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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
This morning, as everybody was looking at the Copyright Directive adoption, the EU Commission released a proposal for a Regulation on the censorship of terrorist propaganda.
This proposal would impose new obligations to hosting service providers, including the removal in less than an hour of the reported content. This proposal trivializes police and private censorship as well as the circumvention of justice. Automated filters, which play a crucial role in the debate for the Copyright Directive, are being held as a key component for the censorship in the digital era.
I thought this article from The Register was interesting; making out that the opposition to Article 13 is dominated by astroturfing led principally by Google.
Article 13 pits Big Tech and bots against European creatives by Andrew Orlowski
Today's vote on Article 13 of the EU Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market in European Parliament has turned into a knife-edge referendum on whether European institutions can deal with Californian exceptionalism.
[...] The tweaks to copyright liability in Article 13 before MEPs this week have narrowed after months of horsetrading in Brussels – and they don't name names, but they're really about one company and the unique legal benefits it enjoys. That company is Google, and the perks arise from the special conditions attached to UGC [User Generated Comments] that YouTube hosts, which were originally designed for services such as cloud storage.
[...] The battle of Article 13 is remarkable for revealing two things: the extent of US technology lobbying networks in Europe, and the use of tools of automated consensus generation [...] Around 60,000 emails were received by each MEP in the build up to the June vote, while Twitter engagement appeared to be high. [...] But "What looked like grassroots movement from the outside was in fact a classic form of astroturfing – designed to create the appearance of a popular movement," [German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung's Volker] Reick said.
Previously: How The EU May Be About To Kill The Public Domain: Copyright Filters Takedown Beethoven
Original Submission #1 Original Submission #2 Original Submission #3
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @07:19PM (4 children)
So now Trump is going to have to congratulate the EU for getting a handle on those failing terrible #FAKENEWS outlets?
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by unauthorized on Wednesday September 12 2018, @07:32PM (3 children)
I found that my milk has spoiled today. Surely it must have been the fault of Russian hackers in league with Trump.
(Score: 2, Offtopic) by turgid on Wednesday September 12 2018, @07:41PM (2 children)
They're not in league with Fake President Pull-My-Finger of the People's Democratic Republic of America, he is merely one of their not insubstantial army of useful idiots.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @08:10PM (1 child)
And the mod brigade starts its attack! Can't have anyone dare to criticize our Chief Thief!
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @08:17PM
The whole thread is an off-topic derailment.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by turgid on Wednesday September 12 2018, @07:46PM (10 children)
Just as well "we" voted Leave... *cough*
This will backfire spectacularly. It could well see an upsurge in Copyleft-style content on the Intertubes. Meantime, it will make several large corporations, mainstream "artists" (who are more marketing devices than artists) and some political figures very unpopular.
The terrorism threat does need to be addressed in a calm, measured and intelligent manner. Automated filters, private "censorship" and summary justice are not very good solutions.
Ho hum. The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Wednesday September 12 2018, @07:58PM
Didn't YouTube try throwing some counter-propaganda ads onto what they detected as "terrorist videos"? That seems about the only thing that could be done without resorting to draconian methods, other than individuals engaging "terrorist" account holders (with limited success I'd bet).
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @09:16PM (7 children)
You jest but there was unanimous agreement the EU is in need of serious democratic reforms.
In other news, the EU is sanctioning Hungary (as they previously sanctioned Poland) for disrespecting the EU's "democratic values". Or if we unwind the oxymoron, the act of enforcing anti-immigration policies the electorates voted for.
I think you may be being a little charitable there. The EU will begin to silence dissenters before it ever admits policy failure. I think that is the intent but I'd love to be proven wrong.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by turgid on Wednesday September 12 2018, @09:24PM (6 children)
Another humourless conservative dullard. The EU is currently doing its best to protect innocent and powerless ordinary Poles and Hungarians from autocrats and fascists. I work with people from all over the world so please don't try to correct me. I get to hear the truth from the horse's mouth.
What is it with you anonymous champions of Illiberal ignorance, fear, isolation, authoritarianism and outright fascism? What is it about Hitler, Mussolini and Franco that you admire so much?
Why do you yearn for those "good" old days?
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @09:48PM (4 children)
60% of Labour constituencies voted to leave the EU.
I too work with people from all over the world but I listen to what they say as opposed to watching reruns of Mr Ed. What Hungary is doing is expelling the organizations of a convicted criminal [nytimes.com] who seeks only to profit from the chaos he is instrumental in creating. [reuters.com]
I think you'll find that liberal democracies (civic nationalism) are the successful societies. Last I checked we defeated Germany and Italy, you may have heard of the war?
I don't admire any of these people. I could ask what is it about Lenin, Stalin and Mao you admire so much? Only to make the point that central planning historically lead to mass graves.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @10:51PM
Why must you insult this man's religion? Those leaders didn't do it right. They'll get it right this time!11!!!
(Score: 3, Informative) by turgid on Thursday September 13 2018, @06:32AM (1 child)
Insider trading? You mean like Nigel Farage shorting on the results of the referendum and making a false statement on national TV?
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 3, Informative) by turgid on Thursday September 13 2018, @06:48AM
Here's a link to a well known Communist propaganda organisation, Bloomberg, for you about patriotic man of the people Nigel Farage [bloomberg.com]
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 13 2018, @09:05AM
You have no fucking clue about what is happening in Hungary (and it has nothing to do with soros), and I find it pretty disrespectful how you frame the situation there in your own interest. Frankly, the EU is not doing enough to stop the shit that is going on here.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by SanityCheck on Thursday September 13 2018, @12:33AM
Ahahahahaha. Poles know what is going on with the EU, they'll take a crack at trying to fix it or they'll leave. You and your Communist buddies can fuck off.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Wednesday September 12 2018, @11:00PM
So some (possibly unintended) good will come out of it?
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by tangomargarine on Wednesday September 12 2018, @08:04PM (38 children)
This seems to be escalating quickly.
1) Publishers want to milk Google for money somehow
2) Lawmakers say Google isn't allowed to link to people unless they pay said people money
3) Google: "Okay, then we won't link to you. Enjoy your massive drop in exposure."
4) Lawmakers: "We want to force you to pay us anyway, even if you don't want to. Do that for everybody in the EU."
5) Google: "It would take an unreasonable amount of time and money to blacklist the entire EU."
6) Lawmakers: "Tough."
7) Google shrugs and just ignores the ruling.
8) Lawmakers ban Google from doing business in Europe.
9) All European citizens suddenly lose access to all of Google's many services like their search engine, Google Docs, etc. etc. (Android...?)
10) Massive outcry from European citizens that lawmakers may or may not attempt to ignore
???
12) Profit
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @08:38PM (1 child)
This is why I wish I had mod points. It will go down exactly thusly.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Thursday September 13 2018, @01:06AM
Agreed. I hearken back to the outcry that hit Washington, DC, when Wikipedia, Google, and others went black to protest SOPA. SOPA was really a done deal. The *AA's had paid good money for it, and all their creatures in Congress were lined up to pass it without debate. Then when everyone's favorite websites went black, it was the end of the world. The reports that day said the switchboards in DC practically melted from the popular anger. SOPA died in a single day.
So let Google and others de-list all the European outlets. Let them learn exactly how entirely that continent has left the age of print behind (they're further ahead of the US in that respect). Let them experience the sudden, total isolation and irrelevance of being summarily dumped by the Internet.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Wednesday September 12 2018, @08:52PM (14 children)
Look, that step 7 you proposed?
You're forgetting the thing that makes a government a government and not "a bunch of people standing around saying things that people pay attention to for no reason"
Which is the whole "having the most guns and getting final say on who owns what" thing.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday September 12 2018, @09:15PM (11 children)
Hence step 8...? Did you really just stop reading at 7 to post this reply?
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 3, Insightful) by ikanreed on Wednesday September 12 2018, @09:31PM (5 children)
Yeah "not allowed to operate in the EU" is a vastly inferior solution to the "reach into your fucking accounts and take out whatever fine they want" thing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 13 2018, @07:26AM (1 child)
"Yeah "not allowed to operate in the EU" is a vastly inferior solution to the "reach into your fucking accounts and take out whatever fine they want" thing."
Fairly certain governments hate it when foreign governments force their banks to hand over large amounts of cash to the foreign government. This is why as soon as google says "ok we're not playing ball" they'll make sure all their assets are not in the EU or in any country the EU has power over. That includes employees - who will be out of a job thanks to the EU's infantile rational and they'll remember.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Thursday September 13 2018, @02:45PM
There's lots of assets that are not that easy to do that with: copyrights, physical land, contracts, datacenter equipment.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday September 13 2018, @05:59PM (1 child)
Because I'm sure the EU just bending Google over a table won't make any other corporations think twice about doing business in the EU
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 1, Troll) by ikanreed on Tuesday September 18 2018, @07:20PM
I'd sure as hell think twice before flagrantly violating the law in the EU to wank off some e-libertarians.
Man. What a waste that would be.
(The new law sucks, but libertarians suck more)
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday September 18 2018, @03:38PM
Operating in the EU may not be worth paying a fine. EU citizens can access foreign hosted websites, unless an EU court goes the extra mile and tries to block the website from being accessed in the EU. Sufficiently motivated citizens could continue to access blocked sites.
If Google needs talent from the EU, they can convince them to relocate. They could go to the Google London HQ. Servers for EU customers and users could also be located in the UK.
EU has already threatened Google with multi-billion Euro fines over Android antitrust violations. Google might not lose 100% of the revenue from the EU by pulling out, possibly not even 10% if the EU doesn't try to completely block access to Google services. At some point, it may be worth it to avoid the EU if "whatever fine they want" means billions of Euros.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Wednesday September 12 2018, @11:04PM (4 children)
Step 8 is a good outcome.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 2) by Unixnut on Thursday September 13 2018, @12:54PM (3 children)
> Step 8 is a good outcome.
And Step 9 would be an even better outcome. So much so I hope it does go down this way. Sure, there will be disruption as all those Google addicts go into withdrawl, but it will also open up the market to smaller companies who have been unable to compete so far due to economies scale and the network effect.
From Mobile OSes like Sailfish, to custom Androids, to even having new social media and search engines, possibly even ones that are more privacy orientated. I think it would be a net benefit to the world. More competition is better for the end user than one massive dominating corp.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 13 2018, @08:03PM (1 child)
Are draconian copyright laws a good outcome? Because that's what the EU Copyright Directive brings, and more. Google is a horrible company and it's fine to bash it, but let's not support terrible legislation just because it might harm Google.
(Score: 2) by Unixnut on Friday September 14 2018, @12:21PM
I would say it is a double edged sword. The stronger they make copyright, the stronger copyleft licences like GPL/BSD/Creative commons become. This is because the copyleft licenses run on the same system as copyright licences do.
It is what makes copyleft so clever. It uses the system against itself. They want to use IP Laws to deny information and rights to people. We can use the copyleft licences to ensure information and rights of people.
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Friday September 14 2018, @01:14AM
My bad - I actually meant to say "step 9". For the reasons you gave.
I need an "edit" button.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by zocalo on Wednesday September 12 2018, @09:54PM
Most likely outcome I can see would be that EU residents will be seeing a *lot* more of those "In response to complaints under $legislation we have removed $number results from this page. If you wish to get a cool list of alternative sites for your content, then you can browse all the complaints here. *nudge* *nudge* *wink* *wink*" messages.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by shortscreen on Wednesday September 12 2018, @10:15PM
Enforcement actions by governments against huge corporations tend not to be such a quick and simple thing.
7) Google says "OK, we'll get right on that"
6 months later. EU: "Are you in compliance yet?" Google: "Uh huh, yep, almost, we just need a little more time."
6 months later. EU: "OK, you've had plenty of time, surely you are in compliance now?" Google: "Yes sir! Everything is great, sir!"
3 months later. EU: "The law said ABC, and you are doing XYZ, you're not in compliance." Google: "Oops, we thought we were. Sorry about that. We'll investigate and fix the problem."
6 months later. EU: "When are you going to the fix the problem like you said?" Google: "We did fix it. It's all taken care of. Have a nice day."
3 months later. EU: "We have a funny idea that you may not be acting in good faith and we are going to start imposing fines." Google: *sends an army of lawyers*
5 years later. Google: "This fine is totally unjust and we're going to appeal!"
(Score: 1) by tftp on Wednesday September 12 2018, @09:44PM (16 children)
11) An EU service is created, like Google, and despite its shortcomings it is instantly accepted because no other service complies. This service will comply partially, "on paper," - but in practice who cares, as long as important people are sitting on the board of directors.
In other words, a simple way to replace Google and conduct their own policies. You can do that on the state level.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday September 12 2018, @10:03PM (10 children)
Not that the EU is really a "state level," but rather a confederation of independent states. But yeah.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday September 13 2018, @02:00AM (9 children)
For the present. But it's been making steady progress towards the state level for the past half century.
(Score: 2) by quietus on Thursday September 13 2018, @04:40PM (8 children)
Details, please.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday September 14 2018, @01:21AM (7 children)
(Score: 2) by quietus on Friday September 14 2018, @03:17PM (6 children)
Can a supranational organisation be a confederacy at the same time, in your view?
As to Greece and Cyprus, should the eurogroup and the ECB not have lent them money?
You might argue that leaving the euro would have decreased their economic suffering. It surely would have resulted in a national default, and a subsequent freezing out of the international debt markets for them. That's the Argentina scenario [wikipedia.org]. It's only about one year and a half ago that Argentina could go back out for a loan on the international debt market -- i.e. twenty years later -- and conditions are now so that the central bank currently [theguardian.com] has raised interest rates to 60 percent, and the government has introduced even more extreme austerity measures: you think that would have been better?
As for Irish taxation laws -- where you can create a virtual company which is located in Ireland, hires people in Ireland, but does not really exist [for the taxman] in Ireland -- would they've gone down well in the United States, you think? If one thing, that ruling showed how weak the European Union was in the past and, specifically, how jealously national governments guard their sovereignty.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday September 15 2018, @01:16AM (4 children)
The EU is, so yes.
(Score: 2) by quietus on Saturday September 15 2018, @08:41AM (3 children)
Interesting -- we have, or might have, a subtle difference in understanding here.
I've always interpreted confederalism like the US system, basically: with States being in a clearly inferior position vis-à-vis the federal government.
In a supranational union (in my interpretation) on the other hand, nations (states) only subsume a restricted set of powers in mutual agreement: the power balance remains with the national governments.
In that vision [wikipedia.org], the European Union is a kind of a hybrid between the US(¥) and the UN. No direct taxation -- a pooling of budget donations -- yet agreement to negotiate international trade agreements only through the Union. Open borders, yet policing and the military only fall under national authority. Common environmental standards, yet controlling and fining remain the discretion of the nation state.
(¥) Interestingly, the United States always has been the example [goodreads.com] to look up to for those proponents of a confederal Europe.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday September 15 2018, @10:53AM
A confederacy is just a group of such confederate states.
There are several treaties/agreements defining the EU and the resulting relationships between its member states. Hence, it fits the definition of a confederacy.
Historically, a number of confederacies have been subverted by the more powerful members. For example, a key cause of the Peloponnesian War of ancient Greece was the takeover of the Delian League, a military alliance originally intended to drive off a huge invasion by the Persian Empire, by Athens, the most powerful member of the alliance.
We see that as well in some of the internal conflicts I mentioned. German banks in particular benefited from the austerity measures mentioned.
(Score: 3, Informative) by tangomargarine on Tuesday September 18 2018, @07:53PM (1 child)
I think you're using nonstandard nomenclature here. It doesn't help that in English, federation and confederation are antonyms.
--
Federation - group of states that cede some-to-much power for a central authority to make decisions for them. May also include states where there isn't even really "state-level" (as we understand them in the US; most other countries call them provinces etc.), but *only* a federal government (e.g. France).
Confederation - group of states that mostly continue doing their own thing, while there is a central authority that handles diplomacy and war, and a couple other things as necessary (see also Switzerland).
--
Federation tends to be more efficient, while confederation emphasizes rights more (of the province, of the individual). Recall in the civil war, the south was the Confederate States of America.
Not really sure whether they're using the term "The Federation" correctly in Star Trek.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 3, Informative) by tangomargarine on Tuesday September 18 2018, @07:59PM
Or in a more succinct statement:
- https://www.diffen.com/difference/Confederation_vs_Federation [diffen.com]
The United Kingdom is being allowed to secede from the the EU; the southern states in the U.S. Civil War definitely were not.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday September 15 2018, @09:16AM
What would be the point aside from someone thinking they could profit from it? There certainly is no moral imperative to lend money to Greece, especially when one can't expect them to pay back without stressing their society a great deal.
And what would be the problem with that? Make poor decisions, get poor outcomes. Even if Greece never fixes itself, it's not a problem for anyone else who wasn't foolish enough to lend them a lot of money.
Certainly. Because it's all Argentina's problem. And no one forces them to borrow money at such rates.
It's peculiar that you're even discussing the borrowing of money as if it were a thing that countries need.
Depends who you are in the US and Europe. Business is obviously doing fine by the arrangement.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @10:44PM (4 children)
Google, Facebook, and Twitter are quickly becoming integrated with the CIA. Now that the UK is no longer (well, won't be much longer) in the EU, maybe the EU wants the Five Eyes completely gone.
It amazes me how quickly the illusion of an international space shatters. The internet as we know it is probably something the ruling class was content to humor for a time, but now that it's proven to be a tool of working class organization, it won't last much longer. Might wind up with Five Eyes net, BRICS net, EU net, and Sharia net. Africa maybe carved up among those. I also just wanted to say "Sharia net." Those countries will probably use BRICS net. Maybe FidoNet will come back for us technical types as a way of getting information between networks.
Strictly illegal of course. Good people only use the official forums provided by the state. Good people only have needs like finding a babysitter or selling some old furniture or a car, and certainly most people don't have any reason to communicate with people too far away from where they live, certainly not farther than a few hours' drive. Academics may have a need, but we'll keep them under a tight watch to make sure no wrongthink gets through.
I used to think the future was shiny and exciting. It was too good to be true. I see now that things only ever will get worse as time goes on. Probably 1,500 years or so until things might start getting better again. However, It may be more likely that intelligence is overrated from an evolutionary standpoint and in maybe as little as 20,000 years humans will lose the recently acquired traits that have enabled them to think of empire-building. Back to a life of making stone tools, no more science, no more engineering. Live in a tribe of 100 to 200 or so. Maybe it's better that way.
No worker's paradise. No anarcho-capitalist utopia. No starfaring civilization. Just the obvious reason for the Fermi paradox.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 13 2018, @12:05AM
It's amazing how the few determined people at CIA manages to upset a whole world, isn't it.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday September 13 2018, @01:08AM (2 children)
Nah, I don't want that. Much easier and better to hang the ruling class. Next Wednesday works great for me. How about you guys?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 13 2018, @09:30AM (1 child)
It is like saying "let's remove the surface of the sea" - if we could do it, the layer beneath would become a new surface, virtually indistinguishable from the old one.
(Score: 1) by MindEscapes on Thursday September 13 2018, @12:41PM
Well, at least we would feel like something had been done....for awhile.
Actually, things would break down into chaos, life would be very crappy for awhile until something new managed to emerge and take hold. Could be better, could be worse...ready to roll the dice?
Need a break? mindescapes.net may be for you!
(Score: 3, Touché) by Gaaark on Wednesday September 12 2018, @10:01PM
Is that really true?
:)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by rigrig on Wednesday September 12 2018, @11:11PM (1 child)
More likely:
5) Google [flicks switch]: Ok, the entire EU is now blacklisted
6) Lawmakers: "Whoops."
7) Massive outcry from European citizens (which doesn't show up anywhere, because nobody is allowed to link to any of it)
8) Lawmakers who pushed this law leave politics for well-paying private industry jobs [see 1)]
No one remembers the singer.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Thursday September 13 2018, @02:49PM
No, see, if you blacklist a quarter of your market, you both lose and people will blame the side that forced it to happen, not the side that provoked the side that forced it to happen.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 13 2018, @08:18AM
No, they will just make a form where the content creator can allow their site a royalty-free license. And then Google can then remove them from the ban list for the crawler. Or add them as exception.
No need to pay licensing fees if the two parties agree on what to do. And if they need to pay a fee regardless, then Google can require the news site to pay the fee for them as part of the service to add them back into the index.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @10:40PM (1 child)
In the coffin where our freedoms lay, dead.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday September 13 2018, @12:25AM
Personally, I plan to argue that SN just ignores it. If they want us to not operate in the EU, they can block us on their end. I can't be arsed to do extra work to accommodate blatant fucktardery.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Gaaark on Wednesday September 12 2018, @11:02PM (2 children)
Can we still do Monty Python jokes?
If we do, will Europeans be able to see it?
And will the Spanish Inquisition expect it?
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by rigrig on Wednesday September 12 2018, @11:20PM (1 child)
Sure, all the typical EU red tape should ensure it takes at least half a year for this to become final, by which time Brexit should be accomplished.
No one remembers the singer.
(Score: 2) by SanityCheck on Thursday September 13 2018, @12:35AM
Even if UK leaves EU before this goes through, you still will need a "Wank Pass" in the UK to use the internet. Not sure which is worse, but both laws are pretty bad.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday September 13 2018, @01:42AM (1 child)
RLY I want to know. I'm not able to find out from Google. TFA mentioned the link tax but didn't explain it.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by canopic jug on Thursday September 13 2018, @05:22AM
It has been covered on SN several times. In a nutshell, the "link tax" is that allegedly for copyright purposes every outgoing link on your web site must have a paper trail showing that you have paid for the connection to the remote site.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 3, Funny) by slap on Thursday September 13 2018, @05:05AM
Looks like the EU has just committed a terrorist attack on the internet.
A couple of well placed drone strikes should take care of it.
/s
(Score: 5, Insightful) by canopic jug on Thursday September 13 2018, @05:44AM (3 children)
The European Parliament really rubbed citizens' noses in the fact that their representitives are not going to represent them. You can read the EU Parliament's press release, Parliament adopts its position on digital copyright rules [europa.eu], which is full of corporate lobbyist spin and vocabulary. The lobbyists wrote the legistlation. They seem to have written the press release as well.
The list of good and bad votes will soon be public. On the good side of the Parliament, MEP Julia Reda provides a brief summary of the situation and a bloc-level view of who voted which way [juliareda.eu]. Apparently the right (SD) and far right (EPP + ECR) were instrumental in pushing the giant mess through 438 to 226. The politicians' collective lack of how technology and, especially, the Internet work is starting to kill us. We've moved to a situation where the world depends on the Internet in general and the WWW in particular in such a way that in many cases it is not feasible to roll back, yet now they pulled the plug on the WWW . So this is a move that can't end well.
It is shocking and unacceptable that people don't know the fundamentals of the infrastructure running their society. However, it is all but impossible to learn because M$ has displaced all such possible courses and degree programmes with marketering and politics. So unless the politicians find a was to learn on their own they have no opportunity to learn. It's the same for anyone else, including future politicians. Looking around, those that know technology all seem to be self-taught even if they did pick up some material in school. That's not sustainable over time.
The directive comes up for a final vote (rubberstamp) right before next year’s European elections.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 13 2018, @08:31AM
EU elections are next year. So how pathetic it is that people think these elections don't count - EU elections are very important. Vote accordingly, or you'll be stuck with Nazis fascists in EU thanks to Hungary and related scaremongering propaganda about refugees just so they can grab more money for you for their own corrupt asses.
If we in EU are not careful, we'll become as fucked up as Putin's Russia.
(Score: 2) by quietus on Thursday September 13 2018, @08:16PM
These are strong words. Can you tell me where I can find the corporate lobbying and spin in this text?
(Score: 2) by quietus on Thursday September 13 2018, @08:22PM
Can you explain how, exactly, the plug was pulled on the WWW?
I'm honestly interested, as you don't seem to be one of those guys who thinks Facebook is the Internet. And what has Microsoft to do with all this, really?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 13 2018, @01:00PM
So what senario can be used to hold these EU clown accountable to the laws the make?
Do they have web sites with links to copyrighted content.
(Score: 2) by quietus on Thursday September 13 2018, @04:22PM
Following are Article 2 and 3 of the first directive referred to (again: linky [europa.eu]):
You can read the other referred articles 5 to 8 in that same link; simply note that that directive is in force since 2001/2, and nobody has taken down the Internet yet.
I've written [soylentnews.org] in previous post(s) that there's an astroturfing campaign going on to torpedo the proposed directive: the one actor I identified there was Europe's largest publisher of magazines and books, Axel Springer SA. In that specific case, Axel Springer SA used politico.com/.eu to present this directive as an attack on civil liberties and so on (without ever mentioning their own name, ofcourse -- it just happens to be that they own the place). Other players identified by the Financial Times (e.g. 1 [ft.com], 2 [ft.com], 3 [ft.com] and so on) are Google, Apple, Facebook, with support of wikipedia's Jimmy Wales and the Mozilla Foundation, just to name the most prominent luminaries. Google is the most prominent of them, and does not shy away of using abrupt arm-twisting techniques [ft.com].
Some (readily available) insight into the reasoning behind their actions can be found in this El Reg article: Article 13 pits Big Tech and bots against European creatives [theregister.co.uk].
(Score: 2) by quietus on Thursday September 13 2018, @04:36PM (14 children)
Note that companies smaller than 50 persons will not have to obey by these rules. Even if they had to, this wouldn't be much of a problem: article 13 puts the onus on rightholders to notify the content provider that (s)he is hosting copyrighted material. Once that notification is in, it will be a simple matter of (a) removing the copyrighted material and (b) ensuring that the same material, if uploaded again, will not be shown -- a checksum could do the trick.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday September 13 2018, @06:22PM (13 children)
You're grossly underestimating the amount of work this is for developers. Already on YouTube it's fairly common to find copyrighted material where the uploader has cropped the video or mirrored it horizontally. All you have to do is apply some light fuzzing so the checksum doesn't match, and you're back to step 1.
If they have some sort of AI that can distinguish these cases cool, but that's a lot of work to create as well. And people will continue fiddling with it to determine the level of fuzzing they need, which need not even be noticeable to the end user for lesser values of "smart AI."
Plus the whole thing where rights holders send out takedown requests with a shotgun blast, and have been caught frequently issuing takedown notices for stuff they don't actually own.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by quietus on Thursday September 13 2018, @07:06PM (12 children)
It might be a hard problem -- somebody working on computer vision an machine learning might weigh in -- but is it impossible?
The way things are now, somebody who creates an original work has to get under the wings of an established company, or see any and all of his revenues lost to copy-cats.
(Score: 2) by physicsmajor on Thursday September 13 2018, @07:15PM
It is impossible for a computer to determine fair use from copying, yes.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday September 13 2018, @07:23PM (9 children)
Maybe not impossible, but a waste of time and money. This is one of those wars that never ends.
The problem is stupid, their proposed solution is stupid, and their reasoning behind the proposed solution is stupid. It's Sturgeon's Law all the way down.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by quietus on Thursday September 13 2018, @08:08PM (8 children)
Can you clarify why you think this is a stupid problem?
As far as I can tell -- and Jaron Lanier writes [wikipedia.org] eloquently about -- in the crux this is about people's livelihoods, and an abominable concentration of power in the hands of a few megacorps.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 13 2018, @08:17PM (3 children)
Your desire to make money does not override other people's rights. All this will succeed in doing is making many companies fearful of allowing user-submitted content, creating a chilling effect on freedom of speech. Enforcing copyright is far less important than preventing that from happening.
(Score: 2) by quietus on Thursday September 13 2018, @09:01PM (2 children)
I desire to make money by producing something unique. Why should other people have a right on using my creation without giving me something in exchange for the effort?
Also, remember the time before Napster? With this thing called home sites, and blogs? Why on earth should there be a company (for chrissakes!) between me and my freedom of speech? How can I express myself by copying something somebody else has made??
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 13 2018, @11:56PM
one can argue that "works" that can be used as-is can be covered by a usage right.
however everything digital in its pure form is totally uses for human sensory consumption.
for digital information to be consumable or recognizable alot of tfansformation needz to happen before it is a movie picture or music.
thus one can interpret this copyright law for the internet as crazy ban on certain forms of mathematics (that transform ones and zeros) into human sensory compatibility.
to end: the digital "work" is not directly accesible to humans as-is.
the eu copy laws shos similary to stanxardizing "pi" to "3'.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday September 15 2018, @09:33AM
Conversely, why should you have a right to mess up society to further your interests?
If you are producing something "unique" as you claimed above, then you've already answered the question. Everything is derived and copied to some degree from older works.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 13 2018, @08:21PM (1 child)
Also, that nutjob you linked to is literally arguing that the "open source" movement can't create anything new or innovative, and that the iPhone was innovative. The iPhone is a prison that does not respect users' freedoms; it is proprietary and locked-down. This is a person who is attacking freedom and promoting proprietary black boxes. How is that good for society?
Not sure why you linked to it, given that it's just illogical flamebait.
(Score: 2) by quietus on Thursday September 13 2018, @08:54PM
Oh young'un!
Start here [smithsonianmag.com], and here [edge.org].
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday September 13 2018, @09:10PM (1 child)
If the *IAA weren't such greedy assholes, they'd just pay their artists decently instead of keeping 80% or 97% or whatever it is of the money the industry makes, and then these artists wouldn't care nearly as much about what royalties they can scrape out of the system (their kids would still care, but lazy, greedy heirs is a separate problem).
I really don't understand their logic at all on this one, apart from "Google is linking to our stuff and somehow we want Google's money. Because." Google listing you in their search results can really only be good for your exposure.
If you have a paywall on your site, then Google shouldn't index your stuff. But there are people who want to have their cake and eat it too, so they spoof their pages so Google's bots index the page but when you click the link it throws the paywall in your face. They can fuck right off.
Again, more greedy assholes being greedy. People sharing a photo of football player Joe McBeef online in memes hurts who, exactly? Didn't we used to have a parody exception under copyright rules?
Probably also traces back somewhat to "sharing these videos online is the only way to get them because you don't sell them anywhere." And again, doesn't it help the sportsball networks if more people are talking about their product? Is it really going to help your viewership if you release the game on DVD 8 months later and sue everybody who uploads clips of it in the meantime?
How many movies have been made where the central message is "you can't kill an idea", again? The mere continued existence of flat-earthers proves it true.
--
So in conclusion, half of these "problems" amount to "We're making $60 million a year and want to be making $65 million."
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by quietus on Friday September 14 2018, @03:40PM
That's $0.0006 per song.
The statutory rate [freeadvice.com] for US copyright, for a single song, was $0.091 until 2006.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 13 2018, @08:15PM
Even if it was not impossible, it would be completely unjust. It is not contingent upon website owners to make sure that no users of their platform violate others' copyrights, and nor should it ever be.
So what? The ends don't justify the means. I'd rather see copyrights violated than to have this abomination where owners of platforms that allow user-submitted content are supposed to enforce someone else's copyrights.
This is draconian and authoritarian. Only copyright thugs support it.