German Officials Think German Citizens Need Less Security, More Encryption Backdoors

from the GET-OFF-THE-WORLD-STAGE dept

There's another player on the world's anti-encryption stage. Some German government officials apparently feel it's OK for people to have encryption, but not secure encryption. The German government is exploring the idea of asking forcing tech companies to backdoor their encrypted communications platforms, presumably for the greater good of insecure humanity.

Government officials in Germany are reportedly mulling a law to force chat app providers to hand over end-to-end encrypted conversations in plain text on demand.

According to Der Spiegel this month, the Euro nation's Ministry of the Interior wants a new set of rules that would require operators of services like WhatsApp, Signal, Apple iMessage, and Telegram to cough up plain-text records of people's private enciphered chats to authorities that obtain a court order.

This is a move designed for efficiency, not security. German law enforcement is limited to pulling communications from seized devices currently -- one of the few places where encrypted communications can be found in plain text. Of course, device encryption is a thing these days, so this option is rapidly becoming about as productive as demanding tech companies hand over communications they don't actually store in plain text.

Something's got to give and it seems it won't be the government doing any compromising. But it won't be an easy push for anti-encryption legislators. Opponents within and without the government are expected to push back hard on this dangerous idea.

The new rules are set to be discussed by the members of the interior ministry in an upcoming June conference, and are likely to face stiff opposition not only on privacy grounds, but also in regard to the technical feasibility of the requirements.

As is always the case when encryption is on the line, those pushing for backdoors are claiming this not-all-that-new method of shielding stuff from prying eyes (the government's included) has done little but allow criminals and terrorists to operate with impunity. And as is always the case when these claims are made, zero evidence is presented that supports these theories.

One fact, however, cannot be ignored: a handful of European governments have pitched encryption backdoors over the past several years. But so far, not a single one has managed to actually implement such a mandate.

Filed Under: backdoors, encryption, germany

German Political Leader Questions YouTubers' Right To Tell Fans Not To Vote For Her Party, Urgently Summons Her Advisers In Response -- By Fax

from the doof-doof-doof dept

One of the many ugly aspects of the Article 13/17 disaster is the way that politicians not only ignored the concerns of millions of EU citizens, but actively insulted them, describing them as "bots" or Google "astroturfing". As Mike noted at the time, treating people with contempt, shortly before the main elections for the European Parliament, was not a wise move. German politicians were particularly contemptuous of young voters, and the latter did not forget. The mainstream German political parties -- the center-right CDU and CSU, and the center-left SDP -- were trashed in the recent elections, largely because very few young people voted for them. The German Greens, by contrast, had their best results yet.

One person who may have helped to bring that about is the YouTuber Rezo. Shortly before the EU vote, he released a 55-minute "personal rant" entitled, "The destruction of the CDU" (in German). In its first week, it had been viewed over 12 million times, and attracted over 180,000 comments. Despite its title, it is not just an anti-CDU polemic, but details the failure of all the mainstream German parties to address key issues -- notably the climate crisis, but also poverty, German support for US militarism, and Article 13. It urged German viewers to vote -- but not for the CDU, CSU, SDP or the extreme right-wing AfD. A few days later, over 90 fellow YouTubers joined Rezo in making the same call in a shorter video (in German).

The general view seems to be that the action of these top YouTubers probably caused many more young Germans to think and talk about the issues raised by the elections for the European Parliament, and then to go out and vote, than anything in the country's history. Against a background of general cynicism and lack of political engagement in the EU, you might expect this initiative to be celebrated as an amazing achievement, and something to be emulated in future elections.

Nope.

Here's what Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, leader of the CDU, said about those YouTubers who offered their views on which party people should vote for:

What would actually have happened in this country, if a group of 70 newspaper editorials had made a joint appeal two days before the election: "please do not vote for the CDU or the SPD". That would have been a clear case of spin before the election, and would have led to heated debates in this country. And the question arises with regard to the issue of spin: what exactly are the rules from the analog domain, and which rules apply to the digital sector, yes or no? That's a question we will discuss. And that's why this discussion will be very aggressive.

In other words, how dare these impertinent youngsters criticize what their elders and betters are doing? Let's bring in some new rules for the Internet to stop that happening again.

But this isn't cynical "spin": it's just Rezo offering his opinion -- take it or leave it. It's what newspaper editorials and columnists do every day, and everybody accepts that as a useful and valid part of political discourse. What Kramp-Karrenbauer is really complaining about is the fact that YouTube represents an alternative to the established media outlets she knows how to handle. Frighteningly for the CDU, YouTube is not only a medium that it and the other parties can't control, employing the usual political and economic levers, it's one they struggle even to understand. For example, as the Guardian reported, one CDU supporter tweeted about Rezo: "This young man is spreading an endless stream of fake news and is populist down to the tips of his blue hair" (original in German). But Rezo's video is not only a brilliant demonstration of how to use YouTube in an extremely persuasive way, it also comes with a Google document containing hundreds of references and citations of scientific literature backing up his claims, making it the diametric opposite of "fake news".

It's clear the traditional politicians and their old friends in mainstream media simply don't know how to counter this kind of sweary but fact-based attack, using a powerful medium that costs practically nothing to produce and that can reach and influence a million people in a few hours. So, in order to discuss this troubling new high-tech threat that contributed to the humiliating drubbing her party received in the European Parliament elections, the CDU's Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer has organized a meeting of her most trusted political advisers.

The invitations were sent by fax.

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Filed Under: afd, annegret kamp-karrenbauer, cdu, csu, eu, eu parliament, germany, rezo, sdp, videos, voters, youtube
Companies: youtube

Apples Only For Apple: Apple Opposes A German Bicycle Path

from the apfel dept

Apple, the company, has long made it known that it believes that only it can use an apple, the fruit, in a corporate logo. This rather incorrect belief has led the company down some rather silly trademark roads, including disputes with all kinds of companies in unrelated industries, as well as disputes with some political parties for some reason. It's all been delightfully insane and all led by Apple's insistence that it has trademark rights that are far more broad than is the reality.

But just when you think it can't get more absurd, Apple goes ahead and files an opposition and sends out cease and desist notices...over a German bicycle path. I fear some explanation may be necessary.

Apple recently objected to the logo of a new German cycling path in an appeal filed with the German Patent and Trademark Office, according to German outlets General-Anzeiger Bonn and Westdeutscher Rundfunk.  Apple reportedly takes issue with the logo's green leaf and supposed "bitten" right side, attributes the company believes are too similar to its own logo.

The logo, registered with the German Patent and Trademark Office in 2018, was designed for a new cycling path named Apfelroute that is set to open in the Rhine-Voreifel region of Germany on May 19. Rhine-Voreifel Tourism has already used the logo on uniforms, bike racks, cycling maps, banners, signposts, and more.

So, a green leaf and a bitten right side of the logo sure do sound specific. Perhaps you're already conjuring some picture of the Apfelroute logo in your head, imagining there to be some reasonable impression possible of likeness. Maybe you're thinking, hey, no way would Apple's lawyers fire off these notices to a German bike path unless this was really egregious, right?

Here's the logos. You tell me.

Any sane viewing of those logos should not result in any confusion, plain and simple. And that's just on the logos, without any context. When you add into the equation that trademark laws generally protect specific marks within specific industries and, in this case, the two "competitors" are one of the largest consumer electronics companies in the world and a local German tourism organization for a bike path, then we can put this whole story flatly in the category of the absurd.

Yes, some will take issue with the specific shape and angle of the leaf on the top of Apfelroute's apple. But if that's the best you can do concerning to logos that are so plainly different, such complaints say more about you than they do the logos themselves.

Filed Under: apple, bicycle path, germany, likelihood of confusion, trademark
Companies: apple

German Publishing Giant Claims Blocking Ads Is Copyright Infringement, In Yet Another Lawsuit Against The Industry Leader

from the actually,-no,-it-doesn't dept

For over a decade, some Web sites have been moaning about adblockers. The German publishing giant Axel Springer hates them. It has been pursuing Eyeo, the company behind Adblock Plus, through the courts in Germany for years, accusing it of unfair competition. Here's how that turned out for the publisher, as reported by Eyeo on its blog:

Axel Springer publishing house has been trying to get ad blocking declared illegal. We beat them in the regional courts, we beat them in the appeals court, so they took us to the supreme court in Germany to try their luck a third time.

A year ago, Axel Springer lost at Germany's supreme court.

Of course, big publishers don't let little things like losing court cases at every level of the legal system stop them from pursuing their attack. As the Heise Online site explains (original in German), Axel Springer is suing Eyeo yet again, this time for alleged copyright infringement (via Google Translate):

"Advertising blockers change the programming code of websites and thus directly access the legally protected offerings of publishers," explains Claas-Hendrik Soehring, Head of Media Law at Axel Springer. "In the long run, they will not only damage a central financing basis for digital journalism but will also jeopardize open access to opinion-forming information on the Internet "

As Eyeo's company spokesperson pointed out to Heise Online, this claim is ridiculous. Adblocking software operates within a person's browser; it simply changes what appears on the screen by omitting the ads. It's no different from resizing a browser window, or modifying a Web page's appearance using one of the hundreds of other browser plugins that are available. It's completely under the control of the user, and doesn't touch anything on the server side. The fact that Axel Springer is making such a technically illiterate argument shows that it is now desperately scraping the barrel of legal arguments. Maybe it's time for the German publisher to accept that users have the right to format the Web pages they view in any way they like -- and that adblocking software is perfectly legal.

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Filed Under: ad blocking, adblock, copyright, germany
Companies: adblock, axel springer, eyeo

German Government's Bullying Of FOI Group Provides A Warning Of How EU's New Upload Filters Will Be Used For Censorship

from the making-life-for-whistleblowers-even-harder dept

One of the many concerns about the upload filters of the EU's Copyright Directive is that they could lead to censorship, even if that is not the intention. The problem is that once a filtering mechanism is in place to block unauthorized copies of materials, it is very hard to stop its scope being widened beyond copyright infringement. As it happens, the German government has just provided a good example of the kind of abuse that is likely to become a commonplace.

FragDenStaat -- literally "ask the State" -- is a German freedom of information (FOI) organization. It obtained and published a six-page report about the herbicide glyphosate. The document was written by the Federal Institute for Risk Assessment, a publicly-funded body that provides scientific advice to Germany's federal government on issues relating to things like food, product, and chemical safety, as well as consumer health protection. Even though the report was paid for by the German public, obtained legally -- and can still be requested by anyone -- FragDenStaat is not allowed to distribute it. The Regional Court in Cologne has ruled that would be an infringement of the German State's copyright, and ordered it to be taken down. FragDenStaat says it will appeal -- to the Court of Justice of the European Union, if necessary -- and comments:

The federal government abuses copyright law to prevent the publication of public interest documents. This is possible because German copyright law is hopelessly outdated. We believe that copyright law should ensure that tax-financed documents such as the Glyphosat report may be used freely. But in contrast, the German government wants to tighten copyright law further, which will further reduce the amount of information the public receives about important topics like this.

Leaving aside the issue that all such reports funded by the public should by freely available unless there are very good reasons to withhold them -- not the case here -- there is the particularly troubling aspect of this bullying of FragDenStaat by the German government. At the moment, there is little to stop copies of this document being requested, then uploaded and shared around the Internet. But once the EU Copyright Directive's upload filters have been installed, it will be easy for the German government to require sites to block these attempts. The fact that the authorities were willing to waste money taking FragDenStaat to court over a six-page document suggests they won't hesitate for a second to use upload filters to block sharing.

It won't just be governments. It is inevitable that leaked documents showing evidence of wrong-doing by companies will be blocked on all the major sites once upload filters are available. No court order is required, so it will become the first thing companies trying to hide their dirty washing will do. Upload filters will not only cause legitimate material produced by Internet users to be blocked by over-cautious online platforms, it will also make life even harder for whistleblowers to expose the truth about corporate crimes and misdeeds. How convenient.

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Filed Under: copyright directive, eu, europe, filtering, freedom of information, germany

The EU's Catastrophic Copyright Directive Can Still Be Stopped, If Governments Of Sweden And Germany Do The Right Thing

from the last-chance-to-save-the-Internet-as-we-know-it dept

Last week, the EU's Copyright Directive was passed by the European Parliament. Its supporters have wasted no time in dropping the mask, and revealing their true intent: installing upload filters on the Internet. First, France's Minister of Culture announced a "mission to promote and supervise content recognition technologies". More recently, EU Commissioner Günther Oettinger has confirmed that upload filters will be unavoidable. It's cold comfort that those who said that Article 13 (now officially Article 17) would inevitably bring in upload filters have now been proved right.

However, it turns out that the situation is not completely hopeless. Even though the vote in the European Parliament was the main hurdle the new copyright law needed to clear, there is one more stamp of approval required before it goes into effect. The little-known EU Council of Ministers must also agree, and it seems that is not a foregone conclusion.

Everything hinges on Sweden. As an article on the Bahnhof site (original in Swedish) explains, Sweden has previously voted in favor of the EU Copyright Directive, but can still change its mind. One way of achieving that is through a special parliamentary committee that helps to formulate Sweden's EU policy. The Swedish government's Web page about the committee says:

According to the rules, the Government is not obliged to act in compliance with the Committee on EU Affairs' opinions. However, the Committee on the Constitution has stated that the Government should act in compliance with the Committee's advice and opinions. The Committee on the Constitution has also stressed that if the Government does not act in compliance with the mandate it has received from the Committee on EU Affairs, it must have very good reasons for its actions.

If the Government does not follow the mandate given to it by the Committee on EU Affairs, it risks criticism, and ultimately, a vote of no confidence in the Chamber of the Riksdag [Swedish parliament].

Bahnhof's blog post is encouraging Swedish citizens to contact MPs on the EU Affairs Committee to ask them to instruct the Swedish government to vote against the EU Copyright Directive when it is discussed on April 15 at a meeting of EU agricultural ministers -- no, really (pdf). Two leading MPs have already said that they will work towards that goal. Tomas Tobé, Second Vice Chairman of Sweden's EU Affairs Committee tweeted (in Swedish, translated here by Microsoft): "We will force the government to say no. They did not have the mandate to say yes." Another key MP, Ilona Waldau, said on the same Twitter thread: "The European Council has not had the opportunity to make a decision, I answer the question how we should be able to get the government to say no. We are working on bringing the issue to the board."

As that indicates, it's not clear yet whether Sweden's EU Council will instruct the Swedish government to vote against the EU Copyright Directive, so nothing is certain. Moreover, as Florian Mueller points out, for the Copyright Directive to be blocked, Germany would also need to vote against it:

Even with Sweden changing its vote from Yes to No, we're still far short of a blocking minority as I'll explain further below. But Germany could single-handedly block the deal (as could the UK, by the way, though there's little hope of that happening). A Swedish reversal would embolden and encourage those who'd like the German government to withdraw its support.

Mueller's blog post goes on to explain why there are good grounds for believing that Germany might do that. Julia Reda of the Pirate Party says that the German parliament will be debating the issue soon. All-in-all, this means that there is still hope that the EU Copyright Directive can be blocked, although it would require a number of pieces of the political puzzle to fall into place perfectly for that to happen.

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Filed Under: article 13, copyright, copyright directive, europe, germany, sweden

New Report: Germany Caved To France On Copyright In A Deal For Russian Gas

from the horse-trading:-the-public-internet-for-russian-gas dept

In the hours leading up to the vote in the EU Parliament on the EU Copyright Directive, the German publication FAZ (which has been generally supportive of the Directive) has released quite a bombshell (in German), suggesting that the reason Germany caved to France on its terrible demands concerning copyright was in order to get France's approval of the controversial Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia.

If you don't recall, the German delegation had actually pushed back on the more extreme versions of Article 13 -- and, in particular, had demanded that a final version have a clear carve-out for smaller companies, so as not to have them forced out of business by the onerous demands of the law. However, after some back and forth, Germany caved in to France's demands, with many left scratching their heads as to why. However, some noted the "coincidence" in timing, that right after this, France also withdrew its objections to the pipeline which is very controversial in the EU (and the US, which is threatening sanctions).

FAZ notes that there were whispered rumors about Germany and France basically trading these two proposals, with Germany effectively selling out the open public internet in exchange for easier access to Russian gas. However, it has now seen documents that support this claim. Germany's economic minister, Peter Altmaier apparently promised startups that Germany would not cave on its promise to create a carve-out for all companies with less than 20 million euros in revenue per year -- only to drop that demand the very next day.

According to FAZ, the French delegation directly suggested the idea of France backing away from its opposition to the Nord Stream 2 pipeline if Germany backed away from its concerns about Article 13. And, voila, within days, Germany gave up on its demands regarding Article 13 and, a few days later, France switched sides and agreed to support the pipeline. So, as the German MEPs go to the polls tomorrow, we'll see if they think it was a fair deal to sell out the public internet in exchange for some Russian gas.

Filed Under: article 13, copyright, eu copyright directive, france, germany, internet, nord stream 2, oil, pipelines, russia

Huge Protests Across Europe Protest Article 13; Politician Lies And Claims They Were Paid To Be There

from the not-bots dept

As expected, people took to the streets in the EU this week to protest the EU Copyright Directive, the censorship filters of Article 13, and the snippet tax in Article 11. Most of the protests took place in Germany, where reports are that over 150,000 protesters showed up to let their elected officials know that this law is a disaster (other reports put the number closer to 200,000 protesters).

Indeed, things got so crazy, that the Berlin police announced that there were way more people than expected, and protesters needed to change their planned route to roads that could better accommodate such a large crowd.

Many of the signs included memes, or the statement "we are not bots," which appears to have confused some in the media, such as DW.com, which claimed people said: "banners included the phrase "We are not bots," a reference to robotic-like social media posts." Uh, no. The reference to "we are not bots" is in direct response to supporters of Article 13 lying and claiming that all of the arguments against Article 13 were simply coming from internet bots as a way to discount the concerns of millions of EU residents as well as those of us around the world.

Of course, what happens when the politicians who insisted it was "just bots" arguing against Article 13 have to contend with the fact that at least 150,000 real live humans showed up on their doorstep to protest? They just keep lying. German MEP Daniel Caspary, who chairs the large CDU/CSU group in the EU Parliament told a German publication a completely made up lie -- reminiscent of the kind of "fake news" propaganda that has been used elsewhere, that all of the protesters were actually paid to be there. He literally called them "bought protesters" and said that a non-profit organization offered protesters €450 to show up at the protest. And then insisted that this was all a threat to democracy (per the translation):

"Now it is obviously being attempted to prevent the adoption of copyright even with bought protesters. Up to 450 euros are offered by a so-called NGO for the demonstrators. The money seems to come, at least partially, from major American Internet corporations. When American corporations with massive use of disinformation and bought protesters try to prevent laws, our democracy is under threat. "

Think about that for a second. A major political leader is so infatuated with his false belief that real people couldn't possibly be upset about the plan to fundamentally move away from an open internet, that he insists Google must have paid the protesters €450 each to show up. That's insane, and nothing that any elected official should be saying. Journalist Emanuel Karlsten looked into the details of this and found that Caspary had taken a completely different bit of information and used it to attack the integrity of all the protesters. What had really happened was a few weeks earlier, the digital rights organization EDRi had offered to cover travel costs for a small number of activists to come talk to MEPs. It was not for the demonstrations, but for a small group of activists, who otherwise could not afford to meet the MEPs in person, to travel. Somewhere around a dozen such grants were made and it allowed this small group of folks to meet with MEPs last week, totally unrelated to the protests.

As more and more people started calling out Caspary, he refused to correct his misleading statement for an entire day, before insisting that everyone misunderstood him and he never really meant that all demonstrators got paid. However, the "statement" he links to is simply more pro-Article 13 propaganda, insisting that the protesters cannot be taken seriously because some idiot sent Axel Voss a death threat. Meanwhile, Caspary's own thread -- that he insists is clarifying his position -- then immediately says we should still criticize financial support for those seeking to lobby politicians. He says that as if the lobbyists in favor of Article 13 didn't also provide "financial support" for some musicians and creators to go lobby them as well. It is standard practice for NGOs to pay travel costs for activists to present their position before elected officials, because otherwise politicians would only hear from lobbyists, and not from the actual people. This happens on all sides of every issue -- and it's not paying them for their testimony, but for their travel expenses to get somewhere they couldn't otherwise go.

So I'm curious if Caspary will now agree to discount any lobbying he heard in favor of Article 13 from artists who received travel support to go see him too? Or does his position only cover the other side?

Meanwhile, as Communia noted, in quite a contrast, at the same time as these protests were happening across Germany and elsewhere, in France, supporters of Article 13 -- the execs from collection societies who stand to profit (literally) the most from the passage of Article 13 -- gathered to drink champagne and hold up little yellow pieces of paper in support of the law:

You really should click to open the images and to see the contrast. Thousands upon thousands of people take to the streets to protest against a law that will close off the open internet, while those who will profit from such a closed internet sip champagne at a private party and smile meekly while holding up pieces of paper in support of screwing over the public. How nice.

Either way, no matter what lies politicians tell themselves, they might want to think about so many people coming out to protest over this issue, especially given that the next EU Parliamentary elections are in just a few months. Or will they just claim that Google paid them to vote, too?

All images in this post come from Netzpolitik, which says they are free for anyone to use -- which may only be true until Article 13 is enacted into law, at which point, it would be an impossible liability risk to continue posting them on most sites.

Filed Under: article 11, article 13, bots, copyright, daniel caspary, eu, eu copyright directive, filters, germany, protests

The 2012 Web Blackout Helped Stop SOPA/PIPA And Then ACTA; Here Comes The 2019 Version To Stop Article 13

from the how-to-make-bad-ideas-politically-toxic dept

Remember SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect IP Act)? Back in 2012, they threatened to cause widespread damage to the online world by bringing in yet more extreme and unbalanced measures against alleged copyright infringement. Things looked pretty bad until a day of massive online protest was organized on January 18, 2012, with thousands of sites partially or totally blacked out. Politicians were taken aback by the unexpected scale of the anger, and their support for SOPA and PIPA crumbled quickly. That success fuelled protests in Europe against ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement), which also sought to bring in harsh measures against online infringement. After tens of thousands of people took part in street demonstrations across Europe, many politicians wanted nothing to do with the by-now toxic proposal, and it was voted down in the European Parliament in July 2012.

As Techdirt pointed out last year, the proposed EU Copyright Directive is even worse than ACTA. As such it clearly merits serious, large-scale action of the kind that stopped SOPA/PIPA and ACTA. And it's happening. The German-language version of Wikipedia, the second-largest by number of articles, has announced the following (original in German):

On Thursday, March 21, the German-language edition of the online encyclopedia will be shut down completely for 24 hours. In this way, Wikipedia activists want to send a signal, in particular against the introduction of the controversial Articles 11 and 13 in the [EU's] copyright reform.

It is expected that a number of other major sites will be joining in the protest. Meanwhile, another German organization is campaigning against Article 13. In an open letter to MEPs, its supporters write:

We are the operators and administrators of more than 400 German-language discussion forums with more than 18 million members. We are united by the great concern that the EU Copyright Directive will endanger the existence of our forums and thus the discussion culture on the Internet.

The public discussion on the EU Copyright Directive revolves almost exclusively around YouTube and other large US platforms. In doing so, we lose sight of the fact that discussion forums of all sizes will also be affected by the new directive.

That's an important point. Supporters of Article 13 try to give the impression that only deep-pocketed companies like Google will be hit by the new law. As the discussion forum operators point out, their organizations will not be exempt from the requirements of the EU Copyright Directive. Its effects will be devastating:

Because of these uncertainties and the legal and financial liability risk, many discussion forums will close, as small associations or voluntary operators cannot bear this situation. Commercial operators are also endangered in their existence if they have to conclude fee-based licenses and are obliged to install expensive upload filters.

Uncertain regulations for us means years of legal uncertainty, legal risk and potential legal costs, which no operator can afford in the long run as forums usually do not generate a large amount of revenue.

As a result, the discussion culture on the European Internet will be severely impaired, and many citizens will lose their digital home in discussion forums.

Internet startups in the EU will face the same insurmountable problems thanks to Article 13's impossible demands. Many will be forced to shut down. It's an irony that many have already pointed out. A law that supporters claim is designed to tackle the disproportionate power of companies like Google and Facebook will end up entrenching them more deeply, and wiping out much of the EU's own digital ecosystem. Let's hope 2019's big blackout grabs people's attention as the one in 2012 did, and that MEPs drop Article 13 just as they dropped ACTA.

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Filed Under: article 11, article 13, copyright, eu, eu copyright directive, eu parliament, europe, germany, march 21, protests
Companies: wikimedia, wikipedia

German Government Confirms That Article 13 Does Mean Upload Filters, Destroying Claims To The Contrary Once And For All

from the now-delete-it-from-the-text dept

Techdirt has just written about an important intervention by the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression in the debate about Article 13 of the proposed EU Copyright Directive. David Kaye said that most Internet sites "would face legal pressure to install and maintain expensive content filtering infrastructure to comply with the proposed Directive." Despite the evident expertise of Kaye in this area, some may try to dismiss this clear condemnation of Article 13 as the UN interfering in a legislative process that really only concerns the Member States of the EU, and no one else. That makes the following official reply by Christian Lange, Parliamentary State Secretary to the German Federal Minister of Justice and Consumer Protection, to a question submitted by a member of Germany's national parliament, rather significant:

In the [German] federal government's view it appears likely that algorithmic measures will have to be taken in connection with large volumes of data for practical reasons alone.

That translation of the original German comes from Florian Mueller, who has written a blog post (in English) about the political background and significance of this statement. He notes that it appears in the well-respected German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, "that used to spread the no-upload-filter propaganda [but] now considers it ridiculous to deny that Article 13 involves upload filters." So the appearance of this confirmation that Article 13 will indeed require "algorithmic measures" -- AKA upload filters -- in a serious German newspaper represents an important moment in the continuing battle to get MEPs to understand the damage this measure will cause, and to prevent it.

It is now inarguable that Article 13 will require the deployment of upload filters across many sites in the EU. The UN Special Rapporteur David Kaye has warned that upload filters put freedom of expression under threat, and harm creators and artists the most. Putting those two together means that any European politician supporting Article 13 is inevitably attacking a fundamental human right in the EU, and making life worse for artists. With just two weeks before the final vote in the European Parliament, now would be a really good time for EU citizens to ask their MEPs whether they are happy to be remembered for that, or would rather help to remove Article 13 completely.

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Filed Under: article 13, censorship, christian lange, copyright, eu, eu copyright directive, filters, germany, upload filters