What to expect in this article
Last week, the new EU copyright reform was passed in the EU Parliament. The topic is being discussed very controversially by supporters and opponents, and Article 13 of the new directive in particular has led to great outrage within the online community and to numerous demonstrations across Europe.
We summarise the key facts around the topic.
Goal of the EU copyright reform
The new EU directive on copyright is meant to better protect artists and creators in the digital single market. The existing copyright law has not yet been fully adapted to the digital world and its means of distributing media. Many protected works are distributed without the creator benefiting from it. A central point of the new regulation is that in future, information platforms such as YouTube will be liable for copyright infringements — no longer the person who uploaded or made the protected content available. A copyright infringement exists when copyrighted content is publicly accessible on the platform for which the platform holds no licence or consent from the creator.
What is Article 13?
Article 13 of the new EU copyright reform stipulates that platforms on which users can upload content at scale must demonstrably ensure that for every uploaded and published item, the platform holds an acquired licence or the creator’s consent.
Given the sheer volume of uploads, implementing this EU directive would only be feasible by automatically checking, and where necessary rejecting, every single user upload to verify whether the platform holds a licence for the uploaded content. Opponents of Article 13 therefore speak of the introduction of the upload filter, which strictly speaking is not demanded in the legal text but would be the logical consequence of complying with the new law. Opponents of the new law expect upload filters to have a high error rate. They fear that uploads whose content cannot be clearly matched to a licence will be blocked across the board, so the platform cannot be held liable for violations.
Critics of the new EU directive see it as a major incursion into users’ freedom and even speak of censorship of the internet.
What happens next
Despite the broad resistance, the new copyright reform for the digital single market was adopted in the EU Parliament. As the next step, the bill must pass the Council of the EU, which is composed of the governments of the member states of the European Union. Should the Council vote in favour of the new copyright directive, it must be implemented within 2 years and be reflected in the laws of the member states.
This EU Council vote is expected to take place on 9 April.
If the German federal government votes against the directive in the Council, the bill will be sent back to the EU Parliament, where it can still be rejected or amended. However, this is not to be expected, even though the federal government actually spoke out against upload filters in its coalition agreement.
