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Italian Wikipedia Blacks Out in Protest of EU’s New Copyright Directive, NordVPN comments on EU’s Copyright Directive
July 2018 by NordVPN
EU lawmakers are planning to pass an obscure Copyright Directive that might have a massive impact on how Europeans use the internet. There are many objections against the directive, including Italian Wikipedia’s that blacked out on Tuesday in protest. The online encyclopedia says the Copyright Directive will severely restrict internet freedom.
The Copyright Directive claims to protect intellectual property and includes regulating the illegal streaming and downloading of pirated movies and music.
“The general intention of the directive is well meaning. However, the vague wording of the law means that it may be applied to an extremely broad range of cases,” said Ruby Gonzales, Communications Director at NordVPN. “For instance, the Copyright Directive may extend the rights of publishers to charge for the snippets of news articles that appear under search results. It is also going to force websites to scan all content being uploaded – to YouTube and elsewhere – and automatically block anything that might infringe copyright.”
AI filters that all websites will have to implement are very bad at detecting the nuanced difference between plagiarism and the concept of fair use, satire, or derivative works.
"If this Directive passes, we may lose the ability to share an article on Facebook or find it via Google. In fact, Wikipedia might have to close down,” said Ruby Gonzalez.
NordVPN encourages internet users to visit savetheinternet.info to sign their petition and see what the next step could be in defeating this proposal.
