Thousands in Germany protest planned EU internet reforms

Tens of thousands of people have marched in cities across Germany to protest planned European Union copyright reforms that they fear will lead to online censorship.

The dpa news agency reports the biggest protest Saturday was in Munich, where 40,000 people marched under the motto "save your internet."

Thousands of others took part in smaller demonstrations in the German cities of Cologne, Hamburg, Hannover, Berlin and other cities against the bill that is being voted on this week.

At the march in Berlin, where several thousand people turned out, a protester held a sign that read: "This protest can't be displayed for copyright reasons."

Among the placards raised by the crowd in the south-western city of Stuttgart were "Upload Calypse Now," "I'm Not A Robot" and "Error 404 Democracy Not Found."

Under the legislation, set to be passed by the European Parliament on Tuesday, big companies like YouTube and Facebook, along with small start-ups, must install upload filters to ensure that shared content is not subject to copyright.

Opponents of the reform - and especially of the controversial Article 13 that deals with how content is shared online - say the automatic filtering of content could limit freedom of expression.

They argue that the law could lead to censorship because the filters will also block legal content such as quotes, parodies and satire.

Critics are also concerned that the new law would force small companies to introduce the upload filters at considerable cost, and that many will be unable to afford to do so.

There are also objections to Article 11, which prevents search engines from picking up small news items.

There has been especially fierce opposition to the changes in Germany.

The German-language version of Wikipedia shut down for the day on Thursday in protest at the pending changes in EU law, even though Wikipedia, as an encyclopaedia, has been excluded from the provisions.

However, the European Commission argues that the law needs to be amended to bring it up to date for the digital era and allow creative artists protection online.

News media organizations, including dpa, have backed the changes. "The future of the free press lies in the hands of the EU legislators," 18 European news agencies wrote in a letter in September.

Along with Germany, demonstrations were also planned in Austria, Poland, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Cyprus, Finland and Portugal.