Article 13 has been passed by the European Parliament

On Tuesday, March 26, 2019, the more than two-year "war" between supporters of internet freedom and MEPs ended. European politicians have voted to adopt Article 13 and Article 11 in sweeping changes to copyright in the online world. The result is the adoption of the legislation by the European Parliament with a vote ratio of 348 for and 274 against. This means that EU member states will have to adopt this legislation and incorporate it into their laws within 2 years.

CONTROLATIVE ARTICLE 13

The most controversial part of the adopted legislation is Article 13. The main idea of Article 13 is the protection of the original content of creators, which in itself sounds like an excellent idea. The problem comes only with the method of its introduction. A kind of censorship would arise on the Internet and only filtered content would reach people. This filtering will prevent content from ever being available, effectively creating a censorship machine that allows big companies to control what we see and do online. Digital rights and freedom of expression on the Internet can be at risk.

Learn more about Article 13 in our blog post - Article 13 can destroy YouTube and the Internet. How to fight against him?

CITIZENS REMAIN UNLISTED

For example, YouTube and Facebook fought intensively against the adoption of new guidelines (e.g. Article 13), which warned that they would have to build expensive content filters. Activists argued that Article 13 would lead to internet censorship. However, on the other side of the two-year battle were record labels, artists and media companies. They said the reforms were needed to update copyright protection for the internet age and ensure they were properly paid for their content.

The weekend before the vote was dominated by protests across Europe, with tens of thousands of people taking to the streets to protest what many see as online censorship. In addition to the protests, the largest petition in the world, which received over five million signatures. The German, Czech and Slovak WIKIPEDIA also joined the protest, which turned off the possibility of searching for information on its website on Thursday, March 21, 2019. However, neither the protests nor the petition could convince the MEPs, who adopted the new legislation.

Until the last moment, however, we hoped that all the amendments proposed by the opponents of the directive would be adopted in the legislation. However, they did not get enough votes and so were not incorporated. Even only 5 votes decided that the European Parliament did not deal with the controversial parts of Article 13, but voted on the legislation as a unified whole. Julia Reda, a German member of the European Parliament representing the Pirate Party, which opposed the copyright directive, expressed her concern, saying: "It is a dark day for internet freedom". On the other hand, Margrethe Vestager, the European commissioner for competition, says: "The result was great news". EU member states now have two years to prepare their own laws to implement the copyright amendment.

SPECIFICATIONS OF POLITICIANS, YOUTUBE AND CREATORS

Our partner and YouTube creator Duklock also commented on the result of yesterday's vote in his video.

Rapporteur Axel Voss, a member of the Christian Democratic Union of Germany, declared: "The directive is an important step towards correcting a situation that has allowed a few companies to make huge sums of money without properly remunerating thousands of creators and journalists".