Franco-German compromise deal

Article 3 of the Directive on copyright in the Digital Single Market is back on the negotiating table and it is even worse

Unfortunately, most of the member states of the EU still support the introduction of upload filters on the user-generated content platform, they just do not agree on the scope of the mandatory nature of the filters. France claims that filters sould apply to all platforms, regardless of size. Germany, on the other hand, advocated the position that they should not apply to everyone and that companies with a turnover below €20 million per year should be excluded outright.

In the recently presented Franco-German compromise deal, Article 13 does apply to all for-profit platforms. Upload filters must be installed by everyone except those services which fit all three of the following extremely narrow criteria:

– available to the public for less than 3 years,
– annual turnover below €10 million,
– fewer than 5 million unique monthly visitor.

In addition to these strict conditions the platforms that want to be excluded will have to prove that they have undertaken their best efforts to obtain licenses from the right holders. Such a wide obligation to filter copyright content is totally unacceptable for copyright law as the regime stimulating creativity and the dissemination of knowledge.