The European Commission also approves the Copyright reform. Now the ball is in the court of the individual states, which will have to approve it. What does it change for Internet users?
In the past weeks and months Google (with YouTube and Google News), Wikipedia and its founder, and many other personalities from the world of the web have taken a stand. Without, however, getting the desired results: the European Parliament and the European Commission have in fact pulled straight and have finally approved the copyright reform.
The criticism, specifically, focused on two articles in particular: Article 11 (“Protection of journalistic publications in case of digital use”) and Article 13 (“Use of protected content by providers of information society services that store and give access to large amounts of works and other material uploaded by users”). The law, passed with the contrary vote of Italy (and Sweden, Finland, Poland, Netherlands and Luxembourg), introduces several innovations that, according to many, would reduce the freedom of expression and information on the net.
New European Copyright law: what changes for users
In the immediate future, the reform of the European Copyright has little effect on the habits of the citizens of the Old Continent. Now that it has been approved by the highest continental authorities, it will have to be examined by the single States, which have at their disposal some time before ratifying it and transforming it into state law. In short, it could take from a few months to a couple of years before Article 11 and Article 13 become effective in Italy as well.
Once ratified at national level, however, the situation could change rapidly and, if the predictions of the most catastrophists come true, the web could no longer be the same. Article 11, for example, could force Google to close down Google News (unless it decides to pay the various publishers) and change the display of users’ search results.
Article 13, on the other hand, could lead to a sort of preventive censorship of content published by users. The Copyright reform, in fact, brings on the same level both those who publish copyrighted content (thus violating copyright) and the platform that hosts it. In case of compensation, therefore, also the platform could be called to compensate the owner of the copyright. If, for example, a user were to upload to YouTube a film or video made by another person, Google’s video streaming platform could be forced to compensate the “original” author. Taking into account that millions of potentially dangerous videos are uploaded to YouTube every day, Big G’s platform could be forced to severely restrict the upload, turning into something totally different from what we know today.