Upload filter: Article 13 explained

The EU's copyright reform, which includes Article 13, harbors the risk of upload filters, leading to protests by Internet users before the law was voted on. But what exactly is this EU law about? The most important information can be found here.

What is Article 13?

The EU has passed a new copyright reform. This is intended to protect artists, for example, so that music cannot be distributed without the artist's will. This directive also includes Article 13, which has come under fire.

• According to Article 13, platforms should be liable for users uploading something that does not comply with the guidelines.
• For platforms such as Facebook, YouTube & Co., this means that content must be checked before uploading in order to rule out such damage.
• With the amount of pictures, videos and other posts by human hands, this would not be feasible. Therefore, upload filters are the only way to comply with Article 13, even if this article does not explicitly mention that upload filters are mandatory.
• While this is complicated but feasible for platforms such as YouTube, where such a filter already exists, for example, it is primarily small website operators who are likely to suffer from such filters and would put their existence at risk.
• Furthermore, the technical implementation of upload filters, as required by Article 13, entails the risk of censorship.
• Especially in journalism, Article 11 is caught in the crossfire. This demands that content from media companies is no longer distributed without consent or that it should be shared in the profit from the processing.
• On March 26, 2019, the EU Parliament voted for the copyright reform with a majority of 348 to 274 votes. In Germany, the guidelines must now be implemented by June 7, 2021.
• The government wants to avoid upload filters, but it has not yet been clearly worked out how and whether this can be implemented.
• So it remains to be seen which drafts will be created for the implementation of the copyright reform by 2021.

Responses to Article 13

The wording and implementation of Article 13 has been running since September 2018. The protests became louder, especially in March 2019.

• Wikipedia was unavailable for a whole day on March 21, 2019 to protest Article 13. The website read that Wikipedia sees the freedom of the Internet as we know it in jeopardy and should contact its MPs to prevent Article 13.
• Well-researched videos and the hashtag #SaveYourInternet are based on the Let's Play channel PietSmiet, for example. Researched facts are also presented on the rewinside channel.
• In addition to informative content, the situation around Article 13 is also used by others to scare people.
• There have already been many demonstrations against Article 13. On March 23rd, demonstrations took place in most major cities in Germany and across Europe.