Internet giants are planted before Brussels for copyright

The reform opens the possibility of charging Google News for showing fragments of newspapers on its platform

  A group of organizations that group the technological giants of Internet in the United States warned of the consequences that could have the proposal of the European Commission to reform the rights of author or copyright.

This was expressed in a letter addressed to the Secretary of State of the United States, John Kerry, the Association of the Industry of Computing and Communications (CCIA, in English), the Association of Consumers of Technology (CTA), the Council of the Industry of Information Technology (ITI) and the Internet Association (IA).

  These groups represent Amazon, Google, eBay, Microsoft, Netflix, Samsung, Yahoo, Airbnb, Facebook, Spotify, Twitter or Uber, among other companies.

"We write to express our serious concern about the recent proposal on copyright of the Commission that would harm the digital exporters of the United States operating in the European Union," they said in the letter.

The signatories thus charged against the proposal of the EC that defended in September an update of the rules of telecommunications and copyright that, among other aspects, puts in the spotlight to platforms like YouTube or Google News in the fight against piracy .

Technology companies criticized the provision that would force online platforms to design filters to automatically identify copyrighted content when users upload it to the network without proper permission.

In his opinion, this measure would go against the international principles that protect companies from the misuse of the service that Internet users can do and from "a free and open Internet".

"The Internet is a vibrant and economically valuable platform, in large part, through the intermediation of 'secure ports', which allow people to publish material such as videos, reviews and photographs on the web without exposing the platforms to being exaggeratedly responsible for the misdeeds of a tiny minority of users, "they said.

The letter also attacks another point of the European reform that would allow publishers, such as online newspapers, to charge internet services, such as Google News, which display fragments of their content on their platforms.