The new EU Copyright Directive will be up for its final vote in the week of Mar 25, and like any piece of major EU policy, it has been under discussion for many years and had all its areas of controversy resolved a year ago -- but then German MEP Axel Voss took over as the "rapporteur" (steward) of the Directive and reintroduced the long-abandoned idea of forcing all online services to use filters to block users from posting anything that anyone, anywhere claimed was their copyrighted work. Read the rest

Some drafts of Article 13 of the pending EU Copyright Directive no longer contain the word "filters" -- because the world's leading technical, legal and human rights experts all say these will lead to widespread censorship of legitimate, noninfringing materials. Read the rest