Back in July, the EU Copyright Directive was rejected by the MEPs due to concerns over the controversial Articles 11 and 13 raised by EU citizens. Article 11, which can also be referred to as a "link tax," was written to protect news sites and their intellectual property, and mandated that other sites needed to have a license from the original publisher in order to link to their articles. Article 13, which can also be referred to as an "upload filter," required that websites have filters in place to filter out copyrighted material. Criticisms of these two articles included the potential damage they could do to small business, which could not afford to pay license or put in place filters on their websites; and possible infringement on free use, as a computer system will not be able to accurately tell when copyrighted material is being used under acceptable free use guidelines.
However, rather than the bill being killed, it instead underwent a waiting period and a chance for amendments before being presented for approval again. This time, the bill was approved by the EU with 438 for and 226 against. 2 amendments, one for each article, have been passed along with the bill, although the core directive remains the same. Article 11 has been adjusted to allow for individual from a hyperlink to be shared, while before none of it was allowed to be shared. However, the language is vague, and what qualifies as "individual words" is not clearly defined. Article 13 has been changed so that only websites with significant amounts of uploads are affected, and exceptions are made for small websites and non-profits. Similarly, there are no clear definitions as to what would qualify as as website with significant uploads, or a small website.
1. When it comes to internet regulations, there are a lot of debates as to the level of control local and/or national governments should have. What is your personal opinion as to how website regulation should be handled?
2. How do you think the Copyright Directive will affect other countries if it were to be passed?
3. Despite there being many concerns and disapproval for the bill among citizens, it still passed in the EU Parliament. What do you think that says about the state of EU democracy?
Now that we are in the digital age, new regulations and rules need to be made for new innovations and inventions. These online regulations remind me much of the regulations that we have for tangible inventions, like with patent laws and such. I don't think that these regulations are entirely absurd. I know that the debate on online regulation is very controversial, but the conversation does need to happen as our society progresses.
ReplyDeleteWhile I do see the purpose of the new articles, this does not seem like the right approach to protect intellectual property. I think if the Copyright Directive were to pass, it would be possible for the system to function improperly since it seems that some parts of the articles are vague and uncertain of what would happen. As it is, it seems like there could be a loose interpretation of the articles and the requirement to filter out copyrighted materials could be abused to block all content of a topic that could be considered fair use. It makes me wonder how the system will operate since not all countries are part of the European Union. If a site is based on a country outside of the European Union, would it be forced to remove content, causing all users of the site to not see it?
ReplyDeleteIn terms of how website regulation should be handled, I think the federal government should have complete authority. Of course this goes back to how much power the federal government possess under the Constitution or the nation's form of a Constitution. Yet I think website regulation should be uniform among local government because the same website can be used throughout a nation, it wouldn't make sense to restrict certain content from an individual just because of where they live. If the website is open to the general public that should include everyone who is apart of the nation. Since there seems to be much disapproval among the citizens, I think the EU's Parliament isn't directly representing the people in ways which a democratic government should be.
ReplyDeleteI think that the democracy in the EU is filtered because the representatives are not elected in the manner of a direct democracy or any manner which permits the people to impact the outcome of elections. Even if people's opinions vary on national and international policy, they can not impact international policy. I think that there should not be much regulation on the government because it does limit people who can not afford to pay. But, I remain unsure, mostly, because on one hand you should be able to write whatever you want and you might think of an idea that may already exist but make a different point. But, on the other hand, people make patents so that these ideas are not stolen. There should be a compromise on both aspects so that the situation is flexible.
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ReplyDeleteThe federal government should handle website regulation. By having all US citizens possess the same access to websites, the federal government can stop top service providers such as Verizon and Comcast from managing Internet traffic as a means of fulfilling their financial concerns/needs. More freedom is granted towards smaller companies as opposed to having these top-tier companies reap all the profits. If the Copyright Directive were to be passed, it would make it increasingly difficult for content creators to upload things to the Internet as all their content would be strictly filtered for copyright infringement, which will dramatically affect websites like Youtube.
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