EU countries may be taken to court for their tardiness in enacting landmark EU copyright rules into national law, the European Commission said on Monday as it asked the group to explain the delays.
The copyright rules, adopted two years ago, aim to ensure a level playing field between the European Union’s trillion-euro creative industries and online platforms such as Google, owned by Alphabet (GOOGL.O), and Facebook (FB.O).
Note: level if you are one of the huge tech giants, not so much if you’re a small business or startup – in fact, this makes it very very difficult for startups to enter some sectors at all.
Some of Europe’s artists and broadcasters, however, are still not happy, in particular over the interpretation of a key provision, Article 17, which is intended to force sharing platforms such as YouTube and Instagram to filter copyrighted content.
[…]
The EU executive also said it had asked France, Spain and 19 other EU countries to explain why they missed a June 7 deadline to enact separate copyright rules for online transmission of radio and TV programmes.
The other countries are Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Finland, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Latvia, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia and Slovakia.
Source: Commission starts legal action against 23 EU countries over copyright rules | Reuters
For more information see:
Article 11, Article 13: EU’s Dangerous Copyright Bill Advances: massive censorship and upload filters (which are impossible) and huge taxes for links.
Wow, the EU actually voted to break the internet for big business copyright gain
Anyway, well done those 23 countries for fighting for freedom of expression and going against big tech and non-democratic authoritarianism in Europe.
Robin Edgar
Organisational Structures | Technology and Science | Military, IT and Lifestyle consultancy | Social, Broadcast & Cross Media | Flying aircraft