EU Commission Proposes Mandatory Piracy Filters For Online Services (torrentfreak.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: During his State of the Union address today, EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker announced several plans (PDF) to modernize copyright law in Europe. One of the suggestions that has a lot of people worried is Article 13, which requires online services to police pirated content. This means that online services, which deal with large volumes of user-uploaded content, must use fingerprinting and filtering mechanisms to block copyright infringing files. While the Commission stresses that small content platforms won't be subject to the requirement, the proposal doesn't define what "small" means. It also fails to define what "appropriate" or "effective" content recognition systems are, creating a fair bit of uncertainty. Commenting on the proposal, Digital rights group EDRi says that it will put many European companies at risk while endangering users' right to free speech. "The text that was launched today includes a proposal to potentially filter all uploads to the Internet in Europe. The draft text would destroy users' rights and legal certainty for European hosting companies," EDRi notes. The Commission, however, notes that the changes are needed to reinforce the negotiating position of copyright holders, so they can sign licensing agreements with services that provide access to user uploaded content.

Comments

I Lol'ed, did you?

[Ol Olsoc]

People who have no idea about how computers and files work, trying to tell people how they will work.

Re:I Lol'ed, did you?

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

The trouble is, Juncker seems to be just about crazy enough to actually follow through with this. If he does, it's probably going to create a lot of trouble for a lot of people and waste a lot of money before it ultimately fails.

Re:I Lol'ed, did you?

[Ol Olsoc]

The trouble is, Juncker seems to be just about crazy enough to actually follow through with this. If he does, it's probably going to create a lot of trouble for a lot of people and waste a lot of money before it ultimately fails.

I cannot disagree.

Re: I Lol'ed, did you?

[ArmoredDragon]

If only his last name was Van Damme, then he could at least ACT like his opinion on the matter wasn't purchased.

Re:I Lol'ed, did you?

[FrozenGeek]

Every time I read about some idiot scheme like this, I'm very tempted to write a program that will take a file and randomly (okay, for well known file types, randomly with a bit of intelligence) change a single bit in the file. Wonder if I could sell it for a buck a copy? Think I'd call it NeenerNeener.

Re:I Lol'ed, did you?

[fustakrakich]

The ISP can sniff the packets and drop the ones it doesn't like, including the ones scrambled by an 'unauthorized' VPN. Is that really so difficult?

Re:I Lol'ed, did you?

[AmiMoJo]

He has very little power. He's not like the president of s country, he doesn't even get to ratify laws.

No need to panic yet, it's unlikely this will get far and there is plenty of time to stop it.

Re: I Lol'ed, did you?

[Anonymous Coward]

China does it. As does Iran

Re:I Lol'ed, did you?

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

He has very little power.

Unfortunately, in cases like this, that's not entirely true. Commissioners, and by extension Juncker, are still where a lot of the real power in the EU lies, even if the Parliament has more power to get in the way since the Lisbon treaty. If the Commission can drive this sort of measure through via a regulation rather than a directive, it will automatically become binding in all EU member states without the national governments having to do (or ratify) anything. And as I seem to be pointing out a lot lately, the EU authorities are generally very pro-copyright at the moment, so there is no guarantee at all that the Parliament won't essentially wave through whatever the Commission proposes here.

Re: I Lol'ed, did you?

[RogueyWon]

You're right. One of the problems with explaining the EU is that explaining where power actually sits is very hard.

That's not uncommon. Here in the UK, our "unwritten" constitution (which is in fact written, just in lots of places) vests a lot of power in the Prime Minister, even though his or her powers in law at first appear very limited (it is the power to appoint and sack Ministers that defines the role). The US has its own subtleties in the balance between different branches of Government.

The EU has institutions which look both democratic and powerful, but in reality a huge amount of power is vested in the Commission, which is, if you want to be kind, a technocracy, or if you want to be less kind, an aristocracy.

In the UK's recent referendum, I voted Remain, but held my nose while I did so. I was surprised but not devastated by the result. In the short to medium term, we will undoubtedly suffer economic pain and a fall in living standards. But in the longer term, we do get to step off a conveyor belt towards post-democratic Government.

Re: I Lol'ed, did you?

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

In the UK's recent referendum, I voted Remain, but held my nose while I did so. I was surprised but not devastated by the result. In the short to medium term, we will undoubtedly suffer economic pain and a fall in living standards. But in the longer term, we do get to step off a conveyor belt towards post-democratic Government.

I wonder how common this view is. I suspect it's a lot more popular than the media and politicians like to acknowledge.

The problem with the way the referendum was organised is that now the government has been told we should leave but there's no good way to know what sort of terms they should seek instead. The process did not collect any information about why people voted the way they did or how strongly they felt on the different issues.

We don't know how many people who voted Leave were racist bigots, and how many simply think we'll be better off outside the EU for reasons we also don't know. Likewise, we don't know how many who voted Remain were strong supporters of the EU, and how many simply think we'll do better in the EU than outside even if it's not perfect, again for reasons we don't know.

My personal suspicion, based on my own anecdotal experiences and what polling data we do have, is that there were a lot more moderates on both sides than the media and politicians have been implying since the result. I also suspect that a lot of people would have preferred a third option of remaining in a substantially reformed EU, but I don't think radical reform was ever genuinely considered by the current EU leadership, and that probably led to a lot of voters with views like yours or choosing to vote whichever way they thought was the lesser of evils.

Re: I Lol'ed, did you?

[Jahta]

In the UK's recent referendum, I voted Remain, but held my nose while I did so. I was surprised but not devastated by the result. In the short to medium term, we will undoubtedly suffer economic pain and a fall in living standards. But in the longer term, we do get to step off a conveyor belt towards post-democratic Government.

Eh, we have a "post-democratic" government already. The current Conservative government has an absolute majority in parliament despite the fact that roughly two-thirds of the UK electorate did not vote for them. When Conservative ministers talk about their "mandate", they are really referring to the one-third that actually voted for them, not the disenfranchised two-thirds.

And it's not an isolated case; it's the almost inevitable outcome of continuing to use "first past the post" elections in a country with several political parties.

Re: I Lol'ed, did you?

[RogueyWon]

I'd agree that the moderate Remain and Leave positions get very little traction in the press compared with the extremists. I know a couple of people I work with were fairly fanatical Remain and my Dad was pretty fanatical Leave, but almost everybody else I know was basically conflicted over the whole affair. I've got good friends who voted Leave and I've certainly not fallen out with any of them over it.

The problem is that angry people make better news. If you're doing vox pops on the street for the evening news, you don't want to show the clip of the guy who says "I voted Remain, but I've got real worries about the direction Europe is going" or "I voted Leave, but I know we're in for some economic pain now".

The swivel-eyed fanatics get more coverage because they make better news.

Re:I Lol'ed, did you?

[Ol Olsoc]

Every time I read about some idiot scheme like this, I'm very tempted to write a program that will take a file and randomly (okay, for well known file types, randomly with a bit of intelligence) change a single bit in the file. Wonder if I could sell it for a buck a copy? Think I'd call it NeenerNeener.

Pretty much this. To put it at its simplest, most of the time, people want the file to be a certain way, and we can check for that. But the tiny changes are what the people who want to bypass the system want, while the people looking for purity of the file are only going to catch those stupid enough to pirate the originals.

Re: I Lol'ed, did you?

[RogueyWon]

Except... not really.

Our voting system is one that has developed incrementally over hundreds of years. We actually voted on whether to replace it a few years ago and chose, by a large margin, to stick with what we had.

But the point is that our voting system, whatever its flaws may be (and no system is perfect; STV, AV and proportional representation can all produce flawed outputs as well), is something that can be voted on and changed by popular consent if desired. That's actually perfectly democratic.

Don't forget that if the 2015 UK General Election had been fought on a proportional representation basis, the vote shares that were achieved would have resulted in a Conservative/UKIP/NI Unionists coalition. That would have given us a very socially-conservative (and economically protectionist) Government. FPTP's benefits in (mostly) keeping the fringe voices out of Government are not to be sniffed at.

Re: I Lol'ed, did you?

[Jahta]

Except... not really. :-)

The two main parties campaigned against changing from FPTP because the status quo suits them. Even their insistence on calling it "AV" was intended to imply that in FPTP we already had the "gold standard"; so why change? Proportional representation, a system where you get parliaments that actually reflect the broad spectrum of public opinion, is anathema to the two big traditional parties; especially the Conservatives.

The Conservatives have been able to pursue policies that benefit their core (minority) support while visiting austerity on the majority. A more diverse parliament, where they didn't have absolute power and would have to broker a consensus, would rein in their more neo-liberal tendencies. So that's hardly a plus for FPTP.

It's also clear that a lot of people voted "Leave" in the referendum as a protest vote assuming that, as with general elections, their votes wouldn't make any difference in the great scheme of things. Ironically, a vote where there are only two choices is the one instance where all votes really do count under FPTP.

Re:I Lol'ed, did you?

[Anonymous Coward]

the problem is the idiot might just have the power to make this law

ROFLZ

[sexconker]

As much of a shitshow as the US is, I always enjoy seeing Europe flailing about in lunacy. It's what it does best. That and be at war with itself.

Re:ROFLZ

[Anonymous Coward]

I always enjoy seeing Europe flailing about in lunacy.

It's a bad thing. Why would you enjoy that?

Except for the fact that you are a complete twit, that is.

Re:ROFLZ

[Anonymous Coward]

As a European I sometimes experience the same feeling when it comes to US lunacy,

Then I realize there is only one big shitshow, and I cry.

Re:ROFLZ

[MrL0G1C]

Of course America never had any civil wars (sarc). Don't you think it'd be better to be concerned because it's the exact same companies that push copyright crap in the US.

Remind me, what is the statutory damages for piracy in the US?

Re:ROFLZ

[Anonymous Coward]

Remind me, what is the statutory damages for piracy in the US?

Life plus 70 years I believe...

Wasn't it just yesterday...

[SuperKendall]

...you were all clamoring for DNS control to leave the US...

I gleefully await the technical community reaping the bitter harvest they have sown.

Re:Wasn't it just yesterday...

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny, I was pushing for DNS being fully distributed, and encrypted, and if one DNS server refuses to send data (because they can't trivially return a fake address), others picking up slack. This and federating SSL/TLS needs to happen.

Re:Wasn't it just yesterday...

[Agripa]

...you were all clamoring for DNS control to leave the US...

I gleefully await the technical community reaping the bitter harvest they have sown.

Then the technical community can build a replacement for DNS, with blackjack and hookers.

Stop

[Anonymous Coward]

Just stop already! No other industry gets this sort of corporate welfare from governments around the world. These companies have no right to a profit and sure as fuck shouldn't be wasting tax dollars with this garbage.

Re:Stop

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

No other industry gets this sort of corporate welfare from governments around the world.

Big pharma called and told you to get off their lawn.

Re:Stop

[Anonymous Coward]

Big Pharma largely just gets corporate welfare from the US. MPAA/RIAA get corporate welfare in most countries.

Considering the former controls goods required for many people to continue living, while the latter is merely entertainment (and a smaller industry, to boot!), I have to at least give the MPAA and RIAA credit at demonstrating how efficient and effective they are at bribery.

Re:Stop

[CanadianMacFan]

Agriculture gets lots of subsidies from governments.

Fossil fuel companies have their impacts on the environment picked up by society.

Sports franchises usually get their arenas/stadiums partially or fully paid for by governments.

The military industrial complex wouldn't exist without the government.

I agree with you that they have no right to a profit and shouldn't be wasting tax dollars with this garbage but they aren't the only industry that lives off government welfare.

Copyright holders should pay a fee for this

[billrp]

For every file that moves from one node to another, the copyright holder gets charged a fee for each signature that gets scanned. I propose 1 Euro per signature per file.

globo linux has a nietche cult

[Anonymous Coward]

what's the relation between my sound card, altitudeplatform.com and google?

I applaud the effort, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

I applaud the effort, but fingerprinting doesn't work on lossy files.

The reason ContentID works at all is because people are lazy. That is it. All "Nightcore" music on Youtube, is simply sped up. "Reaction Videos"? complete video rips. People know the ways around it, and it's simply "make the quality just poor enough to not get noticed"

Now, what IS the right way of combating piracy without making it a goddamn pain in the ass? Well for one, change the actual account generation process. People just create more accounts to bypass bans. Don't make it free. Don't make it Anonymous. If you want to make money you are not entitled to anonymity. If you want to make money off of serving user-generated content (eg cloudflare (aka crimeflare) you must have an automated takedown system in place that disables the content within minutes, and takedowns must ALSO not be anonymous. If a site wants to duck DMCA's (eg ip block ip blocks that belong to copyright owners) then the site or datacenter must be de-peered until the infringing website is removed.

It's not a simple thing. The fingerprinting only works for lossless data (png, windows and mac binaries, non-cracked game roms/isos, lossless music (eg wav/flac)) and is useless on h.264/h.265 and related files. Fingerprinting lossy files can be done, but it has a level of error that requires human review, and often image piracy sites like imgur, 8chan/4chan/etc simply recompress and crop the image just to be a dick.

So yes, it could work, but the amount of pirated material it would get off the internet is near zero. People don't go to websites to pirate, they go to websites for the index to the piracy content, or to bypass paywalls. Everyone uses P2P filesharing to steal anything domestic/foreign licensed or not.

For an example of how little fingerprinting works. ZIP any file on your hard drive, Now ZIP it a second time. There, fingerprint changed.

Re:I applaud the effort, but...

[epyT-R]

killing anonymity..
depeering whole networks..

over copyright?

wtf?

Re:I applaud the effort, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Now, what IS the right way of combating piracy without making it a goddamn pain in the ass?

Don't forget to attack it from the opposite end - make the content more appealing and easier to access.

It would do the industry well to eliminate every one of the following:

1. region locking
2. piracy notices (honestly - only legit customers ever see these)
3. ads (especially un-skippable ones)

Re:I applaud the effort, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

I suspect AC is simply describing how exactly it would be possible to eliminate piracy, which indeed would require more or less removing all anonymity from the internet.

It's not going to happen now or ever, considering even dystopian science fiction can't devise a perfect solution for removing anonymity. But you can bet your ass that there's maybe 1 or 2 tech savvy people under the MAFIAA umbrella who would drool at the idea of a panopticonic internet.

in europe, you say?

[Anonymous Coward]

i'll just find a u.k. host instead, they're leaving the e.u.. that'll show 'em. hah!

10 years later.....

so, anyone know a good russian fileshare site?

The UK was right to leave

[Anonymous Coward]

"EU Commission Proposes Mandatory Piracy Filters For Online Services "

Yeah well, by the time you implement that, the only countries left will be Germany and Belgium.

Best of luck

Until...

[EmeraldBot]

One pixel changed, two pixels change, three pixels change, it's not hard to beat a hash. Of course, you could require that they examine every single pixel in a movie file and flag those with a ~5% margin, and in the very same move destroy YouTube. Hell, you even have a new DDOS method, just upload a 99999999 hour mflagof a black screen. Once again, the copyright industry shooting itself in the foot.

I propose a minimum knowledge requirement of the internet and basic computer literacy for every politician, along with the understanding that bribes are illegal. I don't think having even just one of those would be enough to think of a law as asinine as this one...

And a substantial fine for each false positive!

[Anonymous Coward]

Not only should the MAFIAA pay for the scanning, they also need to pay when they fuck up.

Might want to rethink the "Brexit"

[ItsJustAPseudonym]

Given this other article on Slashdot, I'm thinking the UK has more in common with the EU than they care to admit:

Ten Years in Prison for Pirates a Step Closer in the UK

How does that work, again?

[Anonymous Coward]

And will it have any effect on the real world?

Given that *allegedly* BitTorrent is used for all piracy how will these uploaded user-content piracy filters work for content exchanged between peer computers? i.e.: the .torrent and .magnet links that people upload to directory servers don't contain "pirated content" they only contain block summaries and pointers to the seeding peer(s).

For a moment I read "Privacy" instead of piracy

[Anonymous Coward]

My first thought was, "A mandatory privacy filter is a great idea!" Then I came to my senses.

Re:For a moment I read "Privacy" instead of piracy

[Anonymous Coward]

A filter that automatically removes privacy? We already have that.

Factor in VPN and ISP costs

[AHuxley]

So EU users will just have to pay for a fast VPN and a set up a VPN ready router to ensure no IP ever leaks from any connected device.
All the EU will scan and log is a fully encrypted network to and from nations that are still free.
This policy allows bands, NGO's, mil and police forces to do a check sum on any and all files uploaded and downloaded with quick rubber stamp cyber warrants or self granted investigative powers.
Rather than just watching ip's and trying to find the origins, creator or uploader, this will see all files networked as equally guilty until scanned.
Your EU ISP will be a cloud AV scanner with a lot of different files to consider in real time. Best never to have any file ever exit in the EU. Your encrypted router to a VPN exits in a still free country.

I for one...

[thegarbz]

I for one welcome our totally useless and idiotic overlawds

"Modernize Copyright Laws"

[Anonymous Coward]

What they mean is "response to lobby groups and get them pesky media pirating terrorists"

warez forums

[kdayn]

I thought everybody used torrents these days...

Re: warez forums

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not just switch to https?

as long as I can buy the media online

[short]

I had to ("had to") pirate several medias in my life as there is no way to buy them playable on a Free device (that is no DRM) and additionally to buy them electronically as I do not have any optical drive and I refuse to deal with the physical media anyway when there is the easy internet transport available. But OK, I won't watch any copyrighted media next time, as you wish.

Disregard everything Jean-Claude Juncker says

[CaptainOfSpray]

He is assailed by rumours that he is an alcoholic. So he gives a lunchtime interview to an journalist. During the lunch he eats a salad, and drinks 4 glasses of champagne. Source: http://www.independent.co.uk/n...

Not someone whose opinion is worth anything.

Re:Disregard everything Jean-Claude Juncker says

[Anonymous Coward]

Tax dodging too https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:Disregard everything Jean-Claude Juncker says

[BlueStrat]

He is assailed by rumours that he is an alcoholic.

Tax dodging too

A tax-cheat alcoholic?

Sounds like just the sort a corrupt industry wants in power because he's easily blackmailed/bribed.

Strat

Re: Disregard everything Jean-Claude Juncker says

[RogueyWon]

The alcoholic thing I am not too fussed about. We have had very good UK Prime Ministers who have been on that spectrum and I wouldn't trust a teetotaller to run the country. Being an arsehole, on the other hand, is more of a problem.

Re: Disregard everything Jean-Claude Juncker says

[CaptainOfSpray]

If JCJ is an arsehole, it's probably accidental, due to a total lack of empathy for other people.

Tax dodging

[Anonymous Coward]

Why should we listen to a dipshit politician who helped big companies avoid paying taxes? Fuck the Luxembourgian Lickspittle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

last week some other EU cunt wanted charging for having internet links. Fuck the EU and Horray for Brexit. Who wants to be ruled by these grubby unelected cunts?

Re:Tax dodging

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently, everyone except a barely British majority.

Re: Tax dodging

[Anonymous Coward]

For the not completely fucking stupid then; a majority.

Need more Loosh in Europe?

[Anonymous Coward]

EU mafia (team arkhn) pushing back again.. did you notice when peasants get little more of free thinking and start trying to figure out wtf we are doing here elites always will push down... can't have a free net, too dangerous to move information uncontrolled.

As say FUCK THEM HARD

PEACE

What's so funny about ignorance+arrogance+POWER?

[Anonymous Coward]

You have a very dark sense of humor. Let me fix that for you so that it's clearer.

People who have no idea about how things work, but are armed and routinely used to casually pointing their loaded guns at everyone's faces, telling other people what to do.

No, I didn't LOL. Why would I LOL? This is a real thing happening, and it has victims, almost all of who are totally innocent.

Re:What's so funny about ignorance+arrogance+POWER

[Ol Olsoc]

You have a very dark sense of humor. Let me fix that for you so that it's clearer.

People who have no idea about how things work, but are armed and routinely used to casually pointing their loaded guns at everyone's faces, telling other people what to do.

No, I didn't LOL. Why would I LOL? This is a real thing happening, and it has victims, almost all of who are totally innocent.

Why does your reply to me have a quote not made by me. Your invisible friend perhaps?