The lone Pirate Party Member of the European Parliament is warning of a new anti-piracy proposal circulating among MEPs:
Member of the European Parliament Julia Reda has warned that efforts are underway to sabotage the Parliamentary process relating to the EU's plans for mandatory piracy filtering. The Pirate Party member says there's now just over a week to protest against an 'alternative compromise' text that makes current plans look "tame".
[...] [The] EU is currently moving forward with reforms that could limit the protections currently enjoyed by platforms like YouTube. In short, sites that allow users to upload content will be forced to partner up with content providers to aggressively filter all user uploads for infringing content, thus limiting the number of infringing works eventually communicated to the public. Even as they stand the proposals are being heavily protested (1,2,3) but according to Member of the European Parliament Julia Reda, a new threat has appeared on the horizon.
Ahead of a crucial June 8 vote on how to move forward, Reda says that some in the corridors of power are now "resorting to dirty tactics" to defend and extend the already "disastrous plans" by any means. Specifically, Reda accuses MEP Pascal Arimont from the European People's Party (EPP) of trying to sabotage the Parliamentary process, by going behind negotiators' backs and pushing a new filtering proposal text that makes the "original bad proposal look tame in comparison." Reda says that in the face of other MEPs' efforts to come up with a compromise text upon which all of them are agreed, Arimont has been encouraging some MEPs to rebel against their negotiators. He wants them to support his own super-aggressive "alternative compromise" text that shows disregard for the Charter of Fundamental Rights and principles of EU law.
Related Stories
Julia Reda, Member of the European Parliament representing Germany, writes about a proposed EU law which would require sites to monitor and censor posts and any other uploaded material. Leaked material shows that at least three governments are actively working to make this happen.
The governments of France, Spain and Portugal want to double down on a law proposed by the European Commission that would force all kinds of internet platforms to install a "censorship machine" to surveil all uploads and try to prevent copyright infringement. They want to add to the Commission proposal that platforms need to automatically remove media that has once been classified as infringing, regardless of the context in which it is uploaded ("staydown").
By law, every video clip of your cat that you share with an app would need to pass through filters controlled by media companies. Essentially, they would have a veto right to any upload to the internet. These filters would be unable to safeguard your rights to quote, to make parodies, and to use existing works in any other way allowed under copyright exceptions.
The examples most talked about are videos, but even comments and source code would be affected. As currently written, the proposed law would effectively ban a diverse range of sites, including SN or even Githhub. The relevancy for those outside the EU is that if the proposal goes through as is, then calls for "harmonization" would be used to spread the rules to other regions of the world.
Previously:
EU Study Finds Even Publishers Oppose the "Link Tax"
Hidden 2015 European Commission Report on Copyright Infringement
EU Council Presidency Questions Extra Copyright, but Endorses Censorship
Pirate Party MEP Says That Current EU Piracy Filtering Proposals Are Being Sabotaged
Reda Report Adopted: A Turning Point in the EU Copyright Debate
Julia Reda, the Only Pirate in the European Parliament, Weighs in on Copyright
(Score: 4, Informative) by rigrig on Sunday June 04 2017, @09:54AM (5 children)
This is how lobbying for these laws works:
1) Propose bad legislation
2) Propose worse legislation
3) Encourage legislators to "Compromise" on 1)
No one remembers the singer.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Sunday June 04 2017, @10:07AM (3 children)
We need representation that "thinks outside the box", and throws the whole thing out.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Sunday June 04 2017, @10:31AM (2 children)
Just lookup where the bribes, lucrative post-politics job offer or aggressive blackmail is. So now christian-democratic EPP is European peoples enemy. Good to know. Which leads to German CDU, that leads to Merkel. Circle closed.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by anubi on Sunday June 04 2017, @11:48AM (1 child)
I guess I am quite irked over businesses "forcing" me to use unsafe browsing methods... things like executables in a document ... and my government looks the other way.
But let a business want something ... and Congress pays attention.
The thing that irks me is Congress already passed the DMCA, giving the business the law they want, without the "compromise" of striking the "hold harmless" clause in exchange for enforcing ignorance on the consumer. Kitchen analogy.. I do not go into the kitchens of restaurants I visit. But in exchange for my giving up making personal inspection of how my food is prepared, the restaurant takes full responsibility for what they serve up.
Penalties for Copyright Violation? Thank you Congressman! ( Extends hand for business handshake )
And continue to hold us harmless for whatever we serve up? Thank You, Congressman! ( Extends hand for another business handshake )
Screw the little guy. He's gonna vote republican, democrat, or may not vote at all... any which way this goes, the men of the handshake get their way.
Democrat or Republican, they are both owned by the suits.
While we little guys get to argue over who gets to use which toilet.
But we don't get to vote over things like the ability to know what our code is telling our computer to do.
This is too much like a businessman's wet dream about having people sign legally binding contracts, but not being allowed to understand what they are agreeing to. Here, just sign on the bottom here where it says "Install". Its all written in a language you do not understand. And you are not allowed to use methods to reverse this and see what its going to do, while you agree to hold harmless the businessman presenting this thing to you if it does something completely different from what he said it will do.
We have already let business go way too far with deception with modern advertising, which lets a businessman spout off all sorts of stuff on TV, while flashing all sorts of hard-to-read disclaimers while his mouth is going a mile-a-minute. You don't know just how much I wish the Americans with Disability act would cover those sight impaired by allowing them to record what the motormouth said, and hold them to it.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 05 2017, @03:01AM
Yep. Nobody cares about the big things that are destroying our society. Nobody cares about our most basic rights and freedoms, or should I say that the freedom of a select few to profit (an "elect" few, if you will, but you don't vote for those people) is overshadowing and devouring any other freedom we could choose to value.
Somehow somebody convinced them that bathroom rape or using this bathroom instead of that bathroom is a life-and-death problem. So they vote Republican or Democrat respectively depending on how they expect big government intervention to solve it to their liking. It wouldn't even occur to them that it's a non-issue and certainly not anything that has ever needed government intervention or ever will need government intervention.
And the greed-driven march towards neofeudalism continues. I guess at least people are open to reducing government intervention in the area of plants, 'cause that's the only way I'm going to stay sane while I watch the people become slaves and a country they told me in school was once great crumble apart.
(Score: 2) by davester666 on Monday June 05 2017, @08:02AM
You forgot:
4) Right before the vote, change the wording for the "bad legislation" to match that of the "worse legislation"