EU Parliament stands up against censorship machine
Today, on 26 March, the European Parliament voted against adopting the controversial upload filters as part of the copyright Directive text. This vote comes after what was an intense campaign for human rights activists, with millions of calls and emails from concerned individuals, as well as Europe-wide protests. XXX Members of the European Parliament adopted the proposed text, after downvoting its Article 13. XXX voted to delete Article 13 and XXX supported the rest of the report. Article 13 of the proposed Directive contained a change of platforms’ responsibility that would have necessarily lead to the implementation of upload filters on a vast number of internet platforms.
Despite huge lobby efforts from industry groups, the EU has stepped forward and chose to remove upload filters from the copyright Directive.
said Diego Naranjo, Senior Policy Advisor at EDRi.
We are happy that the Members of the European Parliament have heard civil society’s outcry, academic studies and public interest organisations, and voted for safeguarding our fundamental rights.
The Council of the European Union will now have to decide if it adopts the text as modified by the European Parliament or if it requires to re-open negotiations to find a new compromise text. The vote can happen in any of the Council meetings in the coming weeks. Council will decide between joining the Parliament’s position and thousands of citizens or opting for private interest groups.
Ahead of the next European Parliament elections, this vote comes as another important reminder of the impact that EU law-making can have on human rights online and offline. EDRi ensures the voice of civil society is represented in the EU democratic process and would like to thank all those involved in the battle against upload filters for their inspiring dedication towards the defence of fundamental rights and freedoms.
Copyright reform: Document pool
https://edri.org/copyright-reform-document-pool/
All you need to know about copyright and EDRi (15.03.2019)
https://edri.org/all-you-need-to-know-about-copyright-and-edri/
