EU Wants To Require Platforms To Filter Uploaded Content (Including Code) (github.com)

A new copyright proposal in the EU would require code-sharing platforms like GitHub and SourceForge to monitor all content that users upload for potential copyright infringement. "The proposal is aimed at music and videos on streaming platforms, based on a theory of a 'value gap' between the profits those platforms make from uploaded works and what copyright holders of some uploaded works receive," reports The GitHub Blog. "However, the way it's written captures many other types of content, including code."

Upload filters, also known as "censorship machines," are some of the most controversial elements of the copyright proposal, raising a number of concerns including: -Privacy: Upload filters are a form of surveillance, effectively a "general monitoring obligation" prohibited by EU law
-Free speech: Requiring platforms to monitor content contradicts intermediary liability protections in EU law and creates incentives to remove content
-Ineffectiveness: Content detection tools are flawed (generate false positives, don't fit all kinds of content) and overly burdensome, especially for small and medium-sized businesses that might not be able to afford them or the resulting litigation Upload filters are especially concerning for software developers given that: -Software developers create copyrightable works -- their code -- and those who choose an open source license want to allow that code to be shared
-False positives (and negatives) are especially likely for software code because code often has many contributors and layers, often with different licensing for different components
-Requiring code-hosting platforms to scan and automatically remove content could drastically impact software developers when their dependencies are removed due to false positives The EU Parliament continues to introduce new proposals for Article 13 but these issues remain. MEP Julia Reda explains further in a recent proposal from Parliament.

Comments

Re:So do they have some kind of proposal....

[AmiMoJo]

They do. I read the proposal, and for a start it doesn't say what Github thinks it says. It also doesn't propose any magic filters or even any new tech.

Most sites that allow user uploads already have some filtering in place for illegal material like known child pornography images. The EU is simply proposing that these existing filters might also be used for known copyright infringing files, which in fact many sites already do anyway.

Basically they are saying that once an infringing file is identified and checked, its hash would be added to the database to prevent further uploads rather than the copyright holder having to spam copyright claims.

Personally I'm still opposed to it, but if you read the actual proposal they have done extensive impact assessments and gone to some lengths to ensure that the burden isn't too great.