UN Special Rapporteur urges EU to align Copyright Directive with HR standards

UN Special Rapporteur David Kaye stated that the European Union’s Copyright Directive should not impose a liability regime that weakens freedom of expression online. Article 13 of the latest version of the proposal provides that content sharing platforms must license copyright protected material from the rights holders. The service provider will be held liable if it cannot prove that the content was licensed or that it acted quickly to remove infringing material. Kaye considers that article 13 drives online platforms toward monitoring and restriction of user-generated content. He notes that this pressure to pre-filter content is ‘neither necessary nor proportionate’ to address copyright violations online.