Critics Argue GDPR’s Article 13 Threatens Future of Internet
A European Parliament committee just voted on Article 13, a controversial provision in the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) that wasn’t in the final draft but was re-introduced on May 25, the day it went into effect. Article 13 requires Internet platforms to vet uploads such as news articles and music videos for copyright infringement. Such filters could encourage platforms to block more content and place an undue burden on smaller platforms, argue the critics. Worse, they continue, filters could be modified to block content critical of governments.
The Verge reports that over 70 experts, including World Wide Web founder Tim Berners-Lee and Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, believe Article 13 will turn the Internet into “a tool for automated surveillance and control of its users.” Author/activist Cory Doctorow is organizing against Article 13 with the Electronic Frontier Foundation on these grounds.
Although European Parliament member Axel Voss argues that the proposed language doesn’t mention filters, “that just raises the question of what using ‘effective technologies’ to prevent copyright infringement means, other than filtering.” Voss also said that, “he cannot predict which platforms will be affected.”
The argument over Article 13 highlights “two competing view of the Internet and its possible futures,” says The Verge. Whereas Doctorow, Berners-Lee, Wales, Vint Cerf, and others “might still believe in an open web of smaller competing platforms that keep information flowing freely,” U.S. and European lawmakers “seem to have accepted the status quo of a digital landscape that’s dominated by a handful of giants with self-perpetuating silos” — meaning Facebook and Google.
The proposal would shift the responsibility for publishing copyright-infringing work online from the users of a platform to the platforms themselves. It would mandate that services intended to store and publish copyrighted materials take "appropriate and proportionate measures” to ensure that copyrighted material is not available without the permission of its owner. It does not specify that sites must apply YouTube-style automated blocking, and it says that the "implementation of measures by service providers should not consist in a general monitoring obligation." But critics argue that the directive will result in the widespread use of automatic filters. In some cases, platforms could avoid blocking content by licensing the content from rights holders.
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See the full story here: http://www.etcentric.org/critics-argue-gdprs-article-13-threatens-future-of-internet/
and the source article here; https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/19/17480344/eu-european-union-parliament-copyright-article-13-upload-filter
and the related Wired piece here: https://www.wired.com/story/europe-considers-a-new-copyright-law-heres-why-that-matters/