#article 17

Back in 2019,the EU Copyright Directive passed by a slim margin in Parliament,the very same Directive containing Upload Filters and Link taxes.And now its on its way. AO3 made an entry explaining clearly what are the stakes,and how the current language of the bill endangers non commercial sites such as AO3 itself,as well as Wikipedia.

Please refer to the original post for the entire information: https://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/19550 If you are German,I beg you to contact your representatives like indicated 

Explains how this threathen freedom of speech and creativity during fair use,and how parodies,caricatures,postiche,etc should not be subjected to this. I do not know when or if other EU countries will also start implementing article 17 on their own. I do know there is a lawsuit from Poland ongoing trying to strike the Directive down (But it is extremely slow process,so its best to contact MEPs right away before too much damage is done under this Directive) Not only that,but TERREG (not part of the directive) which is the “anti terror law”) has been adopted without a plenary vote on a EU scale,which means that under one hour,certain sites will have to take down any content deemed as “terrorist” to governement’s eyes,without the control of a judge to see if its fair or not. So sites will have to resort to Upload Filters as the short time theyre given to take content down is ridiculously short. Terreg can be sued,but only if we see misuse,which isn’t really enough.

Of special interest to German fans, as well as other fans in the EU.

Germany is working on implementing Article 17, which makes significant changes in European copyright law. This has created an exciting opportunity to clarify that fan fiction is legal under German copyright law.

The German government has sent a draft bill to the two houses of Parliament. The final vote is planned for the beginning of May. The government proposal makes clear that nonprofit websites like the Archive of Our Own should not be required to get licenses from copyright owners, as commercial websites like Facebook and YouTube will have to do. The draft bill also proposes to explicitly legalize fan fiction, fan art, and many other transformative works, as part of the EU exception for “caricature, parody and pastiche”.

Quick disclaimer: I’m getting my information from Miss Julia Reda (a former German politician of the EU parliament of the ‘Piraten’ party who’s been highly dedicated to working against the new regulation) via her official Twitter account. The link leads you to the thread where she explains the current state.

For those who don’t remember anymore or never heard about it (I’ll try to keep things short because it’s a HUGE topic): About 4 years ago, the European Union created a draft law about copyright online and how it should be handled in the future. 

There have been many and large protests against it, because people worried it’d have a massive harmful impact. One of the main reasons is the by now so-called “Article 17″ that basically says platforms have to make certain that no copyright-relevant material gets posted on their sites. 

People worried that it’d mean the end of not only fanfiction and fanart, but also YouTube videos made from movies, where people record themselves playing games and the likes. 

A little bit over 2 years ago, the copyright law got passed, despite the protests. Poland decided to sue, but the European countries still had to implement the new law into national laws within 2 years.

Today apparently there was a hearing regarding the Polish lawsuit with the last words of the Advocate-General. He hasn’t urged for Article 17 to be abolished entirely, but suggested to interpret it based on the fundamental rights (most likely especially freedom of speech/expression) in a way that only obviously illegal content can be banned. To implement mechanisms which protect user rights a lot better than many states do currently that already implemented the law.

The Advocate-General also said that in ambiguous situations - with short extracts from larger works that are part of a bigger work and all sorts of ‘transformative work’ (i.e. fanfic, fanvideos, fanart) shouldn’t be considered in preventive blocking measures. Instead, rightholders have to request the mentioned content to be removed or even go to court.

Today, the EU parlament voted in favor of Article 13. This doesn’t sound like a huge thing, but during the last weeks and months, the discussion around the article became such an utter fuckfest that both sides (!) but mainly the Pro-party made collossal mistakes which destroy a healthy democracy and honestly, the respect of the younger generation in politics and for me, a little bit the belief that we, as the society, have a voice for the people who are supposed to listen to us.

For my followers, who may be confused why I’m going to rage a little bit from now on against the EU parlament and the absolute shit-infested, stupid, braindead decision they made today.

At first, what is Article 13 for the people not living in Europe?

In short, Article 13 is a part of a bundle of reforms which is supposed protect more copyright holders in the digital age, in itself a good thing. God knows there are so many people getting ripped off. The problem is how the parlament wants to do that:

This is more for platforms like YouTube, but eeeeeh. Memes are everywhere, we know that. We all like memes, do we?

Now, a lot of young people on YouTube and Twitter and experts from famous institutes said the Article 13 is actually a breach of our right for free speech. Mhm, that is maybe not so good then? But the people who are against Article 13 don’t say that the entire Article 13 is bullshit. They want change, rework, defining what is allowed and what not and that the Uploadfilter, (which is at the time the only possible solution who could even attempt to handle the masses of information on the internet), is not considered as the to-go solution because that would lead to the mentioned above way.

The AntiArticle13 side argumentated, had experts, had the good, reasonable arguments. All young people, teenagers, young adults who work creatively on YouTube etcetcetc. They did discussion rounds, tried to reason, demonstrated peacefully, all of that what we are supposed to do in a healthy society and with a good discussion-culture.

Now... What did the Pro-side do?

says without proof that the demonstrants which walked today (around 200.000 apparently) were brought by Google with 450 per nose

the mails, sent to the MEPs, came from bots

don’t inform themselves about the issue at hand

bring the same, weak arguments over and over (”the term “uploadfilter” isn’t even in the papers...”, “mails come from bots in America...”, “the main voice of reason on the anit-side must like piracy of movies” (because of the name of her party, the “Pirate-Party”... -.-)

In short, they don’t take the 5 Mio People who signed the petition seriously. Belittle them and their worries. Go against the advice of the experts.

and the thing which shows to me how absolutely disgusting these people truly are: (4 min video with subtitles)

They talk over Julia Reda. Shout and scream while she’s talking and giving her speech. She has to stop for these old people without an ounce of respect for her course and for the people who are against the Article 13 and cut her own speech time because of them. Shoutout to her and all the kudos that she was able to stay this calm. I wouldn’t have been, that’s for sure.

I’m still a bit speechless while I’m writing this. The level of absolute disregard over the last weeks, that the opinion of so many people means nothing is just... deflating. Horrifying.

But enough of my opinion of the debate around the article. What does Article 13 mean for my fanfiction?

Apparently, all non-transformative works such as fanfiction is fine, but it also depends what your own country defines as “non-transformative”. Means, in Germany (the country I’m from, hurray -.-) it’s a bit harsher and as long as its not a parody it’s not “non-transformative”... So fanfiction wouldn’t be allowed. We will see how that goes.

But the reform is only coming in 2 years. 2 years of still protesting and more activism against this. Because yes to copyright protection, but no against the way how they want to implement that. I will try to find out what will happen and do some research, as well as keep up my own part (Maybe I’m not in another country for one of the demos for once -.-) and keep you up-to-date what will happen. But for the next 2 years, it should be alright.