Dear MEP X,

On Thursday morning, the IMCO Committee votes on the proposal for a Copyright Directive.

Article 13 and Recital 38 of the Directive propose making internet companies more liable for what we, users, do online, and requires them to filter everything that we upload to the internet.

I oppose these measures because:

- The proposal would require internet companies to filter all uploads to the internet, which means more restrictions on legal content. Europe would be setting an awful standard for the rest of the world, in fact, it would be using much of the same technology to limit its citizens’ freedom of expression that is used in China for political censorship.

- The filtering proposals are illegal, as they have been rejected twice by the highest court of the EU, which ruled that obligatory filtering is a breach of the fundamental rights of citizens.

- The proposal also contradicts existing EU law, which states that Member States must not impose general monitoring obligations on internet companies.

- Google and Facebook can afford these filters, what about everyone else? Proposal hurts smaller companies and start-ups, since only the internet giants will be able to cope with uncertainty caused by the unclear and unpredictable filtering requirements. No one knows how much European companies would have to invest in multiple different filters (for video, for audio, for images, etc).

- Filters don’t even work that well! Different types of content are easier or more difficult to detect in a filter. How would the companies know what kind of filters are good enough in case they are taken to court?

I oppose upload filtering and I expect you to ensure protection of my freedom of expression by REJECTING the Copyright proposal and the most recent amendments by MEP Pascal Arimont.

Sincerely,
X