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The new rules are another example of the EU s assertiveness on tech
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN has been dead for nearly 200 years. The copyright on his
music is long expired. But when Ulrich Kaiser, an academic at the University of
Music and Performing Arts Munich, recently tried to upload a public-domain
recording of his Fifth Symphony to YouTube, he was thwarted by Content ID, an
automated copyright filter. Mr Kaiser tried again with recordings of music by
Schubert, Puccini and Wagner. Despite being in the public domain, all were
flagged for copyright violations by the algorithm.
YouTube built Content ID a decade ago, under pressure from copyright-holders
worried that users were uploading commercial music and videos without
permission. Ever since users have complained that the algorithm is too
aggressive. Now YouTube and other big internet firms may be obliged by European
law to employ similar methods there. On September 12th members of the European
Parliament approved, by 438 votes to 226, a draft of a new copyright law
designed to update the EU s copyright legislation, which predates the rise of
big internet gatekeepers such as Google and Facebook. The rules sparked death
threats against MEPs and a million-signature petition against the proposals.
Two provisions are particularly contentious. The first is Article 13, which
compels internet firms, whose users upload large quantities of video, music,
text and the like, to work with copyright-holders to ensure that anything that
breaches copyright can be detected as soon as it is posted. That probably means
they will have to deploy many more content filters like Content ID, which are
worryingly imp`recise.
Technology companies, and those who advocate an open internet, say the effect
will be dire. In the quest to give more protection to copyrighted work,
everything from political-protest videos to citizen journalism and viral memes,
they argue, risks being squashed by overzealous enforcers. The freewheeling
nature of the internet could change, they warn. That is a prospect often
wheeled out by the internet lobby and is probably an exaggeration. But some
collateral damage seems likely. The effects could reach into unexpected places.
GitHub, for instance, is an online code repository. It worries that open-source
computer code hosted on its site might fall foul of the new filters.
Whose internet is it anyway?
The second fight was over Article 11, which pits tech firms against publishers.
It requires social networks and aggregators such as Google s News search
engine to obtain a licence from publishers before displaying snippets of news
reports to their users. Firms such as Google and Twitter profit from the
attention generated by news that is gathered by others, note Article 11 s
advocates, and should therefore share the revenues that result. But critics
decry it as a link tax that would also radically limit the freedom of
internet users.
Article 11 is a Europe-wide version of similar rules introduced in Germany and
Spain in 2013 and 2014 respectively. Google s response in Spain was to pull the
plug on its news service, to the detriment of publishers that relied on it for
traffic. By making a similar law apply across the entire European market, the
hope is that Google (and other companies) will be forced to keep services
running and share some of their revenues.
Predicting the exact consequences of all these new rules is difficult, says Jim
Killock of the Open Rights Group, a British organisation that opposed the
changes. They must be approved by both the European Commission and the EU s 28
member states before they can be finalised. But the planned legislation is
another example of rising European assertiveness when it comes to regulating
the internet in May the EU brought into force the General Data Protection
Regulation (GDPR), a far-reaching privacy law. One result could be yet more
geo-fencing , whereby the internet becomes fragmented along geographical lines.
After the GDPR came into force, some American websites decided to block
Europe-based visitors rather than comply.
More regulation may be in the offing. The day before the parliamentary vote
Google was at the European Court of Justice, in Luxembourg, to do legal battle
with the CNIL, France s data-protection authority. The dispute concerned the
right to be forgotten , under which the EU requires search engines, in certain
circumstances, to remove links to webpages with personal information about
European citizens. Google s approach has been to remove links to the offending
pages only for EU users. The CNIL says that, because the tech used to determine
where a user is based can be circumvented, links should be removed for all
users, anywhere in the world. A ruling is expected next year. Europe may not
have its own internet giants, but it is having plenty of impact on America s.
This article appeared in the Business section of the print edition under the
headline "Screen grab"