AMA with Julia Reda, fighting against #ACTA2 in the European Parliament

I represent the Pirate Party in the EU Parliament, where I'm leading the fight against plans to restrict your freedoms online. Ask me anything!

AMA with Julia Reda, fighting against #ACTA2 in the European Parliament

I represent the Pirate Party in the EU Parliament, where I'm leading the fight against plans to restrict your freedoms online.

The planned new Copyright Directive contains dangerous regulations that would limit your freedom of expression, harm independent creators, hinder small publishers and startups, and boost fake news – it serves only the commercial interests of a few big corporations.

• Article 13 would force internet platforms to install "censorship machines": Anything you post would first need to be approved by upload filter software looking for copyright infringement, which often makes mistakes
• Article 11 would establish something like a "link tax": You would need a license to share even short extracts of news articles, such as the title or quote that is usually part of a link.

Both of these would directly affect Wykop.  For more details (in English), see my website.

In July, the Parliament hit the "pause" button on these plans after a massive wave of protest. That was a great success!

But the fight is not over: The next vote is on September 12.

Last weekend, people took to the streets across Europe to #StopACTA2. Thanks to everyone who came out!

Now we must keep up the pressure: You can use the tool at SaveYourInternet.eu to call, email or tweet at your MEP. Calls are most effective!

I'll be here from 18:30 until 20:00. Ask me anything! #ama

[S.....a]

Hi (sorry for bad English).

[juliaredamep]

@SaveznaRepublikaJugoslavija: No cześć, wybaczcie nasz słaby polski.

[Jofiel]

Hi, Julia.
Why AMA here?
Why Pirate Party?
How you will fight against freedom restriction in person?

[juliaredamep]

@Jofiel: Hi, the role of Poland in the copyright debate is extremely important. In July, when the European Parliament rejected the fast-tracking of the upload filters and link tax, all but 3 Polish MEPs voted against. If it had not been for the excellent mobilisation of activists in Poland that led many Polish MEPs to change their minds, we would have already lost the vote in July. wykop has been

[Tom_Ja]

How will this law affect Wikipedia and other Wikimedias?

[juliaredamep]

@Tom_Ja: The worst threat for Wikipedia right now is probably the link tax, because it will require all online services (also a nonprofit like Wikipedia) to pay for linking to news articles. Wikipedia uses thousands upon thousands of links to news articles as references. Even if some of these links would be legal under a copyright exception like quotation, every single one of them would have to be checked and

[wigr]

Who is lobbying for the link tax, and why?

[juliaredamep]

@wigr: The link tax was invented by German publisher Axel Springer, and they have been the loudest voice lobbying for it as well. I have written about the reasons why here: https://www.wykop.pl/link/4498527/comment/57947557/#comment-57947557 Recently, news agencies have also started lobbying very heavily for the link tax. This could be because the news agency is usually built on newspapers subscribing to the agency service and then getting very up-to-date short news reports

[amaru-szakur]

Hi Julia. www.stopacta2.org and Stopacta2.Poland fanpage administrator here. I would like to ask you if the directive will change the way we use the internet today to find multiple opinions on a subject to create our own point of view? And could it be used in the future to stop non political correct post's and comment's?

[juliaredamep]

@amaru-szakur: Article 11 would harm media plurality in multiple ways. It would make it very difficult and expensive to run a news aggregator, fact checking site or any similar service that provides access to multiple points of view. Platforms like Wykop, Facebook or Twitter would need to negotiate licenses before being allowed to include quotes or images in links to news sites. Both of these measures will disproportionally negatively affect

[Tom_Ja]

What might the final compromise look like in this case?

[juliaredamep]

@Tom_Ja: On the link tax, there is a pretty sensible alternative on the table that would make it easier for press publishers to go against websites that rip off entire articles, because the articles are already protected by copyright today, but it can be difficult in practice for the publisher to enforce the rights of the original author. I have published this alternative proposal here: https://juliareda.eu/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/reda-compromise-11.pdf explanation here: https://juliareda.eu/2018/06/the-internet-after-axel-voss/ This

[Quelaag]

@juliaredamep:
Cześć Julia! What's your thoughts on free and open-source software?

[juliaredamep]

@Quelaag: Free Software is great. I’ve convinced the EU to invest over 1 Million Euro into the security of Free and Open Source Software
https://juliareda.eu/fossa/

[J.....s]

Should access to scientific papers funded from taxes be free for everyone? SCIHUB 4 lyfe.

[juliaredamep]

@James_Owens: Yes!

[Tom_Ja]

What do you think is the reason for the poor attendance in defending the Internet?

[juliaredamep]

@Tom_Ja: Copyright law is not usually a topic that gets people to protest in the streets. In general, the public rarely gets involved in the debate about EU laws while they are still being negotiated, because the national media hardly ever reports on the EU legislative process in detail. The ACTA protests were an amazing exception! Given that, I think it was remarkable that actions and protests took place in

[wigr]

Do you think that the internet with the link tax would be owned by the huge media companies, and the smaller media and blogs would be in trouble?

Do you think that this law can ruin the free flow of information in the internet?

[juliaredamep]

@wigr: I think that the link tax is dangerous for all media companies, large and small, but more so for small ones, yes. If the link tax is adopted, websites will no longer be allowed to link to news articles without asking permission from the publishers. Publishers who support the link tax claim that websites will be so crazy about their content that they will pay whatever fee they set