1 Comment

1. 

   @photios4779

   February 21, 2024 at 5:51 pm

   Framing this as "right of content creators to receive fair remuneration for the use of their work" is incredibly misleading. They already have all the necessary legal rights to receive fair remuneration. What Article 13 does is impose a massive and unnecessary burden on websites to avoid legal liability for user uploaded infringing content that only the largest firms (i.e. U.S. tech giants like Google and Facebook) will be able to meet through expensive content filters. This could prove especially destructive to smaller businesses within the EU tech industry while entrenching the dominant American players, precisely the opposite of what politicians like Axel Voss intended. Moreover, in their efforts to screen out all infringing content, there will undoubtedly be many false positives including parodies, short "fair use" clips presented in a commentary or critical context, etc.

   Even the smallest businesses must comply if their online presence has been accessible in the EU for over three years. This will be especially problematic for ad monetized blogs and other websites with a comment section to allow users to provide feedback. What if someone includes within a comment or reply on a blog or discussion board the copyrighted text of a poem or the lyrics of a song? Now that website could be held legally liable for failing to spend lots of money on an "upload filter" to prevent copyright infringement. My prediction is that a lot of discussion forums, boards, user groups, comment sections, etc. will be forced to shut down or block EU users (if they're based outside the EU) to avoid possible legal liability. Mike Masnick of the excellent Techdirt blog aptly summarized the effects of this legislation in his blog post called, "EU Moves Forward With Agreement To Fundamentally Change The Internet From Open To Closed."

   I support the rights of content creators to earn a livelihood and receive remuneration for their works, but this should be done through balanced legislation that doesn't threaten an open Internet.

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