A recent interview with Article 13 architect Axel Voss is stirring a fresh round of controversy. He suggests that YouTube shouldn’t really exist.
Article 13, known as the censorship machines law, is once again making headlines. It is seemingly almost universally rejected by Europeans. Most recently, the controversial copyright law sparked condemnation from the United Nations. As protests continue to get organized all across Europe, you’d think that those behind the law might be having second thoughts. You’d be wrong.
Instead, the man behind the law, Axel Voss, has gone in the exact opposite direction. In a recent interview (German, English translation), Voss finally admitted that the law is about filtering. That is a different approach to what was the previous approach: deny copyright filters even exist.
What’s more striking, however, is the fact that he went even further in his comments. When asked whether or not platforms should be able to offer copyrighted material on their services, he said that if copyrighted material exists on a platform, then it shouldn’t really exist. From the translation:
“They [Youtube] have built a business model on other people’s property – on copyrighted works,” he told the broadcaster, adding, “If the platform’s intention is to give people access to copyrighted works, then we have to think about whether that kind of business should exist. “
Those comments wound up causing social media to light up.
“”The internet never forgets” isn’t just a slogan – it’s real! He may never realize his mistakes at all, but our fire just started to 🔥🔥🔥spread” wrote Fukuro
“@AxelVossMdEP you’re just a monster” another user wrote.
“He’s officially driven into a corner now. I’d say our victory is more likely now and Article 13 will likely get rejected thanks to this. I highly doubt a lot of people want those platforms to disappear completely after all.” commented Luke.
“This proves that @AxelVossMdEP is just a luddite, that really doesn’t care about us authors, only his about his capitalist masters that have hindered authors and artist from benefiting from the Internet by refusing to embrace it, at the same time they leach on creators.” writes Diogo Constantino.
Lindaru writes “The more I keep hearing about this going to worse direction, more sickened I get.
Yamo Chan comments, “For me personally this is the final straw that breaks the camels back. If this does not invigorate people all over Europe to go out on the streets and fight for their rights I dont know what will.”
So, certainly a lot of people not happy with those comments. Some are definitely calling on others to join them on the streets to protest the laws at this point.
(Via BoingBoing)
Drew Wilson on Twitter: @icecube85 and Google+.
