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EU Takes First Step in Passing Controversial Copyright Law That Could 'Censor the Internet' (theverge.com)
The European Union has taken the first step in passing new copyright legislation that critics say will tear the internet apart. From a report: This morning, the EU's Legal Affairs Committee (JURI) voted in favor of the legislation, called the Copyright Directive. Although most of the directive simply updates technical language for copyright law in the age of the internet, it includes two highly controversial provisions. These are Article 11, a "link tax," which would force online platforms like Facebook and Google to buy licenses from media companies before linking to their stories; and Article 13, an "upload filter," which would require that everything uploaded online in the EU is checked for copyright infringement. (Think of it like YouTube's Content ID system but for the whole internet.) EU lawmakers critical of the legislation say these Articles may have been proposed with good intentions -- like protecting copyright owners -- but are vaguely worded and ripe for abuse.
Laws that transfer power from citizens to the government are never about "good intentions," they're about control.
One of the first things they'll start censoring is content critical of sacred Eurocratic initiatives. Video opposing unassimilated Muslim immigration into Europe? Sorry, that's banned because we call it "hate speech." Video suggesting Italy should leave the Euro? Sorry, we have to ban that because it endangers "economic stability."
Good intentions have nothing to do with it. It's all about censorship and control.
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
Where can I submit all my stuff so it'll become part of what gets reported when scanned? I have about 1tb of home videos and photos as well as all my writing assignments from since high school and I can go through all my old accounts and submit all the posts I've written. I use a desktop email client so submitting all the email I've written should be easy.
I was involved in multiple drafts of the DMCA before it became law, discussing the draft with people involved in many different aspects of the internet. People had different concerns and things were changed in the drafts to improve it.
Three major categories of people had different concerns:
Content producers
Hosting companies and ISPs
Web sites using content
Previously, when a content producer saw their content was being unlawfully copied on a web site, they would contact the hosting company. The liability of the hosting company was questionable - probably AFTER having received notice, they would most likely be liable if they didn't take it down, but that was murky. Different hosting companies had different policies. Some shut the site down right away. Some ignored the notices, which meant content producers would contact their upstream providers, who would often put pressure on the hosting company. Different companies had different policies about protecting their customers from invalid complaints (fair use etc). Most would just shut it down - they didn't want to get involved in a legal fight. It was all very inconsistent and messy.
Here's the process we ended up with:
Content provider would notify the site or hosting company, identifying exactly what infringed copyright.
Hosting company would inform the site owner, who had three options:
A. Deny the infringement (counter-notice)
B. Take down the content
C. Ignore the notice
If the site owner / poster denies there is infringement, that's the end of it. The hosting company is not liable, because they've received a statement saying there is no infringement. For some reason we didn't anticipate, very few people choose this option. It's the best and easiest option if you have content that isn't infringing.
Once the site owner or the person who posted the content says it doesn't infringe, the DMCA notice process ends and the content producer has to sue in federal court in order to move forward.
If the site owner sees there is likely infringement and takes the content down, that resolves the complaint process also. (Though the producer *could* still sue in federal court).
If the site owner ignores the notice and doesn't say "nope, not infringing", the web host will take down the content. This is the worst option. We didn't expect it would be the most common. Much better for the web site to respond to the notice somehow - either by taking down infringing content if they agree, or by sending back a note saying it's not infringing (a counter notice).
That seemed like a good, fair process, to most people. It's not exactly what content producers would choose if they got to pick, and not exactly what people re-using content would pick, but it's a fair compromise, we thought.
Two things didn't work out the way we expected. First, very few people send back a counter-notice. I can't explain why this is. It's so easy to just send back an email saying "nope, I disagree. This isn't infringement because it's educational fair use. That essentially nullifies the original DMCA notice.
Secondly, perhaps BECAUSE almost nobody responds to a DMCA notice, some producers started sending out way too many notices, not being sufficiently careful that they are accurate. Nobody anticipated that at the time the law was written. If I had an opportunity to do it over again, I would have suggested adding penalities for recklessly sending noticed, but that possibility never came up in the discussion.
Initially, the law was welcomed by most people in all the different areas. It set up a consistent, fair process that almost everyone used. Most people running sites and posting content were reasonably happy with it - they didn't violate copyright anyway, at least not much (maybe some clip art), and if they received a notice they'd gladly swap out any infringing content. They were glad to know that in a dispute, the hosting company would back them up - as long as they notified the hosting company that there WAS a