EU Votes For Copyright Filtering Law That Could Ruin The Internet — Here's What To Read
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​Update, September 12: After a vote in July knocked down a previous version of a massively important copyright filtering law, the EU Parliament voted on Wednesday to pass an amended version. While some changes have been made to the controversial parts of the law — Articles 11 and 13 — their key threats are still in place: 

 

The law will face a final up or down vote in the European Parliament in January. If it passes (which is likely), EU member nations will each be able to decide how to implement the law

Previously, June 20: On Wednesday morning, the European Parliament voted in favor of a proposal to change EU copyright law, known as the Copyright in the Digital Single Market. Copyright and internet experts believe it will destroy the web as we've come to know it. 

What has experts ringing the alarm bells are two provisions in the proposal, Article 13 and Article 11. The first would require internet companies to install automatic copyright filters, while the second would require publishers to secure a license when posting snippets of news from other outlets, known informally as a "link tax."

Last week, a group of internet pioneers, experts and advocates — including Tim Berners-Lee, Jimmy Wales and Tim Wu — co-signed a letter in opposition to Article 13. "By requiring Internet platforms to
perform automatic filtering all of the content that their users upload, Article 13 takes an
unprecedented step towards the transformation of the Internet from an open platform for
sharing and innovation, into a tool for the automated surveillance and control of its users," they write. Here's the full letter.

 

Opposition to the provision has been near-unanimous amongst internet policy experts. Sarah Jeong, a senior writer at the Verge who has extensively covered internet law, lays out all the various ways that Article 13 and 11 could destroy an open internet.

For anyone who's been on the internet long enough, the problem with Article 13 is pretty clear. It's YouTube Content ID but for the entire internet. Axel Voss, the member of European Parliament who is taking the lead on the copyright bill, has argued that the actual proposed language never mentions a filter, although that just raises the question of what using "effective technologies" to prevent copyright infringement means, other than filtering. Although the most recently revised language exempts sites such as "online encyclopaedias," clearly aiming to exclude the likes of Wikipedia, Voss has said in the past that he cannot predict which platforms will be affected.

[The Verge] 

In more simple terms, Gizmodo's Rhett Jones lays out how Articles 13 and 11 will change how everyone's favorite internet content — memes, mashups and news — is shared and consumed online.

Explaining what's wrong with these two points of the legislation in detail is difficult because the articles themselves are so vague. That's the primary issue for critics. Both articles make unprecedented demands on anyone operating a popular website to monitor copyrighted material and to pay fees to news organizations when linking out to their articles.

[Gizmodo]

Wednesday's vote isn't the final step in the EU adopting these new copyright provisions. Now that it's passed a committee vote, the provision will see a final vote by the entire European Parliament sometime late this Summer or early Fall.

<p>Steve Rousseau is the Features Editor at Digg.&nbsp;</p>

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