Open Letter to Secure Free and Open Source Software Ecosystem in the EU Copyright Review

Translations: Español, Français, Italiano

Your mobile device, your car, your wifi router at home, your television, the airplanes in which you travel all contain Free and Open Source Software. This widespread reuse is possible because Free and Open Source Software can be shared openly, studied and customised to meet any need.

The EU is getting ready to vote a "Copyright Reform" package which fundamentally undermines the foundations upon which Free and Open Source Software is built. The proposed Article 13 of the EU Copyright Directive targets every online service that allows its users to upload and share content with each other, including code hosting platforms.

Under this proposal code hosting platforms will be compelled to prevent any possible copyright infringement by developing fundamentally flawed filtering technologies. These filtering algorithms will ultimately decide what material software developers should be allowed to share.

As a result of this ongoing copyright review, every user of a code sharing platform, be they an individual, a business or a public administration, is to be treated as a potential copyright infringer: their content, including entire code repositories, will be monitored and blocked from being shared online at any time. This restricts the freedom of developers to use specific software components and tools that in return leads to less competition and less innovation. Ultimately this can result in software that is less reliable and a less resilient software infrastructure for everybody.

We, individuals, developers, organisations and companies that develop or rely on the Free and Open Source Software ecosystem call upon European decision makers to protect open, collaborative software ecosystems. We call upon European policy makers to fundamentally rethink or delete Article 13 of the EU Copyright Reform in order to avoid the threat it poses for Free and Open Source Software.

Save Europe's digital future, by making sure that there is a re-think or deletion of Article 13 in the EU Copyright Reform.

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