the music industry

By | Published on Monday 24 January 2022

European Parliament

The European Parliament last week approved a version of the new EU Digital Services Act, which will bring in a bunch of new regulations in relation to digital platforms across Europe.

Various amendments to the initial European Commission drafted version of the DSA that were supported by the music and wider copyright industries were knocked back. Though so were various amendments about which the music and copyright industries had raised concerns. So, all in all, it was a mixed bag.

The DSA is not specifically focused on copyright issues, with a lot of the debate around the proposed new regulations focused on harmful and abusive content, and the responsibilities of digital platforms to block and remove such content, while also protecting freedom of expression online.

However, a plethora of proposals have been made along the way, some of which could have an impact on how copyright owners enforce and exploit their rights online.

One proposal that was very much backed by the music industry was for a wider ‘know your business customer’ obligation to be included in the DSA.

Commercial entities online are meant to be transparent about who is operating a service and where they are based, however plenty of rogue operators fail to do this, making it harder to pursue legal claims against them, for example, if they are infringing copyright.

To that end, campaigners have been calling for new rules that force online intermediaries to ensure their business customers comply with these obligations. But in the original draft of the DSA such ‘know your business customer’ rules were only included for online marketplaces, so the music and copyright industries were supporting an article amendment to extend the reach of that new obligation.

However, that amendment was not voted through. Although the vote on it was incredibly close. And a so called recital within the DSA text dealing with ‘know your business customer’ was amended. As a result, it’s hoped that more can be achieved on that point as the DSA progresses to the so called trilogue stage, where the European Parliament, European Commission and EU Council come together to negotiate a final draft.

Other amendments supported by the copyright industries – including a clarification that the removal of illegal content by digital platforms should be expeditious and in relation to search engines and safe harbour protections – were also not passed.

However, there were a number of amendments the copyright industries opposed – including around restrictions on upload filters and web-blocking, and which would have impacted on music recommendation tools – all of which were also voted down.

The aforementioned trilogue process in relation to the DSA should now begin at the end of the month.



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