Hello there, friendly fellow furries (and scalies, etc.),

Today, I come bearing some good news!
Today was the plenary vote on the European Article 11 & 13 law proposal, and with 318 votes to 278, with 31 abstentions, the law proposal in its current state was rejected.

What's going to happen now is that the law proposal basically goes back to the drawing board, and some heavy alterations can be expected, if the whole proposal isn't outright rejected.
This all will be decided on another vote taking place in the week of September 10th.
Until then, all 751 MEPs will get a chance to make amendments before it will be put on vote on that day.

Apparently in the history of the European Commission, there has never been an outcry as big as for this law proposal, with concerned phone calls, letters and e-mails.
In countries like Sweden and Poland, there were so many concerned phone calls, that the phone network had to be shut down to allow them to do their work.

Still, this battle may be won, but the war isn't over yet. Make sure to spread the word, because as demonstrated,  speaking up really helps!
Let's make sure that disastrous filter system will never be put in place!

And of course, thank you very much to everyone who spoke up about it and helped spread the word, even if it was just to one person! Bless you all!

I will report to you again once the results of the next vote on the matter are known.

Sources:
https://www.saveyourinternet.eu/
https://www.liberties.eu/en/news/ep-vote-against-copyright-reform-mandate-upload-filter/15368
http://www.alphr.com/politics/1009470/article-13-EU-what-is-it-copyright
https://www.dutchcowboys.nl/online/eu-parlemten-stemt-tegen-copyrightwet-het-internet-is-nog-safe

PLEASE DO NOT TURN THIS INTO A POLITICAL DEBATE! ANY POLITICAL COMMENTS NOT DIRECTLY RELATING TO ARTICLE 11 AND 13 WILL BE DELETED, REGARDLESS OF YOUR POLITICAL STANCE!</span

What is Article 13?

The upload filters that will be established because of Article 13 will be put in place on every content sharing site, and will function similarly to YouTube's Content ID filter, which can automatically detect copyrighted works like music and thus automatically either mute the vid or outright delete the vid.

However, our technology isn't advanced enough to create a flawless filter. Such a filter cannot tell the difference between legit copyright infringement and fair use. As such, much like YouTube's Content ID filter, it'll likely give false positives and block legit content, and might even fine the uploader.

However, Article 13 takes it a step further. It will not just be videos and music being blocked, which endangers people who make remixes, mashups, covers and the like, it could also endanger game streams, and block images, endangering memes, parodies and fan artists.
As written text is also subjected to copyright, it also endanger things like fanfiction, code sharing, and even discussion.
Not to mention that such a filter is expensive, giving starting digital companies a hard time starting up in the first place, if at all.
And this is exactly why it's so disasterous if Article 13 is established, and needs to be stopped.

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What is Article 11?

Article 11 is essentially a tax on hyperlinks.
Basically, if this law is passed and you host a link, you owe whatever company is behind that link some money, as it's essentially their copyrighted content.
This could spell trouble for your favorite search engine, as they provide countless links.

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What if this is a hoax?

There's no logical reason to assume it isn't real because the risk of it being true is too high, and there are absolutely no drawbacks to believing it's real, other than having to swallow a bit of your pride and admit you were wrong. But that doesn't stand in proportion to the threat of it being real. Believe me, I'd love to be wrong and have this turn out to be a hoax, but until we're certain of that, we cannot risk it being true after all.
It's better to believe it being true and act against it, and it turning out to be a hoax, than to believe it's a hoax, doing nothing about it, and turning out it was true.
Personally, I don't believe in conspiracy theories like these, especially if there's nothing to be gotten out of it, but I still included this paragraph for the for the skeptical people.