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Platforms: »Identify systematic problems of the upload filter«
Photo: DADO RUVIC / REUTERS
The German upload filter law will come into force on Sunday, August 1st.
Official name: Copyright Service Provider Act or in short: UrhDaG.
It is the central and probably most controversial part of the implementation of the EU copyright reform of 2019 in German law.
The question is whether, and if so, how that will make itself felt.
The UrhDaG is the German version of Article 17, formerly Article 13, of EU Directive 2019/790.
Tens of thousands in Munich, Berlin, Hamburg, Düsseldorf and elsewhere took to the streets against this article in March 2019.
Their fear at the time: Because service providers such as YouTube or Facebook could be held liable for copyright infringements by their users in the future, they will ultimately be forced to introduce automatic upload filters that can hardly distinguish between the legal and illegal use of protected content.
These filters would therefore constantly prevent completely legitimate videos or memes from being uploaded.
In short: they saw their freedom of expression threatened.
The federal government is trying to prevent this scenario, with specifications that are much more specific than the EU template.
Two examples:
The fact that up to 15 seconds of a copyrighted film or soundtrack and up to 160 characters of a text are considered minor and therefore permitted use and may not be filtered out during the upload is only stated in the UrhDaG.
This also applies to so-called pre-flagging: Uploaders must be given the opportunity to mark their videos, memes, images and other content that contains protected material from someone else as a legally permitted exception when they are uploaded.
This applies, for example, to parodies and quotes or content that has been published under a Creative Commons license.
In addition, both uploaders and rights holders have new opportunities to complain.
Some if their content is wrongly stuck in the upload filter from their point of view, others if they believe that someone is cheating on pre-flagging.
Narrow-lipped upload platforms
SPIEGEL asked YouTube, Facebook, TikTok and Twitch how they will implement the requirements of the law in practice, which new functions and complaints will be available from August 1st and what the companies will change technically, organizationally and personally.
The users of these four companies are likely to be particularly affected by the law.
The streaming platform
Twitch
, which
belongs to Amazon,
was either unwilling or unable to answer these questions and only let it be known that the regulations would of course be adhered to.
TikTok
also didn't answer any of the questions.
Facebook
referred to its already existing reporting system for copyright violations, its guidelines and the sanctions mentioned therein for repeated violations of the law, as well as the so-called Rights Manager.
It is a long-standing tool for rights holders that allows them to determine which of their content may not be shown on Facebook's platforms.
When asked what changes for users, little came from Facebook. Regarding the complaint procedure for uploaders who consider their content to be unjustifiably removed, the company only announced that the details would be sent to those affected along with the notification of deleted content. Even after repeated inquiries, Facebook did not provide any information on pre-flagging.
YouTube
was the only company surveyed to provide detailed information. "Even before the new UrhDaG came into force, we had concluded license agreements with many rights holders in Germany," wrote a spokesman. The company's own content ID technology is considered a leader in this area, said the company spokesman. “We will now continue to adapt our product to the new rules, for example by offering rights holders access to additional tools for handling their content. In Germany, in accordance with German law, we will be introducing a new pre-flagging tool for users and creators in order to display presumably permitted use. «He shared in advance what this great looks like and where exactly it will be found not with.
The Google subsidiary has also expanded its Copyright Match Tool, which searches for copies of videos that have been removed due to copyright violations (“take-down”). Rights holders can use a web form to submit deactivation requests due to copyright infringement and thus request YouTube to prevent future uploading of the relevant content (“stay-down”).
Channel operators and creatives, on the other hand, are now notified by YouTube during the upload process if a video they have uploaded contains content for which a rights holder has made claims through Content ID.
Users can then either end the upload, change the sequence of the video in question, or continue with the upload if they assume that the content is legal, for example because it is a parody.
If users complain because their videos are not even uploaded, even though they themselves assume there is a copyright exception, there should be a "human review", assures Google.
It is still unclear whether more staff will be hired for this.
It is still too early for Google to reliably estimate the additional effort.
The four companies were also asked whether they would also make the comparatively specific requirements of the UrhDaG standard in other EU countries whose laws are as vague as the text of the EU directive.
None of the companies gave an answer to this.
Ex-MEP Reda wants to sue over blocking
Julia Reda, who as a member of the European Union was intensively involved in the reform and now heads the control © copyright project at the Society for Freedom Rights (GFF), wants to put the implementation of the law to the test - with the help of the users.
She wants to know whether the law will lead to systematic, premature upload bans of legal content and calls on "the public to report false bans so that we can take action ourselves in the event of overblocking," she told SPIEGEL.
For her, being active means: going to court on behalf of those affected so that they don't have to do it themselves.
For this purpose, the GFF has set up a website and the email address uploadfilter@freiheitsrechte.org.
more on the subject
Copyright and upload filter: Can you prevent an unpleasant live stream with music? By Max Hoppenstedt
Copyright reform: Bundestag adopts controversial upload filterBy Torsten Kleinz
Debate about copyright: what the protest of more than a thousand musicians is aboutBy Patrick Beuth and Andreas Borcholte
The procedure is made possible due to another peculiarity of the UrhDaG, as Reda explains: “In the legislative process in Germany, we won a collective right of action that allows associations like the GFF to sue against repeated false blockings without individual affected persons actively participating in the court proceedings must participate «.
Their goal is not to restore wrongly blocked content, "this can be achieved more quickly and easily through the complaint procedure". Rather, it is about "identifying systematic problems with upload filters and obliging platforms and the entertainment industry to remedy these problems for the future." Because "the protection of freedom of expression will remain an empty promise if it inevitably leads to the blocking of legal content and most users are not in a position to defend themselves legally against it."
Reda is actually still hoping that the European Court of Justice (ECJ) will completely overturn Article 17 and thus the basis for the UrhDaG after the Polish government had sued against it. Most recently, however, the Advocate General at the ECJ had stated in his Opinion that he considered Article 17 to be compatible with the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. The court often, but not always, follows the Advocate General's assessment. A judgment is expected in the coming months.
