We recently asked you to contact your Members of European Parliment (MEPs) to express your opposition to the Copyright Directive, a proposed policy including a section called Article 13. Article 13 threatens free speech, free culture, and free software. A number of you contacted your MEPs and wrote back to us -- thank you!

In spite of your efforts, 15 MEPs in the Legal Affairs Committee (JURI) voted against Web freedom and passed the Copyright Directive through its first round of approval.

But there's still hope! The second round is coming up this Thursday, July 5th. We're urging you to contact your MEPs before then.

Talk to your MEP before July 5th to #SaveYourInternet.

How to contact your MEP

Find their details

Europa.eu contains contact information for all MEPs. This includes email addresses, Twitter accounts, mailing addresses, and phone numbers.

Call

Calling is one of the most important things you can do. Try a sample script:

Hi, I'm [NAME]. I live in [LOCATION]. I'm calling to let you know that I oppose Article 13 of the Copyright Directive. Thank you.

It's that simple. If you want to say more, tell the person you're talking with a bit about yourself -- are you an artist concerned for the future of your art? A developer or free software activist looking out for software freedom? Maybe you're a student, parent, or voter concerned about the future of the Web.

Feel free to talk more about why you care about Article 13 and its impact, including the ways it's bad for the Web, free culture, free speech, and free software. Some key points include:

• It harms free speech and free expression.
• It limits lawful use of commentary, parody, and remix.
• It will automatically filter out source code that is being legally used under free software licenses.

For more ideas, Julia Reda has written about some of the consequences of Article 13 passing.

Email your MEP

Not sure what to say? Try this sample script, or write your own:

Dear [NAME],

I am writing to urge you to vote against the Copyright Directive this July.

The Copyright Directive will turn code sharing platforms that are used to build software into censorship machines. When we say software, not only do we mean things like apps for our convenience, but also the digital infrastructure that runs our world.

Much of this technology is free software -- software that uses licenses that respect the freedom of users and developers of software. Among other things, it allows developers to use, modify, and reuse code. Automatic filtering would prevent the legal and rightful uploading of code that uses these licenses -- a major blow for development and digital freedom.

I hope you'll do the right thing and vote for freedom with a vote against the Copyright Directive.

Cheers,
[NAME]

Social media

We know that many of your MEPs maintain accounts on Twitter. You can Tweet at them, using the hashtags SaveYourInternet, CensorshipMachine, and DeleteArt13.

What else can I do?

Share this post with your friends! Educating others and raising awareness of these issues helps people understand how important these policies are.

If you write to your MEP, share your letters with us (info@fsf.org) and those in your networks: having examples of what to say makes it easier to write a letter. Please feel free to also contact us about phone calls you make.

To learn more, you can check out the links below:

• Various articles by April concerning the latest developments in the fight against the Copyright Directive, and actions you can take.
• A detailed analysis (with flow charts!) from Communia.
• Writing by Julia Reda, an MEP.

You can also support the work of the Free Software Foundation by supporting our Spring fundraising and membership drive.