Websites and businesses across Europe today are protesting controversial changes to online copyright being introduced by the European Union.
Ahead of a final vote on the legislation next Tuesday, March 26th, a number of European Wikipedia sites are going dark for the day, blocking all access and directing users to contact their local EU representative to protest the laws. Other major sites, such as Twitch and PornHub, are showing protest banners on their homepages and social media. Meanwhile, any users uploading content to Reddit will be shown this notice:
The law in question is the EU Copyright Directive, a long-awaited update to copyright law. Although the directive mostly contains common-sense changes for the internet age, two provisions have been singled out by critics as potentially dangerous.
These are Article 11, which lets publishers charge platforms if they link to their stories (the ‘link tax’), and Article 13, which makes platforms legally responsible for users uploading copyrighted material (the so-called ‘upload filter’).
Champions of the directive say these laws will give publishers and content creators the tools they need to reclaim the value of their work from US tech giants. But critics say the politicians behind the legislation do not understand the breadth of the laws they are proposing, and that the directive, if implemented, will harm free expression online.
Article 13 is particularly dangerous, say critics. It will make all platforms hosting user-generated content (everything from Imgur to Tumblr to YouTube) legally responsible for users uploading copyrighted content. The only way to stop these uploads, say critics, will be to scan content before its uploaded, leading to the creation of filters that will likely be error-prone and abused by copyright trolls.
Wikimedia, the nonprofit that runs Wikipedia, said the rules would be a “net loss for free knowledge.” Volunteer editors for the German, Czech, Danish, and Slovak Wikipedias have all blacked out their sites for the day — an action that recalls the much more widespread internet blackouts that took place in 2012 to protest the controversial US SOPA bill.
As well as the website blackouts today, more than five million internet users have signed a petition protesting Article 13. Marches and demonstrations are also planned in European cities across the weekend and on Monday and Tuesday before the final vote.
That the vote was scheduled as early as possible suggests the EU is worried the legislation won’t now pass, says Diego Naranjo, a senior policy advisor at digital rights group EDRi.
“The only reason I can imagine [they chose that date] is that they’re trying to avoid public pressure,” Naranjo told The Verge. “They are receiving tonnes of calls, emails, and tweets, and trying to pass this as quickly as possible because they’re afraid they’ll lose.”
Naranjo said that despite the fact that efforts to vote down the copyright directive have failed at every turn to date, there’s still a chance lawmakers will listen to the protests this time. “I’m quite optimistic we can win this,” he said.
Comments
Alarmist nonsense.
By Dr Strange on 03.21.19 7:32am
You realize that if this does pass, one of two things will happen:
Nothing happens, aside from the occasional lawsuit using the law as grounds for a violation.
or…
It does get readily and heavily enforced, but since most website owners tend to skeet past as many roadblocks as possible, most of them will likely just take their website down in Europe as the loss of European traffic is lower than the cost of implementing an expensive filter. Think of what some websites did in light of GDPR, but multiply that even further.
By Pygasm on 03.21.19 7:39am
If sites that otherwise would profit from copyrighted content would leave the EU, would that really be that bad? I mean, lets first be clear that article 13 only affects services where one of the main purposes is to publish third party content and which "optimize" that content. It doesn’t affect the verge just because there is a comment section. Nor does it affect hosting providers, because they don’t "optimize" the content, but show it simply as is. So which platforms would be most likely to leave? Probably stuff like voat and 4chan.
Frankly the most likely consequence is neither of what you wrote. Non-media sites will start implementing filters as well and end of the day we get a healthier economy for digital producers. NOT to say I agree fully with this legislation (it gives a bit too much power to publishers in my humble opinion), but it’s definitely a step forward. If we can next limit copyright to "just" a couple of decades and most patents to "just" a couple of years (depending on industry) and we are set .
By David Mulder on 03.21.19 9:20am
Like Wiki, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and just about every site that allows for user hosted data leaves the EU?
By omo on 03.21.19 10:55am
EU is the second largest economy of the world.
1. They leave and the next day somebody else is going to make a similar service, because there are billions to be made;
2. They comply and the world becomes a better place.
By LeoMC on 03.22.19 5:15am
"They leave and the next day somebody else is going to make a similar service"-lol I don’t think you have any form of understanding on the amount of government incentives or the economic environment that allowed for companies like google, Facebook, you tube, Instagram, twitter to be scaled to the level they are now. Ridiculous regulations like this and the EU’s general outlook on business most definitely don’t make it easy for "someone else to pop up the next day".
You might even be more likely to see media companies create platforms with all of their copyrighted material, and pretty much create television all over again on the internet with all the terrible things that come with it, such as gatekeepers who most definitely aren’t "healthy for digital producers" .
By jskdi on 03.24.19 3:23pm
In EU, the governments are forbidden to give incentives to companies so, if the companies you’re talking about were indeed built like that, they do not comply with EU market.
Is there something to loose, if YouTube and Facebook no longer operate on EU? Yes, some vloggers will no longer make money there, some companies will go back to tv/radio advertising, but other networks will grow exponentially and will fill the empty spot.
By LeoMC on 03.25.19 3:39am
There are better ways to stop American media conglomerates from abusing their power, like actually enforcing antitrust laws and the GDPR. This is not the way to do it, Spain bowed to pressure from their print media a few years ago and instituted the link tax that is being used as a base for the Article 11 they’re trying to implement union-wide and most small publishers pretty much shot themselvves in the foot by trying to get aggregators like Google News to pay them for linking to their articles and getting a complete blackout instead when Google pulled their services out of the country altogether, forcing many of them to close as nobody would even visit their pages anymore. This will be nothing but a repeat of that on a massive scale.
By Rnet on 03.21.19 7:40am
As far as I understand article 11 it still allows news publishers to opt-in, so it’s more similar to Germany than Spain. In Spain a publisher couldn’t opt-in to allowing Google News to use their snippets, it literally became impossible to give it for free. So Google News left. In contrast in Germany it became possible for a publisher to charge, but a publisher could also simply give a free license and virtually of them did just that. Article 11 replicates what Germany did, not what Spain did. And most likely that means we would see the same end result: Virtually all publishers will opt-in.
By David Mulder on 03.21.19 8:00am
It’s frustrating to see how much disinformation is being spread around again. Hyperlinking will not be curtailed, it’s the use of snippets from (only) "press publications" which (unless you’re one of the many exemptions) a site can be charged for. So yeah, big question would still be whether you can charge for using the title of an article and I sincerely don’t know whether that constitutes a snippet, but the idea that you won’t be able to link to some page in the future is frankly absolute bullshit. So yeah, news snippet tax it is. Frankly I agree that article 11 is absolutely stupid (paying for snippets makes no sense, although some sites have been quoting more than is reasonable and defining a very short length as fair use would be reasonable), but let’s not act as if it’s the end of the world. Worst case the same thing happens as in france: Google News shuts down. The end.
Article 13 has a lot more impact. On one hand let’s just acknowledge that we do have a problem as a society. It’s ridiculously easy to ‘by mistake’ see republished content on certain platforms. On Facebook for example there are countless of ‘publishers’ that steal content from Youtube and republish it on Facebook to earn money from the ads and on Reddit I know of a couple of subreddits which function 100% by republishing copyrighted images and videos (note that in both cases Facebook and Reddit also earn money from this content). Because of this Youtube, Facebook, Instagram and lots of other platforms have already build automatic tools to search and block copyrighted content and the main thing article 13 does is make this a requirement for all platforms. So no more mega.nz whose main business model is not caring and hosting ridiculous amounts of copyrighted content. And yes, it might mean (this is less clear) that we switch from tools that check for copyrighted works after the fact (you upload, share the video and then it gets taken down a couple of minutes, hours, or days later) to the work only getting published after it was checked. Having read through at least one outdated version of article 13 I think it might move the balance a bit too far to the publishers of copyrighted content, but considering how everything is right now weighted strongly against them (ask any photographer what you should do if someone stole his photograph and they refuse to pay or take it down after a friendly email) that’s better than nothing. I mean, let me be clear, I would prefer changing some stuff about article 13, but at the end of the day better copyright protection helps everyone (although can we PLEASE decrease copyright to just a couple of decades at most!?!?!).
Two very good articles to read: https://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2018/06/26/breaking-down-the-new-eu-copyright-bill-article-11/ and https://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2018/07/03/breaking-down-the-new-eu-copyright-bill-article-13/
By David Mulder on 03.21.19 7:57am
But this is not better… this is really just carrying water and dumping it in the wrong place. What photographers, etc want is getting paid, not stronger or better copyright protection. What has to happen is the business has to be changed to allow for it. All article 13 is push the weight down to the platform level. Don’t let copyright wag the dog.
By omo on 03.21.19 10:58am
So why do it?
You’re clearly very passionate about this, but have you considered why anyone would risk the legal liability if it passes, or how frequently the existing "takedown" and monetization model is abused for content that does not, in fact, violate the person making the claim’s copyright?
Let’s not forget the right to be forgotten; remember the assurances it wouldn’t lead to criminals and politicians cleaning up negative search results? Remember what’s actually happened?
By ldrn on 03.21.19 5:33pm
College students should take note.
By maioralin14 on 03.21.19 8:06am
I always took notes in college.
By theeht10 on 03.21.19 9:45am
I never did.
By fluffylucy on 03.21.19 10:20pm
Snippets make publishers loose money by making it irrelevant to click the link from google search and go to the publisher’s site (no commercials, no traffic, no subscriptions etc).
The platform should be liable for the content it hosts; it opens the way for abuses? maybe, but it’s EU we’re talking about – the most democratic place on earth, we have the best legal system, the best laws for correct businesses – it’s unlikely we’ll be seeing that (the way gdpr proved it is a good regulation).
By LeoMC on 03.22.19 5:25am