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The EU votes on a confusing new copyright law Tuesday
On Tuesday, the European Parliament will vote on an overhaul of the EU's copyright system. The body will vote on a compromise announced last month that has received the backing of key European governments. An earlier version of the proposal was approved by the European Parliament last September.
The legislation is controversial, with two provisions receiving the bulk of the criticism. Article 11 aims to help news organizations collect more licensing fees from news aggregators like Facebook and Google News. Article 13 aims to help copyright holders to collect licensing fees from user-generated content platforms like YouTube and Facebook.
Both provisions are maddeningly vague—laying out broad goals without providing much detail about how those goals can be achieved. This is partly because the EU's lawmaking system occurs in two stages. First, EU-wide institutions pass a broad directive indicating how the law should be changed. Then each of the EU's member nations translates the directive into specific laws. This process leaves EU-wide legislators significant latitude to declare general policy goals and leave the details to individual countries.
Still, if the legislation's goals are incoherent or contradictory, then something is going to have to give. And critics warn that the package could wind up damaging the Internet's openness by forcing the adoption of upload filters and new limits on linking to news stories.
See also: Tomorrow's copyright vote explained (Julia Reda)
(Score: 2) by loonycyborg on Tuesday March 26 2019, @07:10AM (1 child)
The whole idea of copyright is extreme. There is no particular reason that giving monopolies is appropriate way to "reward" creators. Only reason it exists as is is because it's based on older institution which was used for ideology control, by organizations like Spanish Inquisition. Copyright basically means some publishers are allowed to print particular things by inquisition because arrangements were made that things they print are not "religiously harmful". Later it got hijacked by publishers to make their lives easier by limiting competition. But in XXI century the core role of copyright is coloring cultural makeup of people based on their social class, so there would be rich culture and poor culture. That's how access fees will work out if copyright is enforced as written and that's the end result that enforcement efforts seek. Otherwise there is nothing to do since publishers already turn in enough profits, too much in fact. Abolition of copyright is in order instead, since there is no reason to keep ideology control and there is no reason to rebrand it into something else.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday March 27 2019, @03:59AM
True, true. Copyright originated from censorship. In the Late Middle Ages, the Catholic Church wanted to keep Christianity mysterious, keep the words out of the hands of the laity. Suited them just fine that hardly anyone could understand services and scripture in Latin. Put priests in the position of being the gatekeepers, the only ones who could tell the common man what it was all about. The nobility often found it convenient to join forces with the church, to censor the somewhat different things that bothered them. There was already some precedent in place when Martin Luther and the Gutenberg Press upended their racket. There was a 1409 constitution that forbade the translation of the Bible. Had to get permission to translate, and to spread copies around. Officially, the church was only interested in preventing inaccurate translations from being taken as Gospel, a not unreasonable purpose.
The first to print an English translation of the Bible was William Tyndale, in the early 1500s. He did not have permission. The church had him strangled and burnt at the stake.