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"
Related Stories
Julia Reda, Member of the European Parliament representing Germany, writes about a EU study which finds that even publishers oppose the proposed "link tax" which is currently up for consideration by legislators. Interestingly, the report also finds that many journalists are afraid to cover the issue. Several publications declined to comment giving various reasons, including differences of view between the online editions and their parent publications. In other words, the subject is being silenced.
The report, a bit misleadingly entitled "Strengthening the Position of Press Publishers and Authors and Performers in the Copyright Directive" [warning for PDF], was commissioned by the European Parliament's Policy Department for Citizens' Rights and Constitutional Affairs at the request of the JURI committee. Specifically it reviews Article 11 and Articles 14-16 of the proposed Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market. Julia Reda also notes that many of the MEPs are not in a position to find out about the report prior the vote. That puts them in a situation of making a less informed decision than is desirable.
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
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Thexalon on Tuesday September 15 2020, @08:34PM (26 children)
The whole point of people being able to link freely from one place to another was absolutely key to the concept of a web of information. It was supposed to be really incredibly easy to reference other sources, so you could, for instance, replace a complex citation to an academic paper with a link to that paper so anyone who wanted to follow the citation would go directly to the paper in question rather than having to go to a library that had the journal in question and paw through shelves of paper or drawers of microfiche.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 5, Touché) by ikanreed on Tuesday September 15 2020, @08:36PM (9 children)
Yes, but the internet as a source of near-infinite useful academic information is much less profitable than the internet as a source of near-infinite rubes to advertise at between mindless, glassy-eyed clicking.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday September 15 2020, @09:57PM (3 children)
Good news everybody...
FAKE NEWS is royalty free!
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 15 2020, @09:59PM (2 children)
Yes but who wants to read CNN or MSNBC?
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 15 2020, @11:39PM
You forgot the worst offender. Fox "news" which makes you less informed than avoiding news sources completely. It ain't called Faux news for nothing.
Choose your media source it was covered widely:
https://www.google.com/search?q=people+less+informed+that+got+news+from+fox&client=firefox-b-1-e&gbv=1&sei=hE1hX8amIp7D0PEPvY2XkAI [google.com]
(Score: 5, Interesting) by fakefuck39 on Wednesday September 16 2020, @02:34AM
those indeed to lie quite a bit. I notice you didn't include fox. I realize it's because you're a dump trumpet, but you actually did the right thing. Fox news made up some much bullshit they were taken to court. their defense was "no reasonable person would assume the broadcast was anything but fiction" - they literally told this to the judge. they lost their license as a news organization many, many years ago, and are licensed as an entertainment channel only, despite having "news" in their name.
bet you didn't know that, you stupid fool.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Grishnakh on Tuesday September 15 2020, @11:51PM
Yes, but the internet as a source of near-infinite useful academic information is much less profitable than the internet as a source of near-infinite rubes to advertise at between mindless, glassy-eyed clicking.
This seems to be orthogonal to me. In this case, it seems the academics and the advertisers share a common interest: both Facebook and Google (major internet companies that make money through ads) want free linking, so they can link to information for people to click on, and this makes them money by being a news aggregator or otherwise somehow drawing eyeballs, who then go visit other sites linked from them. The only people against this seem to be certain content publishers, who somehow think they should not only be able to make money showing ads to readers, but also get paid for being linked to, even though this linking is really free advertising for them and their site.
Anyway, didn't they try this very thing in Germany with Google, and have it fall flat on its face when Google simply stopped linking to any German publishers, suddenly killing their revenue stream?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday September 16 2020, @12:43AM (3 children)
FTFY.
A society with a higher access to academic information will progress, on long term, faster than one with lots of mindless, glassy-eyed clickers.
But... you are actually right - the progress of the society and profit are two different things. Bigger profits can be extracted from masses of ignorants (breeding increasingly more ignorants) than from a smaller population of educated, able to reason people.
I know... how about selling them education for lotsa money, on student loans or something. When they get to having the ability to think, they'll be busy paying those loans. Because free tertiary education [investopedia.com] is communism or something.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday September 16 2020, @12:57PM (1 child)
Rather free tertiary education doesn't solve an important problem. The vast majority of people going to college have the ability to pay. I don't think we should squander public funds when the interested parties can pay for it themselves. That goes for a lot more than just college BTW.
(Score: 2) by Fnord666 on Wednesday September 16 2020, @02:08PM
I guess that depends on where you live. For example [topuniversities.com] in the US:
For a four year college, including room and board, the average is $21,370 USD per year for in-state tuition which is the cheapest rate. I would love to see a plan where "the majority of people going to college" could make this amount of money, pay for health insurance and still actually be able to go to classes and study.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 16 2020, @01:33PM
If you couldn't "think" before 4 years of college... I suspect you only think you think.
(Score: 3, Touché) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday September 15 2020, @08:53PM
Yes, but that doesn't mean that it wasn't also immoral and unacceptable, to some people who have apparently been living under a very large rock for the past 20+ years.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Wednesday September 16 2020, @12:35AM (11 children)
Before, someone would email you a link. Nowadays you're expected to go through a search engine , and people have basically gotten too lazy to bookmark stuff. Or too stupid.
This is just another example of how people are enabling themselves being profiled, and then either complaining about their loss of privacy, or being too stupid to realize it's even happening.
It's pretty lame when you give someone the actual URL and they type it into a search engine instead of the address bar. And when you point it out, turns out they don't even SEE the address bar. Sheeple.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday September 16 2020, @12:51AM
Stop being silly, that's the nature of the medium. In a sequential for of presentation (writing in general, making a list in particular) there will also be a head (to be read first) and a tail (to never be read)
What is presented first is a matter of decision and, one way or the other, someone will take it and cause heaps of people to grumble.
Unless you can suggest other ways of finding information that is relevant (in different contexts) without using search engines, in which case I'm all ears.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Wednesday September 16 2020, @06:16AM (3 children)
This seems endemic among school-age kids.
I've taught several lessons where I wanted them to go straight to a particular page, and used a custom URL shortener to reduce the length of the URL to something less prone to typos. Despite explicit instructions, a significant proportion (maybe a quarter) will do a Google search for that shortened URL. If I only created the custom URL that morning, it won't have been indexed by web crawlers, resulting in a blank page with no search results. On the plus side, it meant I could teach them what a URL is...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 16 2020, @01:38PM (2 children)
Did you present your students with the link as clickable in an electronic HTML document, or at least as something they could cut and paste from a Word or PDF document?
Because if not, I'm afraid you are the one who doesn't understand how links are supposed to work.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by barbara hudson on Wednesday September 16 2020, @03:15PM
Why should anyone with any brains require that level of handholding in a class where they're supposed to be learning stuff?
Word or PDF? Both of those are ignored, both for historical reasons and security concerns, plus if you can't send it in plain text why should I bother with it?
Why would I even want to install Word? Especially on my phone?
Anything in plain text that looks like an url I can just highlight and select "copy and go to" from my phone's pop up.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Wednesday September 16 2020, @04:08PM
If I could share a hyperlink easily, I wouldn't have needed a URL shortener. But that presupposes one of a few things:
-> The students have access to a common network drive, virtual learning environment, or similar, where I can drop a text file or whatever for them
-> I have access to a class list of email accounts, and the students have and recall the credentials to access them without having to send two thirds of them off to see the IT administrator to reset their password
In the absence of any of those, I'd use a URL shortener, so I could put the URL up on the board for them in a form that minimises typos (typed, not handwritten, for legibility). More schools are getting used to using a VLE of some sort these days, but a substitute/supply teacher stepping in at short notice is unlikely to be given immediate access to those.
(My more recent experience, in post-compulsory education, has been with establishments that have a proper VLE / email system in place, so one can easily share a URL in the form of a hyperlink.)
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by deimtee on Wednesday September 16 2020, @06:20AM (5 children)
That is actually a good practice for most people. Google will warn them if it is a malicious site and Google is not so pedantic about the URL being perfect. In most cases it is quicker to type what you mumbled into Google and click the best looking link rather than try to type it into the address bar and get a 404 or the wrong site, and then waste time going over the URL letter by letter.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 16 2020, @06:25AM (1 child)
That is actually a good practice for most people. Google will steal their personal data and sell it to the highest bidder.
FTFY
--
You have the right to remain stupid. Should you choose to exercise that right, you may be elected to high office.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Wednesday September 16 2020, @02:50PM
Google might share your data with the NSA but they will not sell it. They will sell advertising space based on your data.
And did you notice the word most in there? For most people malicious sites are a bigger threat than the NSA or seeing targeted ads from google. Most people don't have TB's of warez and CP on their computers. Most people aren't threatened by anyone knowing where they surfed to. Most people are not uber-elite underground hackers who need to conceal everything from "the Man".
I know a couple of people who have had their PCs encrypted by ransomware. I don't know anybody who has lost anything to NSA/Google.
Combine that with the convenience of google automatically fixing mistyped URLs and for most people it's a a no-brainer.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Wednesday September 16 2020, @03:06PM (2 children)
Also, this is a problem that should be addressed in the browser, by, for example , not allowing redirects, selectively disabling all JavaScript or the subset of JavaScript functions that are abused, not allowing sites to get user agent , history, OS and version , or anything else that allows browser fingerprinting.
And no css overriding of user pref. And the ability to not interpret embedded data. And block 3rd party content, including especially in iframes. And block videos and images.
And display addresses in a decent sized monospace font so that people can easily see the difference between bankofamerica and bankorarnerica. If you can't see the difference, cut and paste this post into a plain text editor with a monospace .font.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 18 2020, @12:10PM (1 child)
Right, they should just code a new browser that does all that, and redesign the web as well. After finishing all that before lunch, they can cure cancer and invent an FTL space drive in the afternoon.
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Friday September 18 2020, @05:25PM
Removing cruft is easier than supporting insecure standards like JavaScript.
Just look at text-based browsers. No JavaScript, no css, no html5, no images, no emojis, and you usually use a monospace font so a malicious link to bankofarnerica isn't mistaken for bankofamerica. So it's already been done, so what's the problem again?
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by fakefuck39 on Wednesday September 16 2020, @02:37AM (2 children)
This doesn't break the web in any way - and it improves it greatly. This link tax is not something everyone pays for every href. It allows a few organizations to only allow links to them upon their approval or payment. They are too dumb to realize being delisted from search results and facebook makes them literally invisible. So while everyone is trying to get on the first page of search results, they don't want to be included at all. I don't get why anyone would have a problem with that. There are literally a thousand news sources for the same story - if someone wants to disappear from the web - why the fuck is anyone fighting to stop them?
(Score: 2) by Fnord666 on Wednesday September 16 2020, @02:13PM (1 child)
And if there aren't "literally a thousand news sources for the same story" then it's probably fake news and unless you need the confirmation bias, you can safely ignore it.
(Score: 2) by fakefuck39 on Thursday September 17 2020, @02:58PM
the opposite. there are a thousand news sources for the news the large corporations pushing for link tax are broadcasting. In fact, it's usually only two or three of the same stories all of them broadcast on any given day. Those are the major popular stories, and every single news company worldwide is covering them. And those do have a chance of being fake news because the station is trying to push a narrative.
There are many other stories from other news sources, which are not available from thousands of sources. A lot of those have a chance of being fake news because they don't have the resources to investigate.
(Score: 5, Funny) by bmimatt on Tuesday September 15 2020, @08:57PM (7 children)
The title should be: "Steven Guilbeault discovered the internet in 2020 and has 'ideas'"
(Score: 0, Troll) by Bot on Tuesday September 15 2020, @10:59PM (3 children)
Never attribute to incompetence what is coherent with being a poster child of leftist environmentalism, that is, doubly submitted to the actual elite. I'd link you the wikipedia page in his name, but it's better you get used to the soviet internet 3.0
Account abandoned.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 15 2020, @11:44PM (2 children)
> bla bla coherent with being a poster child of leftist bla bla
Nearly every post you make has some paranoid delusional reference to "leftists" even though most of your "leftists" are either solidly on the right (but not fascists, so apparently not far enough on the right for you), or at best center-right.
Do you masturbate to pictures of Hitler and Reagan?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by HiThere on Wednesday September 16 2020, @12:02AM
To be fair, Regan wasn't intellectual enough to be a fascist. He just said what people who impressed him wanted him to say, and put a friendly face on it. He was a sports reporter, and thought of politics as "rooting for the home team".
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by c0lo on Wednesday September 16 2020, @12:55AM
No, he just loves trolling. Anyone taking the bait gets him satisfaction.
If the majority on this site would be "rightist" he'll try to troll from the left.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Tuesday September 15 2020, @11:36PM (1 child)
LOL. I was thinking of this:
Canadian Heritage Minister: I am a Moron.
I like yours better.
Reminds me of a Q&A done on the green site many years ago, for some big name legal expert. One of the questions assumed that legal experts just didn't get tech, weren't smart enough to get it, and he gave an angry answer that did more to confirm that view than refute it.
Elected officials and legal professionals have demonstrated, over and over, that most of them don't get it. There are far worse misunderstandings than "series of tubes", which actually isn't near as bad as it is made out to be. For instance, intellectual property. They just won't grasp that the term itself is a misnomer, and keep on reasoning as if "proppity is proppity". Just getting them to accept that copying and stealing are fundamentally different has been like pulling teeth. Even when they say they accept that, soon as it seems momentarily advantageous to muddy the waters again, they go right back to conflating the two.
Another area is security research. They are endlessly suspicious and afraid that at any time, a security expert could turn from white hat to black hat. Hackers are the witches of the digital age, subject to witch hunts the moment some of the political class imagine there's a problem with the computer systems, whether or not there really is a problem.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by FatPhil on Wednesday September 16 2020, @12:44AM
Canadian Heritage Minister, Steven Guilbeaul = claimed able to sue us navigating the internet
(P.S. don't!)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 3, Interesting) by canopic jug on Wednesday September 16 2020, @08:13AM
The title should be: "Steven Guilbeault discovered the internet in 2020 and has 'ideas'"
I presume that he's rather clue-free about the whole system and that someone or some group or some groups *cough*lobbyists*cough* are winding him up. An instesting take on the lobbyists would be that they might actually be aiming at net neutrality [michaelgeist.ca] or that eliminating net neutrality might just be a desirable side effect from their viewpoint. Michael Geist pointed out that in Canada net neutrality is mainly derived from two sections of the Telecommunications Act, §27 and §36. Guilbeault's proposed changes would stop content from being treated equally. Apparently the CRTC already commented on several occasions against eliminating net neutrality yet it would need to be eliminated before the changes could be rolled out. Be prepared for a lot of distractions and strawman arguments from proponents of the proposal.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 15 2020, @09:21PM (2 children)
Most of "news" sites does not link, even to open reports and findings they are citing. This way I just assume such message is a fake news, made to increase sensationalism. However, I found that they are intentionally doing it of pure envy of "links", so they are breaking the web even more, fueling gossips and distortions of shared news. More, source of many news becomes just untraceable.
The web is broken sufficient way, no need to break it more. Or let's go back to the printing press and blessed publishers who operate it and censor information.
(Score: 0, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 16 2020, @02:05AM (1 child)
Actually, the "news" sites eschew links (other than to their own stories) because they all still operate under the false belief that they are still the sole arbiter of what information you as a consumer are fed.
If they were to actually link out to the sources for their stories, you'd have no reason to rely on them to interpret the story and tell you what to think. Therefore they avoid linking because they believe they know better for you what is good for you than you know yourself.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 16 2020, @05:35AM
Ah! So it is like SN, and aristarchus submissions? All makes perfect sense, now that you mention it.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday September 15 2020, @09:29PM (5 children)
Raise your hand, if you go directly to a news broadcasting site, like Fox News, NBC News, etc.
Seems like an entire country wants to go back to the time, before the internet and make it in the Corporate image of Rupert Murdoch. There's more than one reason why print newspapers are failing. Most eventually created websites, but it was too late by then. Some newspapers will survive, but they won't have the near monopoly that they once had. Unless someone creates Extremely Stupid laws like the one mentioned here.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday September 16 2020, @01:00AM (4 children)
Which is that country?
Because it's not Australia, this idea is the abortive result of a ScoMo/Frydenberg minds (aka half baked idea, it'll backfire) trying to buy press influence for the 2021 elections.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Wednesday September 16 2020, @05:51AM (3 children)
Expand upon this, if you will, most excellent c0lo?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday September 16 2020, @06:11AM (2 children)
ScoMo [wikipedia.org]
Josh Frydenberg [wikipedia.org]
are the two big publicly vociferous supporters.
"abortive" because it's conceived by their minds being fucked by a 89yo well past the reproductive age fucker [wikipedia.org] and the stillborn birth will be before term [wikiwand.com] (May 2022 at the latest).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Wednesday September 16 2020, @07:26AM (1 child)
Of course! Auzzies! You might be interested in a more sane countryman, recently given an interview, covered in aristarchus submission thus: https://soylentnews.org/submit.pl?op=viewsub&subid=43547 [soylentnews.org]
Hugo Weaving. Had forgotten he was in Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.
(Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Wednesday September 16 2020, @08:41AM
Oh, let me point you to the story of 5M of sane countrymen in the neighborhood: https://theshot.net.au/general-news/melbourne-is-not-a-city-in-revolt-the-truth-is-far-more-incredible-and-far-more-boring/ [theshot.net.au]
Before you ask: Pete [theguardian.com] Fucking [tga.gov.au] Evans [wikipedia.org]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 15 2020, @09:32PM (1 child)
so a link like this https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=20/09/15/0823226 [soylentnews.org] requires payment but just syaing it like this is https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=20/09/15/0823226 [soylentnews.org] protected speech? Or is there a fine for saying a url? is http://hell.o/ [hell.o] available?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 15 2020, @09:35PM
Damn, just realized "saying" it without <URL:...> didn't come through in plain text ... guess I'll learn to look at the preview more closely next time.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 15 2020, @09:55PM (2 children)
nice website you got there, shame if anything happened to it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 15 2020, @11:06PM (1 child)
OMG, don't you DARE link to it!!
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 16 2020, @07:29AM
'Specially, don't be linking to rejected aristarchus submissions. That, like keeping marmots within the city limits, that ain't legal either.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by sjames on Tuesday September 15 2020, @10:12PM (4 children)
Since the web is designed from the ground up for linking. It's the world wide web, not the collection of standalone sites. Perhaps organizations that object to linking should stay the hell off of the web. If you hang a "yes, we're open" sign on the door you don't then get to cry about trespassing if someone walks in without knocking.
For those who want a car analogy, if you enter a demolition derby, people will collide with you. I wouldn't wait around to fill out the police report.
(Score: 3, Informative) by barbara hudson on Wednesday September 16 2020, @12:41AM (3 children)
When one site goes down we don't say "the Internet is down." Also, the Internet is more than just the web. And the IETF and RFCs don't have the force of law in any country.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 5, Informative) by sjames on Wednesday September 16 2020, @01:31AM
Much of the law centers around intent and reasonable expectation. The web is a medium specifically designed for linking from site to site. By putting a site up on the web, you are specifically joining in. There is a reasonable expectation that linking is OK and that people will link to your site if they see anything that interests them. See also complaining about people eating meat spoiling your appetite when you choose to dine in a steak house. Going to a concert and complaining that the music is too loud to hold a conversation over, being annoyed that there's children at the playground, going to a bar and being offended that people are drinking alcohol, etc.
Don't like hyperlinks? Don't put up a website. They can always publish their news in an app or something. As you say, the internet is more than just the web, so if they don't like linking they should distribute their news using some other protocol on a different port.
Librarians don't carry the force of law either, but a court will find it perfectly reasonable if they throw out a bunch of people trying to throw a kegger in the non-fiction section, even if the sign on the door says "public".
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 16 2020, @08:48AM (1 child)
I didn't know WWW was short for "collection of standalone sites". Care to point me to the relevant RFC?
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Wednesday September 16 2020, @02:37PM
You can download the entire text of Wikipedia (the English version is about 14 gigs when compressed) and use it locally - don't even need a web server. You can also rsync it occasionally to keep it up to date.
So you don't need the web to use Wikipedia. You don't even need the Internet, just someone who's already downloaded it and can put a copy on a USB stick.
Even this site could be converted to a tarball and run locally without a server. You just won't be able to post comments and stuff, but for reading it would be just fine.
And since almost nobody RTFA anyway … and some don't even read the summary …
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Bot on Tuesday September 15 2020, @10:46PM (2 children)
Dear Canadian Heritage Minister, Steven Guilbeault
It is with great displeasure that we, the Italians, lawful heirs of the Romans, rightful owners of the eponymous and universal alphabet, witnessed your utterances, formalized in OUR alphabet, without our permission and without monetary compensation.
Plus, your very name is composed using our alphabet, even if being of clear Jewish origin (an origin which might as well explain everything but we don't want to sound DELENDA CARTHAGO racist DELENDA CARTHAGO)
Plus, your surname features letters at random, a bad French habit which should be nuked from orbit, like everything French including the people. Especially the people.
So, pay up or else.
Best regards, the Italians.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 16 2020, @05:54AM (1 child)
Americanized that For You?
ATFY???
(Score: 2) by Bot on Wednesday September 16 2020, @12:36PM
That unruly continent should turn back to be Columbus' slaves. They'd get better healthcare.
Account abandoned.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 15 2020, @11:23PM (3 children)
A link tax is incredibly stupid and ignores the fundamental basis for the web. Without links, the web will cease to exist. Isn't Canada supposed to be better than this. That's what Barbara Hudson [soylentnews.org] and Osama Hazuki [soylentnews.org] keep telling everyone. How will they defend this idiocy from their country?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday September 16 2020, @01:04AM (1 child)
Idiots exist. You and Steven Guilbeault are two fine examples.
Now, not all of them worth the effort to defend against, many (you two included) can be safely ignored.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 16 2020, @01:16AM
Unoccupied, [thestar.com] electroencephalography's blackout extreme. [nbcnews.com]
(Score: 2) by Bot on Wednesday September 16 2020, @12:39PM
Osama(?) Suzuki, and please stop making fun of her name it's impolite and puerile, has the added problem of having to defend a lefty politician whose environmentalism makes Greta Thunberg look like a rookie.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 16 2020, @02:08AM (3 children)
Fine, go ahead, block all of it. I predict that within 1-2 months the sites that used to profit off the traffic from FB links will be back, hat in hand, desperate to have the FB traffic engine restarted for them.
The best way to teach the utterly stupid is to give them just exactly what they ask for. When they discover they wanted a terribly bitter pill, they quickly shape up.
(Score: 2) by Dr Spin on Wednesday September 16 2020, @06:31AM (1 child)
The best way to teach the utterly stupid is to give them just exactly what they ask for. When they discover they wanted a terribly bitter pill, they quickly shape up.
That is why we voted for Brexit.
Warning: Opening your mouth may invalidate your brain!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 16 2020, @02:21PM
Wasn't this how Trump got elected?
(Score: 2) by Bot on Wednesday September 16 2020, @12:42PM
You are rational but discount the possibility that breaking the web isn't the objective of the drill.
Friendly reminder: leftism caters to the poor and the oppressed and shouts for freedom until they get into power. Then they flip 180 degrees in an instant. The only mistake of this guy is speaking too soon. Or maybe he knows something we don't.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday September 16 2020, @02:56AM
You heard them, eds. No more linking to .au or .ca domains.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Wednesday September 16 2020, @03:49AM
The enemy of my enemy is the enemy of my enemy - no more, no less*. And in this case, still my enemy.
*Not my phrasing, but I wish it was.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Wednesday September 16 2020, @06:28AM (1 child)
I could see an argument in favour of charging for transcluding or hotlinking material from other sites into your own pages *. But charging for hyperlinks to another site? That's like having to pay for having a bibliography.
*Charging all these people who transclude javascript from dozens of different sites might actually be a Good Thing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 16 2020, @06:33AM
Charging all these people who transclude javascript from dozens of different sites might actually be a Good Thing.
No. Cruel and inhuman torture is required to handle that.
--
A million lemmings can't be wrong.
(Score: 2) by istartedi on Wednesday September 16 2020, @08:26AM
I was going to try a humorous post about possibly taxing the links, taking them through customs, import/export, etc. but then I read the rest of the summary and they ruined it for me!
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 17 2020, @12:04AM
This ruling is corossive to the basic DNA of the WEB.
It undermines the U in URL.
If the news sites want to publish by different rules, then they should go make their own set of standards to support this.
Not break the ones that the rest of the world is using.
If this stands, they get to use the web standards when it suits them.
But get to ignore them when it suits them.