Get to know about the case of the copyright law that was rejected on July 5 by the European Parliament, which caused Wikipedia to suspend its services for three days

Wikipedia turned off its engines

Wikipedia announced days ago that its encyclopedia services would be suspended on July 3, 4 and 5, 2018 for the English, Spanish and French languages, in protest of a copyright law. A law that was finally rejected by the European Parliament, on July 5, the day of the vote. For this reason, the Wikipedia service was restored that same day at 10:00 UTC.

Leer en español: Después de tres días en oscuridad, Wikipedia restablece sus servicios

According to the BBC, the articles for which Wikipedia made this decision are the article 11 and the 13 of the copyright reform for the European Union. The article 11 is extremely sensitive because it authorizes press editors to decide whether their publications can be published or indexed by other newspapers or news for 20 years.

In addition, each member country of the European Union could create its own copyright laws for news. As the Xataka newspaper explains, "you will have to link to a news website in a way that satisfies the limitations and exceptions of all 28 laws of the countries that conform the EU, or you will have to get a license."

On the other hand, according to the BBC, the article 13 states that websites that allow people to upload multimedia content and information should do everything possible so that the content that is uploaded strictly complies with the laws concerning copyright in Europe.
This is the article that worried the most the creators of Wikipedia since all the content of this encyclopedia is fed by users who update or upload new information to the web page, in which the editors verify that all the information that is uploaded It is truthful and pertinent to the proposed topics.

However, the article 13 would put Wikipedia in a very uncomfortable situation, because this search engine would have to check all the uploaded information to make sure that the EU copyright laws are complied with. Without counting all the content that should be deleted for the breach of these laws.

What procedure is followed for this law in the European Union?

Because this law was rejected by the European Parliament with 318 votes against and 278 in favor, according to La Vanguardia, the European Parliament must return the draft law to the of the European Parliament Committee on Legal Affairs, which will have to make the relevant changes to the text to re-submit the draft to the European Parliament. If approved, in the European Parliament the next procedure is to go to the European Council so that the chief executives give their final approval to the law. 

You can also read: Controversy and censorship are not necessary in all of the TV and film industry

Wikipedia release

In the two days that Wikipedia stopped working, its main page showed a statement showing the position of this encyclopedia on the copyright law proposed by the European Union. In the first lines of the statement, you could read the dissatisfaction of Wikipedia with this law, because instead of updating and modernizing it, the EU was only putting barriers and restrictions to press freedom online, it was even putting at risk the very existence of Wikipedia.

In the middle of the statement, Wikipedia highlighted the personalities who stood against this European copyright law as VIGNORE INTOn Cerf (creator of the internet), Tim Berners-Lee, in addition to 169 academics and 145 Human Rights organizations. Likewise, it highlighted the actions of Wikipedia Colombia and Mexico opposing similar proposals in Latin America.

At the end of the statement, Wikipedia left a web page to learn more about the topic and about the actions the community can take.

LatinAmerican Post | Miguel Díaz

Translated from "Después de tres días en oscuridad, Wikipedia restablece sus servicios"