The crowds in Berlin do not want to end. "Do bots look that way?", Says the signs. Time and again, t-shirts and banners are emblazoned: "We are not bots". It has become the slogan of the protest movement, the demonstrators play so on it that some politicians had dismissed the previous flood of protest mail against the controversial EU copyright reform as automated and fictitious. This Saturday is supposed to show: This protest is real. The people behind are real.

According to police, around 40,000 people demonstrated in Munich, and around 15,000 people took part in the "Save the Internet" initiative in Berlin. Because the crowd was larger than expected, a police spokeswoman said the demo route had to be changed. In Hamburg, 6,000 took to the streets, even in Hanover or Dusseldorf there were several thousand.

"Let's explain the internet at least briefly"

At Potsdamer Platz, it was mostly young people who gathered and then set off in an ever-growing stream. For some it was the first demo - as for the 17-year-old student Sophie. "Let's explain the internet, at least, before you break it," said the sign holding her up. It hit the tone that dominated the demo: The politicians who drafted this copyright directive are, according to critics, unfamiliar with the Internet.

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Article 13 and upload filter: This was protested in German cities

In recent days and weeks contributed to this image, various statements by the CDU politician Axel Voss, who has driven forward as the rapporteur reform - but also the claim that the protesters are either not genuine or instrumentalized by YouTube or Google and would have of the Matter no idea. "There were a lot of videos on the topic on YouTube," says Sophie, "and I already had the feeling that many of the creators have been very well informed about it."

With the European Parliament voted on next Tuesday, the EU wants to adapt copyright law to today. In essence, Internet platforms should be made so that no content ends up with them on the pages for which the authors have not licensed. Particularly controversial is Article 13 of the new directive. Therefore, platform operators must prevent copyrighted works from being accessible on their pages. Critics fear that controls will only be possible via software, so-called, and warn against censorship.

Many distrust the abilities of such software

So did the 53-year-old physicist Heidi, who ran with her family in the Berlin demo train: "At the moment, it is indeed about economic interests, but with such an infrastructure, of course, political censorship is feasible," she says. "I think that once such a technical opportunity has been created, it will not leave." Either way, it can be assumed that the platforms would rather block too much if they were held liable.

Many also distrust the capabilities of such filter software, as even the systems already in use do not work reliably. A pair of twins wore a sign on the demo: "If people can not tell us apart, how should that be an upload filter?"

Protests were planned on Saturday in about 40 German cities. Also in France, Austria, many Eastern European and Scandinavian countries, the initiative "Save the Internet" called for rallies.

SPD decides paper against updating filter

The CDU European politician Voss defended the reform plans. "With the EU copyright amendment, we want to achieve nothing more than to better protect and enforce copyrights on Internet platforms," ​​said Dusseldorf's "Rheinische Post" on Saturday. There will be amendments in the European Parliament next Tuesday, for example, to remove the controversial Article 13.

The SPD decided on its party convention in Berlin on Saturday with only one dissenting paper with the title "yes to a strong copyright, no to upload filters". In it, the Social Democrats declare they wanted to prevent a failure of copyright reform. "However, the exploitation and compensation of creative content must not be at the expense of freedom." Therefore, upload filters would have to be prevented.