Category: socialmedia

The more I look into the details of the revised EU Copyright Directive, the clearer it becomes that this directive has been written for the sole purpose of propping up businesses that are not capable to adapt to the digital age.

In a new twist, the lobby group for the digital rights management firms here in Germany (GEMA, VG Wort, VG Bild-Kunst, VG Musikedition) sent out a letter, explaining that the primary goal of Article 13 was to collect licensing fees and in that letter positioned themselves as ideally suited to do so on behalf of all users.

In other words, the rights management firms have lobbied the EU parliament, under the pretense of protecting artists, for a way to force the platforms to pay them licensing fees for all user-generated content. Unbelievable! They want to get paid for rights to content that they don’t own and have never supported – in the past they had nothing but disdain for us mere creators.

And the EPP, some Progressives as well as some Greens support them.

I’m speechless.

(Cologne Central Station, Emergency rally on Tuesday, March 5th)

Last Saturday I attended the first rally in Berlin against Article 13 of the revised EU Copyright Directive.

Pretty impressive turnout and a number of prominent artists that were supporting the event – Berlin being Berlin, there was more techno music than chanting, but overall it was a well organized rally and I am glad I went.

Monday then saw a move by the EPP to move the date of the parliamentary vote forward a couple of weeks, to avoid the European protests on March 23rd – so we all took to the streets on Tuesday, forcing the EPP to back down, not without them trying some rather dirty maneuvers first, though.

This Saturday we’ll again have rallies, in Germany 9 cities have signed up so far.

The struggle continues!

(Picture taken with permission from an accompanying adult)

The whole internet generation is up in arms – reason is article #13 of the revised EU Copyright Directive, due for final parliamentary vote late March.

In a nutshell, the directive will make all commercial platforms older than 3 years, that have “online content sharing” “liable for unauthorized acts of communication to the public of copyright protected works and other subject matter” (Quotes from https://juliareda.eu/2019/02/eu-copyright-final-text/).

This affects only (your) YouTube kids, right?

Unfortunately, not. Article 13 is not only about video – images, photos, music and texts are also copyright protected works (including this article, by the way).

Under the new regulation, _all_ sharing sites, and that includes professional networks such as LinkedIn or Xing, will become liable for copyright violations of their users and will have to take reasonable measures to prevent such violation to occur (hence the #uploadfilter).

Prior to publishing any user-generated content, any provider will have to make sure that the text, image or video does not contain any copyrighted material – if it fails to do that, it will open itself up for litigation (not mentioning the link tax here, for brevity and readability), which will pose a significant financial risk.

As an example, let’s look at this text: No platform whatsoever can determine for sure whether I have written this text myself (for the record: I did) or whether I copied it from one or more sources on the internet. The best option to avoid litigation thus is to disable uploads from users, and only buy content from well-known publishers.

That’s what everybody is afraid of – the end of user-generated content, the end of Social Media, and the end of professional networking sites.

Article 13 will not protect artists, and it will not do anything to help them secure an income from their work. This claim is being perpetuated by a lot of organizations, unfortunately it turns out to be false once you read the actual text of the directive; intention and execution seem to be quite a bit out of sync here.

We have only days, or possibly a couple of weeks left before the final vote, and we need to act now!

Convinced? Call your MEPs and help them make the right decision:

• https://pledge2019.eu/en

Not yet? Here are some more resources:

• https://juliareda.eu/eu-copyright-reform/
• https://april.org/un-mois-pour-donner-de-la-voix-voter-pour-l-article-13-c-est-attaquer-nos-libertes
• https://savetheinternet.info/
• https://www.stopacta2.org/

Thank you!

(Image copyright by www.savetheinternet.info)

If you are a creator in Europe, now it’s time to panic, and act.

With its clauses on liability, Article 13 will effectively force a ban on all user-generated content, ending Social Media as we know it.

We should not let that happen!

Rallies: https://savetheinternet.info/demos

Act: https://saveyourinternet.eu/act/