Tens of thousands of Germans held protest actions in their cities against the planned European Union copyright reforms, the Associated Press reported quoting dpa.

It is noted that the largest action was held in Munich, where about 40,000 people gathered.

Tens of thousands more protesters took part in marches in Cologne, Hamburg, Hannover, Berlin.

The essence of the reform is that, from now on, platforms such as YouTube and Facebook should take responsibility for copyrighted material that’s uploaded to their platforms.

Proponents of the reform claim that it will help the authors to be sure that they will be paid for their work.

On the other hand, opponents believe that this initiative will lead to a toughening of freedom of speech, will harm creativity in the online mode and will force sites to filter any incoming information.