Dear reader, On July 5, 2018, The Plenary of the European Parliament will vote whether to proceed with a copyright directive proposal which, if approved, will significantly harm the openness of the Internet.
The directive instead of updating the copyright laws in Europe and promoting the participation of all the citizens to the society of information, threatens online freedom and creates obstacles to accessing the Web, imposing new barriers, filters and restrictions. If the proposal would be approved in its current form, it could be impossible to share a news article on social networks, or find it through a search engine; Wikipedia itself would be at risk.
The proposal has already been firmly opposed by over 70 computer scientists, among them the creator of the Web Tim Berners-Lee (source), 169 academics and scholars (source), 145 organization working in the fields of human rights, press freedom, scientific research and tech industry (source), and the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit organization who promotes, among others, this free encyclopedia (here).
For these reasons, the Italian Wikipedia community has decided to obscure all encyclopedia pages. We want to continue to offer a free, open, collaborative encyclopedia with verifiable content. We call on all Members of the European Parliament to vote against the current text, reopen the discussion and reconsidering the numerous proposal from Wikimedia associations, starting from eliminating the articles 11 and 13, as well as the extension of freedom of panorama to the whole UE and the protection of public domain.
meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/SaveYo urInternet
The users of Wikipedia
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Poster Comment:
It should carry some weight that Berners-Lee opposes it.... but will it?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directive_on_Copyright_in_the_Digital_Single_Market
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/European_Parliament_vote_in_2018
Do we have readers in Europe who'll jump on this?