The European Parliament voted on the Copyright Directive, which aims to combat plagiarism and online piracy, at its session on 26 March 2019. All companies that use other people’s copyrighted works will have to obtain appropriate licenses and share their profits with the authors. It was supported by 348 MEPs.
The legislative process has been ongoing since 2016.
The first version of the directive came into force in September 2018. Politicians from European Union countries established many provisions of the directive, but did not reach an agreement on articles 11, 13 and 14. Fierce discussions in the Council lasted for a long time. Further development of the directive was hampered by countries that opposed the changes, including Poland, Germany, Finland and Italy.
Objectives of the Directive and Articles
The Copyright Directive involves changes to the rules for publishing and monitoring content on the Internet. It aims to provide copyright owners albania mobile phone numbers database with better terms for using their works. Musicians and creators should receive appropriate remuneration. This is to encourage people to stop online plagiarism.
The most controversial articles are those 11 and 13 of the Directive.
Article 13 introduces keepit realand relatable—after the need to filter content in terms of copyright, and Article 11 refers to the obligation to pay publishers for content made available by Internet portals.
According to the principles of Article 13, the regulations will not cover:
online encyclopedias, e.g. Wikipedia
educational and scientific archives
passive platforms (e.g. clouds)
open access platforms
sales platforms
all platforms that are not intended to provide access to copyrighted content.
The regulations will also not cover Internet user rights, such as memes or gifs.
The impact of the directive on the Internet
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It is obvious that the directive will have bahrain leads the greatest impact on giants such as Google, YouTube and Facebook, which benefit greatly from the use of content created and shared for free. In connection with Article 13, portals will have to monitor users’ activities and ensure that copyright is not violated. If they fail to do so, they will be held liable for infringements, which will probably mean removing even dubious content. However, the European Parliament has stressed that the new rules will not affect freedom of speech on the Internet.
The beginning of the changes are visible actions of YouTube, which removed a video of a youth protest against climate change because of the music in the background coming from one of the cafes. The algorithm is not able to differentiate such situations from plagiarism of works. It works automatically, does not consider contexts or intentions. Until algorithms become super intelligent robots that can distinguish a quote from a copy, our right to act on the Internet will be severely limited. Access to unlicensed works and remix culture will decrease.
European countries will have two years to implement it into their systems, meaning each country will do it in its own way. This could mean 28 different solutions in this direction, which will be a problem in Internet disputes between countries.
PiS MEPs were skeptical about the directive and did not support it.
PO MEPs, on the other hand, voted overwhelmingly for the act to enter into force. Here is what one of the PiS MEPs, Kosma Złotowski, said:
The biggest problem with the directive is that its interpretation will be more important than its content. The biggest threat lies in the unclear terms and unclear definitions. The introduction of related rights for press publishers will mean a serious restriction of public debate. Only the largest publishers, who already have a huge influence on shaping public opinion, will remain on the market. They will share the profits from the link tax and create an information monopoly that smaller portals or bloggers will no longer be able to break. That is why I appeal for the rejection of this directive.
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What do people say about this?
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The vote was welcomed by press publishers and creators’ organizations. However, organizations defending the freedom of the network and thousands of individual internet users have a different opinion, believing that the directive restricts freedom of speech and that content will not be properly filtered.
It is said that this is the end of the Internet as we know it. Professional media, creating their own content instead of random information on Facebook, are to survive. It is necessary to consider how to implement the main messages of this directive without mass opposition and excessive damage, such as Internet censorship.