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Europe's Controversial Overhaul of Online Copyright Receives Final Approval:
Articles 11 and 13 both approved by European politicians.
The European Union has given its final approval to the Copyright Directive, a controversial package of legislation designed to update copyright law in Europe for the online age.
Members of the European Parliament voted 348 in favor of the law, 274 against.
For advocates of the legislation, the directive will balance the playing field between US tech giants and European content creators, giving copyright holders more power over how big internet platforms distribute their content. But critics say the law is vague and poorly thought-out, and will restrict how content is shared online, stifling free speech in the process.
Politicians have been debating the legislation for more than two years now, with fierce lobbying from both tech giants and copyright holders pushing the argument back and forth. Despite some setbacks, though, the most controversial clauses of the Copyright Directive have remained intact, and were approved today with only minor changes.
Julia Reda, an MEP from Germany's Pirate Party, said the passing of the law marked "a dark day for internet freedom."
What changes, if any, will this cause where you work?
Previously: EU Copyright Directive Vote Set for Tuesday
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 26 2019, @09:00PM (1 child)
We only operate in North America, and we blocked Europeans already when the GDPR came into effect. This isn't even to say that I think GDPR is a bad idea, there was just no reason to allow Europeans to visit the website any more since they can't really do anything with it anyway.
The real question is how much damage will this cause to the rest of the world? As an American visiting American websites, I still have to click away noxious cookie popups 90% of the time. How much will non-European websites restrict speech to comply with European mandatory prior restraint censorship?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 26 2019, @10:11PM
The stated intent is all well and good but as written, it's a staggering shitpile of legislative overreach. Not only does it unfairly penalize sites that did not engage in tracking, the EU claims jurisprudence for companies that are not even operating in the EU. The same shit with ecommerce sales where international sellers are obligated to collect VAT (a purchase tax) when selling into the EU.
Blocking the EUSSR is the only sane choice.