Excellent news out of the European Union, as contentious copyright reform directive (Copyright in the Digital Single Market) was recently approved by the European Council. While the agreement still has a couple more hurdles before it can become law, momentum seems to be moving in the right direction.
Agreement reached on #copyright! Europeans will finally have modern copyright rules fit for digital age with real benefits for everyone: guaranteed rights for users, fair remuneration for creators, clarity of rules for platforms. pic.twitter.com/dwQGsAlJvK— Andrus Ansip (@Ansip_EU) February 13, 2019
Familiar tropes offered by Google and other tech interests have, of course, been legion. However, since Google’s bad behavior was a catalyst for these reforms, fortunately these complaints have not prevented the directive from moving forward.
Artists rights advocates in the United States have long been calling for reform to our own Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), a law enacted more than two decades ago that is woefully out of date. The new EU proposal will address some of these same concerns regarding notice and takedown.
When unlicensed content is uploaded, platforms have to act “expeditiously” to remove it and make “best efforts” to prevent its future upload. That means YouTube will be required to implement “notice and staydown,” as opposed to the current regime of “notice and takedown” — or “Whac-A-Mole,” as some call it.
The majority of rightsholders see notice-and-staydown legislation, and the placing of primary liability on user-uploaded content (UUC) services, as a significant win for the music industry. However, some fear that that ambiguities in the final text could be undermined or loosely interpreted when the directive is transposed into law by EU member states, indirectly creating new loopholes and safe harbors for platforms to exploit.
https://www.billboard.com/articles/business/8500626/what-eu-final-copyright-directive-contains-labels-artists-youtube-impact
As with the ill-fated Stop Online Piracy Act, opposition from tech astro-tuft entities has been loud. The Google-funded EFF warns that blowback to the reforms, particularly in Germany, will be fierce.
Rhetoric aside, what will this new legislation actually do? It will stop forcing content creators to be the only entity responsible for safeguarding their creations from content theft.
Simply put, the Directive on Copyright places more responsibility on websites such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter to make sure that copyrighted material isn’t being illegally shared on their platforms. Until now, the onus has mostly been on the copyright holders – usually the companies that produce audio, video or written content – to enforce copyright protection but under the new law this responsibility will shift onto the major platforms themselves.
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/what-is-article-13-article-11-european-directive-on-copyright-explained-meme-ban
Such reform is long overdue. As with digital privacy issues, it seems that the United States is once again lagging. Perhaps the lobbyists in Brussels haven’t (yet) bought the same influence as they do in Washington.
According to EU Vice-President for the Digital Single Market Andrus Ansip:
“To finally have modern copyright rules for the whole of EU is a major achievement that was long overdue. The negotiations were difficult, but what counts in the end is that we have a fair and balanced result that is fit for a digital Europe: the freedoms and rights enjoyed by internet users today will be enhanced, our creators will be better remunerated for their work, and the internet economy will have clearer rules for operating and thriving.”
http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEX-19-1171_en.htm