Conversations around the adoption of GDPR do not subside. For all these discussions about the pros, cons, pitfalls and holes in the new regulations on the protection of personal data, many have not paid attention to another document, which in a month will go to the European Parliament - a
new directive on the protection of copyright .
It imposes strict restrictions on the distribution of content in the network and involves several changes in the work of the platforms, and in the lives of users. We understand what will change, why it is important and how it may affect the future of the Internet.
/ photo Horia Varlan CC BYWhat's the matter?
The EU copyright law is rather conservative - the last directive was adopted in 2004. Since then, content distribution practices have changed a lot - we create, share, sell, buy and use a variety of artifacts that are protected by copyright.
A few years ago, a working group appeared in the European Parliament, which began to develop a new directive more in line with the current state of affairs. The main task of the updated copyright law is to help content creators (primarily music) to confront platforms like Youtube and Dailymotion and protect their intellectual property rights.
A draft of the new directive appeared in 2016. Even then, many, both from the state and from society and business, had doubts
whether the law would work in its current form.
But, despite the year of productive work on improving the document, last week Alex Voss, the new deputy of the European Parliament, in charge of revising the copyright law, drastically changed his predecessor's position and returned to the old draft, containing
many controversial points .
The main problem is Article 13, the name of which has practically become a household name.
What is "article 13"
The article prescribes that the platforms themselves, on which users place content, should monitor their activity and filter content in order to detect and prevent copyright infringement.
Moreover - if the law is still adopted, companies that store and give other users access to a large number of very different user content that is distributed in violation of copyright will themselves be fully responsible before the law for this violation.
The solution for companies is an automatic filtering and content blocking system that infringes copyright and is installed on all platforms.
What's wrong?
In fact, similar automatic filters, which are proposed to be made mandatory, are already using some services. For example, Youtube - their Content ID system allows holders of rights to a work to check the entire Youtube content base and then decide what to do with each specific case of “reusing” their content. The user can either block the entire video, or monetize it, receiving income from advertising and even sharing it with those who uploaded the video. He can also see statistics on the views of other people's videos with his content.
The automatic Youtube filter still invites rights holders to decide for themselves what to do with the video where their content is used, while Article 13 shifts this responsibility to the platforms. In addition, the results of the filters are a vivid demonstration of all the problems that the entire Internet will face if they are made mandatory: there are a lot of
cases with improper operation of filters and using them for other purposes.
/ photo Dennis van der Heijden CC BYIn addition, it is unclear exactly how automatic filtering will be implemented at the platform level. The law requires that the platform must “prevent accessibility” of content downloaded in violation of copyright. In other words, companies will face a task that is worse than complying with their GDPR privacy policy - they will have to develop a technology that can distinguish content downloaded by the author from content downloaded by someone else. And any content - fragments of music, images, videos, texts, and so on.
From the point of view of the law, everything is not so smooth either - article 13 directly
contradicts the European Online Commerce Directive, which establishes a limited service liability for copyright infringement of content.
How do content creators and business respond?
The real extent of the consequences is almost impossible to imagine. For example, not only the performance of the Internet is at stake, but the whole cultural layer - parodies, memes, remixes, reviews and other formats, where someone else’s content is used (partially or completely) to create something new.
A struggle is unfolding on the Internet, with the GDPR being used as an example of a law that was not sufficiently disputed two years ago, and now everyone has to put up with the results. The reform of copyright law can still be stopped, some
say . Even the creators themselves, whose rights the law allegedly protects, also oppose Article 13 with the slogan "Creativity for Copyright."
Many are concerned about a possible violation of freedom of speech - for example, six European states (Belgium, the Czech Republic, Finland, Hungary, Ireland and the Netherlands)
asked the Legal Service of the Council of the European Union
for clarification whether Article 13 of the Charter on Human Rights contradicts.
Cases of using copyright law have already been used to remove something from the Internet - for example, last year in the UK,
Google erased a thread where users complained about an unscrupulous contractor. When the accusations of defamation did not work, the contractor claimed copyright infringement: in the thread, users posted photos of repairs and interiors "without a license to use the result of intellectual work" of the designers who invented them.
Business is also expected to be concerned: because of Article 13, not only the rights and practices of content distribution, which have become the basis of the modern Internet, are threatened, but also the
existence of services like Vimeo or Pinterest.
By the way, article 13 is not the only problem of copyright reform. Article 11 is
devoted to the so-called “
link tax ” - in this part, the draft law obliges platforms (social networks, news aggregators, etc.) to receive the right to distribute news content from publishers. For example, if Facebook does not have commercial arrangements with The Guardian, Facebook can receive a claim from the publisher, if a user publishes a link to the The Guardian article on their page with a automatically loaded snippet.
Similar laws have already been tested in some European countries, but the results were deplorable - for example, in Spain, small publishers, for whose support the law was adopted (ideally, they would receive money for distributing their content on other platforms and grow)
lost audiences because news aggregators were not profitable to cooperate with them.
What's next
For now, the reform of the copyright law is not yet a resolved matter. Around June 20, the draft will be considered by the European Parliament.
However, judging by preliminary estimates, the alignment is not in favor of the Internet - representatives of most European powers are in favor of accepting Article 13.
PS What else do we write in the First blog about corporate IaaS:
PPS Some materials on the topic from our blog on Habré: