{"id":6229,"date":"2019-04-01T21:24:47","date_gmt":"2019-04-02T01:24:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ncjolt.org\/?p=6229"},"modified":"2020-06-04T20:52:26","modified_gmt":"2020-06-04T20:52:26","slug":"the-mob-and-its-opposition-to-the-european-unions-copyright-directive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/blogs\/the-mob-and-its-opposition-to-the-european-unions-copyright-directive\/","title":{"rendered":"The \u201cMob\u201d and Its Opposition to the European Union\u2019s Copyright Directive"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It has been 18 years since the European Union\n(EU) developed an EU-wide copyright law platform. Following implementation of\nthe General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)<\/a>\nin 2018, EU lawmakers began working on new regulations within intellectual property.\nOf the 24 articles in its new copyright\ndirective<\/a>, Article 13 has caused the most controversy.\n<\/p>\n\n\n

Article 13, in essence, is designed to hold large information service providers, like Google and YouTube accountable for preventing copyright infringement, ultimately in the name of protecting the copyrights of rightholders or content creators. The article itself states that \u201c[i]nformation society service providers that store and provide to the public access to large amounts of works or other subject-matter uploaded by their users shall, in cooperation with rightholders, take measures to ensure the functioning of agreements concluded with rightholders for the use of their works or other subject-matter or to prevent the availability on their services of works or other subject-matter identified by rightholders through the cooperation with the service providers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

Ultimately if similar policies are adopted in the United States, copyright law may soon look very different than in the past and a \u201cmob\u201d may once again rise up.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n

Ultimately, internet platforms that host\ncopyrighted content must engage in agreements with rightholders before allowing\nsuch material to be posted online. This cooperation celebrates more protections\nof copyright in favor of rightholders, but has many wondering if the regulation\nwill hinder free access on the internet. Many believe this cooperative process\nbetween rightholders and content sharing platforms will take much more time for\ncompanies than current procedures and may not prove sustainable in the\nfast-paced world of the internet.<\/p>\n\n\n

In February 2019, EU Commission leaders released a message<\/a>\ndenouncing those against the directive and calling them members of a \u201cmob<\/a>.\u201d\nThe Commission later had to release an apology for the post, noting that the \u201clanguage and title were not appropriate.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n

Many individuals, as a result, have come together to\nprotest the directive both through petition<\/a> and on the streets.\nSome internet platforms have even gone dark, including Wikipedia<\/a>\nin some countries. culminating in a \u201cDay\nof Action<\/a>\u201d on March 23, 2019. Numerous companies such as Google have also\nopposed the directive. Many companies view the article as requiring them to\ninstitute content filters to find and locate copyrighted material posted by\nnon-rightholders, something that small businesses in content sharing would\ncertainly not be able to do. Even large corporations such as Google would have\nto make major changes in order to adapt. YouTube, for example, would have to\nspend significant time and resources to check every uploaded video. New\ninnovation in this space, such as YouTube\u2019s \u201cContent ID<\/a>\u201d platform, an artificial intelligence-based analyzer of\ncopyrighted material, would be necessary to make implementation of Article 13\neven slightly practical.<\/p>\n\n\n

In contrast, Mary\nHoneyball<\/a>, a British Labour Member of the European\nParliament who supports Article 13, argues that the article does not demand\n\u201cupload filters.\u201d She asserts that the article only requires content platforms\nto either license or remove copyrighted material. While Article 13 may not\nexplicitly require such filters, many believe they will be inevitable in order\nto enable compliance, and will involve significant changes in the directions of\nmany companies. Despite\nthe EU\u2019s view, this process may not be so easy to implement and involves many\nuncertainties. Providing notice and takedown of the wrongful use of copyrighted\nmaterial may then become a minimal part of copyright law. As front-loading of copyright law will\nbecomes a necessity, preventative measures will be the name of the game.<\/p>\n\n\n

The European Parliament\u2019s final approval vote hearing<\/a> for the copyright directive will occur on March 26. That day, copyright law could see a dramatic change in its effects upon companies and consumers. Ultimately, if similar policies are adopted in the United States, copyright law may soon look very different than in the past and a \u201cmob\u201d may once again rise up.<\/p>\n\n\n

Ashle Page, 18 March 2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It has been 18 years since the European Union (EU) developed an EU-wide copyright law platform. Following implementation of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in 2018, EU lawmakers began working on new regulations within intellectual property. Of the 24 articles in its new copyright directive, Article 13 has caused the most controversy. Article 13, …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6230,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[51],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6229"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6229"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6229\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6831,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6229\/revisions\/6831"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}