Articles 11 & 13 from the EU Copyright Directive

Kalo

Kalo

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In May 2018 Xenforo was updated to become GDPR compliant, which is a regulation in EU law on data protection and privacy for all individuals within the European Union (EU) and the European Economic Area (EEA).

But on 12 September 2018 the EU Parliament voted to approve another regulation, this time concerning copyright usage for websites and forums.

The Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market 2016/0280(COD), also known as the EU Copyright Directive, is a controversial proposed European Union directive intended to harmonise aspects of the European Union copyright law and moved towards a Digital Single Market. First introduced by the European Parliament Committee on Legal Affairs on 20 June 2018, the directive was approved by the European Parliament on 12 September 2018, and will enter formal Trilogue discussions that are expected to conclude in January 2019. If formalised, each of the EU's member countries would then be required to enact laws to support the directive.

The European Council describe their key goals as protecting press publications, reducing the "value gap" between the profits made by internet platforms and content creators, encouraging "collaboration" between these two groups, and creating copyright exceptions for text and data mining. The directive's specific proposals include giving press publishers direct copyright over use of their publications by internet platforms such as online news aggregators (Article 11) and requiring websites who primarily host content posted by users to take "effective and proportionate" measures to prevent unauthorised postings of copyrighted content or be liable for their users' actions (Article 13).

Articles 11 and 13 have attracted widespread criticism from European and American parties. Article 11 has been criticised as a "link tax" which would require websites "to obtain a license before linking to news stories", and Article 13 as a "meme ban", on the basis that the content-matching technologies employed to meet its requirements cannot identify fair dealing such as parody. Supporters of the directive, largely media groups and publishers, reject these arguments and claim that a disinformation and astroturfing campaign is being carried out by big internet platforms such as Google.

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Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directive_on_Copyright_in_the_Digital_Single_Market
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On January 2019 (which is less than 2 months from now) will be decided if the directive is going to be finalised in ''its present form'', rejected completely (which is highly unlikely) or something in between.

From what I'm reading the directive's ''present form'' regarding Articles 11 and 13 may be interpreted as follows:

Articles 11 and 13 would imply that posting excerpts, quotations, images, gifs, etc. and links from some (if not most) external sources would be considered as copyright infringement unless we, the forum owners buy distribution rights from those sources, otherwise we would be held liable.
Theoretically public domain websites such as Wikipedia would be excluded, but it is not yet clear to what degree since the subject is still heavily debated.

Also pretty much all original content, made by us and our users for our forums, would have to be specifically licensed for our forums.

So if my understanding is correct, I'm afraid that the GDPR, which was something completely necessary, will seem like walk in the park compared to what we'll have to do in order to comply with the EU Copyright Directive and by we I'm referring to all forum owners, forum users and Xenforo.
 
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I heard about this. It's a very... interesting direction the EU wants to take the Internet in. Sadly, the most practical response for board owners will be to geoblock the EU market to avoid paying the licensing fees (if this passes as is).
 
Kalo said:
Articles 11 and 13 would imply that posting excerpts, quotations, images, gifs, etc. and links from some (if not most) external sources would be considered as copyright infringement unless we, the forum owners buy distribution rights from those sources, otherwise we would be held liable.
Theoretically public domain websites such as Wikipedia would be excluded, but it is not yet clear to what degree since the subject is still heavily debated.
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This is not fully correct. Links like this one are not affected at all will stay completely free, no matter what the outcome ot he trilogue will be.
 
Kirby said:
This is not fully correct. Links like this one are not affected at all will stay completely free, no matter what the outcome ot he trilogue will be.
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Indeed, that's why I posted some (if not most). Obviously forum cross-links won't be affected and links to public domain websites.
 
The link target doesn't matter - every link that is just a link and does not include a snippet (like the URL unfurling feature does) won't be affected at all.
 
The link and snippet topics are clear to me now, but the directive also implies that we would need filters to automatically verify user embedding of copyrighted audio and visual content.
 
That is wrong as well :)

Nowhere does the planned directive state that you must have filters (that youldn't legally be possible), it just states that you must make sure that you do not have copyright infringing material on your site - how you do that is fully up to you.

However, if you don't make sure that every content is either free or licensed, you are liable for any use of unlicensed content - unless you can pove that you have taken any possible actions to prevent such things, and using filters is one option to do so.
 
Kirby said:
However, if you don't make sure that every content is either free or licensed, you are liable for any use of unlicensed content - unless you can pove that you have taken any possible actions to prevent such things, and using filters is one option to do so.
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Does it mean for every posted image or video, the board owner is responsible? And for copy/pasted text people posted from somewhere else? All copyright infringements and we couldn't be able to run a forum at all.
 
sbj said:
Does it mean for every posted image or video, the board owner is responsible?
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Yes. This is already the case anyway (at least in Germany) if there is copyright violating content on the board, the board operator is aware of that and does not remove it.

And for copy/pasted text people posted from somewhere else?
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Yes.

All copyright infringements and we couldn't be able to run a forum at all.
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Well, it doesn't prevent anyone from running a forum - it just increases the (financial) risk to do so which might cause market consolidation, eg. small/individual/personal boards might close down and large, professional, commercial forums and social sites backed with enough legal counsel (like Facebook, etc.) will benefit.
 
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@Kirby

So what is the change then? Before a copyright violation was always a copyright violation. So if people contacted you regarding that, you had to remove the stuff from your forum. What is the difference now with those new articles?
 
sbj said:
Does it mean for every posted image or video, the board owner is responsible? And for copy/pasted text people posted from somewhere else? All copyright infringements and we couldn't be able to run a forum at all.
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Even today, if you have Copyright Take-Down Policy it clearly states that if someone makes a legitimate copyright claim you would have to take it down, otherwise you would be held liable which is very serious.

The debate regarding the directive is how to prevent copyright claims by filters (automatically) or manually.

@Kirby is correct to say that ''Nowhere does the planned directive state that you must have filters'', it's only being suggested from concerned website owners.

Xenforo does actually have embedded option for content submission:

188959

If enabled, users can post without your approval.
 
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sbj said:
What is the difference now with those new articles?
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You (the legal entity responsible for operating the forum) will be immediately liable, eg. you have to pay for lost license fees - no matter if you remove the content or not.
(Though it would be wise to remove it, outerwise you will also have to pay for future use of that content).
 
sbj said:
@Kirby

So what is the change then? Before a copyright violation was always a copyright violation. So if people contacted you regarding that, you had to remove the stuff from your forum. What is the difference now with those new articles?
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The change is that you must prevent receiving copyright claims. That's the difference.
 
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Kirby said:
You (the legal entity responsible for operating the forum) will be immediately liable, eg. you have to pay for lost license fees - no matter if you remove the content or not.
(Though it would be wise to remove it, outerwise you will also have to pay for future use of that content).
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Kalo said:
The change is that you must prevent receiving copyright claims. That's the difference.
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Wait a second.
Now I am gonna be immediately liable when someone posts a copyright infringing post?
Really? Is this seriously correct?

So when this goes live, I can come to XF and copy/paste my own pictures here from a 2nd account (behind a VPN) nobody is aware of and then I can sue XF for copyright infringement with my main account saying that XF has no rights in using my images?

This can't be real.

And it also means basically every server hosted in the EU is liable for everything then.
 
sbj said:
Is this seriously correct?
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Yes, thats what it seems to entail.
And there is much nore coming. There is also this:

EU bans hate video in next step against online platforms

A new EU Directive has been signed into 'EU law'. PE-CONS 33/18 It amends the Audiovisual Media Services Directive to limit hate speech, incitement, hatred, violence and harmful content, protection of minors. Countries have 21 months to implement it into national law and are allowed to create...
theadminzone.com
 
Kalo said:
Yes, all of this applicable, obviously, but the issue here is to prevent from posting copyrighted material not in X time, but before posting or say a few seconds after posting. That should be the definition of the new directive. That is what concerns me and others.
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If you have a significant number of posts already then that ship has sailed for that content. The only way to address content that already exists is to have users flag it.
 
Alfa1 said:
If you have a significant number of posts already then that ship has sailed for that content. The only way to address content that already exists is to have users flag it.
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Fortunately I'm still setting up my forum. So there is no content in it.
 
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