Please Write (Yes, Again - Sorry) to Your MEPs to Stop the EU Copyright Directive from Seriously Harming the Internet

Back in June, I wrote a long post about the proposed update to EU copyright law. As I explained, there are some bad ideas being proposed, notably upload filters (Article 13), and ancillary copyright for news publications (Article 11), that will seriously harm the Internet in the EU. I won't repeat everything I wrote there: the bad ideas are still in play, despite minor amendments that have been proposed to give the impression that problems have been addressed. They haven't.


But I will ask you to write, once more, to your MEPs, as I did again in July, asking them to defend the Internet in the key European Parliament vote on Wednesday, 12 September. Once more, a short email is quite sufficient: the most important thing is to convey the seriousness of the situation. At its simplest, we need to remove Article 11 and Article 13 completely – they are not salvageable – and to amend Article 3 to allow companies to carry out text and data mining (TDM).

As well as the posts mentioned above, here are few more articles I have written on this topic in recent months, which you may find useful in writing emails to your representatives.

Article 13

Article 13: Putting Flawed Upload Filters At The Heart Of The Internet

Article 13: Making Copyright Unfit For The Digital Age

Article 13: Even Worse Than The Us DMCA Takedown System

You Wouldn’t Steal A Meme: The Threat From Article 13

Don’t Let Upload Filters Undermine The Public Domain

Upload Filters, Copyright And Magic Pixie Dust

Article 11

Article 11: Driven By Rhetoric, Not By Arithmetic

Article 3

Why The Copyright Directive Lacks (Artificial) Intelligence

The Right To Read Is The Right To Mine

But really, the details aren't so important at this stage: just write something – the simpler, and more direct the better – perhaps using WriteToThem if you are in the UK, or SaveYourinternet if you are in the EU. If we don't manage to beat off this implicit attack on the Internet in the vote on Wednesday, we will probably hobble the Internet in the EU forever, with knock-on effects around the world. It's that serious.

Countering the Latest Misinformation about the EU Copyright Directive

Tomorrow the European Parliament will vote on whether to send its version of the Copyright Directive text to "trilogues" for final negotiations. As I've written here before, this would be disastrous for the Internet in the EU. However, efforts to prevent that happening are having an impact. The MEPs on the JURI committee that drew up the current flawed text have just sent a short document to all MEPs to try to convince them to vote to move on to the trilogues (you can read it on Techdirt). It is full of misinformation, which I would like to debunk here so that people can explain to their MEPs – either in an email, or by phone – why the claims made in the JURI note are false.

I'll concentrate here on what it says about Article 13, which will bring in upload filters, since the threat it represents to the Internet is greater, and the misinformation in the JURI paper most egregious. For example, it says:

It aims to make platforms accountable, but not all platforms. Article 13 needs to be seen in conjunction with article 2 of the draft directive.

And explains:

Only those that are active, so that optimize the content posted online.

However, it fails to point out that "optimisation" includes trivial processes like changing the order of material. In other words, any site that does anything other than offer a storage medium is "active", and will thus be obliged to impose upload filters. Moreover, it truly is any site, of any size. Whereas before, supporters of Article 13 insisted it would only apply to the largest sites, JURI now says the following:

Any platform is covered by Article 13 if one of their main purposes is to give access to copyright protected content to the public.

It cannot make any difference if it is a “small thief” or a “big thief” as it should be illegal in the first place.

Small platforms, even a one-person business, can cause as much damage to right holders as big companies, if their content is spread (first on this platform and possibly within seconds throughout the whole internet) without their consent.

In view of such a small business potentially causing such a tremendous damage to right holders, the compromise text does not foresee any exemption for SMESs.

This is a huge and remarkable change, because it means even the smallest business or startup will have to licence or filter uploads. The JURI document tries to claim this isn't a problem because:

However, the text provides safeguards that will benefit SMEs. Measures must be appropriate and proportionate.

But that vague definition still places a huge burden on smaller companies, and pretty much guarantees that startups will avoid the EU, and set up shop elsewhere.  Finally, two pieces of misinformation are repeated yet again. One concerns filters:

no general filtering measures are included in Article 13. The text even emphasizes that this practice is prohibited

The text can prohibit the practice as much as it likes, but general filtering is precisely what Article 13 requires – there is no other way of doing it. Which means that companies will either break the law by not implementing general filtering, or break it by doing so. Finally, there is the old nonsense that Article13

does not threaten freedom of expression or fundamental rights.

The meme, mash-up, the gifs are already allowed and included in an existing exception and will still be after the adoption of this directive (article 5, directive 2001/29/EC

3. Member States may provide for exceptions or limitations to the rights provided for in Articles 2 and 3 in the following cases: (k) use for the purpose of caricature, parody or pastiche

As I've pointed out before, this exception is optional, and currently not available in 19 EU Member States. Implying that memes are safe is duplicitous in the extreme, and shows how desperate supporters of the Copyright Directive are.

Please contact your MEPs to explain how things really stand, and perhaps point out that the fact the JURI briefing is reduced to spreading serious misinformation is an indication there are no real arguments in favour of this bad law.

Please Write a *Short* Email to Your MEPs Today about EU Copyright Directive

A couple of weeks ago, I urged people to write to their MEPs about an important vote in the Legal Affairs committee of the European Parliament (JURI).  Sadly, but not unexpectedly, we lost that vote.

However, this is not the end of the story.  On Thursday, there is a vote by the whole of the European Parliament on whether the copyright directive should be amended, or whether it can enter "trilogue" negotiations, which occur when the text is more or less agreed.  It is therefore vital that MEPs vote to give themselves the chance to reconsider key sections of this deeply-flawed text, rather than allowing it to pass on to the trilogues.  Here is a fuller explanation of what is going on.

My previous post explained the background to the copyright directive, and my email to MEPs then was quite long.  This time, a simple message to MEPs is all that is needed.  Please contact them, using either WriteToThem (in the UK), or SaveYourInternet.eu in the EU.

If you use the latter, please change the example text and put things in your own words.  Supporters of the copyright directive are claiming that these letters are a "spam" campaign by big companies, and not real emails from constituents.  We need to counter that with a flood of genuine communications.  For this week's vote, short and simple is best.