The Creative Commons, the international non-profit devoted to expanding the range of creative works available legally, summarizes how the EU's proposed link tax would still harm Creative Commons licensors. The proposed Copyright Directive legislation entered the final rounds of negotiation back in September, retaining the problematic articles that raised hackles earlier this year, notably articles 11, 12, and 13. The Creative Commons discusses the current stat of article 11, known informally as the link tax.
Article 11 is ill-suited to address the challenges in supporting quality journalism, and it will further decrease competition and innovation in news delivery. Spain and Germany have already experimented with similar versions of this rule, and neither resulted in increased revenues for publishers. Instead, it likely decreased the visibility (and by extension, revenues) of published content—exactly the opposite of what was intended. Just last week a coalition of small- and medium-sized publishers sent a letter to the trilogue negotiators outlining how they will be harmed if Article 11 is adopted.
Not only is a link tax bad for business, it would undermine the intention of authors who wish to share without additional strings attached, such as creators who want to share works under open licenses. This could be especially harmful to Creative Commons licensors if it means that remuneration must be granted notwithstanding the terms of the CC license. This interpretation is not far-flung. As IGEL wrote last week, [...]
Previously on SN:
Secretive EU Copyright Negotiations Started Tuesday: Here's Where We Stand
EU Copyright Directive Passes; "Terrorist Content" Regulation Proposed; Astroturfing?
How The EU May Be About To Kill The Public Domain: Copyright Filters Takedown Beethoven
European Copyright Law Isn't Great. It Could Soon Get a Lot Worse
Related Stories
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
Over in the EU Parliament, they're getting ready to vote yet again on the absolutely terrible Copyright Directive, which has serious problems for the future of the internet, including Article 13's mandatory censorship filters and Article 11's link tax. Regrading the mandatory filters, German music professor Ulrich Kaiser, has written about a a very disturbing experiment he ran on YouTube, in which he kept having public domain music he had uploaded for his students get taken down by ContentID copyright claims.
[...] I decided to open a different YouTube account “Labeltest” to share additional excerpts of copyright-free music. I quickly received ContentID notifications for copyright-free music by Bartok, Schubert, Puccini and Wagner. Again and again, YouTube told me that I was violating the copyright of these long-dead composers, despite all of my uploads existing in the public domain. I appealed each of these decisions, explaining that 1) the composers of these works had been dead for more than 70 years, 2) the recordings were first published before 1963, and 3) these takedown request did not provide justification in their property rights under the German Copyright Act.
I only received more notices, this time about a recording of Beethoven’s Symphony No.5, which was accompanied by the message: “Copyrighted content was found in your video. The claimant allows its content to be used in your YouTube video. However, advertisements may be displayed.” Once again, this was a mistaken notification. The recording was one by the Berlin Philharmonic under the direction of Lorin Maazel, which was released in 1961 and is therefore in the public domain. Seeking help, I emailed YouTube, but their reply, “[…] thank you for contacting Google Inc. Please note that due to the large number of enquiries, e-mails received at this e-mail address support-de@google.com cannot be read and acknowledged” was less than reassuring.
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
MEP Julia Reda has decided to try to lift the lid on the secretive copyright negotiations between the EU Parliament and the EU Council. These negotiations started Tuesday. She goes into detail on the implications of the upload filter, "link tax", and sports ban for individuals and society in general. She takes a close look at the similarities and differences between the current positions of the Council and Parliament and breaks down what the these positions mean.
Today, the first “Trilogue” meeting is held on the EU copyright reform law infamous for its “link tax” and upload filter provisions.
In this series of closed-door meetings, the European Parliament and the Council (representing the member state governments) hammer out a final text acceptable to both institutions. It’s the last chance to make changes before the Directive gets adopted. Meetings are currently scheduled until Christmas, although whether the process will be concluded by then is up in the air.
In light of the massive public attention, I’ve decided to provide some transparency to this normally opaque process. [...]
University of Ottawa law professor, Michael Geist, writes on the copyright front that Canadian Heritage Minister, Steven Guilbeault, said the other day that it is immoral and unacceptable for web sites to link to other web sites without paying for each link.
Facebook has said that it will block all news sharing on its platform in Australia if the government proceeds with a mandated payment system, noting the limited value of the links and arguing that its referrals that are worth hundreds of millions to the news organizations. If Canada were to pursue the same strategy, Canadian news sites would also likely be blocked and a trade complaint under the USMCA would be a virtual certainty.
Yet despite the significant risks and survey data that this could lead to a less informed public, Guilbeault is aligning with Rupert Murdoch, the chief advocate for these payments in Australia. He characterizes non-payment as “immoral and unacceptable”, claiming that Facebook makes hundreds of millions of dollars from Canadian media content without fair compensation. This points to a showdown like the one taking place in Australia, even though Canada has announced significant support for the sector that Guilbeault has thus far largely failed to deliver.
He plans for new legistation sometime soon and is tangled with the use of the giants to spread disinformation and strife. Trouble has been brewing for some while as the CRTC tries to find ways for streaming companies to fund Canadian content. Guilbeault is expected to try to add new powers to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to enable a "link tax" on the Canadian part of the web. Perhaps that is ignoring, or in ignorance of, RFC 1945, the Hypertext Transfer Protocol -- HTTP/1.0.
Previously:
(2018) EU’s Proposed Link Tax Would Still Harm Creative Commons Licensors
(2017) EU Study Finds Even Publishers Oppose the "Link Tax"
(Score: 3, Interesting) by ZaqsNews on Sunday November 11 2018, @02:12PM (16 children)
In response to this legislation, I'm making a Spanish news aggregator. I figure once news linking is outlawed, maybe people will use my website. https://es.zaqs.org/ [zaqs.org]
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday November 11 2018, @03:06PM (2 children)
I might use your English one. It loads a lot faster than Google News (which is an absolute snail on mobile).
https://www.zaqs.org/home.html [zaqs.org]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 11 2018, @03:29PM (1 child)
I have been using Gigablast news section [gigablast.com] for similar reason, but will add this site to my rotation. Gigablast does not have sections/topics, so this looks useful.
(Score: 2) by RandomFactor on Sunday November 11 2018, @03:59PM
Also interesting, but the big hurdle is (again) customizability.
I added it to my extremely short list of search engines :-)
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 3, Interesting) by RandomFactor on Sunday November 11 2018, @03:16PM (12 children)
ZAQS.org (English link: https://www.zaqs.org/home.html) [zaqs.org] is exactly the sort of thing targeted by this legislation.
The site is actually very interesting and I've bookmarked it to see how it develops, it currently suffers due to lack of capability to customize.
A configuration page with news sources listed along with a [X] box beside them to include or exclude them from results would be fantastic in this regard.
I rarely bother with Google News even though i have significantly customized my page there specifically because of the curating done on all things Google. I want to curate my own stuff to my personal tastes.
Some sites i like/dislike philosophically or politically. Others work better or worse with my particular browser configuration. Some I just don't subscribe to.
Options
[ ]Dark Background
Sections
[ ]Top Stories
[ ]World
[ ]US News
[ ]Politics
[ ]Business
[ ]Sports
[ ]Entertainment
[ ]Opinion
[ ]Technology
[ ]Health
[ ]Science
[ ]Environment
[ ]Weird
[ ]Custom Search [James Webb Telescope]
[ ]Custom Search [Mars Rover]
[ ]Custom Search[RandomFactor]
[+] Add Custom Search Section
Sources
[ ]ABC
[ ]CBS
[ ]Citizen Free Press
[ ]CNN
[ ]FOXNEWS
[ ]Daily Wire
[ ]Drudge Report
[ ]Elsevier Publishing
[ ]GAB
[ ]MSNBC
[ ]NASA-JPL
[ ]Nature
[ ]NYPost
[ ]NYTimes
[ ]OANN
[ ]PLOS
[ ]Twitter Trending
[ ]Washington Post
etc. etc.
Additionally Keyword news search based sections. So say I'm really interested in news about the "James Webb Telescope" i could have a section that selects for news with that keyword or phrase in it. I don't want to search every time I go there, i just want to see the section and if there is something of interest, drill in.
ZAQS might be pretty far down the hit list, but it would certainly be in the crosshairs of Article 11 sooner or later in some regard.
If you maintain assets in the EU, or any country that trades with the EU, or have any infrastructure that could be targeted by blocking, or have any kind of owner or address that could actually be served a lawsuit, you are in scope.
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Sunday November 11 2018, @03:25PM (9 children)
Dark Mode is a good option. People are crazy for it in 2018, and it's easy on the eyes. I'm making a new, darker theme for SoylentNews right now.
I would add a dedicated Space section under Environment, populating it with at least these sources:
NASA.gov (or JPL [nasa.gov])
https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/ [nasaspaceflight.com]
https://spacenews.com/ [spacenews.com]
http://www.spaceflightinsider.com/ [spaceflightinsider.com]
https://arstechnica.com/author/ericberger/ [arstechnica.com]
https://www.space.com/ [space.com]
http://spaceref.com/ [spaceref.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by RandomFactor on Sunday November 11 2018, @03:38PM (3 children)
Squeeee!!!!!
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 11 2018, @04:33PM
if that's a positive "sqeeee", then i agree. i can't deal with white/light grey "backgrounded" sites these days.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday November 12 2018, @02:12AM (1 child)
For now, it's going to be a copy of VT100, except everything that is green becomes light red instead. Links and certain other text (like "*New*") will be a lighter pink color to make them easier to distinguish. Then I might make a couple of aesthetic changes and finally split it into two versions: "Seeing Red" and "Arik Seeing Red" (the latter is monospaced, of course).
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by RandomFactor on Monday November 12 2018, @08:58PM
I can do VT100
Heck, one of my early computer projects was building an H19 (Heathkit VT100 clone) with my mother who was a bit of a proto-geek. I still can't believe we didn't screw it up, used it for years.
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 11 2018, @06:10PM (1 child)
Seeing how recent studies [soylentnews.org] show black-on-white themes cause myopia, I'd say dark themes should be the default everywhere.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday November 11 2018, @06:58PM
And in a SHOCK revelation, Dark Mode has been found to improve mobile battery life:
https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/8/18076502/google-dark-mode-android-battery-life [theverge.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by ZaqsNews on Sunday November 11 2018, @08:54PM (2 children)
Thanks for the links! I've been hesitant at sub-categories because sometimes there's not enough content to have ordered groups of similar stories, but maybe listing sub-category stories by time is good enough. So click 'Space' under Environment (or Science?), see a time-ranked list of all headlines from certain sites and others by keyword. Glad I posted here.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday November 12 2018, @01:53AM (1 child)
I just meant under Environment on the sidebar, not as a subset of Environment. "Space" is a pretty large chunk of "Science" stories these days, to the point where it ought to get its own section. That also allows the combination of stories that are science related, like asteroids, telescopes, exoplanets, planetary science, SETI/exobiology, etc. as well as stories that are more business ("techonomics") related, such as rocket launches, satellite TV/Internet, asteroid mining, or even political stories such as 2018 election implications for space policy [theatlantic.com] and news of the "Space Force" [thehill.com]. Since the sources in question are likely to report on both, filtering can be minimal in some cases (e.g. The Verge runs space and non-space stories but NASASpaceFlight.com is all space, all the time).
The recent Google News redesign added some subcategories or whatever you want to call them, and I initially thought they were dynamically generated. Now I realize that Google really wants us to check out Virtual Reality news on the Technology section. There are a couple of pretty good dedicated sites for that topic, such as UploadVR and RoadToVR.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday November 12 2018, @05:35AM
Part of my comment doesn't make sense due to a bad rewrite, but you get the idea.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by exaeta on Sunday November 11 2018, @07:35PM
If you live in the US just host all your services here.
All you have to say is that the website is intended for X speaking americans.
The Government is a Bird
(Score: 2, Interesting) by ZaqsNews on Sunday November 11 2018, @07:58PM
Great suggestions! Never thought of dark mode. I'll get started on customization per your options. Dark mode, category selection on home page and custom searches should be easy. Selection of websites will be trickier to do well, might as well try though. Thanks.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by RandomFactor on Sunday November 11 2018, @02:32PM
I don't particularly care if they impose a link tax. Have at it. So long as it isn't another submarine mechanism that imposes obligations after the fact that you didn't realize at the time.
(Yes, I am aware this is essentially the opposite of what is desired by those proposing this)
This requires a NEW MECHANISM. One that allows at least referrers, and preferably also users and browsers to seamlessly identify, filter or select taxed links.
e.g. a URL mechanism/extension. HTTTPS://somepublisher.story.withlinktax.com or whatever (I'm sure HTML coders are spitting at their screen, it's just an example...)
Get it adopted as a standard.
Publishers could chose which method to use or provide under both. If the content was compelling, or provided other benefits (like no ADs), people would happily follow the taxable links and demand them of their search engines. If referrers such as the Goog were able to make money on the link taxed links, they would provide them.
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Sunday November 11 2018, @02:44PM (1 child)
"Press publisher's right", huh? What a load of feces. Well, it's certainly a close relative to "intellectual property", one of the most damaging propagandistic expressions of recent times.
"Intellectual property" is so enduring because it exploits an incorrect simplification. Anything a person creates is that person's property. "proppity is proppity." Simple, and wrong.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by loonycyborg on Sunday November 11 2018, @06:53PM
"Anything a person creates is that person's property?". Nothing could be farther from truth. Most of stuff that is done nowadays is work for hire and thus doesn't belong to maker. It's as far from reality as proletariat owning the means of production.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by RandomFactor on Sunday November 11 2018, @04:19PM (3 children)
While this may be the case, it is not a given.
It is entirely possible to decrease visibility yet increase revenue as there are multiple factors in play
1) Taxation on the referring site [+$]
2) Reduced bandwidth costs [+$]
3) Reduced direct ad revenue [-$]
If it was a penny a referral, and ads generate a penny a referral, then even if visibility dropped 30% it still shows a revenue gain (all else being equal)
It would be necessary to control for other factors (time of year, news of particular consumer interest, industry trends) and then attempt to quantify each of the above (and probably a few I'm forgetting) before concluding the effect on revenues.
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 11 2018, @05:19PM (1 child)
> all else being equal
Which won't be the case.
(Score: 2) by RandomFactor on Sunday November 11 2018, @05:30PM
No doubt, that's why I had to put it in there ;-)
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Lemming on Monday November 12 2018, @02:42PM
When the publishers said to Google: "you have to pay for each link," Google just stopped linking to these sites altogether. So they didn't get the taxation, and a lot less traffic.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 11 2018, @04:39PM (6 children)
I haven't read the legislation (all my time is devoted to The Cause) but it sounds ridiculous. It makes me sad that people tolerate governments like this. Just defund these pieces of shit. If you just go along to get along your grandchildren will know you were a coward that sold their future down the river. What's the point of giving in to tyrants and getting to live in fake comfort if it only makes things worse for your people and you die knowing you're a piece of shit too?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 11 2018, @05:32PM (2 children)
wot
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 11 2018, @10:44PM (1 child)
The Guardian, reporting on Richard Spencer's divorce proceedings in Whitefish, Montana [theguardian.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 12 2018, @01:11AM
Okay, so he's a piece of shit, but if she has "her own money" then they obviously have at least partially separate finances.
Why the fuck shouldn't she sometimes pay for groceries and other bills? Is she some special little snowflake who wants all the privileges of equal rights with none of the responsibilities?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by tibman on Sunday November 11 2018, @08:36PM
You think it is governments that want this? They are just making the laws their corporate sponsors want.
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 2) by Fluffeh on Monday November 12 2018, @03:48AM
For the Greater Good Commander Farsight?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 12 2018, @12:44PM
therefore please frigg off
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 12 2018, @01:11AM
As in title. And the reality is that using links is now avoided. With appearing of Google, linking became a measurement of site's popularity, I see more and more cases in which users don't want to link just for pure envy for other people's sites popularity. Modern link exchange is relatively small comparing to e.g. personal website microcosmos in its top age. Even in Web 2.0 begin of centralization.
CC? Really? In January we plan to send one of world's largest CC photos repo right to /dev/null, I don't think people will pay for hosting for their CC stuff. CC will disappear with Web 1.0 personal websites.
So, it is the same adaptation of a media to shift it from hands of citizens to hands of publishers, as it was with newspapers, radio and TV. Even in the Internet independent publishing is minimized and costs are artificially inflated to make only big companies able to publish.
And post-Internet equivalent of samizdat underground pamphlets? Harder than any people who had contact with samizdat think, as media programmed us for not reaching for such things. The "common denominator" I found in modern media, the meme programmed in and present in every transmission, is something like like "New is bad until it's advertised".