Wikimedia Warns EU Copyright Reform Threatens the 'Vibrant Free Web' (techcrunch.com)

The Wikimedia Foundation has sounded a stark warning against a copyright reform proposal in Europe that's due to be voted on by the European Parliament next week. From a report: In the post, also emailed to TechCrunch, Maria Sefidari Huici, chair of the Wikimedia Foundation, writes: "Next week, the European Parliament will decide how information online is shared in a vote that will significantly affect how we interact in our increasingly connected, digital world. We are in the last few moments of what could be our last opportunity to define what the Internet looks like in the future. The next wave of proposed rules under consideration by the European Parliament will either permit more innovation and growth, or stifle the vibrant free web that has allowed creativity, innovation, and collaboration to thrive. This is significant because copyright does not only affect books and music, it profoundly shapes how people communicate and create on the internet for years to come."

Backers of the reform proposals argue they will help European creatives be fairly recompensed for their work. But critics argue the proposals are not balanced and will chill the creative freedoms of web users to share and comment on content online.

Comments

That's a doozy

[jandrese]

It looks like the law requires every blog owner to implement an omniscient version of Youtube's much hated ContentID system to insure that nothing uploaded bears any similarity to any past work. It would basically be impossible to run a site like Slashdot under that requirement. The false positive rate would undoubtedly be incredible. Big media cartels were tired of having to do their job and want everybody else to do it for them.

If this goes through about the only solution for every comment section will be to just geoblock the EU until some gigantic content clearinghouse is created. Even then such a service would be too expensive for most message boards so only players like Facebook and Google will be able to run blogs.

Re:That's a doozy

[Anonymous Coward]

IP Owners don't like the phrase "vibrant free web." They hate it. They want precisely the opposite, as they believe this is how they will maximize their profits.

Re:That's a doozy

[VeryFluffyBunny]

Yes, current proposed IP laws in a range of countries favour large, dominant corporations at the expense of newcomers and hobbyists. The corporations will be fine without these laws but we'll all be much worse off with them. This is all the work of the UN's WIPO https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/..., which has been steadily encroaching on public domain and fair-use works since the 1970s. They want corporations to own everything that's ours, i.e. our culture and knowledge, and get rich from renting it all back to us.

Re:That's a doozy

[VeryFluffyBunny]

I don't have problem with it. YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, etc. have not made the world a better place. They want to profit from the content uploaded to their platform but don't want to take responsibility for it.

Bullshit.

Fuck 'em all. If its on your servers, you're responsible.

On this point, I agree. Facebook et al. are making money out of copyright infringement and should pay the copyright holders. However, what the proposed laws would do to you and me and startups and hobbyists would be suffocating. That is, if you enjoy engaging in and sharing derivative ideas and works under fair use and like that there are public domain works that everyone can use however they like.

Re:That's a doozy

[Anonymous Coward]

IP Owners don't like the phrase "vibrant free web." They hate it.

Parent AC makes an important point: media cartels do not WANT a free web. They want "television 2.0". The whole thing was an oversight that happened because the internet started in the military, and then academia, and stayed there for decades before it became a public phenomena. By that point the genie had partially left the bottle.

They want nothing more than to put that genie back IN the bottle. And the clueless public can be led by the nose to go right along, since they don't think about their choices very much. Make it shiny, and they'll beg for it, no matter what it is.

Unfortunately, due to other verbose AC spam in this topic, your point may languish down at score=0, so I hope someone punts you up to at least 2.

Re:That's a doozy

[zabbey]

So I break the law by uploading infringing content and facebook has to pay? Why don't they just target the copyright infringers? Oh, it's because they don't have any money. The point of these types of laws isn't to enforce or punish lawbreakers, it's to extort money. If I stab someone at starbucks, should the manager go to jail? I am, after all, committing a crime on their property.

and the 1st amendment will make usa sites safe

[Joe_Dragon]

and the 1st amendment will make usa sites safe. But they may need to go USA only and block EU

and fox can just copy an old video and then ban it

[Joe_Dragon]

https://torrentfreak.com/fox-s...

may end game reviews and Let's play's other then

[Joe_Dragon]

may end game reviews and Let's play's other then ones picked by the game dev's.

Just think I have this POS game that was rushed out and now I can use the law to take down the bad reviews.

So, effectively EU-exit

[DCFusor]

From normal commerce. We'll see how that plays out. Sure, demanding more money always results in more money, no one ever turns away and finds another fungible source for the same stuff, right? - unless you're exceptional and unique. Don't they lambaste Americans who think that kinda stuff?
Maybe the Brits are leaving a sinking ship just in time...