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posted by Fnord666 on Saturday October 14 2017, @10:13AM   Printer-friendly
from the unfairly-taxing-a-single-Zelda-character dept.

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.


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  • (Score: 2) by Wootery on Monday October 16 2017, @09:28AM (2 children)

    by Wootery (2341) on Monday October 16 2017, @09:28AM (#582935)

    Copyright extremists are so weak.

    And yet they've consistently managed to get copyright terms extended, decade after decade.

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  • (Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Monday October 16 2017, @12:44PM (1 child)

    by bzipitidoo (4388) on Monday October 16 2017, @12:44PM (#582970) Journal

    But look how they've done it. Rather than gain popular support for fair measures, they've tried to slip unfair ones past the public, in trade agreements and through heavy lobbying (bribing). They know they don't have public support, and have to do their dirty legislating out of the public view. That's weak.

    Weaker yet, their propaganda campaigns push credulity too far. Captain Copyright was a laughingstock. Their DRM efforts have served only to anger their customers and raise awareness. The old region encoding scheme on DVDs is an illegal restraint of trade that persists to this day, constantly reminding customers in one more way that they don't play fair themselves. And, unskippable commercials, what fools ever thought it was a good idea to abuse the obedience to DRM, meant only to prevent "illegal" copying, to force commercials on their customers who did pay? The whole point of paying was so that you don't have to sit through commercials, among other perks. Instead, the way to get the privileges you were willing to pay for is to pirate the material. They reneged on their end of the expectations they themselves helped create, and people know it. And they're still pushing, trying to further change the deal so that, with software at least, the customer can't "own" a copy anymore, the customer can only "lease" a copy. The Copyright Alert System ended in failure, I think overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of violations, though they tried very hard to spin it as a success.

    People still sympathize with the "starving artists" line, and some are still terrorized, afraid to be accused of piracy, but most understand that there's something wrong with the system and are willing to rebel against it. Pretty much everyone agrees that time shifting, format shifting, and device shifting should be allowed. They were greedy idiots to ever try to fight those unwinnable battles.

    • (Score: 2) by Wootery on Monday October 16 2017, @05:49PM

      by Wootery (2341) on Monday October 16 2017, @05:49PM (#583069)

      Weaker yet

      Oh come on. If an entity has great sway over US law, that means they're powerful. If they're powerful, that means they aren't weak.

      You've already conceded that they're continually getting their own way. You really want to call them 'weak' because you don't like the way they're doing it?