We have only a few days left to protest the planned EU copyright reform, which will soon be adopted by the European Parliament, unless we are loud enough to change their mind. The vote will be held on the 26th of March, 2019.
The proposed reform could severely restrict the free Internet as we know it, in particular Article 13. Because of it, even the smallest companies and platforms and websites would have to use faulty upload filters, which we all have seen failing here on Tumblr, but now used on all the user generated content, to find and block any and all copyright violations from being uploaded.
Fanworks and and fan-edits posted here on Tumblr or other big social media platforms like twitter or YouTube, would not only be subjected to filtering, but are also more likely to be unjustly filtered out, because an algorithm cannot distinguish between copyright infringing content and transformative works, especially when fanworks have always been, and continue being in a legally grey area.
But, also parodies, critical political podcasts or articles featuring bits of audio from news reports, reviews or even your ranty post about weather with a funny cat reaction gif could be wrongly (or deliberately) filtered out.
Many independent and smaller artist would find their content unjustly removed without having any means to fight this, since legal means or ways of fighting unjust blocking are not defined by the text of reform.
All of this could significantly affect the freedom of opinion, art and the press.
This is why I ask you to do this, if you can (and are from a country in the European Union):
call the Members of the European Parliament from your country (FREE) and inform them about Article 13 and why they should vote against it
participate in the demonstrations that will take place on March 23rd, 2019 throughout Europe.
Be loud and spread this information on social media. (Twitter has a lot of people posting in #SaveYourInternet and #Article13 hashtags, #Artikel13 if you speak German)
Find updates and lots of important information on the Twitter of Julia Reda, the German Pirate Party MEP who has worked against this terrible reform against independent creators from the start.
