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The Advocate General (AG) of the EU Court of Justice today missed an opportunity to fully protect internet users from censorship by automated filtering, finding that the disastrous Article 17 of the EU Copyright Directive doesn’t run afoul of Europeans’ free expression rights.
The good news is that the AG’s opinion, a non-binding recommendation for the EU Court of Justice, defends users against overblocking, warning social media platforms and other content hosts that they are not permitted to automatically block lawful speech. The opinion also rejects the idea that content hosts should be “turned into judges of online legality, responsible for coming to decisions on complex copyright issues.”
On its face, Article 17 would allow online platforms to be held liable for unlawful user content unless they act as copyright cops and bend over backwards to ensure infringing content is not available on their platforms. EFF has repeatedly stressed that such liability regimes will lead to upload filters, which are prone to error, unaffordable for all but the largest companies, and undermine fundamental rights of users. Simply put, people will be unable to freely speak and share opinions, criticisms, photos, videos, or art if they are subjected to a black box programmed by algorithms to make potentially harmful automated takedown decisions.
Today’s opinion, while milder than we had hoped, could help mitigate that risk. Briefly, the AG acknowledges that Article 17 interferes with users’ freedom of expression rights, as providers are required preventively to filter and block user content that unlawfully infringes copyrights. The AG found that users were not free to upload whatever content they wish—Article 17 had the “actual effect” of requiring pla
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Read the original article: Article 17 Copyright Directive: The Court of Justice’s Advocate General Rejects Fundamental Rights Challenge But Defends Users Against Overblocking