The implementation process of Article 17 (formerly Article 13) of the controversial Copyright Directive into national laws is in full swing, and it does not look good for users rights and freedoms. Several EU states have failed to present balanced copyright implementation proposals, ignoring the concerns off EFF, other civil society organizations, and experts that only strong user safeguards can help preventing Article 17 from turning tech companies and online services operators into copyright police.
A glimpse of hope was presented by the German government in a recent discussion paper. While the draft proposal fails to prevent the use of upload filters to monitor all user uploads and assess them against the information provided by rightsholders, it showed creativity by giving users the option of pre-flagging uploads as authorized (online by default) and by setting out exceptions for everyday uses. Remedies against abusive removal requests by self-proclaimed rightsholders were an