BERLIN, March 22 (Xinhua) -- The leader of the German Social Democrat (SPD) youth organization (Juso) Kevin Kuehnert Friday called on Germans to participate in major demonstrations on Saturday against a planned European copyright reform.
The demonstrations, which have been announced in more than 50 German cities and many more throughout Europe, aim to convince undecided members of the European Parliament to vote against the proposed European Union (EU) copyright reform, Kuehnert told the German newspaper Augsburger Allgemeine.
The chairman of the young SPD did not, however, question the planned copyright reform as a whole. "Users need to be made aware that not everyone on the net can use other people's products as they please," Kuehnert told German media.
The controversial copyright reform Article 13 would create significantly more copyright protection obligations for platforms such as YouTube. Although the use of upload filters has not been explicitly prescribed in the law, critics feared that these filters would be the only way for platforms to comply with the requirements.
"As a result of Article 13, numerous platforms would have to automatically filter all content before it is published and block an upload in case of doubt," said Bernhard Rohleder, president of the German digital association Bitkom.
The group Save the Internet initiated the call for Europe-wide protests against the controversial copyright proposal. According to the group's website, "the planned EU copyright reform threatens to massively restrict the free exchange of opinions and culture via the Internet".
Save the Internet also appealed to the German government "to adhere to its coalition agreement, which explicitly rejects the use of upload filters as disproportionate".
Julia Reda from the German Pirate Party, a well-known opponent of the controversial law in Germany, has criticized the copyright reform as an "attack on the free internet" and as a "danger for small publishers, authors and internet users". Reda called on her followers on Twitter to protest against the copyright reform, and wrote "it is time to show up in droves at the protests on Saturday".
In order to protest the planned copyright reform, Wikipedia, a multilingual web-based free encyclopedia based on a model of openly editable and viewable content, went offline on Thursday. Wikipedia said that the proposed EU copyright law would be a potential danger for the liberty of the internet and Wikipedia's model.
Meanwhile, organizations like the German music rights agency GEMA have been trying to mobilize supporters for the reform including through the #Yes2Copyright campaign, which was supported by well-known German musicians such as Lena Meyer-Landrut and Mark Forster.
Negotiators from the European Parliament and the EU member states had agreed on a legal text in mid-February. The European Parliament will debate and vote on the proposal next Tuesday.
