Ladies and Gentlemen,
On behalf of Thomas Waitz, Michel Reimon and Monika Vana I would like to thank you very much for your message and your commitment. It is very important for us that European citizens exercise their right to political participation. We look forward to your feedback and participation in this debate. It is good for us to see that the policy being pursued in Brussels is also being perceived in the Member States. Due to the large number of submissions, we were unfortunately unable to reply to you earlier.
However, we can assure you that we share your concerns and support Julia Reda's position. Just like you, we also support a modern copyrigh law and are against the problematic Article 13 (or 17 after the new reading) of the bill. The Green Group in the European Parliament has a clear position on this article. We expressly reject the introduction of mandatory upload filters. We are of course of the opinion that platforms that monetize third-party content should adequately compensate the original authors, but we consider a general duty to monitor to be the wrong means, which also entails foreseeable side effects.
As you probably know, the European Parliament voted for the second time in Strasbourg in March on the copyright law in the digital market. Thomas Waitz, together with his Austrian colleagues from the Green Group, voted consistently AGAINST the directive. Unfortunately, our MEPs failed due to a conservative-liberal majority (as well as votes of social democrats* from some countries). You can see the exact voting behaviour of the Austrian mandataries on the Commission's proposal here:
We are very sorry that we could not prevail in both votes. We would now ask you not to be discouraged and to continue to support the free Internet. For example by reaching out to the national governments, which now have to convert this directive into national legislation.
Keep up the good work! #SaveYourInternet
Best regards,
Clara Schweighofer
Büro von Thomas Waitz MEP (Greens/EFA)