"A Dark Day For Internet Freedom" : EU Passes Vauge Copyright Bill

On Tuesday March 27, the European Parliament voted in favor of the "Copyright Directive," a controversial bill that advocates of Internet freedom charge is vague and threatens public rights of expression online. The vote was 348 to 274.

While not an immediate blow to those wishing to express themselves online, there are still a number of steps before the bill becomes law in Europe, the bill is still a threat. Particularly worrisome are Article 11, the "link tax," which could make it impossible for websites such as Wikipedia to function in countries affected, and Article 13 (which has been changed to Article 17) which would require websites and platforms that allow for content to be loaded to install "upload filters" as a preventive measure to stop copyrighted content.

The law is vague and subject to interpretation, but the potential consequences to Second Life are very bad. Linden Lab could be given a stark choice: the instillation of expensive and clumsy upload filters that would certainly anger it's users due to content creation becoming far more difficult if it involves bringing textures and other things into the virtual world and the fees jacked up greatly to make up for Linden Lab's expenses, or block the IP addresses of the affected countries.

The next step for the bill is when it goes to the European Council. While it previously looked like it would pass there easily, "one of two countries responsible for the final wording of Article 13 (/ 17) ... Germany is having something of a change of heart, with their Minister of Justice publicly opposing the idea of upload filters. ... five other member states – the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Poland, Italy, and Finland – have voiced public opposition to the Directive the vote. So should Germany, a key nation behind the legislation and of the EU, change its mind between now and April 9th, it would prevent a Council majority being reached." This would mean the bill would need to be renegotiated, and activists would have a chance to vote a number of legislators supporting it out of office.

As Inara Pey of Modem World put it, "while a significant battle against the EU Copyright Directive has been lost," the war's not over yet, but "it is going to be significantly harder to win."

Sources: The Verge, Modem World, BBC, CNet,

Image credit: Nydia Tungsten 

Bixyl Shuftan

European Union Copyright Directive Threatens Virtual Worlds, Internet, With Mass-Censorship

By Bixyl Shuftan

Lately it seems the Internet has been under assault. With the end of Net Neutrality in the United States, some companies have already started throttling traffic. In August, Verizon was caught throttling the Internet connection of California firefighters while dealing with a huge wildfire. One digital rights spokesman spoke of the incident, “If Verizon was willing to do this to a fire department during the state’s largest wildfire, when public safety should have been paramount, it’s easy to imagine what they are willing to do to everyday consumers.”

But unfortunately, the worst seems yet to come, and not from the United States. The European Union recently approved  legislation that has been described as threatening to "break the Internet," As Cory Doctorow explained in "New World Notes" and an "Electronic Frontier Foundation" article. Two parts of the bill, Article 11 and Article 13, have gotten the most attention. Article 11 is the "link tax," which requires platforms such as Facebook and Google to "to pay news outlets for the privilege of linking or quoting articles." Wikipedia, which would be badly hurt by the legislation, called it a threat to "freedom of expression ... online." Gizmodo commented the legislation would, "make it all but impossible for Wikipedia and other non-profit educational sources to do their work because of their reliance on links, quotes, and citation."

Article 13 would mean bad news for Second Life and other virtual worlds that allow users to create content. They would require any platform or website "that allow users to post text, sounds, code, still or moving images," etc. will have to create "upload filters" to compare all uploaded content to a database of copyrighted works, "that will be compiled by allowing anyone to claim copyright on anything, uploading thousands of works at a time. Anything that appears to match the 'copyright database' is blocked on sight, and you have to beg the platform's human moderators to review your case to get your work reinstated."

That the owners of Second Life and other platforms that fall under this bill are headquartered outside the EU won't necessarily protect them, "The EU has treaties with most of the world that allow for civil judgments to be collected in some circumstances; it's likely that future trade-deals with the EU (like the recently completed EU-Canada trade deal) would require that trading partners allow EU companies to sue and collect judgments under the EU Copyright Directive. That means that even non-EU companies could be forced to comply with these rules." And if they got in trouble with the EU over copyright issues, "those companies would not be able to establish sales/support offices in the EU, their executives would face civil and possibly criminal sanctions if they visited the EU, and they would be at risk of losing their ability to receive payments from EU customers."

Developing such a content filter in the first place wouldn't be cheap. "Google spent $60 million developing the ContentID filter system that is only capable of analyzing audio-tracks of video." Something that would analyze everything from pictures to meshes to avatars would be considerably more expensive. It would certainly be beyond the ability of smaller virtual worlds such as the OpenSim grids to pay.

And how good would it be? Most likely it would err on the side of caution, and much content that resembled copyrighted material instead of matching it would also be blocked. A content creator who found his goods blocked would have to appeal to a human moderator, and if that failed, the only recourse might be a lawsuit. Complicating the issue further are "copyright trolls" As Doctorow explained, ""[T]his is a boon for griefers. Since the rule has no penalties for abuse, griefers could claim copyright over public domain works, works that others had created, etc, and block other players from using them -- you could upload every military insignia, the logo of a rival clan, etc."

The bill doesn't go into effect right away. It will go into closed-door meetings between EU and national government representatives, then next spring the language gets voted on, then the 28 member states' governments debate on their own versions of the bill, and there are court challenges. But companies like Second Life's Linden Lab face a stark choice, either pay huge sums of money for filters that will anger their users, or block IP addresses from European countries with such bills. As Second Life has thousands of European residents, this would be a very sad, and costly, move for the Lab.

Sources: The Guardian,SaveYourInternet, New World Notes, Gizmodo, Wikimedia, Electronic Freedom Foundation   

Bixyl Shuftan