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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.
"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.
How about getting rid of writable media tax first?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
How about we get rid of the Berne Convention?
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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.
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