You may have heard about the efforts in Europe to reform copyright law. The debate has been ongoing in the European Parliament for months. If approved next week, these new regulations would require us to automatically filter and block content that you upload without meaningful consideration of your right to free expression.
We respect the copyrights and trademarks of others, and we take all reports seriously to ensure that your creative expression is protected. We make this clear in our Community Guidelines. There’s already a legal framework that works and is fair: Todaywe take down posts and media that contain allegedly infringing content when we receive a valid DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) takedown request. We also provide clear-cut ways for people to fight back if they believe their removed content was not a true violation. These instances are monitored and reported and live in our biannual transparency report.
The suggestion to use automated filters for issues of copyright is short-sighted at best and harmful at worst. Automated filters are unable to determine whether a use should be considered “fair use” under the law and are unable to determine whether a use is authorized by a license agreement. They are unable to distinguish legitimate parody, satire, or even your own personal pictures that could be matched with similar photographs that have been protected by someone else. We don’t believe that technology should replace human judgment.
Tumblr is and always has been a place for creative expression, and these new regulations would only make it harder for you to express yourself with the freedom and clarity you do so now.
If you access Tumblr from Europe and want to act, you can find more information on saveyourinternet.eu.
Please reblog this as much as you reblogged the posts about Net Neutrality.
If Article 13 is approved, European People might be basically banned from uploading any fan content.
You won’t get new fanfics from people in Europe.
You won’t get new gifs from people in Europe.
You won’t get new fanart from people in Europe.
Because they’ll be automatically filtered and blocked!
We might leave Tumblr and other fandom pages.
And if we’re getting all our content blocked?
You might lose some of your favourite followers/mutuals.
You might not get to read the rest of that fic you’re dying to read – simply because the writer lives in the wrong country.
So do whatever you can to help us stop this.
Reblog this.
CONTACT YOUR REPRESENTATIVES TO TELL THEM YOU DON’T WANT ARTICLE 13 TO BE APPROVED IF YOU’RE EUROPEAN! DO IT VIA THE HOMEPAGE
Hey, do you know that feeling of hitching up a long skirt so you don’t fall on your face when walking upstairs, and then you immediately become a wretched yet resolute Jane Austen character? It’s a universal thing, right?
It’s like resting a laundry basket against your hip and suddenly you’re a long-suffering peasant woman, wondering if you’ll survive the winter.
a shawl wrapped around the shoulders and you’re wandering the moors in a Brönte novel, feeling melancholic
Looking out the window at the rain and you’re a love-stricken newlywed wondering when your husband will return from the war.
Long skirt billowing behind you while to go down the stairs, you’re a proper Lady in a flowing ball gown being introduced at a fancy social function.
Hair blowing in the wind and suddenly you’re hovering on a cliff by the sea, staring out into the waves and praying your merchant husband will return from his voyage across the ocean
Hood up against the rain and wind and you’re a medieval abbess defying the weather and travelling on foot with your people to find a place to establish a new community.
Wiping your hands on your apron and you’re an 18th century kitchen girl rushing to let in the delivery boy you secretly love.