Open letter calls on EU parliament to change current ‘upload filter’ proposal

In an open letter, a group of 145 organisations, including those for start-ups, civil rights and developers, called on the EU parliament to vote to prevent negotiations based on the current ‘upload filter’ proposal.

In the letterwhich has been published via the Copybuzz sitethe organizations write that it proposal in its present form can cause damage. They want a ‘proper democratic debate’ to take place on the issues in the Copyright Directive. Specifically, the organizations are calling on members of the European Parliament to vote against the negotiating mandate based on the current proposal, which was recently approved by the Juri Parliament’s Committee on Legal Affairs. The vote on the mandate will take place on 5 July.

Christina Angelopoulos, a researcher at the Cambridge Faculty of Law, explains that it concerns a so-called 69c procedure. If Parliament votes in favor of the mandate, it will enter into negotiations with Member States in the Council on the basis of the current proposal of the Directive. However, if the mandate is voted against, the entire European Parliament can still table amendments to the text, which means that the proposal can still be amended. MEP Marietje Schaake said earlier that a 69c procedure has never led to a no vote with regard to a ‘tech file’. Thus, it was not possible to gather a simple majority.

The Juri committee’s proposal is controversial, mainly because of Articles 11 and 13. Critics say the former would amount to a so-called link tax or link tax, which would require payment for short pieces of news, or news snippets. Article 13, in turn, would amount to an ‘upload filter’ requiring internet platforms to check material uploaded by users for possible copyright infringements. Both articles have already been criticized. Civil rights organization EDRi published a Overview of the road the proposal still has to go before it is final.