Thread by @Senficon

The @EU_Commission may abandon central user rights safeguards against #uploadfilters in its upcoming #copyright guidance on implementation of #Article17! Civil Society groups including @communia_eu @EDRi @EFF are raising the alarm in an open letter today. What happened? A thread.

Last year, @EU_Commission published a draft guidance that said that only obviously copyright-infringing uploads could be blocked by #uploadfilters, trying to convince the European Court of Justice not to strike down #Article17 for violating fundamental rights.

The Court held a hearing on the Polish complaint against #Article17 in November, where the Commission promised that legal uploads, such as parodies or quotations, would be protected. verfassungsblog.de/luxembourg-to-…

Knowing that the Court's Advocate General was going to issue his opinion on whether #Article17 is compatible with fundamental rights this Thursday, the @EU_Commission was planning to publish its final guidance immediately before, too late to be taken into account in the opinion.

But it looks like the Advocate General wants complete information first, so last week the Court announced that his opinion will be pushed back to July! This delay is understandable, but bad news for countries like Germany, where #Article17 is going through Parliament right now.

Suddenly the @EU_Commission is no longer in a rush, even though the guidance was planned to be presented yesterday, according to a Council document. Commissioner @ThierryBreton said in the European Parliament yesterday that the guidance will be published "in the next weeks".

When MEP @PiratKolaja asked @ThierryBreton point blank whether the Commission will keep its promise made before the Court that only manifestly infringing content will be blocked by #uploadfilters, the Commissioner ignored the question. multimedia.europarl.europa.eu/en/committee-o… (Q: 14:29; A: 14:37)

This refusal to answer is in sharp contrast to a letter that @ThierryBreton sent civil society groups in October, in which he committed to the distinction between likely legitimate and likely infringing uploads in the #Article17 guidance.

Instead @ThierryBreton assured a French MEP that the Commission had started presenting parts of the guidance to Member States. But the Commission was just criticized for a secret meeting with some states who want to get rid of users’ rights in #Article17, most notably France!

The fact that @ThierryBreton is the French Commissioner doesn’t exactly help put worries at ease that the Commission is abandoning its fundamental rights protections for users in the #Article17 guidance behind closed doors, just to please rightsholders and a single Member State.

You can read our open letter to the @EU_Commission and more on what’s been going on behind the scenes in this @communia_eu blog post: communia-association.org/2021/04/20/ope… #Article17 #uploadfilters #copyright