Wednesday 12 September is the day. The European Parliament will vote on the revision of the European Copyright Act. Many important topics will be discussed, but two of them concern all of us – as internet users: the link tax and the upload filter.
What is the link tax?
In short, the link tax means that even copying a few sentences from news reports, even the title, is already considered a copyright infringement. Because a title often appears in a hyperlink, placing the link would therefore also constitute a copyright infringement.
This would mean that we would no longer be allowed to publish a link to an article without the permission of the author or publisher.
I don't know about you, but when it comes to my own articles, the more links the better. Readers come to my website and I decide whether they have to pay for the content or if they can read it for free.
At the moment, we have the right to quote in the entire EU. In one country unfortunately sometimes applied slightly differently than in the other, but still. In order to be able to use the right to quote, you must meet 5 conditions:
The work you wish to quote from must already denmark telegram data have been lawfully made public
You may not use more than you need
You may only quote for the purpose of an announcement, assessment, polemic or scientific treatise or expression with a similar purpose
Personal rights must be respected, for example a work may not be modified
Where reasonably possible, the source and the name of the creator should be clearly stated
A short quote, whether it is text, an image, a scene from a series or a few seconds of music, is usually allowed. The title of an article is never a problem. In fact, up until now we have found in the Netherlands that taking over a title and a few lines of text, with a referral to the original article, was a quote.
The link tax would prohibit us from doing that any longer.
It has already failed in Germany and Spain
In 2013, Germany introduced a law that required payment for publishing quotes. The idea was that big companies like Google would profit for free from articles that publishers wrote. A maximum of 7 words could be used for free. Eventually, after losing 40% of their readership, the news media gave Google free licenses.