TECH

European Parliament says it "does not want to end the Internet"

After the report was approved by the Committee on Legal Affairs, a group of MEPs opposed opening negotiations on the adoption of new copyright legislation and put a new spin on the process. The document will be voted on Thursday but today Axel Voss, the rapporteur for the proposal, argued that the lobby of the Internet platforms is being excessive, and that "Parliament will not and will not end the Internet.""What Wikipedia Wikipedia and Wikipedia France did yesterday, with recommendations to kill the report, goes beyond the acceptable," stressed Axel Voss, arguing that Wikipedia is still protected in this legislation. The two versions of Wikipedia closed access last night in protest of the new legislation, joining a chorus of voices that have called for non-approval of the new law.The MEP is responsible for the report drafting new copyright legislation that aims to harmonize the rules in the physical world and the digital world and says that the lobby that is being made is extreme, that the wrong arguments are being used and catastrophic scenarios.
"In the last two weeks I have received 60,000 emails with the same information ... they are using the wrong arguments and they do not read the text and describe catastrophic scenarios," he says.
The report, which envisages some very controversial measures, such as content monitoring and filtering, was approved on June 20 in the Committee on Legal Affairs and went through a small margin. The next step would be the vote in plenary, but more than 10% of the Members of the European Parliament presented their opposition to the process yesterday.
According to the information, the European Parliament's Rules of Procedure state that at least 76 Members (10%) are required to oppose the opening of negotiations with the Council, without first asking for the approval of the House.
The European Parliament is to vote Thursday in plenary on the mandate proposed by the Committee on Legal Affairs to draft digital copyright rules. The vote will be on Thursday at noon.
If the vote on Thursday confirms the approval of the Committee on Legal Affairs, negotiations between the European Parliament and the Council can start at any time on the basis of the text adopted. If, on the other hand, the vote does not confirm the mandate, the vote is taken to the September plenary session.
Axel Voss also points out that this type of opposition to the new legislation and controversy, with civil society mobilization, is no longer new and happened to the legislation of the banks and the Telecom and now it is energized by the giants of the Internet.
"We want to ensure that a platform company, and I emphasize that they are companies, large companies, that make millions of euros using the work of others, must pay to make money from the creation of others [...] And we want to ensure that if they choose not to pay for the work of others have to accept that they will offer less material, "he stressed at a press conference.
What is it about?
There are several controversial measures in this proposed update of copyright for the internet age. Article 13 is the most contested and proposes the monitoring and filtering of content on the internet, ie, platforms will have to install automatic filters that will check in the submission if there is any material that is subject to copyright.Many civil society groups have argued that Article 13 includes obligations for Internet companies that would be impossible to respect "without imposing excessive restrictions on citizens' fundamental rights," in particular freedom of expression, "set out in Article 11 of the Charter Fundamental Rights ".Also, Article 11, which is known as the "link fee", has been at the center of discord in this modernization of copyright in the EU. It provides that platforms must pay publishers a fee so that their users can share links to news and other content from those publishers on that platform whenever shared links include a preview with a short quote.
In the proposal, Article 4 has also generated opposition as it proposes an amendment that reduces the rights to use content for teaching purposes, differentiating digital use from analogue use and increasing confusion and uncertainty in the beneficiaries of the exception.

Sapo