United Nations Human Rights: "UN human rights expert David Kaye has urged the European Union to bring its Copyright Directive into line with international standards on freedom of expression. “Europe has a responsibility to modernise its copyright law to address the challenges of the digital age,” said the UN’s Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression ahead of a critical vote on the Directive. “But this should not be done at the expense of the freedom of expression that Europeans enjoy today.” “Article 13 of the proposed Directive appears destined to drive internet platforms toward monitoring and restriction of user-generated content even at the point of upload. Such sweeping pressure for pre-publication filtering is neither a necessary nor proportionate response to copyright infringement online.”
The latest version of the proposed Directive, which would include an exemption for relatively new content-sharing providers that have limited penetration in European markets, would not meet the concerns raised by earlier drafts, Kaye added. “Most platforms would not qualify for the exemption and would face legal pressure to install and maintain expensive content filtering infrastructure to comply with the proposed Directive,” the expert said. “In the long run, this would imperil the future of information diversity and media pluralism in Europe, since only the biggest players will be able to afford these technologies.”
(...)"
