Guy In Charge Of EU Copyright Directive Claims He Didn't Know What He Voted On, Needs To Fix Things

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  Following the decision earlier this week of the EU Parliament to vote for the destruction of the open web by putting in place some pretty awful copyright proposals, people began highlighting more and more problems with the bill. Most of the focus before the vote had been on two particular articles, Article 11 and Article 13. But there are many other problems in the Directive as well -- it was just getting to be overwhelming to get into the weeds on all of them. One area of concern was in Article 12, which included a special new form of copyright for sporting events. Specifically, with no debate or discussion the legal affairs committee of the EU Parliament added in text saying that sporting event organizers would gain absolute control over recording, sharing and presenting any film clips -- even those that would otherwise be deemed legal in other copyright contexts. And yes, the law implies that if you're at a sports event, you can't even film anything from your own seat as that is reserved solely to the event organizers.
Incredibly, after the vote approving the directive, reporter Emanuel Karisten of the Swedish publication Breakit, asked Voss about this and Voss gave a fairly astounding answer, stating that "this was kind of a mistake" and that "no one had been aware of this." Later he states that he didn't know it was in there and he'll have to fix it:
Voss: This was kind of mistake I think by the JURI committee. Someone amended this. No one had been aware of this.
Reporter: But it was passed...
... discussion by someone with Voss saying that it's really about gambling/betting operations before Voss jumps back in ...
Voss: I didn’t know that this was in the proposal so far, so of course I have to deal with it now.... I do not consider that the commission and council will have this inside the proposal.
Later he says "because of the time and pressure" they concentrated on other areas of the bill. Which... does not seem like a good excuse.
You can listen to the exchange here:
Meanwhile, MEP Julia Reda is calling bullshit on the claim that Voss was "unaware" that this was in the proposal, noting not only that she had written about the issue prior to the vote, but that she had raised it directly with Voss and his colleagues:
It’s not true that nobody noticed it was in the proposal. Not only did I write about it before the vote, I also raised it in the last negotiation meeting before the vote, so did @lidiageringer. It was proposed by group colleagues of @AxelVossMdEP and he voted for it. Twice.
— Julia Reda (@Senficon) September 13, 2018
There are a few possibilities here, none of which make Voss look any good. He either voted for an amendment he hadn't read and/or didn't understand, or he's lying to this reporter. It also suggests that rather than taking the concerns of critics like Reda seriously, Voss just tuned them out and happily voted away for such horrible proposals.
We've raised questions before about Voss's views on all of this, as he seems almost hysterically uninformed about how actual copyright policy works, even as he drives forward such a horrible policy. This seems to be yet more evidence that a few special interests made it clear to Voss what they wanted to do, and he just agreed to do that, no matter what concerns anyone else had.
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