www.techdirt.com Open in urlscan Pro
2606:4700:20::6819:5f49  Public Scan

Form analysis
4 forms found in the DOM

GET https://www.techdirt.com/search/

<form method="get" id="searchform" action="https://www.techdirt.com/search/">
  <input class="searchq" type="search" size="16" name="q" placeholder="Search Techdirt">
  <button type="submit" class="search-submit icon" value="Search">
    <svg class="search-icon">
      <use href="https://www.techdirt.com/wp-content/themes/techdirt/assets/images/magnifying-glass.svg#search"></use>
    </svg>
  </button>
</form>

POST https://www.techdirt.com/wp-comments-post.php

<form action="https://www.techdirt.com/wp-comments-post.php" method="post" id="commentform" class="section-inner thin max-percentage" novalidate="">
  <p class="comment-notes"><span id="email-notes">Your email address will not be published.</span> <span class="required-field-message">Required fields are marked <span class="required">*</span></span></p>
  <p>Have a Techdirt Account? <a href="https://www.techdirt.com/my-account/?redirect_to=https://www.techdirt.com/2022/01/26/revolt-against-sopa-to-eus-upload-filters/#respond">Sign in now</a>. Want one?
    <a href="https://www.techdirt.com/register/">Register here</a></p>
  <p class="comment-form-author"><label for="author">Name</label> <input id="author" name="author" type="text" value="" size="30" maxlength="245"></p>
  <p class="comment-form-email"><label for="email">Email</label> <input id="email" name="email" type="email" value="" size="30" maxlength="100" aria-describedby="email-notes"></p>
  <p class="comment-form-newsletter"><input type="checkbox" name="comment_newsletter" id="comment_newsletter"><label for="comment_newsletter">Subscribe to the
      <a href="https://listserv.techdirt.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/list/techdirt/">Techdirt Daily</a> newsletter</label></p>
  <p class="comment-form-url"><label for="url">URL</label> <input id="url" name="url" type="url" value="" size="30" maxlength="200"></p>
  <p class="comment-form-subject"><label for="td-subject">Subject</label> <input id="td-subject" name="td_subject" type="text" value="" placeholder="Subject"></p>
  <p class="comment-form-comment"><label for="comment">Comment <span class="required">*</span></label> <textarea id="comment" name="comment" cols="45" rows="8" maxlength="65525" required=""></textarea></p>
  <h3>Comment Options:</h3>
  <div class="comment-form-markdown"><input checked="checked" type="radio" id="format-markdown-radio" name="td_comment_format" value="markdown"><label for="format-markdown-radio">Use <a href="https://commonmark.org/help/">markdown</a>.</label> <input
      type="radio" id="format-text-radio" name="td_comment_format" value="text"><label for="format-text-radio">Use plain text.</label></div>
  <div class="comment-form-rating">Make this the <span class="radio-first-last-word-wrap"><input disabled="" type="radio" id="first-word-radio" name="td_promote_rating" value="first-word"><label for="first-word-radio">First Word</label> or <input
        disabled="" type="radio" id="last-word-radio" name="td_promote_rating" value="last-word"><label for="last-word-radio">Last Word.</label></span><span class="radio-no-rating-wrap"><input checked="checked" type="radio" id="no-rating-radio"
        name="td_promote_rating" value="none"><label for="no-rating-radio">No thanks.</label></span> <small>(<a href="https://rtb.techdirt.com/products/credits/">get credits</a> or
      <a href="https://www.techdirt.com/wp-login.php?redirect_to=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.techdirt.com%2F2022%2F01%2F26%2Frevolt-against-sopa-to-eus-upload-filters%2F">sign in</a> to see balance)</small>
    <a class="whats-this-toggle" href="#"><span class="screen-reader-text">what's this?</span></a>
    <section class="comment-promoted-info">
      <h4>What's this?</h4>
      <p>Techdirt community members with Techdirt Credits can spotlight a comment as either the "First Word" or "Last Word" on a particular comment thread. Credits can be purchased at the
        <a href="https://rtb.techdirt.com/products/credits/" target="_blank">Techdirt Insider Shop »</a></p>
    </section>
  </div>
  <p class="form-submit"><input name="submit" type="submit" id="submit" class="submit" value="Post Comment"><input name="preview" type="button" id="preview" class="submit" value="Preview"> <input type="hidden" name="comment_post_ID" value="309683"
      id="comment_post_ID">
    <input type="hidden" name="comment_parent" id="comment_parent" value="0">
  </p>
  <p style="display: none;"><input type="hidden" id="akismet_comment_nonce" name="akismet_comment_nonce" value="6e2368c938"></p>
  <p style="display: none !important;" class="akismet-fields-container" data-prefix="ak_"><label>Δ<textarea name="ak_hp_textarea" cols="45" rows="8" maxlength="100"></textarea></label><input type="hidden" id="ak_js_1" name="ak_js"
      value="1712328743539">
    <script>
      document.getElementById("ak_js_1").setAttribute("value", (new Date()).getTime());
    </script>
  </p>
</form>

POST https://news.techdirt.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi

<form action="https://news.techdirt.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi" method="post">
  <input name="f" value="subscribe" type="hidden">
  <input name="list" value="tddaily" type="hidden">
  <input name="email" id="sub_email" size="25" maxlength="1024" placeholder="Enter Your Email Address" type="email">
  <input id="td_subscribe" name="td_subscribe" value="Subscribe" type="submit">
</form>

POST

<form method="post">
  <input type="submit" value="Got it" class="accept">
</form>

Text Content

 * Sign In
 * Register
 * Preferences

GreenHouse
 * TechDirt
 * GreenHouse
 * Free Speech
 * Error 402
 * Ctrl-Alt-Speech
 * Deals
 * Jobs
 * Support Techdirt

The Tech Policy Greenhouse is an online symposium where experts tackle the most
difficult policy challenges facing innovation and technology today. These are
problems that don't have easy solutions, where every decision involves tradeoffs
and unintended consequences, so we've gathered a wide variety of voices to help
dissect existing policy proposals and better inform new ones.
Fresh Off Its Merger Failure(s), AT&T Gets Back To Promising Big Fiber
Investments That May Or May Not Happen
House Introduces 'Innovation' Act That Will Kill Innovation
Did We Miss Our Best Chance At Regulating The Internet?
Winding Down Our Latest Greenhouse Panel: The Lessons Learned From SOPA/PIPA


FROM THE REVOLT AGAINST SOPA TO THE EU'S UPLOAD FILTERS

Remembering SOPA


FROM THE COPYRIGHT-POLICY DEPT

Wed, Jan 26th 2022 08:54am - Paul Keller

Register now for TODAY’s online event featuring Rep. Zoe Lofgren »

From the European perspective, the revolt against SOPA that happened 10 years
ago is a somewhat distant memory. During the past 10 years we have seen two more
inflection points in the fight against excessive copyright enforcement: the
successful fight against ACTA in 2012 that was directly inspired by the success
against SOPA earlier that year and — much more recently — the fight against
upload filters that unfolded between 2016 and 2019 in the context of the EU
copyright reform. 

In this post I will trace the lineage of the struggle against excessive
copyright enforcement from the revolt against SOPA all the way to the outcome of
the EU copyright reform that was enacted in 2019.

From SOPA to ACTA

There can be no doubt that SOPA — had it been enacted — would have had massive
consequences for internet users around the globe. While formally a proposal for
legislation in the US, it would have changed the operating rules for platforms
that are part of the online fabric for most of the global population. Much like
the rules of the DCMA and Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act are
underpinning copyright enforcement and content moderation around the globe, SOPA
would have been applied globally. 

This is partially due to the fact that the platforms targeted by the proposal
are primarily based in the US, but also because platforms that operate on a
global scale have incentives to comply with rules that apply in sufficiently
large markets, which means that regulatory regimes are often exported well
beyond the jurisdictions where they have been originally enacted.

Seen in this light, the successful revolt against SOPA was as much a win for
internet users outside of the US as it was for users in the US. But for internet
users and activists in Europe, it also provided the inspiration for their fight
against ACTA — the Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement that was negotiated from
2007 through 2010 by the European Union, the US, Switzerland, Canada, Australia,
New Zealand, Mexico, Singapore, Morocco, Japan, and South Korea.

In parallel to the protests against SOPA, the EU and the individual EU member
states geared up to sign the final ACTA agreement. The protests against ACTA in
Europe erupted when — in an act of incredibly poor timing — the Polish
government announced on the 18th of January 2012 that it would sign ACTA. 

This moment unleashed a series of protests that took place both online and
offline — in the form of sizable demonstrations in a number of EU member states.
The protests that continued throughout the spring of 2012 ultimately lead to the
rejection of ACTA by the European Parliament on the 4th of July 2012,
effectively killing ACTA less than half a year after SOPA had been defeated.

While unfolding in different political venues, the mobilizations against
SOPA/PIPA and ACTA share an important characteristic. Both were directed against
measures that were extremely one-sided: Both SOPA and ACTA bundled right holder
demands for stronger — or rather excessive — copyright enforcement into
legislative measures that did not contain any other elements.

In both cases a central element was the desire to enlist Internet Service
Providers as copyright enforcers. This meant that the mobilization against these
measures could rally around a very simple political demand — to stop these
measures from being adopted. In both cases the widespread opposition from
internet users and platforms (both commercial and non-profit) managed to build
up enough political power to achieve this well defined goal. 

From ACTA to Uploadfilters

With ACTA and SOPA defeated, it took a while for rightholders to launch another
attempt to gain additional enforcement powers. In the period between 2012 and
2015, rightholders in the EU started building a new case against online
platforms and their users. Instead of targeting internet service providers which
had been on the focus of the measures contained in the SOPA and ACTA proposals,
this new case focussed on “user generated content” platforms, of which YouTube
was the primary example.

Driven largely by the music industry — but supported by organised rightholders
from across the spectrum — European rightholders developed the “value gap”
narrative that claimed that UGC platforms where generating value from the
unauthorised upload of copyrighted content by their users that they failed to
pass on to the legitimate recipients — the rightholders. To address this
supposed “value gap” rightholders demanded legislative measures that would strip
UGC platforms of the liability privileges that shield them from legal
responsibility for content uploaded by their users. 

These liability limitations established by the 2001 E-Commerce directive that
ensure that platforms are not liable for content uploaded by their users as long
as they follow a notice and takedown procedure became the main target of the
rightholder lobby which managed to convince the EU Commission to include a
proposal to make large UGC platforms directly liable for any content uploaded by
their users in its proposal for a Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single
Market that was unveiled in the fall of 2016. 

Article 13 of the Commission proposal contained language that would have
required large UGC platforms to “take measures to ensure the functioning of
agreements concluded with rightholders for the use of their works or other
subject-matter or to prevent the availability on their services of works or
other subject-matter identified by rightholders through the cooperation with the
service providers.” 

In other words Article 13 — as proposed — would have required platforms to
either conclude licensing agreements with rightholders for all content uploaded
by their users — an impossible demand — or to block uploads of works identified
by rightholders. 

Digital and civil rights advocates quickly identified the provisions in Article
13 as the most problematic aspect of the Commission’s proposal for the CDSM
directive and started campaigning against what — in their eyes – amounted to the
introduction of mandatory upload filters in the EU. 

The campaign to stop upload filters and to delete Article 13 that took shape
over the following two and a half years recalled many aspects of the previous
fights against SOPA and ACTA. As in the revolt against SOPA, the coalition
fighting to delete Article 13 included civil society advocacy groups, public
interest organisations and a wide range of online platforms.

Similar to the mobilization against ACTA, the coalition managed to mobilize
large groups of supporters both online — more than 5 million people signed a
petition against Article 13 — and offline — in early 2019 more than 200.000
people across Europe took to the streets. The tools and tactics used by the
opponents of Article 13 included many of the tools first deployed in the revolt
against SOPA — ranging from website blackouts to mass email and social media
campaigns directly targeting the responsible law makers.

But in the end the campaign to delete Article 13 failed to achieve its
objective. During the final legislative showdown — the vote in the EU parliament
in April 2019 — a proposal to have a separate vote on Article 13 of the
directive was narrowly rejected with a margin of just five votes. As a result it
never came to a yes-or-no vote on Article 13 and the European Parliament adopted
the entire DSM directive including a heavily modified version of Article 13 with
a clear majority.

Learning from Article 13

Even though it ultimately failed at achieving its objective, the campaign
against Article 13 clearly showed excessive copyright enforcement measures have
not lost their mobilization potential among internet users. So what was
different here?

The biggest difference between the campaigns against SOPA and ACTA on the one
side and Article 13 on the other side is that the latter was just one measure
embedded in a much bigger copyright reform package — the proposed Copyright in
the Digital Single Market directive. Where SOPA and ACTA immediately stood out
in their one-sidedness and were thus much easier to discredit, the DSM directive
was a multi-dimensional legislative package that contained a wide variety of
measures that appealed to different sets of stakeholders. 

In addition to Articles 13 and 11 — a new neighboring right for press publishers
— which reflected demands by organized rightholders, the directive also
contained proposals for new copyright exceptions benefitting libraries,
educational and research institutions and a number of measures strengthening the
position of individual creators vis-a-vis publishers and other intermediaries.
And while Article 11 and 13 were both highly controversial, these other measures
enjoyed support from lawmakers across broad parts of the political spectrum.

As a result of this divide-and-conquer approach, support for the project of
adopting the directive came from a diverse set of stakeholders who pushed to see
“their” issues adopted. Meanwhile lawmakers (and the EU Member States) were
bitterly divided between different camps supporting different elements of the
directive while rejecting others. These divisions manifested themselves not
along party lines but split all major political parties down the middle.

In this relatively unstable political climate there never was as clear majority
for abandoning the overall project of adopting the directive and so the vast EU
legislative apparatus did what it has been designed to do: step by step it
pursued its objective towards producing compromise between the various political
groups which ultimately resulted in the adoption of the directive at the very
end of the legislative term. 

User rights as a by-product of the fight against upload filters?

While the final vote on the directive was very much perceived as an all or
nothing decision — the proponents of Article 13 united under the “yes to
copyright” banner while the opponents proclaimed to “save the internet” — a
retrospective analysis of the adopted measures paints a very different picture. 

During the course of the legislative wrangling, Article 13 underwent significant
changes to accommodate concerns expressed by its opponents. The Final version of
Article 13 (now Article 17 after a renumbering of the provisions of the
directive) is substantially different from the Commission’s original proposal.
And while it shares its two main elements — the removal of the general liability
privilege for UGC platforms and a de-facto requirement to deploy upload filters
— it has accumulated a number of substantial procedural and substantive user
rights safeguards that have not been present in the original version. 

Even more so Article 17 has become a vehicle for harmonizing key user rights by
making the previously optional exceptions for quotation, criticism, review,
parody, pastiche and caricature mandatory in all EU Member States. In addition,
it now imposes obligations on Member States to ensure that these rights can
effectively be exercised by users of UGC platforms. All of these amount to
tangible improvements for internet users in the EU (for platforms this picture
is more complicated).

So while the effort to prevent the mandatory imposition of upload filters has
clearly failed, the collision of massive SOPA style mobilisations with the EU’s
compromise focussed legislative process may have created a rather unexpected
outcome: the codification of important user rights and a framework for
regulating the use of automated content moderation technologies that had were
already in widespread use but so far deployed purely at the discretion of the
online platforms.

As such, what had originally been perceived as a bitter loss breaking with the
tradition of the earlier successes of the mobilisations against SOPA and ACTA,
seems more and more like a win for internet users in an admittedly ugly
disguise.

Paul Keller is Director of Policy at Open Future and President of the COMMUNIA
association for the Public Domain where he coordinated the advocacy efforts
related to the new EU copyright directive.

This Techdirt Greenhouse special edition is all about the 10 year anniversary of
the fight that stopped SOPA. On January 26th at 1pm PT, we’ll be hosting a live
discussion with Rep. Zoe Lofgren and some open roundtable discussions about the
legacy of that fight. Please register to attend.

Filed Under: acta, article 13, article 17, copyright, copyright directive, eu,
sopa, upload filters


2 CommentsLeave a Comment

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...
 * Winding Down Our Latest Greenhouse Panel: The Lessons Learned From SOPA/PIPA
 * Did We Miss Our Best Chance At Regulating The Internet?
 * Speak Up: Reflecting On The SOPA Debate From Inside The Capitol
 * The Internet Infrastructure's SOPA/PIPA Silver Lining
 * SOPA To The Future: Reclaiming Collective Internet Power


 * 
 * 

Click to toggle
Rate this comment as insightful
Rate this comment as funny
You have rated this comment as insightful
You have rated this comment as funny
Flag this comment as abusive/trolling/spam
You have flagged this comment
The first word has already been claimed
The last word has already been claimed
Insightful Lightbulb icon Funny Laughing icon Abusive/trolling/spam Flag icon
Insightful badge Lightbulb icon Funny badge Laughing icon Comments icon


COMMENTS ON “FROM THE REVOLT AGAINST SOPA TO THE EU'S UPLOAD FILTERS”

Subscribe: RSS Leave a comment
 * Filter comments in by Time
 * Filter comments as Threaded
 * Filter only comments rated Insightful
 * Filter only comments rated funny LOL
 * Filter only comments that are Unread

2 Comments

This comment is new since your last visit.

Techdirt Administrator (profile) says:
January 25, 2022 at 11:19 pm


START OF FEATURED DISCUSSION


Reply View in chronology
Make this comment the first word Make this comment the last word

This comment is new since your last visit.

Ehud Gavron (profile) says:
August 8, 2022 at 4:08 am


WE WELCOME OUR SPAM OVERLORDS

Did TD turn off spam filtering?

4/5 comments above are spam.

Reply View in chronology
Make this comment the first word Make this comment the last word
Close


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

says:








ADD YOUR COMMENT CANCEL REPLY

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Have a Techdirt Account? Sign in now. Want one? Register here

Name

Email

Subscribe to the Techdirt Daily newsletter

URL

Subject

Comment *


COMMENT OPTIONS:

Use markdown. Use plain text.
Make this the First Word or Last Word.No thanks. (get credits or sign in to see
balance) what's this?

WHAT'S THIS?

Techdirt community members with Techdirt Credits can spotlight a comment as
either the "First Word" or "Last Word" on a particular comment thread. Credits
can be purchased at the Techdirt Insider Shop »





Δ

Fresh Off Its Merger Failure(s), AT&T Gets Back To Promising Big Fiber
Investments That May Or May Not Happen
House Introduces 'Innovation' Act That Will Kill Innovation
Did We Miss Our Best Chance At Regulating The Internet?
Winding Down Our Latest Greenhouse Panel: The Lessons Learned From SOPA/PIPA
Follow Techdirt


TECHDIRT DAILY NEWSLETTER



A weekly news podcast from
Mike Masnick & Ben Whitelaw

Subscribe now to Ctrl-Alt-Speech »
Essential Reading

NEW TO TECHDIRT?

Explore some core concepts:

 * Infinity Is Your Friend In Economics
 * An Economic Explanation For Why DRM Cannot Open Up New Business Model
   Opportunities
 * The Grand Unified Theory On The Economics Of Free

Read All »

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

TRENDING POSTS

 *   Let Me Rewrite That For You: NY Times Misinforms Readers About RFK & Biden
 *   Photo Of Streisand Home Becomes An Internet Hit
 *   Republicans Keep Taking Credit For Local Broadband Projects Funded By
   Federal Bills They Voted Against

Techdirt Deals
Buy Now
$139.00
Microsoft Windows 10 Home
Techdirt Insider Discord
The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...



Become an Insider!

Older Stuff


WEDNESDAY

12:04 SOPA Didn't Die. It's Just Lying In Wait. (5) 09:30 Demanding Progress:
From Aaron Swartz To SOPA And Beyond (3)


TUESDAY

12:00 How The SOPA Blackout Happened (3) 09:30 Remembering The Fight Against
SOPA 10 Years Later... And What It Means For Today (16)


FRIDAY

12:00 Winding Down Our Latest Greenhouse Panel: Content Moderation At The
Infrastructure Layer (4)


WEDNESDAY

12:00 Does An Internet Infrastructure Taxonomy Help Or Hurt? (15)


TUESDAY

14:33 OnlyFans Isn't The First Site To Face Moderation Pressure From Financial
Intermediaries, And It Won't Be The Last (12) 10:54 A New Hope For Moderation
And Its Discontents? (7)


MONDAY

12:00 Infrastructure And Content Moderation: Challenges And Opportunities (7)


FRIDAY

12:20 Against 'Content Moderation' And The Concentration Of Power (32)


THURSDAY

13:36 Social Media Regulation In African Countries Will Require More Than
International Human Rights Law (7)


WEDNESDAY

12:00 The Vital Role Intermediary Protections Play for Infrastructure Providers
(7)


TUESDAY

12:00 Should Information Flows Be Controlled By The Internet Plumbers? (10)


MONDAY

12:11 Bankers As Content Moderators (6)


FRIDAY

12:09 The Inexorable Push For Infrastructure Moderation (6)


THURSDAY

13:35 Content Moderation Beyond Platforms: A Rubric (5)


WEDNESDAY

12:00 Welcome To The New Techdirt Greenhouse Panel: Content Moderation At The
Infrastructure Level (8)


FRIDAY

12:00 That's A Wrap: Techdirt Greenhouse, Broadband In The Covid Era (17)


WEDNESDAY

12:05 Could The Digital Divide Unite Us? (29)


MONDAY

12:00 How Smart Software And AI Helped Networks Thrive For Consumers During The
Pandemic (41)


FRIDAY

12:00 With Terrible Federal Broadband Data, States Are Taking Matters Into Their
Own Hands (18)


WEDNESDAY

12:00 A National Solution To The Digital Divide Starts With States (19)


MONDAY

12:00 The Cost Of Broadband Is Too Damned High (12)


FRIDAY

12:00 Can Broadband Policy Help Create A More Equitable And inclusive Economy
And Society Instead Of The Reverse? (11)


WEDNESDAY

12:03 The FCC, 2.5 GHz Spectrum, And The Tribal Priority Window: Something
Positive Amid The COVID-19 Pandemic (6)


MONDAY

12:00 Colorado's Broadband Internet Doesn't Have to Be Rocky (9)


FRIDAY

12:00 The Trump FCC Has Failed To Protect Low-Income Americans During A Health
Crisis (26)


WEDNESDAY

12:10 Perpetually Missing from Tech Policy: ISPs And The IoT (10)


THURSDAY

12:10 10 Years Of U.S. Broadband Policy Has Been A Colossal Failure (7)


TUESDAY

12:18 Digital Redlining: ISPs Widening The Digital Divide (21)

MORE

 
×


EMAIL THIS STORY






This feature is only available to registered users.
You can register here or sign in to use it.


TOOLS & SERVICES

 * Twitter
 * Facebook
 * RSS
 * Podcast
 * Research & Reports


COMPANY

 * About Us
 * Advertising Policies
 * Privacy


CONTACT

 * Help & Feedback
 * Media Kit
 * Sponsor / Advertise


MORE

 * Copia Institute
 * Insider Shop
 * Support Techdirt


Brought to you by Floor64
Proudly powered by WordPress. Hosted by Pressable.


This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information,
see our privacy policy