Submitted via IRC for Bytram
Code-repository GitHub has raised the alarm about a pending European copyright proposal could force it to implement automated filtering systems – referred to by detractors as "censorship machines" – that would hinder developers working with free and open source software.
The proposal, part of Article 13 of the EU Copyright Directive from 2016, has been working its way through the legislative process.
In a blog post on Wednesday GitHub explained that the shakeup was designed to address the perception that there's a "value gap" between the money streaming-media platforms make from uploaded content and what content creators actually get paid.
"However, the way it's written captures many other types of content, including code," San Francisco-based GitHub said.
If passed, the rules would require code hosting platforms to take preemptive action to prevent copyrighted material from being shared without the appropriate license.
[...] Julia Reda, a member of the European Parliament and a representative of the Pirate Party in Germany, argues that the proposed requirements would force GitHub to negotiate a license from every single developer and would "kill the platforms economy in Europe."
Source: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/03/15/eu_copyright_proposal_could_limit_github_code/
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Julia Reda (a Member of the European Parliament from Germany) writes in her bog about upcoming censorship legislation in the European Union and a call to action for those most affected, specifically the Free Software community.
The starting point for this legislation was a fight between big corporations, the music industry and YouTube, over money. The music industry complained that they receive less each time one of their music videos is played on a video platform like YouTube than they do when their tracks are listened to on subscription services like Spotify, calling the difference the "value gap". They started a successful lobbying effort: The upload filter law is primarily intended to give them a bargaining chip to demand more money from Google in negotiations. Meanwhile, all other platforms are caught in the middle of that fight, including code sharing communities.
The lobbying has engrained in many legislators' minds the false idea that platforms which host uploads for profit are necessarily exploiting creators.
The fight affects both sides of the Atlantic because once bad rules are enacted on either side, it is not uncommon for calls for "harmonization" to come from the other.
Earlier on SN:
Mulled EU Copyright Shakeup Will Turn Us Into Robo-Censors
EU Parliament's Copyright Rapporteur Has Learned Nothing from Year-long Copyright Debate
European Commission Hides Copyright Evidence Again
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has a detailed explanation of the proposed changes to EU copyright law, specifically the current version of the European Digital Single Market directive, and why it is a big deal.
EFF has been writing about the upcoming European Digital Single Market directive on copyright for a long time now. But it's time to put away the keyboard, and pick up the phone, because the proposal just got worse—and it's headed for a crucial vote on June 20-21.
For those who need no further introduction to the directive, which would impose an upload filtering mandate on Internet platforms (Article 13) and a link tax in favor of news publishers (Article 11), you can skip to the bottom of this post, where we link to an action that European readers can take to make their voice heard. But if you're new to this, here's a short version of how we got here and why we're worried.
From the EFF's web site: European Copyright Law Isn't Great. It Could Soon Get a Lot Worse.
Earlier on SN:
Censorship Machines Are Coming: It's Time for the Free Software Community to Use its Political Clout
Compromises on Copyright Maximalism are Clearly No Longer on the EU Agenda
Mulled EU Copyright Shakeup Will Turn Us Into Robo-Censors
Andres Guadamuz has written a blog post analyzing why last Thursday's vote by the JURI Committee to reject fast-tracking the proposal concerning "harmonization" of copyright in the EU went as it did. The rejection of fast-tracking means that the issue will still come up for a general vote in parliament in September but the interesting part is that for the first time in Europe a wide coalition has managed to defeat powerful media lobbies, at least for now. He goes into how this was possible and what needs to happen in September.
The main result of this change from a political standpoint is that now we have two lobbying sides in the debate, which makes all the difference when it comes to this type of legislation. In the past, policymakers could ignore experts and digital rights advocates because they never had the potential to reach them, letters and articles by academics were not taken into account, or given lip service during some obscure committee discussion just to be hidden away. Tech giants such as Google have provided lobbying access in Brussels, which has at least levelled the playing field when it comes to presenting evidence to legislators.
Earlier on SN:
The EU's Dodgy Article 13 Copyright Directive has Been Rejected (2018)
EU Committee Approves Controversial Copyright Directive (2018)
Censorship Machines Are Coming: It’s Time for the Free Software Community to Use its Political Clout (2018)
Mulled EU Copyright Shakeup Will Turn Us Into Robo-Censors (2018)
EU Study Finds Even Publishers Oppose the "Link Tax" (2017)
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 16 2018, @10:52PM (2 children)
Those fucking republicans always fucking things up.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 16 2018, @11:09PM (1 child)
It's EU leadership and Berne Convention pushers who are pushing this pro-copyright agenda.
It was bad for society 100 years ago and it is bad for society now.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 17 2018, @12:33AM
Please explain
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Friday March 16 2018, @10:59PM (5 children)
If they pass such a law, sites like GitHub can simply block access to the EU, and developers will just have to use a VPN, or those get blocked, travel to countries like Norway or Switzerland to do their coding (since sites like StackOverflow will also need to be blocked since there's potential copyright issues there too, it'll be pretty hard for professional developers to get much done too).
As I always say, every nation gets the government it deserves. I really thought Europeans deserved better than this, but I guess not.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Bot on Saturday March 17 2018, @12:53AM (1 child)
I agree, and I live in the EU.
Apparently we need a nice red notice on web resources stating: this content is blocked because of EU bureaucrats and their idiot, oh sorry i meant malicious, laws.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 17 2018, @07:07PM
Like us Americans did. Once it gets too full it will breach a levee and empty itself back out :)
How did YOU think he planned to drain the swamp?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 17 2018, @03:54AM (1 child)
moar jerbs for 'merkins!
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Saturday March 17 2018, @12:39PM
??? A merkin is a pubic wig. [wikipedia.org] Should I be investing in merkin makers?
Relationship status: Available for curbside pickup.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 17 2018, @06:54AM
Waaaa! waaaa! American companies will take their ball and go home. Muh VPN. Muh SJWhub.
Good fucking riddance. European tech companies, for Europeans people, under European privacy laws.
China and Russia got this right. Their protectionism kept the dirty yanks out, and now they have strong home-grown tech companies. Europe was foolish for not outright banning google and facefuck.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by cocaine overdose on Friday March 16 2018, @11:18PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 16 2018, @11:45PM (5 children)
Nothing but a bureaucrat's paradise. Oh well, the people have spoken... Free will and all that.
(Score: 1, Troll) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday March 17 2018, @12:31AM (4 children)
I have a friend who is a UK citizen.
He supported Brexit because the regulations created by those bureauctrats offend "the British sense of fair play".
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 17 2018, @12:53AM
The EU is a centrally planned economy in the making. Not all of the regulations are bad but they are driven by the round table of industrialists, passed to the unelected (by the people) commission and rubber stamped by the parliament. Europe has seen this form of governance before. [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 3, Informative) by bzipitidoo on Saturday March 17 2018, @02:15AM (2 children)
I used to think the European Union was a fantastic idea. And there's still much to be said for it. If it has made total war between the European powers so prohibitively expense that it's unthinkable, then it's very good.
But it is also a single point of failure. One of the strengths of Europe in all the centuries from the fall of Rome to modern times was a competition somewhat like a marketplace, but between governments rather than businesses. Any government that screwed up bad would find itself shunned, and trade would move elsewhere, which would quickly impoverish and ruin the local economy. Yes, there were robber barons. But ultimately, the merchants won out. Now however, the EU can make a dumb decision and screw things up for a whole lot of people, and going elsewhere to get away is not so easily done. Witness their handling of Greece.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 17 2018, @03:07AM
Which, if it was not the plan would not be foreshadowed and celebrated! [alamy.com] As if educated people don't know the story -- but only 'thick' people voted for 'Brexit'! [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday March 17 2018, @04:37AM
The creation of CERN had the explicit purpose of giving European countries something to do other than attack each other.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 17 2018, @12:03AM (5 children)
This is the same GitHub that's been 'deplatforming' whoever their staffer inner-circle thinks is an Undesirable, and were the primary pusher of Codes-of-Conduct in FOSS, right? (website owners with a few users who ping the modern redefinition of Nazi, TERFs, ...)
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 17 2018, @12:30AM
Exactly. How can SJW shithub object, are copyright holders not entitled to feelings about their material being redistributed without permission?
Social Justice comes home to roost once more.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 17 2018, @12:49AM
Yeah, they can shove CoC up their collective asses.... but this will punish its users too.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday March 17 2018, @05:49AM (2 children)
All the recruiters want to know what one's GitHub is. I never fill in the blank. Doubtlessly that's why I was homeless for five years.
But it seems one cannot escape the requirement that one have experience with Git. I'll set up my own Git server on my own domain, then supply its URL to body shops that want to know what my GitHub is.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Saturday March 17 2018, @06:43AM (1 child)
Which repository browser and issue/pull request tracker is recommended for use on your own server? Is Savane [nongnu.org] or GitLab [gitlab.com] any good?
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday March 17 2018, @07:42PM
Possibly I will find out this weekend
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 17 2018, @12:22AM (9 children)
I remember when the internet had websites with content that was researched, curated, and presented with care. Now all the shitty websites just want content, whether crappy, illegal, or whatever. The owners of the websites do not want to manage the content in any way. Heck, they don't even want to create it!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 17 2018, @12:44AM (6 children)
If you want to put your book report online, you can still do that. If you want to host 10 million porn videos, you have to steal from users.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Bot on Saturday March 17 2018, @12:55AM (5 children)
link please? I happen to be very interested in book reports.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday March 17 2018, @06:01AM
http://www.123helpme.com/search.asp?text=book+report [123helpme.com]
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Saturday March 17 2018, @06:56AM (3 children)
If you're interested, I've written a few articles analyzing aspects of books and plays.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Saturday March 17 2018, @08:34AM (1 child)
Actually I am gonna read about Pinocchio as it's the second book i'd recommend to an alien visiting the planet, the gospels being the first.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Saturday March 17 2018, @08:48AM
I read about Pinocchio.
I don't make much of that analysis though, as it seems like a trekkie approach to SF: smart, but ultimately losing itself on details.
American style rationalization sometimes yields fruit, but rational analysis of complex systems leads to totally bogus result at the slightest error or omission, and by being scientific does not enter the domain of "whatever the author may have wanted to convey" because it's not easy to formalize.
But of course, if it is your thing and may be useful for somebody (pinocchio inspired video games), then why not.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday March 17 2018, @08:33PM
Maybe you should contribute something to the Community Reviews nexus.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 17 2018, @01:21AM (1 child)
I remember when the internet had websites with content that was researched, curated, and presented with care.
Seriously when did that happen? MOST of the web has a been a steady bit-storm of poor content. I have watched it since pretty much the very beginning 'surfing the web' on mosaic, lync, and gopher. There are still some curated sites that focus on a particular topic but just as like in the beginning they are few and far between. Most of the early websites were little more than a landing page with a *tiny* amount of content and always 'under construction'.
http://www.wonder-tonic.com/geocitiesizer/content.php?theme=2&music=5&url=http://youtube.com [wonder-tonic.com]
You are looking at the web through rose colored glasses.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 17 2018, @06:47AM
No, the web really was better before.
>mosaic, lync, and gopher
Nice LARP kid. You can go back to your snapchat now.
(Score: 2) by lx on Saturday March 17 2018, @08:53AM
The future is offline.
(Score: 2) by canopic jug on Saturday March 17 2018, @01:02PM
See also a copy of the doctored document itself [boingboing.net] under discussion: the Draft compromise amendments on Article 13 and corresponding recitals [juliareda.eu] (warning for one of the .docx formats), hosted by MEP Julia Reda.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.