Last year, the EU adopted the incredibly controversial Copyright Directive (it passed by only five votes, and afterwards 10 MEPs said they'd got confused and pushed the wrong buttons!): now, EU member states have to create rules that require online platforms to filter all user-generated content and block it if it matches a secret, unaccountable blacklist of supposedly copyrighted works; and to allow news sites to veto or charge for links to their articles.
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One of the two very controversial proposals in last year's EU Copyright Directive fight was the "link tax," which would require licenses for links to news-sites that contained even a few consecutive words from the article or headline -- links and excerpts that would otherwise be considered fair dealing under EU law.
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The European Union's new Copyright Directive contains two hugely controversial, poorly drafted and dangerous clauses: Article 11, which limits who can link to news articles and under which circumstances (and also bans Creative Commons licenses); and Article 13, which mandates that all platforms for public communications surveil all user posts and censor anything that matches (or partially matches) a crowdsourced, unaccountable database of allegedly copyrighted works.
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Here's my reading (MP3) of
Today, Europe Lost The Internet. Now, We Fight Back, written for EFF Deeplinks on the morning of the EU's catastrophic decision to vote in the new Copyright Directive with all its worst clauses intact.
MP3
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Next Wednesday, the EU will vote on a potentially internet-destroying regulation that will ban linking to the news unless you're using a service that has paid for a "linking license" from the news site you're linking to; and that will force all user-submitted content (text, audio, video, code, stills) through copyright filters that will censor anything that matches a database of works that anyone can put anything in, whether or not it is in copyright.
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In just five days, a key EU vote could visit untold harm on the whole world's internet by subjecting all public communications to algorithmic censorship: the proposed Article 13 of the new Copyright Directive will force sites to build vast databases of known copyrighted works, and then block any user submissions (text, audio, video, code, stills) that seems to match a copyrighted work, and anyone can add anything to the blacklist of unpublishable works, without any proof of copyright and without any regard to fair dealing and other vital protections for free expression.
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In six days, the EU will debate and vote on a pair of copyright regulations that constitute an extinction-level event for the internet: "censorship machines" (Article 13, forcing all user-generated text, video, photos, code, etc through copyright filters that anyone can add anything to; anything judged to be a copyrighted work is automatically censored) and "the link tax" (users are banned from linking to news stories unless the site they're linking to has sold a "linking license" to the platform the users are on).
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In just one week, Members of the European Parliament will debate and vote on the new EU Copyright Directive, which contains two of the worst, most dangerous internet proposals in living memory.
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The EU is mooting a new copyright regime for the largest market in the world, and the Commissioners who are drafting the new rules are completely captured by the entertainment industry, to the extent that they have ignored their own experts and produced a farcical Big Content wishlist that includes the most extensive internet censorship regime the world has ever seen, perpetual monopolies for the biggest players, and a ban on European creators using Creative Commons licenses to share their works.
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Ruth from Openmedia writes, "This Thursday legislators in the EU Parliament are voting on proposals in the EU for mass content filters, and restrictions on links, all in the name of 'updating copyright. Read the rest
When MEP Julia Reda conducted a wide-ranging and open consultation on updating EU copyright, she came up with some great, sensible reforms: making it legal to take pictures of buildings, making it legal to link to newspapers, creating a Europe-wide set of fair dealing exceptions to copyright, capping copyright terms at life-plus-50 years, and making sure that the rights you get to analog media (like the right to give your books and music to your kids when you die) carries over to digital media. Read the rest
Ruth writes, "The link tax is back, but we have a chance to stop it. The Save the Link network are pushing back against proposals in the EU for a new hyperlinking fee (AKA 'ancillary copyright') that will affect us all. If lobbyists succeed copyright rules will be extended to hyperlinks - giving publishers the right to charge business fees for linking to content." Read the rest
