EU copyright laws (2018-2019). Any risk for Stack Exchange?

Question

The European Parliament JURI committee will be voting on 20th June 2018 on reforms of the EU copyright laws (full law proposal). According to a Creative Commons article titled 'Act now to stop the EU’s plan to censor the web':

The final copyright directive will have deep and lasting effects on the ability to create and share, to access and use education and research [...]

The author also argues that Article 13 would limit freedom of expression since copyright-filters would have a hard time distinguishing fair use from unauthorized copyright use.

[...] it puts into jeopardy the sharing of video remixes, memes, parody, and code, even works that include openly licensed content

FSFE's Openforum wrote an open letter, supported by GitHub, Debian, LibreOffice, SUSE, KDE and others, which states:

The proposed Article 13 of the EU Copyright Directive targets every online service that allows its users to upload and share content with each other, including code hosting platforms.

Under this proposal code hosting platforms will be compelled to prevent any possible copyright infringement by developing fundamentally flawed filtering technologies. These filtering algorithms will ultimately decide what material software developers should be allowed to share.

[...] This restricts the freedom of developers to use specific software components and tools that in return leads to less competition and less innovation.

_{(emphasis mine)}

Update June 2018:

• The EU committee has approved the new copyright rules. It will be voted on by the European Parliament on July.

• Creative Commons twitted:

  @EP_Legal has adopted both Article 11 (#linktax) and Article 13 (#CensorshipMachines). It’s a dark day for the open web, but the fight will continue in the upcoming plenary vote in the European Parliament. #SaveYourInternet #SaveTheLink #FixCopyright

  — Creative Commons (@creativecommons) June 20, 2018

• 162 companies sign against the law.

Update 6 March 2019:

According to SaveYourInternet:

The Group of the European People’s Party [...] is trying to push the final vote on the copyright reform to 12 March. This sound like an attempt to vote before the major Article 13 action day that’s planned for 23 March. On Thursday 7 March at 10 AM CET, the European Parliament’s (EP) Conference of Presidents (CoP) will vote on this request from the EPP.

Update 26 March 2019

SaveYourInternet:

all 750 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) adopted an EU copyright reform that forces upload filters onto the Internet, as Article 17 (ex Art. 13) was not deleted. The next step is the final approval of the Council (= EU Member States) at the Ministerial level, which is expected in April. [...]

THIS IS OUR LAST CHANCE TO OVERTURN THE EU COPYRIGHT REFORM

Update

Article 17 (ex Art. 13) of the adopted text will force upload filters onto the Internet. The EU Member States will now have 2 years’ time to implement the Directive into their own national legislation. The fight continues, but now at national level. This copyright legislation is a Directive, which means that the EU Member States have some margin for manoeuvre at the national level with regards to how they ensure that the legislation will work in practice. Therefore, it will be important to convince national policymakers to ensure that they implement Article 17 (ex Art. 13) in the least harmful way, by ensuring the best possible protection of citizens’ fundamental rights.

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Do these copyright proposals represent a risk for Stack Exchange?

Answer 1

What's scary about this are the unknowns. We really don't know what the impact will mean for us, or imgur, or other friends - we don't know what the outcome of the vote will be, or what the final legislation will look like.

We're, like many other US companies that cater to the world, bystanders in this that could possibly also get hit. But:

• We don't really have a voice here. We are potentially affected, but we're not a constituent. That stinks.
• We're open to ways we could possibly have some influence, that doesn't end in us actively lobbying.

Is this worth a blog post? Is it worth a call to action? Anything even remotely political tends to behave in a very volatile way within our community and we're .. well, reluctant to use the company voice for those purposes without some call for it.

But all we can do is remind folks in the EU that they do have a voice, but other organizations are already doing that, would adding one more logo to it really help? (That's not a rhetorical question).

The answer is: You tell us. If it's reasonable and our legal eagles sign off on it, it'll get done.

Answer 2

^{Had to post as an answer, because too large for a comment.}

Possible Restrictions

The problem being that if this law passes I/you might not be able to do the following in the future, because of "possible" copyright infringement:

1. Use a Title from Another Website

70+ Internet Luminaries Ring the Alarm on EU Copyright Filtering Proposal (EFF.org)

2. Link a Picture from a Different Site

_{(source: eff.org)}

3. Quote from Another Website

Vint Cerf, Tim Berners-Lee, and Dozens of Other Computing Experts Oppose Article 13

As Europe's latest copyright proposal heads to a critical vote on June 20-21, more than 70 Internet and computing luminaries have spoken out against a dangerous provision, Article 13, that would require Internet platforms to automatically filter uploaded content. The group, which includes Internet pioneer Vint Cerf, the inventor of the World Wide Web Tim Berners-Lee, Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales, co-founder of the Mozilla Project Mitchell Baker, Internet Archive founder Brewster Kahle, cryptography expert Bruce Schneier, and net neutrality expert Tim Wu, wrote in a joint letter that was released today:

By requiring Internet platforms to perform automatic filtering all of the content that their users upload, Article 13 takes an unprecedented step towards the transformation of the Internet, from an open platform for sharing and innovation, into a tool for the automated surveillance and control of its users.

The prospects for the elimination of Article 13 have continued to worsen...

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Argumentation of those Opposing the Law

Some of those opposing this law argue that:

For those platforms that do establish upload filtering, users will find that their contributions—including video, audio, text, and even source code—will be monitored and potentially blocked if the automated system detects what it believes to be a copyright infringement. Inevitably, mistakes will happen. There is no way for an automated system to reliably determine when the use of a copyright work falls within a copyright limitation or exception under European law, such as quotation or parody.

This might result in being fined for hosting content that could possibly be copyrighted, even though the material was marked as such.

Whilst the opponents do agree that...

We support the consideration of measures that would improve the ability for creators to receive fair remuneration for the use of their works online.

...they argue that ...

But we cannot support Article 13, which would mandate Internet platforms to embed an automated infrastructure for monitoring and censorship deep into their networks. For the sake of the Internet’s future, we urge you to vote for the deletion of this proposal.

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Expectation of the EFF

What began as a bad idea offered up to copyright lobbyists as a solution to an imaginary "value gap" has now become an outright crisis for future of the Internet as we know it. Indeed, if those who created and sustain the operation of the Internet recognize the scale of this threat, we should all be sitting up and taking notice.

Possible Expectations of OP and Me

Take a stance for the European User Base.

_{(all emphasis are mine)}

Referenced Material / Creative Commons

All material used in this answer originated from the eff.org site and from the article 70+ Internet Luminaries Ring the Alarm on EU Copyright Filtering Proposal

Any and all original material on the EFF website may be freely distributed at will under the Creative Commons Attribution License, unless otherwise noted.

Answer 3

Boing Boing posted an article recently: Not just Europe: EU Copyright Directive will censor the world's internet

I don't know to what extent it's true. It appears to expect action at your end (i.e. you're required to comply with it -- perhaps to "implement" it somehow).

Some SE sites (perhaps unlike e.g. the programming sites) cite and quote references quite extensively -- presumably (i.e. I presume) under the cover of "fair use"; textual references though, fwiw, not video etc.

I don't know how fair use is affected, whether it's permitted and if so how.

I guess you may eventually want to update the ToS, and/or post a "What does this mean for you, and us?" kind of clarification for SE users.