The European organisations representing authors have acknowledged the decision of the European Parliament to postpone the adoption of its position on the Copyright Directive. The Authors’ Group now calls on MEPs to maintain their strong and cross-party support to reinforce the contractual position of authors in Europe so that the Copyright Directive can soon bring concrete benefits to authors’ rights in the European Union. The Authors’ Group represents more than half a million writers, composers, journalists, film directors, screenwriters and songwriters in Europe. Today, the European Parliament decided to postpone the adoption of its position on a Proposal for a Directive…

The European Federation of Journalists  (EFJ) has criticised a new law passed on 3 July by the Russian State Duma’s information and communication committee to label individual journalists as “foreign agents”. Back in November 2017, the EFJ had heavily criticised Russia for adopting the so-called “foreign agent media law” allowing the authorities to label foreign media organisations as “foreign agents”. The new law goes even further. According to media reports, it will allow the authorities to label journalists and bloggers as “foreign agents”. In addition, it will also allow the authority to blocked websites or other media without a court ruling.…