The Dawn of a Major Clampdown of the Internet?

The Dawn of a Major Clampdown of the Internet?

Towards a world with link taxes and copyright trolls

12 Sept 2018 could go down as the day that started the first major censorship of the Internet, and a forthcoming vote may seal its fate. For many companies who host user-created content, it could go down as the one where they started to apply filters on the material that users post.

Here is a quote from the EFF [link]:

Now that Article 13 has not a single friend in the world, save for a single, lonely German MEP, maybe it’s time we stopped holding the future of European copyright to ransom for the sake of a few recording companies who are willing to sacrifice the free expression of 500,000,000 Europeans to eke out a few more points of profit.

Most content which is be shared will not have to go through strict copyright filters, and risk automatic deletion. The rise of the copyright trolls and on the licencing of content is thus on the horizon. If you share anyone elses content, you could be receiving a solicitor’s letter in the post.

Overall the EU is trying to create a fair digital market-place — a common digital market — and where the abuses of major Cloud providers — such as Google scanning books without the permission of authors or publishers — can be addressed This will harmonise laws across the EU. But it actually risks taking away the freedoms of users, and for the Internet to be policed by the large Cloud providers, and stop smaller EU-businesses from hosting content.

On 5 July 2018, the European Parliament voted on a law related copyright rules (Article 13), and it was voted down. A new vote on 12 Sept 2018 proposed a revised version, and was successful. There will now be a final vote in January 2019, but many think it will pass through without any problems.

Within it, content hosting companies, such as Google and Microsoft, will have to install filters which block copyrighted material. While the law aims to improve the payments to the creators of copyrighted material, many feel that it will put barriers on the freedom to publish on the Internet. The articles include:

• Article 3. An exception of copyrighting for data mining and for scientific research.
• Article 4. This includes an exclusion for teaching, and where educational institutes can use copyrighted material for non-commercial purposes. Many worrying here that the term “education institutes” could be too limited, and may cut-out third sector organisations.
• Article 11. With this publishers of content will have direct copyright over press articles. Areas exempt include academic/scientific work, and focuses on press publishing rather than academic publishing. The focus of this is to stop organisations who use “news aggregators” — such as Google — but it is likely to suppress a range of organisations who regularly post news items (as they will now need a licence for posting). For many the press benefit from the exposure of posting, and that this article could suppress the dissemination of news.
• Article 13. With this on-line content platforms will be responsible for receiving permission from copyright owners for uploaded content. Excluded from this are files uploaded for user’s/business’s own usage, and educational and scientific repositories. It is this article which could apply automated filters on a large-scale basis, and that this will benefit large companies with the resources to apply these filters, and damage many smaller businesses, along with suppressing collaboration on social media from the scientific community.
• Article 15. This focuses on digital content creators being supported for increasing their remuneration in areas where it is currently low. Many publishers saw digital content as an add-on to existing royalties from printed content, and reduced the sharing of the income. In this article, authors would have the right to cancel agreements where it is proven to be disadvantageous.

Those posting on social media would thus have to be careful in adding pictures of film stars or movies, as these could be -and are likely to be — copyrighted. Some internet leaders, including Tim Berners-Lee and Jimmy Wales (founder of Wikipedia), have defined that the new copyright rules will be a backward step, and that Internet will become a place of automated surveillance, and where content is controlled.

Many feel also feel that the large US cloud content providers — such as Facebook and Youtube — will be able to afford the new filtering methods, but that smaller companies will find it difficult to police, and that the growing monopoly of large social media companies will actually increase, and thus stifle innovation. Academic experts across Europe have also criticised the article and that it would:

“likely impede the free flow of information that is of vital importance to democracy”

Another provision in the proposed law defines that Cloud Content providers must pay a tax on new items shared as a link (Article 11), and where even the sharing of a title to a news link would require a licence to share. While aimed at the likes of Google who have mass harvested news stories, it is likely to affect a wide range of journalists and freelancers, and suppress non-institutional creators and producers of news. Each country in the EU would decide on the link tax that would be applied, and, again, this could create a barrier for companies operating within these countries.

You can read more here:

Conclusions

As if GDPR didn’t create a split between the EU and the Rest of the World, the new proposed copyright rules for the Internet is likely to create an even greater gulf.

Few people seem to be in-favour of the new law, and many also feel it will further create a digital divide between Europe and the rest of the world. The intention was to create a common digital platform across Europe, but it was probably produced a law which suppresses the sharing of content, and make Europe a less attractive place to base a content service.

As someone who was affected by the scanning of my books by Google, and without my permission, I understand the requirements for stronger copyright support, but these new articles are likely to favour the large companies and suppress the development of small businesses across Europe. The large companies have caused this problem — with the general disregard for large-scale copyrighting, but it could be the smaller companies that are affected most.