Controversial EU Copyright Directive ‘Could Threaten Internet Freedom’ (YNOT)

Read the full article by Gene Zorkin at YNOT.com

BRUSSELS – In a vote held Wednesday, European Parliament voted 438 to 226 (with 39 abstentions) to adopt a “revised negotiating position” on the controversial EU Copyright Directive. The measure will now proceed to discussions between the EU Parliament and its member states in which they will “hammer out a final deal,” as the Parliament put it in a press release issued Wednesday.

According to its supporters, the new rules embodied in the Directive will “ensure fair pay for artists and journalists in today’s digital world.”

The Directive’s critics see things quite differently, of course. On the mild side of their concerns, Gus Rossi, the Global Policy Director at Public Knowledge, warned that if it is adopted in its most recently-published form, the Directive is “likely to limit the sharing of online information.”

Others have been less measured in their criticism, saying that the Directive represents nothing less than the EU giving up on the “open internet experiment” entirely.

Two articles of the Directive have received most of the focus from its critics: Article 11 and Article 13. Article 11 sports the explanatory subtitle “Protection of press publications concerning digital uses,” while Article 13 is labeled “Use of protected content by information society service providers storing and giving access to large amounts of works and other subject-matter uploaded by their users.”

Depending on whose interpretation you credit, Article 11 is either a “link tax” or a modest licensing fee which will only burden “big platforms.” 

Gene Zorkin has been covering legal and political issues for various adult publications (and under a variety of different pen names) since 2002.