musically.com
Article 13 creates an obligation on information society service providers storing and giving access to large amounts of works and other subject-matter uploaded by their users to take appropriate and proportionate measures to ensure the functioning of agreements concluded with rightholders and to prevent the availability on their services of content identified by rightholders in cooperation with the service providers”
This would remove the ‘safe harbours’ that have been a long-term bugbear for music rightsholders, who see them as responsible for the ‘value gap’ between the music royalties paid by platforms like YouTube, and those that do not benefit from safe harbours, like Spotify and Apple Music.
Critics of Article 13 argue that it would damage key principles of free expression online by forcing platforms to filter anything that might be copyrighted content, while also damaging the chances of small internet startups to compete with giants like Google/YouTube, who can afford to spend tens of millions of dollars building tools like the latter’s ContentID to comply with the legislation.
The news is already being celebrated by music rightsholders and their representative bodies, but will come as a blow to the technology companies and activists who had been campaigning against the proposal.
Independent body Impala was one of the first to hail the news, describing it as a “great result for creators”. Boss Helen Smith had published an opinion piece earlier this week defending the proposed legislation. “Nobody in our community is suggesting ‘tearing down the internet.’ What we are asking lawmakers to do is to make sure that it works for everyone,” she wrote.
