- The European Union is preparing a new “Copyright Directive for the Common Digital Market”, a new directive that could put the Internet and free knowledge at risk. The proposal will be put to the vote on 20 and 21 June in the JURI Committee and between July and September in the European Parliament. A number of measures contained in this law will jeopardize net neutrality, such as freedom of expression, net collaboration and diversity. We urge the MEPs, among other things, to vote against this law that puts Wikipedia at risk.
Wikimedians take copyright very seriously. It is part of our culture, our daily concern. It is one of the five supports that Wikipedia has: the content that we upload must be free. At Wikimedia Commons we make sure that the 47,000,000 files we have are free; having the hundreds of thousands of editions that are made every day on all projects is our goal. We are so strict that last year the Wikimedia Foundation received only 12 claims of copyright infringement. Only four of them were right. 4 editions, area of millions of changes and image increases that exist every year.
This directive aims to introduce a number of regulations in the long debate on copyright on the Internet. In particular, Articles 11 and 13 seriously jeopardise this free, collaborative project. Wikipedia, the most popular project, and other projects that are part of the Wikimedia family are also in serious danger.
Article 11: what is it and why we oppose it
Briefly stated, Article 11 would be an extension of the measure taken against Google News in Spain, where the right to quote news is superseded by the fact that the press receives money in exchange for this mention. This system failed and is currently only used by China. What Article 11 proposes is that when making a press reference, the publisher receives money (as a fundamental right) from any news aggregator. The formation of hyperlinks is one of the pillars of the Internet. You’ve seen them in this test. This is a hyperlink that explains what a hyperlink is. Article 11 puts hyperlinks at risk by restricting the right to summon and the freedom of expression itself.
Is it forbidden to make hyperlinks? No, of course not. But websites that explain the content of these hyperlinks should pay to provide such content.
We make thousands of links to native websites to make Wikipedia content more reliable. Wikipedia is not a primary source, but an encyclopedia that performs the search, organization, and editing of sources. These references are presented as [1] in the articles you will have seen. Each one is usually an external link with a quote of content that will often be found in it. These links allow the reader to delve into the subject, contrast what the original sources say, follow the discussions and ensure the origin of the existing information. In short, they guarantee the freedom of information that is essential for the creation of free citizens.
An amendment to Article 11 by Axel Voss would still further restrict this right of quotation. In defining it as an inalienable right, the content that is licensed under a Creative Commons license should also be valued, because no one can waive the “right to charge”. In this article by Julia Reda there are more details on the subject.
Article 13: what is it and why we oppose it
Article 13 aims to oblige websites that offer a sharing service to perform an initial automatic filtering. Basically: any service that allows the participation of users must equip it with a database of copyrighted files, texts, audio, images, videos or code uploaded and, in case of possible copyright infringement, block this content.
YouTube has a similar system with the ContentID system that analyzes whether copyright has been violated when uploading a video. Software worth $60 million that also marks a lot of legitimate content. In the name of copyright protection, large companies that have already developed this system will have an advantage for both European companies and non-profit services.
This initial filtering puts Wikipedia (as well as memes, by the way) in serious danger. First, because the conditions and context in which the text has been uploaded cannot be determined by an algorithm. These algorithms have a large number of false positives, which limits freedom of expression. So big is this problem that there is a platform to analyze false positives. If Article 13 is approved, Wikipedia should implement a system that automatically analyzes all texts and images uploaded by all users before they are published. In addition to being a measure against freedom of expression, it is also a measure against an already effective system of cooperation.
The risk of developing these algorithms is not only in Wikipedia and copyright. Under the pretext of examining any text, fundamental rights are also violated. This automatic content filtering may also be used for other policy purposes, such as removing unpreferred content from the network. This article from the Electronics Frontier Foundation has more explanations. This one from the Wikimedia Foundation. Seventy personalities from the history of the Internet have signed a letter against this measure.
What can I do?
You have the opportunity to contact the European Parliamentarians, explain the dangers of this law and ask them to vote against it. We are also using the hashtags #SaveYourInternet or #ChangeCopyright on the network. If you wish, you can also expand this tweet.
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