BotBrief.eu – Your letter to Members of the European Parliament

For more than two and a half years, the European Union has been negotiating a reform of the European copyright law. Unfortunately, the main negotiator of the European Parliament, Axel Voss (CDU), as well as the EU Commission and many countries have shown themselves to be absolutely unwilling to involve numerous compromise proposals and arguments from the Internet community. This is why the negotiations lead to a result which causes us – and many others – great concern. Above all, Articles 11 and 13 will significantly change the Internet – probably to the detriment of all users, all creatives, all authors and creators and many European start-ups with digital business models. More information on the background of the EU copyright reform can be found here (up to now only available in German).

At the end of March or beginning of April, the final vote will take place in the European Parliament.

The movement against the copyright reform is developing all over Europe. It has organized itself under #Uploadfilter #Merkelfilter #Artikel13 or #savetheinternet and has taken up the fight David against Goliath. However, it is not taken seriously, but played down by associations and politicians and discredited as a protest managed by bots or as controlled from the USA. Further, several politicians show a frightening ignorance of the reform’s content and consequences. This is why we named this website botbrief (“brief” is German for “letter”).

But we are many and we are real and we do not want this copyright reform to come into force in its present form! Therefore we must protest and ensure that our voices are also heard and acknowledged by our MEPs.

Let us show the Copyright Directive decision-makers that we are not bots. Until the vote in the European Parliament, we need to convince your MEPs to vote against Articles 11 and 13. We want to ensure that MEPs can tell from their analogue mailboxes how many citizens reject this reform. Prove to your MEPs that you’re real by writing them an old-fashioned letter!

Not sure who to turn to and what to write in such a letter? No problem, we’ve got you covered! We at D64 (a German Think Thank for digital politics) have built the ultimate letter generator, allowing you to easily write to the MEPs of your choice.

1. Select Recipient

Select a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) to whom you want to write the letter from the table below. Suggestion: It’s best to select the MEPs from your region because they will feel particularly responsible for you – as they are in the Parliament to represent you. Or you select those who are particularly strong supporters of the reform. You can sort the table by name, region and voting behaviour by clicking on the categories above. The letter will then usually go to the local office of the MEP.

Tip: Of course you can also write letters to more than just one MEP. Simply repeat the process after you’ve printed the first letter.

Please select a country

Name	First Name	Fraction	City	Vote 2018 on Copyright Directive

2. Adjust letter content

We have submitted a proposal for a letter. This is only a proposal! Feel free to add arguments that are important to you in the text field or leave it as it is. The more personalized, the better. Salutation and closing formula are added automatically. Even if it should be self-evident: please stay friendly and objective!

Dear MEP …,

After more than two and a half years of debate, you will shortly be voting in the European Parliament on a new European Copyright Directive.
In my opinion, the planned regulations will not only harm users and European start-ups and platforms, but will also by no means bring about the promised improvement of creatives and authors. Political action however, I expect to be proportionate, reasonable and appropriate. I do not see any of these criteria fulfilled in the new Copyright Directive.

It upsets me that ongoing protests against this reform by citizens on social networks or via e-mail against are being discredited as protests managed by bots. That is why, today, I am addressing you all traditionally with a written letter by post, and I urge you to vote against this reform of the copyright in the digital European market and to reject Articles 11 and 13.

Article 13, in particular, will significantly change the Internet - a place that for me means information, exchange and creativity. The proposed Article 13 is intended to curtail my previous freedoms. In the future, when I upload photos, videos, texts or other data to a public website or app, the providers of these services will have to ensure that I do not commit copyright infringements. The only technical way to facilitate this is the pre-filtering of all content. You know that, I know that; even if the term upload filter no longer appears in the proposed directive. This approach is by no means an alignment of the rules of the digital world with those of the analogue world, but the creation of a monitoring infrastructure.
 
In addition to these negative consequences for the openness of the network, I also fear a setback for Europe as a center for innovation. Large platforms will be able to implement the new rules because they have the resources to develop technical solutions. They will certainly also offer these upload filters to smaller Internet service providers for a fee. 
This will affect cooking websites, dating portals, crowdfunding platforms, taxi apps, real estate websites and smaller social media platforms. Many of them are not spared the negotiated exceptions, as they are older than three years. All these small and medium-sized enterprises are thus at a competitive disadvantage compared to the established global corporations. Even creative people whose interests are to be protected will no longer be able to move as freely in the new environment. Their content will be increasingly blocked due to copyright concerns. 
 
For these reasons, I ask you to vote against this draft of Article 13 of the EU Copyright Directive and to take the protest against it seriously. Numerous alternative proposals from the centre of the European Parliament have so far been ignored in the procedure. I now ask you: please do not ignore the protests of citizens and thereby disappoint the hopes we place in the European Parliament.

Thank you in advance.

Kind regards

3. Your address

Enter your address in the fields below to so that the recipient can identify you as the sender of this letter. Don’t worry, we do not store the data!
Please indicate in any case who you are – the letters will only be effective if they come from “real” people.

Your first name

Your family name

Your street + street number

Your postal code

Your city

Your country

4. Download the letter

Click on Generate PDF and you will find a completey finished letter, ready to be printed out immediately. As mentioned above: repeat this as often for different MEPs as you think is necessary.

5. Print, Stamp, Send

Last steps: frank the letter (e.g. directly online) and mail it! Ideally immediately, because the vote in the European Parliament is approaching fast.

Also convince your friends and acquaintance to send letters – the more the MEPs realize that this topic concerns “real” people, the better.

And again, for your information: Your letter and your data are not stored by us. You will receive the PDF directly for download. We do not save a copy.

.	.

A website created by D64 – Zentrum für digitalen Fortschritt e. V.

D64 – Center for Digital Progress is as a German think tank for digital change. We are convinced of the social impact of the Internet on all areas of public and private life. D64 wants to be an advisor for politics in order to make Germany ready for Digitalisation. We want to update core values like Freedom, Justice and Solidarity for the 21st century. We finance ourselves exclusively through membership fees. Become a member and help to make the Internet freer, fairer and more supportive!