The whole internet is set to be subject to ContentID-type filtering in Europe, thanks to new copyright proposals that have been voted through by the European Parliament.
The move raises the spectre of a ‘tax’ on linking to other sites and automated censorship of material identified as violating copyright. However, despite fierce opposition, the Committee on Legal Affairs (JURI) has approved the controversial Articles 11 and 13 of the Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on Copyright in the Digital Single Market.
Article 11, narrowly approved by 13 to 12 votes, requires any site linking to a third-party site with a snippet to adhere to an astonishing 28 separate copyright laws, or else pay for a licence to provide the link.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has described the move as ‘wildly dangerous’ for the global internet, saying it “will hurt those who use the internet for sharing, punish projects like Wikipedia, and poses a significant threat to an informed and literate society, according to the research community.”
Indeed, it’s hard to see how the EU can think it’s likely to work. A link tax has already been tried in Spain, where it was widely recognised as a disaster, with internet users up in arms and several small publishers and aggregators going out of business. In Germany, meanwhile, a similar law led to a massive drop in traffic for publishers, most of whom ended up giving free consent anyway.
Article 13, meanwhile, was approved by 15 votes to 10 and requires any site which allows users to post material to check it all against a database of copyrighted works, and even to pay for the privilege of accessing the database.
Article 13 has been widely touted as marking the death of memes – although this needn’t actually come to pass. Member states have the right to establish exceptions in the case of caricature, parody or pastiche; and in any case rights holders will be required to justify any decision to refuse permission to access their works.
However, it could undoubtedly make it a lot easier for copyright holders to frustrate users wishing to link to their material with the aim, perhaps, of criticizing them. And even when they don’t wish to block access to their work, it could still happen anyway. The proposed system has a lot in common with YouTube’s ContentID system – not known for its accuracy, with perfectly legitimate content frequently flagged.
It might also entrench the already monopolistic status of the large platforms such as Facebook and Google, with startups highly unlikely to be able to find the funds for a filtering system. And it could even, suggests blogger Cory Doctorow, allow trolls to use bots to file copyrights to content they don’t actually own, shutting down political discussion.
In an emailed statement following the ruling, Jim Killock, executive director of the Open Rights Group, points out that there is still time to stop Article 13, which must be approved by the European Parliament in a plenary vote early next month.
“The EU Parliament’s duty is to defend citizens from unfair and unjust laws. MEPs must reject this law, which would create a Robo-copyright regime intended to zap any image, text, meme or video that appears to include copyright material, even when it is entirely legal material,” he says.
