Copyright Companies Want Memes That Are Legal In The EU Blocked Because They Now Admit Upload Filters Are 'Practically Unworkable'

from the too-much-is-never-enough dept

The passage of the EU Copyright Directive last year represented one of the most disgraceful examples of successful lobbying and lying by the publishing, music, and film industries. In order to convince MEPs to vote for the highly controversial legislation, copyright companies and their political allies insisted repeatedly that the upload filters needed to implement Article 17 (originally Article 13) were optional, and that user rights would of course be respected online. But as Techdirt and many others warned at the time, this was untrue, as even the law's supporters admitted once it had been passed. Now that the EU member states are starting to implement the Directive, it is clear that there is no alternative to upload filters, and that freedom of speech will therefore be massively harmed by the new law. France has even gone so far as ignore the requirement for the few user protections that the Copyright Directive graciously provides.

The EU Copyright Directive represents an almost total victory for copyright maximalists, and a huge defeat for ordinary users of the Internet in the EU. But if there is one thing that we can be sure of, it's that the copyright industries are never satisfied. Despite the massive gains already enshrined in the Directive, a group of industry organizations from the world of publishing, music, cinema and broadcasting have written to the EU Commissioner responsible for the Internal Market, Thierry Breton, expressing their "serious concerns regarding the European Commission's consultation on its proposed guidance on the application of Article 17 of the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market ("the Directive")." The industry groups are worried that implementation of the EU Copyright Directive will provide them with too little protection (pdf):

We are very concerned that, in its Consultation Paper, the Commission is going against its original objective of providing a high level of protection for rightsholders and creators and to create a level playing field in the online Digital Single Market. It interprets essential aspects of Article 17 of the Directive in a manner that is incompatible with the wording and the objective of the Article, thus jeopardising the balance of interests achieved by the EU legislature in Article 17.

In an Annex to the letter, the copyright industries raise four "concerns" with the proposed guidance on the implementation of Article 17. The former MEP Julia Reda, who valiantly led the resistance against the worst aspects of the Copyright Directive during its passage through the EU's legislative system, has answered in detail all of the points in a thread on Twitter. It's extremely clearly explained, and I urge you to read it to appreciate the full horror of what the copyright companies are claiming and demanding. But there is one "concern" of the copyright maximalists that is so outrageous that it deserves to be singled out here. Reda writes:

#Article17 clearly says that legal content must not be blocked. #Uploadfilters can't guarantee that, so rightholders claim that this is fulfilled as long as users have the right to complain about wrongful blocking *after* it has already happened.

This completely goes against what users fought for in the negotiations and what #Article17 says, that it "shall in no way affect legitimate uses". Of course, if all legal parodies, quotes etc. get automatically blocked by #uploadfilters, legitimate uses are affected pretty badly.

The copyright companies and their political friends tricked the European Parliament into voting through Article 17 by claiming repeatedly that it did not require upload filters, which were rightly regarded as unacceptable. Now, the companies are happy to admit that the law's requirement to assess whether uploads are infringing before they are posted -- which can only be done using algorithms to filter out infringing material -- is "practically unworkable". Instead, they want blocking to be the default when there is any doubt, forcing users to go through a process of complaining afterwards if they wish their uploads to appear. Since most people will not know how to do this, or won't have the time or energy to do so, this will inevitably lead to vast amounts of legal material being blocked by filters.

As Reda rightly summarizes:

The entertainment industry is joining forces to push for the worst possible implementation of #Article17, which would not only require out-of-control #uploadfilters without any safeguards, but also violate fundamental rights AND the very text of Article 17 itself.

The EU Copyright Directive's Article 17 already promises to be disastrous for user creativity and freedom of speech in the EU; unfortunately, the proposed EU guidance has some additional aspects that are problematic for end users (pdf), as a group of civil society organizations point out in their own letter to the EU Commissioner. What the industry's demands show once again is that no matter how strong copyright is made, no matter how wide its reach, and no matter how disproportionate the enforcement powers are, publishing, music, film and broadcasting companies always want more. Their motto is clearly: "too much is never enough".

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Filed Under: article 13, article 17, automatic filters, eu copyright directive, filters, memes, upload filters

Dear Americans: Be Very, Very Afraid Of The EU's New Copyright Rules

from the the-closing-of-the-open-internet dept

Former MEP Julia Reda, who lead the fight to block the problematic parts of the EU Copyright Directive (and who came very close to succeeding against huge odds, but eventually lost) has published a really important piece for the Berkman Klein Center at Harvard about why the new Copyright Directive should terrify every American who recognizes the importance of an open internet. First off, these laws mostly target American companies -- many of which may just choose to follow the new EU rules globally.

Not only are European policy-makers keener than their US counterparts to regulate the mostly American tech companies that have gained significant market power over the last two decades. For better or for worse, the European Union has increasingly become capable of setting global regulatory standards, through the inclusion of its internet legislation in trade agreements, or by making compliance with these rules a precondition for accessing the vast EU market of over 500 million consumers.

That also means that the legacy entertainment and publishing industries who pushed so hard for the Copyright Directive in the past, are already looking at using the EU Copyright Directive as a wedge to get this put into the law elsewhere.

There is a tried-and-tested tradition of Hollywood companies lobbying for stricter copyright in Europe, just to turn around to US policy-makers to demand the same extensions be enacted in domestic law, in order to “stay competitive”. This strategy was successful in the case of the Sonny Bono Copyright Act of 1998, which extended copyright terms to 70 years after the death of the author, following a similar term extension in Europe in 1993. The purpose of the term extension, according to the Senate report, was to “provide significant trade benefits by substantially harmonizing U.S. copyright law to that of the European Union”. Of course, the EU would have been unlikely to extend its copyright terms to begin with, had it not been for the lobbying by American entertainment companies. It should therefore not come as a surprise that the US Copyright Office has repeatedly referred to the work on the new EU copyright directive as a reason for considering the overhaul of the US framework for copyright liability of online platforms, enshrined on section 512 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

She then goes on to explain how Article 17 (what had been Article 13) will change the way internet platforms operate -- in a manner that will make it much more difficult for new startups platforms to be created, and where platforms will be forced to make it more difficult for anyone to post their own content. The whole thing will be an absolute mess, with significant litigation early on.

It’s impossible for platform operators to predict which copyrighted works by which rightsholders will be uploaded to their platform. Since copyright arises at the moment that a work is created, nowadays every person with a smartphone is a copyright holder, and most people frequently upload their works to the web (mostly in the form of pictures). It is therefore absolutely impossible for platforms to contact all rightsholders in the world and ask them for a license, on the off chance that one of their works might be uploaded to the platform at some point in the future. The directive is also silent on whether platforms would be forced to accept unfair license conditions at any cost to their own business.

The real effects of Article 17 will depend on the interpretation of “best efforts”. What level of diligence in blocking content, identifying rightsholders and negotiating license agreements can be expected of platforms depends on many factors, including their size, profitability and the types of content they host. Article 17 exposes platform operators to a lot of legal uncertainty and it will take many years for courts to hash out what these rules will mean in practice. The outcome is likely to privilege large, commercial rightsholders like the entertainment industry giants over independent artists.

The full article is worth reading -- highlighting how poorly filters actually work, and how the last minute attempts by EU lawmakers to "protect' user's rights has only resulted in contradictory requirements, which the first country (France) to try to implement a law based on the directive has "solved" by just ignoring the user rights parts.

And get ready, because next year you can bet that entertainment industry lobbyists are going to try to bring that law into the US as well. They're going to try to do it before it becomes evidence just what a complete and utter mess it created in the EU.

Filed Under: article 13, article 17, copyright, eu copyright directive, filters, intermediary liability, julia reda

France, As Promised, Is First Out Of The Gate With Its Awful Copyright Directive Law: Ignores Requirements For User Protections

from the what-a-mess dept

France was the most vocal supporter of the EU Copyright Directive's upload filters provisions (originally known as Article 13, but Article 17 in the final version). Despite promises that the law wouldn't require a filter, right after the Directive passed (which only happened after the French negotiators strong-armed Germany into a questionable deal), French officials promised that it would be be first in line to "transpose" Article 17 into a new law.

While it wasn't quite as quick as they initially promised (there was talk of having it ready last summer), France has now proposed to put Article 17 into law in that country and it's just about as bad as you could possibly imagine. Indeed, the law appears to simply ignore wholesale the already weak requirements that were put into Article 17, promising that the laws would protect user rights. That's not what France was pushing for it. Instead, it was all in on the copyright maximalism, so user rights -- the rights of the public -- can apparently be ignored.

... the audacity with which the proposed French law ignores the safeguards included in the EU copyright directive to protect user rights should be baffling even to the most cynical commentator.

As former MEP Julia Reda notes, the whole thing, top to bottom is pretty crazy, and shows how France thinks about copyright law as a method for enriching the entertainment industry, rather than as a tool to benefit the public:

The new draft law on “audiovisual communication and cultural sovereignty in the digital age” covers a number of different subjects aside from copyright law, including the protection of minors and the regulation of video streaming platforms like Netflix. The title of the proposed law gives a glimpse into the mindset of French legislators, presenting the enforcement of copyright laws in the interest of private entertainment companies as a matter of asserting France’s “cultural sovereignty”. It frames Article 17 as a means to support the European entertainment industry in its conflicts with American tech companies. Users’ interests are at best an afterthought in this struggle for “cultural sovereignty”.

It will comes as no surprise -- even as it is troubling -- the French proposal will create massive problems for smaller internet sites should they wish to host any sort of user-generated content:

Despite assertions by supporters of Article 17 that the law is aimed at huge social media companies like YouTube and Facebook, the French proposal still tries to extend the new obligations to as many platforms as possible. The definition included in section 1 of the proposal is mostly identical to the definition included in the EU copyright directive, which has been criticized for being exceedingly vague. No effort is made to narrow down what is meant by unclear terms from the directive such as “large amounts” of copyrighted content uploaded to a platform. Instead, the French law provides that a decree should define what is considered a large amount.

There is, however, one important change: The definition does not just include platforms that profit directly from user uploads of copyrighted content, but also those that do so indirectly. That could include platforms whose business model is not based on giving access to user uploads of copyrighted content (for example by placing advertisements next to that content), but who nevertheless allow such uploads. One example could be the dating app Tinder, which is based on a freemium business model, where users can pay for extra functionality which gives their dating profiles greater visibility. These profits are clearly not directly derived from giving users access to copyright-protected content, yet without the possibility to upload copyrighted content (pictures), the app clearly would not function, so it could be argued that it derives its profits indirectly from organizing the uploaded pictures.

That bit above is notable because when Julia and others (including us here at Techdirt) raised concerns about how the law might apply to sites like Tinder or others where the content was secondary, we were told that would never happen and the law would clearly not cover such sites. Yet, here we are, and (shocker) the promises we were told turned out to be lies.

Perhaps most incredible is that throughout the negotiations, MEPs tried to put in very weak safeguards here and there to make sure that the worst of what protesters were claiming would be limited. But France just decided to ignore a lot of that and push for what it wanted in the original Directive anyway:

It seems that the French government cherry-picks from the recitals, ignoring the guidance that is supposed to narrow down the definition and only including the parts that widen it. For example, the clarification from the recitals that Article 17 should only apply to platforms that compete with licensed content streaming services for the same audiences (which would clearly exclude platforms like Tinder) is completely missing from the French law.

Also, the French version of the law will require upload filters -- breaking another promise made by supporters of the Directive. Indeed, Reda notes that Germany had promised to work with the other EU states to make sure implementation would not require filters. France's response, apparently, was the French equivalent of "nope."

The French draft law clarifies that rightsholders should be completely free in deciding whether to give a license to a platform, shutting down any efforts such as those discussed in Germany to avoid upload filters by introducing some kind of mandatory licensing solution. Whenever a rightsholder decides not to offer a platform a license, it will therefore have to use upload filters. This is particularly interesting given that the German government announced that it would try to cooperate with other European countries to try to find a solution that doesn’t rely on upload filters. France, one of the largest EU Member States, is clearly not interested in such a solution.

As for the near total lack of user rights in the French transposition proposal, Reda notes that it does have a section entitled "User Rights," but after those two words, it's all downhill:

The only part of this section that’s faithful to the directive is the title. Remember when the European Commission claimed that your memes will be safe? Memes would not be deleted, the Commission argued, because Article 17 makes the exceptions for parody, caricature, pastiche and quotation mandatory and clarifies that Member States have to make sure that users can benefit from these exceptions in practice. It also states that platforms cannot be forced to generally monitor all user uploads (which is necessary for any upload filter) and that legal uploads must not be deleted as a consequence of implementing Article 17.

Well, France “forgot” to mention all of that in its national proposal. The copyright exceptions under French law stay completely unchanged, although they are notoriously patchy and do not cover all situations that may arise on online platforms, such as quoting from a video. France also completely fails to ensure that users can benefit from these exceptions in practice when they upload something to a platform. Instead of ensuring that platforms do not override existing copyright exceptions in their terms and conditions, as the directive requires, the French proposal simply asks platforms to inform users about the existence of copyright exceptions under national law. The decisive parts of Article 17, which state that platforms must allow users to actually benefit from these exceptions, and that such legal content must not be blocked in the first place, are completely missing.

It’s clear from the creatively named “user rights” section of the draft law that copyrighted content gets blocked by default and users can only benefit from copyright exceptions if they complain after their content has already been blocked. Of course, getting your reaction gif or live stream unblocked a couple of days after the fact is completely useless, which explains why very few users ever make use of such complaint mechanisms where they exist. Under the French proposal, platforms have to offer a mechanism to deal with user complaints about blocked content (so the procedure is clearly “block first, ask questions later”).

Oh, and it gets worse. The French proposal makes it even easier for those claiming to be copyright holders to use the law to censor content, ignoring what little protections were baked into the EU Directive:

Rightsholders, unlike what the directive says, do not have to justify their initial requests to block content, but only have to respond once a user challenges the blocking of one of their uploads. During this dispute resolution, the content stays blocked. This opens the door to copyfraud, where companies falsely claim to hold rights in other people’s creations, and the original author has to complain to have their own work unblocked. Although the directive says that all decisions by a platform to block content must be subject to human review, the French proposal only requires this in cases where a user complains after their content has already been blocked. Outrageous mistakes by fully automated upload filters are likely to become a lot more common under this proposal.

To add insult to injury, when users or rightsholders want to complain about the result of the redress mechanism offered by the platform, they are supposed to turn to a new regulator called ARCOM, which is the direct successor of HADOPI, the organization best known for administering the infamous “three strikes” rule, which could block users from accessing the Internet if they repeatedly violated copyright law. This is hardly a regulator that is known for impartially weighing the competing interests of users and rightsholders.

The French proposal still needs to be voted on, though it appears to have pretty widespread support among French officials. Once it does become law, it will almost certainly be challenged in some form or another with cases that eventually make their way to the EU Court of Justice, which will be in charge of determining if the law meets the standards of the EU Copyright Directive. But that could take years, and CJEU rulings may be more narrowly focused as well. In short, France can do a lot of damage in the meantime.

Of course, what's most insane is that most of this damage will be to its own citizens and its own creative community who will now be greatly limited by this ridiculous law.

Filed Under: article 13, article 17, copyright, eu, eu copyright directive, filters, france, upload filters, user rights

Getting Upload Filters Wasn't Enough: EU Copyright Industry Starts Stealth Campaign To Demonize Internet Companies Even More

from the won't-somebody-think-of-the-children? dept

The EU Copyright Directive was supposed to bring copyright into the digital age. Instead, it turned into an attack on the Internet ecosystem by companies that once dominated analog media, and which are still struggling to accept the arrival of online services with a global reach. For example, the upload filters that are unavoidable under Article 13/17 of the Directive are really directed against Google, which ironically won't be much inconvenienced by them. Ordinary people, by contrast, may find their perfectly legal uploads forbidden without explanation. You might think the EU copyright companies would be pretty satisfied now they have this powerful new right to block uploaded materials using automated filters as their proxy, without needing a judge's approval. Not a bit of it. The German Web site Netzpolitik has obtained a leaked document revealing a coordinated campaign by copyright companies to hammer home the message that Internet companies are today's baddies:

politicians at national and European level, as well as officials and judges who have to make decisions and judgments against the five digital monopolists Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple and Microsoft, need to be supported indirectly. The successful enforcement of our rights as broadcasters and press publishers depends on precisely these authorities and court decisions (Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection, EU Competition Commission and [Court of Justice of the European Union], Regional and Higher Regional Courts). The importance of continued information to the wider public has been demonstrated by the adoption of the EU Copyright Directive.

Here are the specific aims and how the copyright companies hope to achieve them:

Objective: To influence the formation of public opinion on dealing with digital monopolists and the resulting indirect training of officials, politicians, judges and decision-makers to make judgments and decisions that ensure that the digital monopolists once more comply with the law. That is: antitrust law, data protection law, laws protecting children and adolescents, tax law, equality laws and the protection of intellectual property.

Selected path: The concerns of originators and their copyright holders, composers, music and press publishers, authors as well as broadcasters and their individual authors, are mentioned, but not highlighted. This problem is presented as one of many, perhaps even larger ones. Only in this way we avoid the comment of critics that we are only concerned with the economic interests of our media companies, rights owners and authors.

So the EU copyright companies want to pretend the campaign is about tackling society's big challenges -- and not about boosting their own profits. After all, that lie worked well enough when used during the vicious lobbying in support of the worst aspects of the Copyright Directive, so why not try it again, but on a larger scale? The new campaign has its own Web site, "Fair Net", which turns the "OK Google" command into a "Not OK" theme. For example:

Not OK, that profits are more important than freedom of speech and the press.

That's rather rich coming from the companies that helped ram through Article 13/17 and Article 11 in the EU Copyright Directive, which do precisely that -- putting copyright companies' profits ahead of freedom of speech and the press. The site's final argument is a classic:

Not OK, that the Internet giants are not doing enough to protect the little ones.

Resorting to this tired old kind of emotional blackmail pretty much sums up this shoddy campaign. It shows that there is no dirty trick that the copyright industry won't stoop to. And it confirms that no matter how many special privileges they are given to ride roughshod over the rights of citizens in an attempt to prop up their outdated business models, they always want more.

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Filed Under: antitrust, article 13, article 17, copyright, for the children, internet companies, propaganda, upload filters

It's On: Details Emerge Of Polish Government's Formal Request For Top EU Court To Throw Out Upload Filters

from the worth-a-try dept

Earlier this year, Techdirt wrote about an intriguing tweet from the account of the Chancellery of the Prime Minister of Poland, which announced: "Tomorrow #Poland brings action against copyright directive to CJEU". The hashtags for the tweet made clear what Poland was worried about: "#Article13 #Article17". However, at that time, no details were forthcoming about this potentially important legal move. It was disappointing that nothing more has been heard about this unexpected development since then -- until now. A notice on the Official Journal of the European Union includes the following: "Case C-401/19: Action brought on 24 May 2019 -- Republic of Poland v European Parliament and Council of the European Union". The corresponding entry indicates that the Polish government believes that the upload filters required by Article 13/17 represent an "infringement of the right to freedom of expression and information" guaranteed by Article 11 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union:

The Republic of Poland claims specifically that the imposition on online content-sharing service providers of the obligation to make best efforts to ensure the unavailability of specific works and other subject matter for which the rightholders have provided the service providers with the relevant and necessary information (point (b) of Article 17(4) of [EU Copyright] Directive 2019/790) and the imposition on online content-sharing service providers of the obligation to make best efforts to prevent the future uploads of protected works or other subject-matter for which the rightsholders have lodged a sufficiently substantiated notice (point (c), in fine, of Article 17(4) of Directive 2019/790) make it necessary for the service providers -- in order to avoid liability -- to carry out prior automatic verification (filtering) of content uploaded online by users, and therefore make it necessary to introduce preventive control mechanisms. Such mechanisms undermine the essence of the right to freedom of expression and information and do not comply with the requirement that limitations imposed on that right be proportional and necessary.

Nothing new there, of course -- it's what Techdirt and many others pointed out repeatedly before the Directive was passed. But what is significant is that this time it is the Polish government that is making this statement, and in a complaint to the EU's highest court, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). As a previous post explained, some are of the view that the key importance of Poland's legal action is that it requires the CJEU to consider the questions raised. That will necessarily include whether upload filters are "proportional and necessary" as a response to the uploading of unauthorized copies by members of the public.

As to the remedies, the Polish government ideally wants points (b) and (c) of the following section of Article 13/17 cancelled:

If no authorisation is granted, online content-sharing service providers shall be liable for unauthorised acts of communication to the public, including making available to the public, of copyright-protected works and other subject matter, unless the service providers demonstrate that they have:

(a) made best efforts to obtain an authorisation, and

(b) made, in accordance with high industry standards of professional diligence, best efforts to ensure the unavailability of specific works and other subject matter for which the rightholders have provided the service providers with the relevant and necessary information; and in any event

(c) acted expeditiously, upon receiving a sufficiently substantiated notice from the rightholders, to disable access to, or to remove from their websites, the notified works or other subject matter, and made best efforts to prevent their future uploads in accordance with point (b).

If, however, the CJEU decides it is not possible to excise just those parts, the Polish government has a fallback position: it asks for Article 13/17 to be annulled in its entirely. It's too early to say whether Poland's request stands any chance of being granted. But it would certainly be rather fun watching the copyright industry go into meltdown if it saw all its lobbying for upload filters undone at a stroke.

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Filed Under: article 13, article 17, blocking, censorship machines, cjeu, copyright, copyright directive, filtering, poland, upload filters

Polish Government's Legal Challenge To EU Copyright Directive's Article 13/17 Remains Shrouded In Mystery, But Details May Not Matter

from the never-say-never dept

The awful Article 13/17 of the EU's Copyright Directive only seems to have passed thanks to some MEPs voting for it by mistake. But the European Parliament was not the only arm of the European Union where there was strong resistance to the awful ideas contained in the upload filter proposal. Some individual governments were also against aspects of the law. For example, right at the end of the legislative process, in April 2019, no less than seven EU nations expressed their serious concerns. One of them was Poland, which issued a joint statement (pdf) with the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Italy and Finland, including the following:

We believe that the Directive in its current form is a step back for the Digital Single Market rather than a step forward.

Most notably we regret that the Directive does not strike the right balance between the protection of right holders and the interests of EU citizens and companies. It therefore risks to hinder innovation rather than promote it and to have a negative impact the competitiveness of the European Digital Single Market.

Furthermore, we feel that the Directive lacks legal clarity, will lead to legal uncertainty for many stakeholders concerned and may encroach upon EU citizens' rights.

We therefore cannot express our consent with the proposed text of the Directive.

Unfortunately, in the final vote, these countries were outvoted by the other EU Member States, and the Directive was passed. However, it seems that is not the end of the story. On May 23, the official Twitter account of the Chancellery of the Prime Minister of Poland tweeted as follows, re-stating the points made in the joint statement:

Tomorrow #Poland brings action against copyright directive to CJEU. Here's why. #Article13 #Article17 #ACTA2

Why is Poland concerned about the Copyright Directive?

The directive does not ensure a balance between the protection of right holders and the interests of EU citizens & EU enterprises.

The directive does not ensure legal clarity, fostering legal uncertainty for stakeholders and endangering the rights of EU citizens.

It could have a negative impact on the competitiveness of the European digital single market.

There is a risk that it will hinder innovations instead of promoting them.

Those criticisms are made even more pointed by the reference to ACTA -- the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement that Polish citizens played an important part in helping to defeat in 2012. Using the hashtag #ACTA2 is a clear attempt to frame the Copyright Directive as more of the same bad stuff -- with the hope that it will suffer the same fate.

And yet despite that tantalizing tweet, the Polish government failed to provide any more details about what exactly its legal challenge against the Copyright Directive at the EU's top court, the Court of Justice of the European Union, (CJEU), involved. We do know that the complaint has been submitted, because the action has been assigned an official case number, C-401/19, but with all the fields containing placeholders at the time of writing.

Tomasz Targosz, from the Institute of Intellectual Property Law, Jagiellonian University Kraków, has written an interesting post on the Kluwer Copyright Blog about the Polish move. In it, he provides invaluable information about the political context for this unexpected development. He points out that the failure to publish the official complaint may indicate that the argument it employs is weak, and unlikely to stand up to expert scrutiny. But Targosz goes on to make the following important point:

No matter how the complaint is argued in terms of the legal quality of reasoning, it may be effective as long as there are no obvious formal errors. The issue at stake will garner so much attention that the arguments the Court will have to consider will go way beyond the initial complaint. We can expect numerous and voluminous publications, position papers, etc., spelling out all the legally relevant factors (especially as so much has been already said). The complaint can therefore be compared to lighting the fuse. Whether any explosion will result from it is not certain, but sometimes even a tiny spark suffices.

That is, it seems likely that now that the formal complaint process has begun, the CJEU will be duty-bound to consider in depth all the issues raised. This will therefore provide a fresh opportunity for people to make the familiar arguments about why the Copyright Directive is so flawed, especially its implicit requirement for upload filters. Moreover, this time it is not fickle and highly partial politicians that will be deciding, but the staid and rather more independent senior judges of the CJEU. As we've seen in the past, they have no hesitation is overturning at a stroke pivotal EU laws that have taken years to draft and pass. Although it's impossible to predict what the CJEU will rule on this matter, it certainly seems that there is still hope that some or all of the Copyright Directive could still be thrown out. For those who feared it was all over, never say never.

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Filed Under: article 13, article 17, cjeu, eu, eu copyright directive, poland

EU Commissioner Gunther Oettinger Admits: Sites Need Filters To Comply With Article 13

from the the-lies-come-out dept

EU Commissioner Gunther Oettinger -- well known for being a bit of a bigoted Luddite -- basically crafted the plan that became the EU Copyright Directive when he was the Commissioner for the "Digital Economy" (despite not knowing anything about it). As you may recall, for many months now, supporters of Article 13 (now Article 17) have insisted that it doesn't require filters. They would shout down anyone who pointed out that it clearly does require filters.

But now that it's passed the EU Parliament, the truth is coming out. Last week, we noted that France's culture minister admitted it required filters to comply (and that he wanted sites to start installing them as soon as possible). And now, Oettinger himself is admitting that filters are required under the Directive (translated via Google):

EU Commissioner Günther Oettinger , also does not believe that the CDU model will prevent the filters. "I am convinced that the guideline sets relatively clear guidelines," says Oettinger. "As things stand, upload filters can not be completely avoided."

What's truly incredible about all of this is just how vehement these guys all were about how the directive didn't require filters and how much they insisted that the complaints about Article 13 were all "disinformation" and "propaganda." Now the truth is coming out. The disinformation and propaganda had been coming from those who pushed for Article 13 in the first place. It's truly incredible that they basically have started admitting this just days after the Parliament's vote.

Filed Under: article 13, article 17, copyright, eu, europe, gunther oettinger