The European Commission has taken the first step towards taking almost two dozen EU member states to the bloc's highest court due to their failure

Upload Filters: 23 EU Member States Face Legal Action Over Copyright Law Delays

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2021-07-27 13:00:02

The European Commission has taken the first step towards taking almost two dozen EU member states to the bloc's highest court due to their failure to write new copyright rules into local law. The countries failed to meet a June 7 deadline to deal with matters including controversial upload filters designed to detect infringing content and prevent it from being re-uploaded.

Back in 2016, the European Commission announced plans to amend EU copyright law to better meet emerging challenges on the Internet.

One of the most controversial elements of the new Copyright Directive was Article 13 (now Article 17). This would require many online services such as YouTube to either legally license content from copyright holders or put filtering mechanisms in place to ensure disputed content is taken down not re-uploaded by users.

The new Copyright Directive passed in March 2019, meaning that EU Member States are required to write the amendments into national law. The EU Commission launched a consultation last summer but it now appears that EU countries are struggling to meet their obligations.