Civil society urges EU institutions to stop the “censorship machine” in the copyright proposal

EDRi has signed a joint open letter together with 27 other civil society organisations expressing concerns about European Commission’s copyright proposal. The proposal requires internet platforms to use automated upload filtering technologies. This obligation would impact negatively on free speech and democracy by building a system where citizens will face internet platforms blocking the upload of their content, even if it is a perfectly legal use of copyrighted content.

You can read the letter below:

The undersigned, working to defend human and consumer rights around the world, express their deep concern regarding the European Commission’s proposal to require Internet platforms to use automated upload filtering technologies. This legislative proposal also includes measures to weaken the current intermediary liability protections in European law. Although the proposal is contained in draft legislation on copyright in Europe, the impact will inevitably be felt in every policy area and will impact negatively on free speech and democracy around the globe.

In effect, the proposed upload filter obligation will build a system where citizens will face Internet platforms blocking the upload of their content, even if it is a perfectly legal use of copyrighted content.

This is an affront to the rule of law and freedom of expression. Logically, the computer programs used for filtering will be designed to ensure minimum risk and liability for those platforms. These programs cannot understand the functioning of crucial copyright exceptions that are implemented to support, just to name a few, education, parody, free speech and quotation. The European Commission’s proposal places excessive power in the hands of copyright owners, despite many examples of past abuses of such power, genuine mistakes and cases where copyright claims have been used as a political censorship tool on a massive scale.

If Europe contravenes its own decades-old human rights framework that defends privacy and freedom of communication, the democratic and free speech rights of individuals around the globe will suffer. If these monitoring and filtering obligations are coupled with a weakening of Europe’s balanced approach to intermediary liability, the damage to democratic and free speech rights of individuals around the globe will be compounded. Protection from liability is not a “privilege” for Internet companies, it is an essential mechanism to ensure that these companies are not incentivised to restrict the privacy and free speech rights of their users.

The proposal of the European Commission would

• lead to the types of filtering that have already been deemed contrary to the Charter of Fundamental Rights by the Court of Justice of the European Union,
• threaten to destabilise the delicately balanced, horizontal approach when dealing with liability for online content by creating an exceptional regime for copyright,
• remove users’ freedoms to use copyrighted material for recognised legal uses (parody, education, quotation and more) as reflected in European law.

For the sake of the human rights of citizens in the European Union and around the globe, we urge the European institutions to reject Article 13 and the associated explanatory recitals of the European Commission’s copyright proposal.

Signatories:

EDRi, Brussels
Wikimedia Deutschland, Germany
Asociatia pentru Tehnologie si Internet, Romania
Digital Rights Ireland, Ireland
Initiative für Netzfreiheit, Austria
vibe!at, Austria
Panoptykon Foundation, Poland
Centrum Cyfrowe, Poland
COMMUNIA Association for Public Domain, Europe
ANSOL, Portugal
Initiative gegen ein Leistungsschutzrecht, Germany
epicenter.works, Austria
IT-Political Association, Denmark
Public Knowledge, United States
OpenMedia, Canada
EFF, United States
Xnet, Spain
Bitbureauet, Denmark
Digitalcourage, Germany
Open Rights Group, United Kingdom
Vrijschrift, Netherlands
Digitale Gesellschaft, Germany
SHARE Foundation, Serbia
GFOSS – Open Technology Alliance, Greece
Creative Commons, United States
Kennisland, Netherlands
Modern Poland Foundation, Poland
Bits of Freedom, Netherlands

Letter: Stop the censorship machine!
https://stopthecensorshipmachine.net/

Save the meme!
https://savethememe.net/

Stop #CensorshipMachine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAcTeYtUzQY

Deconstructing Article 13 of the Copyright proposal of the European Commission
https://edri.org/files/copyright/copyright_proposal_article13.pdf