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Internet Luminaries Urge EU To Kill Off Automated Copyright Filter Proposal (theregister.co.uk)

A large group of Internet pioneers have sent an open letter to the European Union urging it to scrap a proposal to introduce automated upload filters, arguing that it could damage the internet as we know it. The Register: The European Parliament's Legal Affairs (Juri) Committee will vote on the proposal contained in Article 13 of the Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive next week. The proposal would see all companies that "store and provide to the public access to large amounts of works" obliged to "prevent the availability... of works... identified by rightholders." Despite the inclusion of language that says such measures need to be "appropriate and proportionate," it has caused many to worry that the law will lead to a requirement for all platforms to introduce automated content filtering, and shift liability for any copyrighted material that appears online from the user that posts it to the platform itself.

"By inverting this liability model and essentially making platforms directly responsible for ensuring the legality of content in the first instance, the business models and investments of platforms large and small will be impacted," warns the letter [PDF] signed by "Father of the Internet" Vint Cerf, world world web inventor Tim Berners-Lee, as well a host of other internet luminaries including Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales, security expert Bruce Schneier and net neutrality namer Tim Wu.

40 comments

  1. How about getting rid of writable media tax first? by AlwinBarni · · Score: 3, Insightful

    How about getting rid of writable media tax first?
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

  2. "Internet Luminaries" by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1, Funny

    My invitation must have gotten lost in the mail.

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
    1. Re:"Internet Luminaries" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      While we're spewing bullshit, how about:

      "By inverting this liability model and essentially making platforms directly responsible"

    2. Re:"Internet Luminaries" by dissy · · Score: 1

      My invitation must have gotten lost in the mail.

      Actually I submitted the invitation hash-signature to the new copyright system claiming it as my own.

      Until the EU settles up the fine they owe me, they won't be allowed to upload it to you :P
      Sorry about that!

    3. Re:"Internet Luminaries" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The neutrality namer Tim probably felt you weren't neutral enough to be invited by name.

  3. Re:How about getting rid of writable media tax fir by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 4, Insightful

    How about we get rid of the Berne Convention?

  4. " Internet pioneers " ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Interesting

    You're kidding right? Google, Micrsoft and Facebook would LOVE nothing more then having their tech licensed for such things. That is why they created it after all.

    This story was paid for propaganda, something for them to point at later and say "we tried" perhaps?

    1. Re:" Internet pioneers " ? by mcl630 · · Score: 2

      You didn't bother reading the last paragraph of the summary, huh? None of the listed "pioneers" work for the companies you mentioned.

    2. Re:" Internet pioneers " ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Informative

      You didn't bother reading the last paragraph of the summary, huh? None of the listed "pioneers" work for the companies you mentioned.

      I knoq, never said they did?

      Since you pointed it out anyway - according to wikipedia:

      Vint Cerf - Born into a wealthy family, father worked as an "aerospace
      executive". Cerf has worked for Google as a Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist since October 2005.

      Tim Berners-Lee - Created what is HTML, currently chair of the w3c. The primary person behind web DRM being added as a standard. Actually has quite a background in politically motivated causes and does work directly with the companies I listed through

      Bruce Schneier - Born into a wealth family, father is /was a Supreme Court judge. It's interesting despite his crypto background, we still have broken SSL.

      Tim Wu - One of the most bizzare people to have listed, he's a lawyer who worked for the fucking FTC. Again quite wealthy and politically motivated. He has certainly worked extensively with Google.

      I stand behind what I said.

    3. Re: " Internet pioneers " ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Dude you forgot Randy Potemkin!

    4. Re:" Internet pioneers " ? by Wootery · · Score: 2

      I really shouldn't reply to ACs - they're almost always about this dumb. Anyway:

      I knoq, never said they did?

      So why were you talking about them? You just felt like some irrelevant rambling?

      Born into a wealth family

      You keep saying that. Are you under the impression that people with wealthy families cannot be pioneers?

  5. Next EU Problem by SmaryJerry · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Even if they win this argument and individuals are liable for their own copyright infringement, the next argument will be then as a website you have to be able to identify the person who uploaded to your service so the infringing person can be prosecuted. I foresee the days of anonymity gone soon (10 years or less) in the EU's internet.

    1. Re:Next EU Problem by 110010001000 · · Score: 0

      Eventually the Internet will be restricted to access by only an approved set of devices and for consumption of media only by the end user. If you don't think that will happen, you haven't been paying attention. After all, think of the children, and the terrorists and the copyright holders.

    2. Re:Next EU Problem by lhunath · · Score: 1

      So then it's time to re-invent the internet.

      --
      ``OK, so ten out of ten for style, but minus several million for good thinking, yeah?''
    3. Re:Next EU Problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I foresee an end to the EU in 10 years or less if that happens.
      It would be completely antithetical to our governments stance on internet privacy.
      Either way, I will just start using a VPN or freenet, or some other obfuscation method.

    4. Re:Next EU Problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Yes but at least pointing to a user account is easy

      The problem with this copyright nonsense is that copyright holders pay very little for the privilege, and the government expects everyone else to enforce it for them on their own dime

      Screw that - if a copyright holder wants me to filter content on my site, they can pay me. Maybe they need , like , a copyright association that will make all these deals , instead of wasting time with cease and desist letters.

    5. Re: Next EU Problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Worse. Think of the children, like Christopher Tolkien, starving in the streets because they can't protect their inherited copyrighted material material from being uploaded.

      Who's going to collect all these fines and distribute to the rightful parties?

    6. Re: Next EU Problem by SmaryJerry · · Score: 1

      All the people who lot their jobs to automation will have to do something...

    7. Re:Next EU Problem by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1, Informative

      Actually they already won, they just don't seem to have realized it.

      I've been following these rules as they develop. The early draft did have a requirement for websites to actively filter new content for copyright infringement, based on submissions by copyright holders. That was removed ages ago, but people still seem to be panicking about it for some reason.

      There is a requirement to remove infringing material after it has been reported, the same as the DMCA. The DMCA isn't great, but it's main flaw is people spamming automated DMCA notices with bots.

      And in fact most web sites do pre-screen material as it is uploaded anyway, e.g. to block known illegal images because their customers don't like their feeds being filled with child pornography and ISIS beheading videos.

      Also the "link tax" is long, long dead. There was a proposal to allow charging for "snippets" in search results, but it looks like it may well be DoA because where it was been tried it was a disaster. In Spain Google shut down it's news service and news sites saw a 6-30% loss of traffic. In Germany the news sites gave Google a free licence to use snippets anyway.

      So all in all it's mostly just panicking about out of date, long rejected draft proposals.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  6. world world by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "world world web inventor Tim Berners-Lee"

    1. Re: world world by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You didn't think the editors were real, did you? They're just another internet myth.

  7. The EU is hellbent on preventing internet services by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    If you host anything of relevance in the EU, you must have a death wish.

  8. Re:The EU is hellbent on preventing internet servi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm really hoping that if this passes some big internet corporations restrict services in the EU. The only way things are going to get better is if more people realize what an abomination Brussels has become.

  9. Limited Internet is an Oxymoron by xanthos · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I have faith in the Internet to perform its most basic function: to resiliently get a packet from point A to point B.

    Governments and corporations are welcome to erect whatever barriers they see fit to raise, but they will be effective only until they become onerous. Then, as has happened before, an enterprising geek will find a way to rip, decss, vpn, tor, p2p, IPV6 their way around or through the barriers.

    The Internet is not regulated, the Internet can not be effectively regulated and serve its intended purpose.

    --
    Average Intelligence is a Scary Thing
    1. Re:Limited Internet is an Oxymoron by fafalone · · Score: 2

      Then, as has happened before, an enterprising geek will find a way to rip, decss, vpn, tor, p2p, IPV6 their way around or through the barriers.

      A lot of policies aren't about stopping dedicated geeks, they're about raising the technical knowledge, time requirement, and risk level to the point where only a small number of geeks are doing it.

    2. Re:Limited Internet is an Oxymoron by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      And once the number is sufficiently low, it will be easier to detect and prosecute them. You cannot fine hundreds of thousands people for significant sums, but you can destroy the lives of a dozen nerds.

    3. Re:Limited Internet is an Oxymoron by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Actually, it can be if you control all the ingress/egress points.

      And that's exactly what is going to happen.

      So, at that point in time, you're going to be completely fucked with that line of thinking.

      (See china)

  10. Re:The EU is hellbent on preventing internet servi by Calydor · · Score: 2

    But where are we supposed to host things anymore? Between Net Neutrality going away in the US, the EU and UK wanting to clamp down hard on controlling what can and can't exist on the internet, which well-connected territory should we look towards for hosting today?

    --
    -=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
  11. Fair use by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So essentially, this proposed law would make fair use of copyright media on the internet effectively impossible.

  12. Piracy will repeal any attempts by stroxor · · Score: 0

    Piracy will repeal any attempts to harm their community or they will sell virtual hot-dogs for btc as usual.

  13. EU wants your freedom by AHuxley · · Score: 0, Troll

    In the USA you are free to talk, publish. Free after publication. Free to tell a joke in visual form. Talk about politics using a cartoon, photo, a quote.
    In the EU all such use of art and creativity is not legal. Quoting text? Using an image to comment on the news?
    The EU will use new legal powers to stop publication and comment. No quotes from publications.
    Quoted from a text? Thats a good time to place an EU tax on a public comment.
    What the EU cannot make illegal under freedom of speech it will use a new tax on to go after all political speech.

    The EU wants a digital Stamp Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... on the all text of the US internet.
    Any comment on the web will have to be EU approved. Pay a per word text tax to the EU for your creativity and ingenuity.
    EU fines on people who quote EU publications?

    --
    Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  14. Even Europeans do not understand by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    The EU is about restoring the a Roman Emperor and the monarchies. Not blatantly but effectively. Don't think so? All countries except England were not democratic until the US won WW2 and basically humiliated them into it. France not until the 1960s. So, not long after an EU parliament turns up and acts effectively like the ancient Roman Senate. No one really gets a look in.

    Greek elections are overturned by Germany, in return France works a 20 hour week and Germany pays its bills. EU Laws prevent English farmers from growing the potato they grew for centuries because the big vote holders in the EU senate want to force England to subsidise their farmers for them. And no one has any interest in knowing anything about the Vatican Bank but everyone else has to reveal every last detail of themselves, including exactly where this photo came from.

    Their demands are not much different to the Tea Tax.

  15. Great plan by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sounds like a great plan. Make it illegal to have any media on the internet.

  16. Re:The EU is hellbent on preventing internet servi by PolygamousRanchKid+ · · Score: 1

    But where are we supposed to host things anymore?

    North Korea!

    They're (nuclear) tanned, rested and ready!

    This was one of the under-reported issue of the Trump / Kim summit . . . along with supporting ZTE in China, the USA will now promote Internet hosting in North Korea!

    As to halting its nuclear ambitions . . . Kim is "currently implementing plans to size the effort" . . .

    --
    Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
  17. No,the EU wants A.Huxley to read before commenting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    As Usual you show yourself a ninkenpoob, this time with regards to the EU laws in comparison to the USA.

    Please do continue destroying your own credibility, it is very entertaining for the rest of us to see you dig your hole of misinformation and bad logic deeper and deeper.

    There's even a small "pool" going around wondering if eventually you'll end up digging your way to north Korea or to the, by then flooded, Marshall Isles....

  18. Internet Luminaires by temcat · · Score: 1

    The way I read the heading at first, I thought that the automated copyright filters somehow interfered with the operation of some IoT light fixtures and those started sending messages by themselves to EU structures asking to disable the filters.

  19. In other news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Internet users tired of the EU being a collection of idiots, urges EU to kill itself off...

  20. Re:The EU is hellbent on preventing internet servi by grumpy-cowboy · · Score: 1

    Canada

    --
    Will $CURRENT_YEAR be the year of the Linux Desktop?
  21. Re:No,the EU wants A.Huxley to read before comment by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Look everyone - it's a Soros NGO troll!