Grandstand The regulation on digital services (Digital Services Act, DSA) is being finalized at European level under the French presidency. It seeks to modernize the means, which date from twenty years ago, to fight against illegal online content. In the meantime, the number of these contents has exploded: 22% of consumers of cultural goods in France admit to illegally consuming digital books. A reform was therefore more than welcome.
Europe, with the support of France, has been at the forefront of global digital regulation, be it the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) or the Copyright Directive. The DSA could be part of this heritage, by defining a solid base of rules that apply to all online services, particularly to illegal content.
France and many political decision-makers in Brussels today welcome ” the end of Far west ” with this text: “What is illegal in the physical world will also be illegal online”we hear everywhere.
Google disclaimer
In reality, not only does the DSA risk not improving the tools available to creators, particularly in the book sector, when faced with the piracy of their works online, but above all, it risks producing a return to a worse situation than it twenty years ago for the fight against illegal content. The GAFA (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon) are also pleased with the turn taken by the DSA, whereas we have seen them far more aggressive when it comes to texts which effectively reinforce their obligations.
Given the volume of piracy, it is crucial to be able to act at each level: search engines, hosts, etc. If the DSA were adopted in its current wording, Google would no longer be obliged to respond to publishers by delisting pirated books in its search results.
For the record, the National Publishing Union (NES) has already contributed to the delisting of more than 4 million pirate or “phishing” links. This exemption from liability would be all the more prejudicial since the search engine remains the first point of access to books, including pirated ones. In addition, Google could continue to profit from the advertising linked to the links to these pirated books.
wasted time
Worse still, the European Commission’s latest proposals completely override the most basic rules for combating illegal content, according to which a service must promptly remove any illegal content of which it becomes aware, for example through notifications made by publishers. .
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