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EU Wants To Require Platforms To Filter Uploaded Content (Including Code) (github.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the heads-up dept.

A new copyright proposal in the EU would require code-sharing platforms like GitHub and SourceForge to monitor all content that users upload for potential copyright infringement. "The proposal is aimed at music and videos on streaming platforms, based on a theory of a 'value gap' between the profits those platforms make from uploaded works and what copyright holders of some uploaded works receive," reports The GitHub Blog. "However, the way it's written captures many other types of content, including code."

Upload filters, also known as "censorship machines," are some of the most controversial elements of the copyright proposal, raising a number of concerns including: -Privacy: Upload filters are a form of surveillance, effectively a "general monitoring obligation" prohibited by EU law
-Free speech: Requiring platforms to monitor content contradicts intermediary liability protections in EU law and creates incentives to remove content
-Ineffectiveness: Content detection tools are flawed (generate false positives, don't fit all kinds of content) and overly burdensome, especially for small and medium-sized businesses that might not be able to afford them or the resulting litigation Upload filters are especially concerning for software developers given that: -Software developers create copyrightable works -- their code -- and those who choose an open source license want to allow that code to be shared
-False positives (and negatives) are especially likely for software code because code often has many contributors and layers, often with different licensing for different components
-Requiring code-hosting platforms to scan and automatically remove content could drastically impact software developers when their dependencies are removed due to false positives The EU Parliament continues to introduce new proposals for Article 13 but these issues remain. MEP Julia Reda explains further in a recent proposal from Parliament.

58 of 110 comments (clear)

  1. first post by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    $ git push ...
    remote: Resolving deltas: 100% (2/2), completed with 2 local objects.
    remote: error: GH013: Your push could infringe someone's copyright.
    remote: If you believe this is a false positive (e.g., it's yours, open
    remote: source, not copyrightable, subject to exceptions) contact us:
    remote: https://github.com/contact
    remote: We're sorry for interrupting your work, but automated copyright
    remote: filters are mandated by the EU's Article 13.
    To github.com/vollmera/atom.git
      ! [remote rejected] patch-1 -> patch-1 (push declined due to article 13 filters)

  2. Europe has so many crazy internet laws! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Seems like just putting up a website that targets the European market violates dozens of laws over there.

    Can't think of a worse place to do business in the new economy.

    1. Re:Europe has so many crazy internet laws! by AHuxley · · Score: 1

      The internet will just route around the EU censorship.
      People in the EU who want to enjoy some freedom will just use a really great VPN.
      The more EU bureaucrats enforce censorship, the more people in the EU will use US products and services.

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  3. The more the EU embraces censorship by AHuxley · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The more freedom after speech in the USA becomes attractive again.
    How did all that censorship work out for the Warsaw Pact nations?
    Keep the population from talking and thinking?

    --
    Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
    1. Re:The more the EU embraces censorship by BlueStrat · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The US encourages free speech...so it can illegally monitor it, surveil it, wiretap it, store it in a datacenter, catalog it, and index it.

      Free speech? Yes, keep speaking please.

      Indeed, because:

      "If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him." -- Cardinal Richelieu

      Strat

      --
      Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
    2. Re:The more the EU embraces censorship by AHuxley · · Score: 2, Interesting

      AC:
      In the US you are free to give a speech.
      To publish a book. To write a message about the news online. To engage in any political discussions about politics and talk about any part of history.
      In the USA you don't have to be a government approved reporter or academic to comment within set laws about politics or history.
      In the USA you are still free after the speech.
      In the USA a person is still free after researching a book. A person is free to publish a book. The author can self publish. The author and publisher do not face jail time for the content of a political or history book.
      In the USA you can upload an interview talking about your book to people who are free to ask any question about the book.
      Nation in the EU would try to investigate everyone at all such events.
      The US supports the freedom to talk about the book in public.
      The EU supports nations investigating anyone who reads a book.
      To give an interview about their book that mentions politics or history. The freedom to give talks about history. To go online and join in any discussion about their book.
      The USA protects their citizens from any gov that wants to ban their publication and free speech.
      In the EU a nations police record the speech.
      The EU nation then investigates the person speaking, their work, their bank accounts, their politics, any publications. Who they are and what they do.
      What was the topic and why did the person think they have a right to give speeches?
      An EU nation starts a formal investigative police interview into why a person wanted to write a book. Has the person go over the political content of their speech in a formal legal setting.
      The EU nations then support and consider court action and fines for speech.
      The EU supports its nations using jail time to stop speech.
      The US is the freedom to publish and talk again on any topic. The EU supports jail time for talking for the first time.

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
    3. Re:The more the EU embraces censorship by AHuxley · · Score: 2

      Read up on the Pentagon Papers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... AC.
      Publication and later discussion is not a problem in the USA as freedoms are fully protected.

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
    4. Re:The more the EU embraces censorship by Brett+Buck · · Score: 1

      Scratch any socialist, and you will find a totalitarian. It can't work any other wa. You more-or-less have to compel people to work against their own interests by coercion or force.

    5. Re:The more the EU embraces censorship by El_Muerte_TDS · · Score: 1

      You think these upload filter proposals come from within the EU? They come from mostly US based multi nationals (which have a postbox in the EU to avoid taxes). If successful in the EU they will not stop and come after the USA.
      Censorship of the internet is a global problem even if only applied to part of the world.

    6. Re: The more the EU embraces censorship by p91paul · · Score: 1

      Yes, because the DMCA was written in Europe....

    7. Re:The more the EU embraces censorship by AHuxley · · Score: 1

      The USA staying free protects the entire internet as it always did from EU bureaucrats.
      That would need some US cyber laws to remove the US First Amendment protections.
      Some color of law cyber changes to get around the US First Amendment?
      A series of well funded social media and media lawsuits about the results of US investigative journalism?
      Could enough US party political legal wins using individuals remove the First Amendment protections for the internet and social media?

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
    8. Re: The more the EU embraces censorship by AHuxley · · Score: 1

      The C stands for Copyright.
      Thats not a government blocking your right to publish, self publish, talk, comment, quote someone, give an interview, show a picture, quote a historical document.

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
    9. Re:The more the EU embraces censorship by BlueStrat · · Score: 2

      In the USA you are still free after the speech.

      Maybe you should ask Edward Snowden about that.

      Read up on the Pentagon Papers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... AC.
      Publication and later discussion is not a problem in the USA as freedoms are fully protected.

      In theory you are correct. However, in practice it's quite a different story as Wikileaks/Assange and the US's vendetta against them for merely publishing what was leaked to them demonstrates. The NYT could not be punished for printing the so-called "Pentagon Papers" and there is even less legal, jurisdictional, and Constitutional standing to go after Wikileaks/Assange.

      Snowden is a whistle-blower on the US Government's widespread, blatant, ongoing, illegal, and unconstitutional domestic surveillance programs. He is a hero who will eventually be written about as such in future works on US history. These US domestic surveillance programs are one of, if not *the* top threats to a relatively free and open society and if not stopped, a certain path to an authoritarian police state the likes of which would make the former East German rulers green with envy.

      Operation Choke-point is another example of blatantly unconstitutional censorship and extrajudicial interference and punishment for involvement in legal activities and commerce that those in power want to harass, intimidate, and/or force out of business and/or into silence/out of publication/off the 'net/etc, depending.

      Strat

      --
      Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
    10. Re:The more the EU embraces censorship by rastos1 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The US has civil asset forfeiture.
      The US has citizens, that did nothing wrong, barred from voting.
      The US has TSA and constitution free zone.
      The US does not have universal health care.
      The US has gerrymandering.
      The US does not mandate paid parental leave.
      The US has trigger happy cops with tanks.
      The US has death penalty.
      The US has for profit private jails.
      And even if all of that was resolved, you still have Trump for president ;-).

      And, contrary to you, I can back all that with links.

      Call me an idiot, but I'd take banned holocaust denial over that any day.

    11. Re: The more the EU embraces censorship by Teun · · Score: 1

      Sure, but what is fair about moving the original copyright from a couple of years to now life + however long Disney can milk it?

      --
      "The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
    12. Re:The more the EU embraces censorship by Teun · · Score: 1

      You are 100% correct.
      Now it is up to the EU population to put their parliamentarians back on track.
      Luckily the EU parliament can propose new laws, they will only be enforced once the EU commission and the member states agree which in this case is very unlikely.

      All in all a more reliable system than where one loony president can (even temporarily) upset the world economy single handed.

      --
      "The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
    13. Re:The more the EU embraces censorship by edittard · · Score: 1, Funny

      Nah. If there was any form of repression in the US the people would solve it with guns.

      --
      At the bottom of the /. main page it says 'Yesterday's News'. Well they got that right.
    14. Re:The more the EU embraces censorship by liquid_schwartz · · Score: 1

      The US has citizens, that did nothing wrong, barred from voting.

      And, contrary to you, I can back all that with links.

      I live in the US and I'm not familiar with this one. Can you provide the link you mentioned? Thanks

    15. Re:The more the EU embraces censorship by BlueStrat · · Score: 1

      He is not a hero. He had a duty to safeguard that information due to its classification. He is a traitor.

      He is most definitely not a traitor, as the data he released was evidence of ,massive and intentional criminal wrongdoing. The government cannot shift guilt by making the evidence of their crimes classified/secret and any such attempt is null & void. There can be no legal duty to assist in the concealment of illegal and unconstitutional acts.

      The US government is teetering n the edge of becoming a wholly-illegitimate authoritarian oligarchy. Snowden is a hero for taking such a huge risk in order to alert the citizens of the US to their government's criminal activities.

      Strat

      --
      Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
    16. Re:The more the EU embraces censorship by rastos1 · · Score: 1

      The US has citizens, that did nothing wrong, barred from voting.

      I live in the US and I'm not familiar with this one. Can you provide the link you mentioned? Thanks

      Voting rights in the United States - U.S._territories or in a more entertaining way: U.S. Territories: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

    17. Re:The more the EU embraces censorship by Rakarra · · Score: 1

      Neither Gary Johnson nor Jill Stein were in any way close to good candidates. I would have loved to throw a vote towards them, but their absolutely cluelessness made me despair that they would be any better. I ended up just putting in a write-in.

    18. Re:The more the EU embraces censorship by Teun · · Score: 1

      For years democratic countries in the EU have been calling for proper rights for the EU parliament but until now this has always been vetoed by two large members. Luckily one of them, the UK, is leaving and only France is left to prevent full rights to the EU parliament.

      --
      "The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
    19. Re: The more the EU embraces censorship by dwye · · Score: 1

      Thats not a government blocking your right to publish, self publish, talk, comment, quote someone, give an interview, show a picture, quote a historical document.

      What is it then, natural law?

    20. Re: The more the EU embraces censorship by AHuxley · · Score: 1

      National laws within the EU can investigate any comment online for any reason a governments wants.
      The person making a comment, publishing, talking, quoting from a book, talking about the news has to then become part of an investigation.
      No freedom after speech.
      Chilling interviews and formal investigations.
      Guilty until a person can show to a government that they are allowed to comment, write, publish, talk again.
      Legal advice is needed to try and understand what a government is demanding a person has to prove to be allowed to publish again.
      Fines and jail can result.
      Very different from the USA where the person's speech is fully protected from the party politics of their government.

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
    21. Re:The more the EU embraces censorship by liquid_schwartz · · Score: 1

      Thanks for the link, I take it back I am familiar with this one. Territories are a bit of an anachronism, similar to Indian reservations, where they might have made sense in a different age but are a mess now. I'd wager that most in the US would be in favor of having the territories either get "full independence" or join on as states. The problem is that some of these, like Puerto Rico, don't speak English and thus wouldn't assimilate well.

  4. So do they have some kind of proposal.... by mark-t · · Score: 2

    .... for how, technologically, they are going to make this apparently magic filter?

    Free speech matters aside, what they are wanting to implement is actually technologically impossible without so many false positives as to render the technology utterly useless even at best.

    --
    File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
    1. Re:So do they have some kind of proposal.... by jecowa · · Score: 1

      Yeah, this seems like a big burden for sites. The EU is has been coming up with lots of ideas for things they want sites to start censoring. Imo, if the EU wants censorship, they should either censor the content themselves or block the sites they don't like. Plenty of other nations have been able to censor the internet on their own (e.g. China, North Korea, Australia).

      --
      my opportunity to freely express myself with the potential persecution and hangings and such
    2. Re:So do they have some kind of proposal.... by JaredOfEuropa · · Score: 1

      if the EU wants censorship, they should either censor the content themselves or block the sites they don't like

      Both of these actions are likely to be met by very strong opposition from national governments, civil liberty activists as well as the general populace. So instead they make rules that place the burden on websites. Those rules are - by design, I suspect - onerous, strict, with heavy penalties and at the same time vague about where and when they apply. The result is that the larger sites, who can afford smart or manual filters, will apply censorship "voluntarily" in order to remain on the safe side of the law. Especially where it concerns content they themselves disagree with. The result is, as a clever MEP called it (might have been Reda), privatised censorship. With no oversight and no political accountability.

      --
      If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
    3. Re:So do they have some kind of proposal.... by Scarletdown · · Score: 1

      For any sites that would be affected by this that don't have a physical presence in the EU, at least they can exercise their free speech right to ignore such a mandate and tell the EU legislators to go fuck themselves.

      --
      This space unintentionally left blank.
    4. Re:So do they have some kind of proposal.... by mark-t · · Score: 1

      As I said, you don't even need free speech rights to ignore this.

      The expectation is well beyond anything that is remotely possible with any technology that exists, anywhere on earth.

      --
      File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
    5. Re:So do they have some kind of proposal.... by Scarletdown · · Score: 1

      Ah, but it is much more "delicious" to be able to tell them to fuck off when you do know you have the right to do so, knowing that it is causing theoretical butthurt in those who would seek to suppress your rights but can't because you are out of their jurisdiction. :D

      --
      This space unintentionally left blank.
    6. Re:So do they have some kind of proposal.... by mark-t · · Score: 1

      It's no less delicious to tell them to fuck off because what they are asking for is outside of the realm of what is even physically possible with today's technology.

      Right up there with faster than light travel and transporters.

      --
      File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
    7. Re:So do they have some kind of proposal.... by gweihir · · Score: 2

      These people are politicians. They
      a) think they define reality
      b) have no clue what is actually possible and what is not due to a)

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    8. Re:So do they have some kind of proposal.... by AHuxley · · Score: 1

      Re "for how, technologically, they are going to make this apparently magic filter?"

      In the EU when a person published their comment on social media?
      The EU approved laws allow a nations government in the EU to start an investigation.
      The ISP details are recovered and the formal police interview starts.

      The person who dared to comment on the news, politics, history has to the prove that they are not guilty to the police and investigators.

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
    9. Re:So do they have some kind of proposal.... by johannesg · · Score: 1, Insightful

      It doesn't matter. The goal is not to stop copyright infringement; the goal is to stop the free flow of information across the 'unregulated' internet. And that especially includes political information: communication between people who don't approve of the EU, who oppose immigration, etc. So what if the only way to create such a filter is by having a person check every upload? That will mean the goal is reached: instead of being able to freely post ones opinion anywhere, every little piece of 'content' must be checked manually first, thus vastly reducing volume and flow of information of any kind. That effectively disables the free communication between people, and is precisely what the EU is going for.

    10. Re:So do they have some kind of proposal.... by AmiMoJo · · Score: 5, Informative

      They do. I read the proposal, and for a start it doesn't say what Github thinks it says. It also doesn't propose any magic filters or even any new tech.

      Most sites that allow user uploads already have some filtering in place for illegal material like known child pornography images. The EU is simply proposing that these existing filters might also be used for known copyright infringing files, which in fact many sites already do anyway.

      Basically they are saying that once an infringing file is identified and checked, its hash would be added to the database to prevent further uploads rather than the copyright holder having to spam copyright claims.

      Personally I'm still opposed to it, but if you read the actual proposal they have done extensive impact assessments and gone to some lengths to ensure that the burden isn't too great.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    11. Re:So do they have some kind of proposal.... by Teun · · Score: 1

      Don't worry, the EU is much bigger than a few MEP's bought by US media interests.
      Additionally, the EU has levels of governing, a single entity like the parliament has only so much influence.

      --
      "The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
    12. Re:So do they have some kind of proposal.... by mark-t · · Score: 2

      That's because they think that tech exists because they don't understand it.... neither do you, apparently, if you think there's any similarity between checking hash similarities on binary files to identify copies or copyright infringement and being able to identify meaningful similarity in computer source code that has any relevance whatsoever to copyright infringement,

      Most code is built up around a relatively small set of patterns, and it is not possible to identify the similarity of two programs that might use similar patterns to accomplish the same result without also falsely identifying two entirely different programs which happen might use the same pattern as being similar as well. At best, you'd be able to accomplish it in a meaningful way for such a narrow class of use cases that it would be less than useless in any practical sense.

      It's like solving the fucking Turing halting problem, which is mathematically proven to be unsolvable except in an extremely narrow class of instances where very precise limitations on what the code may contain can be known in advance to exist.

      --
      File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
    13. Re:So do they have some kind of proposal.... by mjwx · · Score: 1

      .... for how, technologically, they are going to make this apparently magic filter?

      Free speech matters aside, what they are wanting to implement is actually technologically impossible without so many false positives as to render the technology utterly useless even at best.

      Neither of these points matter because it'll never get past the Members of the European Parliament.

      The European Union is a democracy, like any democratic body that means anyone can introduce a bill as long as it has one sponsor (with the EU, this doesn't even need to be a MEP). So all kinds of batshit crazy laws can be tabled and in Europe, they're all voted down. This doubly so as the EU isn't as pro-copyright as the US.

      --
      Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
    14. Re:So do they have some kind of proposal.... by coofercat · · Score: 1

      You may have gone off half-cocked there. The workflow is this:

      - UserA uploads copyrighted work
      - Some hours/days/weeks/months later, said upload is identified by a copyright troll/owner, the site is notified
      - Site adds the hash of that file to their "do not upload" database, and remove the file (and all copies of it with the same hash) ...later...
      - UserB uploads the same file UserA uploaded
      - Hashes match, so site refuses the upload immediately

      The idea here is to avoid the 'KimDotCom' thing where he made copyright holders complain about every single copy of the same file on his servers. I'd imagine very few false-positives would really occur as a result of this.

      That said, this isn't a good idea to accept. The obvious hole is that it's pretty easy to change the hash of a file without materially changing it. I'm guessing this is well understood, and hashing is just seen as an "easy" solution that no one will struggle to implement or complain about too loudly. Once we've all got used to this, it'll be "upgraded" to facial recognition or whatever. Then it'll be full AI-inspection, and so on and so on, along with the false-positives that such things will inevitably generate (to say nothing about the costs to implement).

    15. Re:So do they have some kind of proposal.... by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      if you think there's any similarity between checking hash similarities on binary files to identify copies or copyright infringement and being able to identify meaningful similarity in computer source code that has any relevance whatsoever to copyright infringement,

      Again, if you bother to read TFA they don't mention computer code at all. This is a draft proposal that is focused on video, photo and music sharing. It's not even a finished proposal yet, let alone a draft law. And there is very little reason to think, based on the text, that it would apply to source code.

      In fact copyright protections for source code and things like encryption keys are weaker in the EU than the US anyway. And Github does regularly process DMCA take-downs, where as EU based sites have far fewer legal obligations with regards to user posted copyrighted content.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    16. Re:So do they have some kind of proposal.... by shufflingb · · Score: 1

      Code fingerprinting for license compliance is very possible. Have a look at the BlackDuck Hub product https://www.blackducksoftware....; there are others who offer similar services. Their back-end was a heap of non-scaling, my-first-code-project junk but the basic scanning tech worked quite well.

      It'd be a pita, and the idea of EU slowly transforming into another China or Russia in an attempt to stop the extremists its policies are creating is pretty unappealing. But they could make it happen if they were determined/stupid enough.

  5. Better? by NormanHaga2580 · · Score: 1

    Wouldn't it be better to monitor the music and video interests for violations of the various GPL's?

  6. How to shoot yourself in the foot by smartr · · Score: 1

    I know there's jurisdictional creep, and maybe some large non-EU companies would adhere, but I really doubt the EU has the jurisdictional pull for this to do anything other than hamstring anything to do with hosting in the EU. I guess this is good for non-EU small and mid-sized businesses who will have a huge advantage when not operating in the EU, like the USA or maybe Ukraine. At the same time, I'd rather these quixotic EU bureaucrats not treat their own tech community so badly in the global market.

    1. Re:How to shoot yourself in the foot by JaredOfEuropa · · Score: 1

      Also, a priori censorship is in violation of the constitution of several member countries.

      --
      If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
  7. This is what happens by NewtonsLaw · · Score: 1

    This is what happens when you give the power to regulate to a bunch of politicians and bureaucrats who have no idea how the internet works.

    Sigh!

    1. Re:This is what happens by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      This is what happens when you give the power to regulate to a bunch of politicians and bureaucrats who have no idea how the internet works.

      Sigh!

      They do understand the internet. You do not understand politics.

      This move is nothing to do with preventing the dissemination of copyright-protected material. Instead, it is all about expanding the power and wealth of certain members of the political class. The measure is intentionally flawed so that it may serve as a long-term vector for political growth for certain departments.

      The propoganda that accompanies each power grab exists only to help pass the bill.

  8. More generally by Mister+Liberty · · Score: 1

    The meme 'open source', despite everyone and his cat embracing it these days, is still a meme to be eradicated in due time, by those that stand to benefit from its demise. We all know who they are. This is just one move in that grand scheme.

    1. Re:More generally by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Hello, someone who actually works at the European Commission here. The EU in general loves the idea of open source, but they love the idea of 'consumer protection' even more.

      Consumer protection is a fancy way of confusing the protection of citizens rights against large corporations, while simultaneously allowing those corporations to define the laws that protect the citizens.

      This legislations is the EPITOME of the sorts of problems we see in the EC. A good intentioned protection written by 'consumer protection groups' (media companies in this case) handed off to clueless functionaires who don't know what source code actually is...or worse, the consumer protection groups go directly to the parliamentary parties and convince them to pass legislation requiring the EC to do this, and then rinse and repeat the situation.

      Intentions are good. Its not a conspiracy, unless you think a ship of fools is a conspiracy. Its a damn shame and will be looked back on as one of the primary things that COULD have stopped the next war... :(

  9. Possibilities by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Open source code may fall under educational, research and preservation of cultural heritage. In addition, this

    "Member States shall facilitate, where appropriate, the cooperation between the information society service providers and rightholders through stakeholder dialogues to define best practices, such as appropriate and proportionate content recognition technologies, taking into account, among others, the nature of the services, the availability of the technologies and their effectiveness in light of technological developments."

    does not imply this

    "Upload filters, also known as "censorship machines," are some of the most controversial elements of the copyright proposal,"

    necessarily. We are talking about a directive that outlines specific implementations in the member countries. And particularly about the fact that a code sharing service is different from some other kinds of services. Nobody have asked to implement a filter, a license or attribution search tool like an idiot. Yet.

  10. Re:What are they going to compare with? by AHuxley · · Score: 1

    Consider a programming language that is more about symbols and math to stay legal in the EU.

    When the EU police get hold of that Ada code they are going to look at every English word used for violations of EU laws.
    Pascal and Ada might become trendy source code to make a political statement with.
    Declare near exit could be code that supports Brexit.

    12 hours with a police officer to work out why the word subtype was published online.
    .

    --
    Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  11. Re:Obligatory: Intel CPU Backdoor Report (Jan 1 20 by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

    I don't need to worry about that - APK keeps my host file fully updated!

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  12. hrumph hrumph by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

    [voice=Nigel Farage] It's exactly this kind of nonsense that led to Brexit! [/]

    Well, it might be if the thick sods in Barnsley and the like actually understood two words of it.

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  13. Tarifs by shayd2 · · Score: 1
    Perhaps US can negotiate sensibility as part of Tariff talks
    • GMO foods
    • Privacy rules
    • Copywrite
    • ...
  14. US companies by LubosD · · Score: 1

    GitHub and SourceForge are both US-based. Why should they care about the crazy laws our dearest EU politicians make up?

  15. Sigh... by grahamtriggs · · Score: 1

    Instead of individual countries / regional governments coming up with daft rules on how the internet should operate, how about we recognise that we should have a global body with competence in this area?

  16. compliment by supermanhulk07 · · Score: 1

    Nice Post admin. I like the way you write a post, well explained. I will surely share this post. cheers !! from: Ramadan Kareem Wishes

  17. The Shitty Code will float to the top by wolfheart111 · · Score: 1

    Many parts of the eloquently written open source code will probably be used many times... and in proprietary software as well. Check out the source of many of these and you'll find the original comments from the author. Makes me kinda say fuckit with the whole copywrite thing... just want to code, If I find a better way of doing something, even better.

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