URGENT EU activism action (Yes this affects the UK too!) [before June 20, 2018]

Who are the UK’s 73 Members of the European Parliament?

World-class Therepeutic Drug Monitor (TDM) and Chemist from Cambridge [Cambridge Univsersity alum] who creates open source tools [ContentMine.org] to look-up academic papers:

“In summary the proposals are a mess, and unworkable. They bring confusion, rather than clarity and by default bring total power to “copyright owners”. If they are passed they will destroy knowledge-based innovation in Europe which will pass either to Silicon Valley, SE Asia or the Middle East. Knowledge innovators and companies in Europe are now “chilled” by copyright law and fearful of action. By default they will move to countries with more permissive laws, or simply close.”

https://blogs.ch.cam.ac.uk/pmr/2018/06/07/european-copyright-cancel-articles-3-11-and-13/

“And that leaves out even more fundamental questions about how do filters handle things like fair use? Or parody? To date, they don’t. Now making such filters mandatory even for smaller sites would be a complete and total disaster for how the internet works. This is why it is not hyperbolic at all to suggest that this change to how the EU looks at copyright could have a massive consequence on how the internet functions.”

“I can’t think of a greater threat to the basic functioning of the internet than the current proposal in the EU right now. And, yet, it seems to not be getting nearly as much attention as those other things. Perhaps we’re all fatigued from the other threats to the internet. But we need to wake up and speak out, because this one is worse.”

Reddit statement: “Phone not your thing? Tweet at your MEP! Anything we can do to get the message across that internet users care about this is important. The vote is expected June 20 or 21, so there is still plenty of time to make our voices heard, but we need to raise them!”

https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/8qfw8l/protecting_the_free_and_open_internet_european/

Wordpress’ umbrella org, Automattic:

“Based on our experience, the changes to Article 13, while well-intentioned will almost certainly lead to a flood of unintended, but very real, censorship and chilling of legitimate, important, online speech.”

PIA:

"This is a terrible idea for several reasons. It forces online services and sites to act as copyright police for the music, film and publishing industries, which are the sole arbiters of what should be blocked. There is no legal process involved – this all happens behind closed doors, on very unequal terms.

Article 13 effectively makes online services responsible for what users post to them, imposing a new intermediary liability on Internet companies. That’s not just bad news, it contradicts an earlier EU directive on e-commerce, passed in 2000, which laid down that companies acting as a “mere conduit” – that is, simply providing a platform – should not be held responsible for material posted to their sites. The new copyright directive would overturn nearly two decades of law and practice."

At this late stage, one of the most effective ways to :mega: make some noise :mega: is to use Mozilla’s tool. Here you don’t even need pay for the phone call!

https://changecopyright.org/