Last-minute negotiations over the wording of the European Union’s controversial Copyright Directive have come to a close, and only a full vote by the European Parliament stands in the way of the legislation becoming law.
The final text of the directive has been wrangled over during closed-door negotiations for the last few months. It had been hoped by campaigners that these talks, known as trilogues, would mitigate or even remove what they see as the worst effects of two of the directive’s sub-clauses: Articles 11 and 13, better known as the “link tax” and “upload filter.”
A rebellion by a handful of member states offered some hope in January, but a last-minute deal between France and Germany has now resolved the dispute.
The final text of the Copyright Directive has yet to be shared, but Pirate MEP Julia Reda, a prominent opponent of the law, offered a summary on her blog. Much of what has already been criticized remains the same. Under Article 13 of the final text, says Reda, for-profit platforms like YouTube, Tumblr, and Twitter will be forced to proactively scan user-uploaded content for material that infringes copyright. Article 11, meanwhile, gives publishers the right to charge search engines, aggregators, and other sites if they reproduce more than “single words or very short extracts” of new stories.
Big tech companies, academics, and even rights-holders (many of whom initially supported the Copyright Directive) have come out against these two articles. Although much of the legislation offers a sensible overhaul of outdated copyright law for the internet age, the imprecise wording and vague ambitions of Articles 11 and 13 have infuriated many.
A number of organizations representing European music, sports, and broadcasting industries say the current approach will have “serious harm” and risks, leaving “European producers, distributors and creators worse off.”
Sebastian Schwemer, a researcher at the Centre for Information and Innovation Law in Denmark, told The Verge that the deal was part of a larger trend to try and filter the internet using so-called “proactive measures.” He said: “But a broader debate in society, whether the use of such proactive measures is even desirable, is missing.”
There is still one last chance for those fighting against the Copyright Directive. Now that trilogue negotiations are over, the text will be put before the European Parliament for a final vote by all 751 MEPs sometime in March or April. Given that EU elections take place in May, activists are hoping that the threat of being booted out of office will be strong enough to persuade MEPs to vote against the directive or at least vote for some changes.
Comments
Definitely looks like it will do more harm than good.
From the Reda’s blog link:
Good fucking luck lol
By EuAn15 on 02.13.19 5:00pm
Imagine all the work everyone would have to do for simple things like being able to upload a profile image. Might as well just make it so European users can’t upload anything and can’t see what other people have uploaded.
By ddhboy on 02.13.19 7:23pm
It would make sense for creative communities to just move content to companies with no physical presence in the EU. It’s unlikely a US court would uphold an EU judgment on a US company complying with US laws with US servers.
By SwimsAfterEating on 02.13.19 11:51pm
The EU’s legal opinion is that EU laws apply to services that are available to EU citizens, meaning that unless you block EU citizens from accessing user uploaded content, the law would apply to you.
By ddhboy on 02.14.19 9:43am
It sounds like the internet is about to get a lot smaller for EU citizens.
By Dante of the Inferno on 02.14.19 2:10pm
I guess the EU and China are in a game of one-upsmanship on who can censor the Internet more.
By SwimsAfterEating on 02.13.19 11:50pm
I don’t think you understand the word ‘censor’.
By Jonners88 on 02.14.19 2:25am
And the US hit the jackpot with Trump!
By trabuki on 02.14.19 2:41am
This isn’t censorship, it’s a misguided attempt to address the problems of copyright infringement and revenue generation from online content in a world where people think they should get stuff for free. Unfortunately it requires technical and licensing measures which are pretty much impossible, especially for anybody new coming into the field.
None of this stops you making your own content about how the EU is terrible and uploading that. Stopping that would be censorship.
By mathw on 02.14.19 4:56am
The EU is so dumb. Them they wonder why people are against them and support nationalist populist parties.
By ninux on 02.14.19 3:52am
When your local government passes a shitty law, are you also against your state? Blame the parties that voted for this, not the institution (which you are still free to criticize, of course).
By Gatanui on 02.14.19 2:17pm
I like the EU, but laws like article 13 and 11 a small country like mine would never try to pass. It’s because of its size that it’s powerful enough to try and pass stupid laws like these. And a nationstate like Portugal isn’t the same as an artificial group of countries like the EU.
By ninux on 02.21.19 6:39pm
Why does nobody understand the problem? Youtube, facebook, google can use all content for free and get all the profits from it. They controle the whole internet.
It’s not because it’s convenient for the consumer, that it’s fair business.
Downloading movies from the websites is illegal, the movie industry has a strong arm to uphold it’s rights, this should be possible for anyone to enforce.
I feel this is a good move to reshape the profit model of the internet and an opportunity for more competition.
By JamesD0 on 02.14.19 4:39am
Because people are consumers first and this is terrible for consumers.
By unuspromulti on 02.14.19 5:46am
Mostly because the better websites that previously allowed all the fun stuff that the internet offered will no longer allow themselves to be accessed in the EU. So that vacuum will be filled with…I don’t know what, because having to license every little thing is going to deny any concept of social media, except maybe the good old text-only forums.
By Dante of the Inferno on 02.14.19 2:15pm
You’d need to make sure that the text isn’t violating copyright as well I suppose, so probably not even that.
More like, you’d be able to read stuff from publishers like The Verge, but not from publishing platforms like Medium, who’d have to verify that their user generated content isn’t violating someone’s copyright proactively.
By ddhboy on 02.14.19 4:37pm
I wonder how much of this is driven by a massive overestimation of how much can be recognised automatically and an underestimation of what that costs. Like youtube’s Content Id, that works well mostly (even though it has important issues too), but the investment to get there is huge. Not an attainable goal for smaller companies or startups, creating an even bigger distance between big tech and their smaller competitors.
By GriffinSauce on 02.14.19 7:38am
RIP the EU. Hope you enjoy flip phones and Angelfire.
By ardent on 02.14.19 1:25pm
I remember when internet news sites with vested interests had their readers concerned about GDPR.
Telling users what they use our private data for, and being able to delete that data from their databases was supposed to be the antichrist. Turns out, it was easy to implement. In fact the old way was moronic, it just wasn’t financially as fun for the companies to be held responsible.
I’d be vary getting your reporting on this topic exclusively from the suspects point of view. They have their own financial interests, not yours in mind.
By BlackToe on 02.14.19 4:36pm
Britain got out just in the nick of time.
By theeht10 on 02.14.19 6:50pm
Is The Verge/Vox sure that they are not in favor of those laws?
I mean they seem to have no issue abusing the copyright strikes system of Youtube to nuke legit commentary and reaction videos to their terrible pc building video? Thankfully Youtube has turned down those strikes. I wonder if we will ever see a comment from them on that case or from any other of the major tech outlets. But they will most likely keep their circles closed.
That EU law is terrible, but I get the feeling that most of the outrage from the US tech side is because they are not the ones writting it. Because many of the same people that oppose those laws, don’t seem to have an issue on the other hand calling for purges of certain content and users they don’t like.
By Sentinel Borg on 02.15.19 5:12am