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posted by martyb on Wednesday September 12 2018, @06:54PM   Printer-friendly
from the Get-a-Load-of-EU dept.

European Parliament backs copyright changes

Controversial new copyright laws have been approved by members of the European Parliament. The legislation had been changed since July when the first version of the copyright directive was voted down. Critics say it remains problematic. Many musicians and creators claim the reforms are necessary to fairly compensate artists. But opponents fear that the plans could destroy user-generated content, memes and parodies.

Are EU citizens ready for the link tax and upload filter?

Also at Polygon.

[Ed addition] Since this story was submitted, Ars Technica posted a story that delves into some of the implications of the new legislation; What's in the sweeping copyright bill just passed by the European Parliament:

The legislation makes online platforms like Google and Facebook directly liable for content uploaded by their users and mandates greater "cooperation" with copyright holders to police the uploading of infringing works. It also gives news publishers a new, special right to restrict how their stories are featured by news aggregators such as Google News. And it creates a new right for sports teams that could limit the ability of fans to share images and videos online.

Today's vote was not the end of Europe's copyright fight. Under the European Union's convoluted process for approving legislation, the proposal will now become the subject of a three-way negotiation involving the European Parliament, the Council of the Europe Union (representing national governments), and the European Commission (the EU's executive branch). If those three bodies agree to a final directive, then it will be sent to each of the 28 EU member countries (or more likely 27 thanks to Brexit) for implementation in national laws.

That means that European voters who are concerned—or excited—about this legislation still have a few more months to contact their representatives, both within their national governments and in the European Parliament.

[...] The legislation avoids mentioning any specific technological approach to policing online infringement, allowing supporters to plausibly claim that this is not a filtering mandate. Yet it seems pretty clear what this will mean in practice. Big content producers want to see YouTube beef up its Content ID filtering technology—and for other online platforms to adopt similar strategies. Shifting liability for infringement from users to the platforms themselves will give content companies a lot of leverage to get what they want here.

[...] Balancing fairness to content creators against fairness to users is inherently tricky. Rather than trying to address the issue directly, the European Parliament is simply pushing the issue down to the national level, letting governments in Germany, France, Poland, and other European governments figure out the messy details.

[...] In addition to approving new rights for news publishers, the legislation also narrowly approved a new copyright for the organizers of sports teams. Copyright law already gives teams the ability to sell television rights for their games, but fans have traditionally been free to take pictures or personal videos and share them online. The new legislation could give sports teams ownership of all images and video from their games, regardless of who took them and how they are shared.

Antiterrorist Censorship: The EU Commission Wants to Kill the Decentralized Internet

This morning, as everybody was looking at the Copyright Directive adoption, the EU Commission released a proposal for a Regulation on the censorship of terrorist propaganda.

This proposal would impose new obligations to hosting service providers, including the removal in less than an hour of the reported content. This proposal trivializes police and private censorship as well as the circumvention of justice. Automated filters, which play a crucial role in the debate for the Copyright Directive, are being held as a key component for the censorship in the digital era.

I thought this article from The Register was interesting; making out that the opposition to Article 13 is dominated by astroturfing led principally by Google.

Article 13 pits Big Tech and bots against European creatives by Andrew Orlowski

Today's vote on Article 13 of the EU Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market in European Parliament has turned into a knife-edge referendum on whether European institutions can deal with Californian exceptionalism.

[...] The tweaks to copyright liability in Article 13 before MEPs this week have narrowed after months of horsetrading in Brussels – and they don't name names, but they're really about one company and the unique legal benefits it enjoys. That company is Google, and the perks arise from the special conditions attached to UGC [User Generated Comments] that YouTube hosts, which were originally designed for services such as cloud storage.

[...] The battle of Article 13 is remarkable for revealing two things: the extent of US technology lobbying networks in Europe, and the use of tools of automated consensus generation [...] Around 60,000 emails were received by each MEP in the build up to the June vote, while Twitter engagement appeared to be high. [...] But "What looked like grassroots movement from the outside was in fact a classic form of astroturfing – designed to create the appearance of a popular movement," [German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung's Volker] Reick said.

Previously: How The EU May Be About To Kill The Public Domain: Copyright Filters Takedown Beethoven


Original Submission #1   Original Submission #2Original Submission #3

 
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  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @09:16PM (7 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @09:16PM (#733842)

    Just as well "we" voted Leave... *cough*

    You jest but there was unanimous agreement the EU is in need of serious democratic reforms.

    In other news, the EU is sanctioning Hungary (as they previously sanctioned Poland) for disrespecting the EU's "democratic values". Or if we unwind the oxymoron, the act of enforcing anti-immigration policies the electorates voted for.

    Ho hum. The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

    I think you may be being a little charitable there. The EU will begin to silence dissenters before it ever admits policy failure. I think that is the intent but I'd love to be proven wrong.

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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by turgid on Wednesday September 12 2018, @09:24PM (6 children)

    by turgid (4318) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday September 12 2018, @09:24PM (#733843) Journal

    Another humourless conservative dullard. The EU is currently doing its best to protect innocent and powerless ordinary Poles and Hungarians from autocrats and fascists. I work with people from all over the world so please don't try to correct me. I get to hear the truth from the horse's mouth.

    What is it with you anonymous champions of Illiberal ignorance, fear, isolation, authoritarianism and outright fascism? What is it about Hitler, Mussolini and Franco that you admire so much?

    Why do you yearn for those "good" old days?

    • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @09:48PM (4 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @09:48PM (#733852)

      Another humourless conservative dullard.

      60% of Labour constituencies voted to leave the EU.

      The EU is currently doing its best to protect innocent and powerless ordinary Poles and Hungarians from autocrats and fascists. I work with people from all over the world so please don't try to correct me. I get to hear the truth from the horse's mouth.

      I too work with people from all over the world but I listen to what they say as opposed to watching reruns of Mr Ed. What Hungary is doing is expelling the organizations of a convicted criminal [nytimes.com] who seeks only to profit from the chaos he is instrumental in creating. [reuters.com]

      What is it with you anonymous champions of Illiberal ignorance, fear, isolation, authoritarianism and outright fascism?

      I think you'll find that liberal democracies (civic nationalism) are the successful societies. Last I checked we defeated Germany and Italy, you may have heard of the war?

      What is it about Hitler, Mussolini and Franco that you admire so much?

      I don't admire any of these people. I could ask what is it about Lenin, Stalin and Mao you admire so much? Only to make the point that central planning historically lead to mass graves.

      • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @10:51PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @10:51PM (#733886)

        Why must you insult this man's religion? Those leaders didn't do it right. They'll get it right this time!11!!!

      • (Score: 3, Informative) by turgid on Thursday September 13 2018, @06:32AM (1 child)

        by turgid (4318) Subscriber Badge on Thursday September 13 2018, @06:32AM (#734052) Journal

        Insider trading? You mean like Nigel Farage shorting on the results of the referendum and making a false statement on national TV?

      • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 13 2018, @09:05AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 13 2018, @09:05AM (#734093)

        You have no fucking clue about what is happening in Hungary (and it has nothing to do with soros), and I find it pretty disrespectful how you frame the situation there in your own interest. Frankly, the EU is not doing enough to stop the shit that is going on here.

    • (Score: 2, Disagree) by SanityCheck on Thursday September 13 2018, @12:33AM

      by SanityCheck (5190) on Thursday September 13 2018, @12:33AM (#733927)

      Ahahahahaha. Poles know what is going on with the EU, they'll take a crack at trying to fix it or they'll leave. You and your Communist buddies can fuck off.