Slashdot Mirror


The EU Could Vote To Wreck the Internet Tomorrow (vice.com)

The EU is preparing to vote Wednesday on sweeping new copyright guidelines that could dramatically reshape the internet and potentially harm your ability to share content online. From a report: As noted previously, the proposal is being driven by rights holders frightened by technological change, including brick and mortar publishers eager to blame companies like Google for their failure to evolve in the modern internet era. And while the EU's new Copyright Directive may be a well intentioned effort to modernize EU copyright rules, it still contains numerous provisions that could significantly harm the open internet. Most of those provisions remain largely intact despite a July vote that sent the proposal back to the drawing board in the wake of widespread activist backlash. The most problematic provisions of the plan include new licensing fees for sharing anything more than "insubstantial" portions of content. Such a "link tax" could prove costly for small news outlets, and, depending on final wording, could put volunteer-centric organizations like Wikipedia at risk since the original proposal failed to include a noncommercial exception.

The most controversial component of the plan mandates that any website that lets users upload text, sounds, images, code, or other copyrighted works for public consumption (read: most of them) would need to employ automated copyright systems that filter these submissions against a database of copyrighted works at the website owner's expense. As we've consistently highlighted, such filters routinely don't work very well.

17 of 215 comments (clear)

  1. As a EU-citizen in the EU... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I'm ever more strongly inclined to have them push through the most obviously lobbied-together most atrociously anti-free-speech filtering censorship everything for all websites accessable from the EU. And I warmly invite every website inside the EU to shut down on user content as much as possible and every website outside the EU to block anything EU by geoIP.

    Burn it down. Burn it all down. If that doesn't get my fellow EU-citizens up in arms against the EU, well, then what will?

  2. The EU government is starting to become annoying by commodore64_love · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's because of them that I have websites constantly saying, "We use cookies on our website to track you" et cetera. I thought the US solution under DMCA was good:

    - You upload something

    - It gets taken down

    - You respond by saying "This does not infringe copyright" and the item gets reinstated by the website (as required by DMCA).

    - At that point the copyright claimant must either file a lawsuit and Prove in court that they are the legitimate owner.... or just let it go.

    It provides a way for us average people to deal with takedown requests, without causing permanent harm. It appears the EU and the corporate donors will dismantle this regime, so you have NO way to reinstate legitimate uploads of yur own creation.

    --
    "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
  3. Re:EU jurisdiction? by jwhyche · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Nobody is talking about Trump. Just you. The discussion taking place as absolutely nothing to do with Trump or any of you TDS induced issues.

    --
    I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
  4. They didn't evolve because they can't evolve by MikeRT · · Score: 2

    As noted previously, the proposal is being driven by rights holders frightened by technological change, including brick and mortar publishers eager to blame companies like Google for their failure to evolve in the modern internet era.

    Publishers are doing just fine, it's the journalism profession that's not. It's because journalism never established a culture over the last 200 years of habituating people to pay money directly for the content. So now only a handful of publications have such a rapport with their readers that they can get them to pay a premium to access the content.

    It gets worse when you realize that in the US (I know this is Europe) at least half of the content came from Reuters or the AP, so where was the value of buying Local Paper over the NY Times or WaPo at that point? To see a handful of local interest stories you'd probably get through gossip anyway?

    1. Re:They didn't evolve because they can't evolve by commodore64_love · · Score: 4, Informative

      > journalism never established a culture over the last 200 years of habituating people to pay money directly for the content.

      Except that people DID pay money for journalism. They subscribed to newspapers for ~100 dollars a year, and that trend goes back to the 1820s or so.

      --
      "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
    2. Re:They didn't evolve because they can't evolve by lgw · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Subscription fees don't even cover the cost of ink for newspapers. Newspapers are paid for by advertisers, just like social media. Subscription fees exist to give credibility to publishers' claims about subscriber count.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    3. Re:They didn't evolve because they can't evolve by commodore64_love · · Score: 2

      > Newspapers are paid for by advertisers, just like social media.

      Well if that's true, why do we need people to "pay for journalism" as stated 3 posts above? The journalists can survive Today the same way the did from circa 1820 to 2000..... with advertising. (All they have to do is relocate from the paper to the web.)

      --
      "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
  5. Re:Ha! Good luck by Crashmarik · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'll have you know that America already voted to wreck the Internet.

    Yep 2016 has given us the best apocalypse ever. If I had of known ruining the economy, putting NAZIs in office, starting a nuclear war in Asia, and turning the environment into a radioactive ruin on an earth scorched by global warming would have been so pleasant I would have worked to make it happen long ago.

  6. Re:EU jurisdiction? by jythie · · Score: 2

    Anyone who can run for that level of office is going to be backed by powerful companies and institutions. As a voter, it is mostly a matter of deciding which of those actor's needs align the best with your own.

  7. Re:Hahahaha by Wycliffe · · Score: 5, Insightful

    And how does such a database of copyrighted works work?

    Full text of anything ever generated? every frame of every film in case someone might make a meme of it?

    Not to mention, who oversees it. " He who has the Gold (copyright DB control) makes the Rules. "

    Exactly. This is mostly the publishers trying to double dip. Memes using a single frame of a movie and sharing of links benefits the copyright holder. Most of this seems to be targetting google and facebook. Practically everything on google and facebook links back to the original article. What facebook/google needs to do is just start banning links to any site that doesn't want to be included. Then lets see how many views their articles get when they aren't allowed to be shared on google or facebook. A summary and a link to the original article is what every content producer should want. It's free advertising. Give them a way to opt out if they don't want it and let's see how many actually opt out.

  8. Facebook is not the Internet by DogDude · · Score: 4, Insightful

    A. Facebook is not the Internet. It's a shitty website that preys on stupid people.
    B. Anybody can compete with Facebook. This law just says that you'll have to monitor the content, just like Facebook is going to have to do.
    C. The Internet is alive and well for those with brains. For dummies who think the Internet is Facebook... well... they never really used the web... any more than the people who used AOL did.

    --
    I don't respond to AC's.
  9. Re:Hahahaha by rudy_wayne · · Score: 5, Insightful

    And how does such a database of copyrighted works work?

    Exactly the same way that the DMCA works in the U.S. If someone sees something they don't like, they file a complaint claiming "copyright infringement".

    Since investigating the complaint and determining whether or not it really is infringement would require doing actual work, the "infringing material" is immediately taken down without question.

  10. Re:wrong by commodore64_love · · Score: 2

    > You're assuming the ONLY way to put content on the web is via the "social media" sites

    I was actually thinking of sites like Youtube, not facebook. However the new EU legislation will affect your personal website too. If some company claims you are infringing, you will find yourself facing a lawsuit (and the web domain provider could pull your site completely).

    --
    "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
  11. Re:Good law by JaredOfEuropa · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The big social media companies love this law. Because it makes it that much harder for some new upstart start-up to steal their eyeballs and profits.

    The bigger issue however is covert censorship. For instance, if the EU start to make a stink about “hate speech” and have some sufficiently vague guidelines about what constitutes hate speech, the social media companies might be frightened into erring on the side of caution, and remove moderate but “undesirable” speech as well. They will be doing the dirty work, while Brussels keeps its hands clean.

    --
    If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
  12. Not the internet I know by duke_cheetah2003 · · Score: 2

    Silly alarmist article is silly and alarmist. And they're just talking about the web. This doesn't affect any of the other numerous things the internet does, besides serving web pages.

    And how the hell are they going to enforce this? Who would run a website in these proposed conditions? I wouldn't, I'd relocate my server to a more friendly nation without stupid rules. In this day and age, your geological location matters less and less. I can rent a server anywhere in the world from my home, in my PJs and slippers.

    How exactly are they going to 'force' a website located outside the EU to comply with their rules? Seems like they're are shooting themselves in the foot with this stupidity.

    Internet knows no borders, and the EU trying to erect a wall around their internet..well.. they are going to find this all just insanely difficult to implement. So good luck with that. The internet will be just fine without you, thank you very much.

  13. Re:wrong by commodore64_love · · Score: 2

    His point was People want to post their creations in places where they get seen like Facebook, Youtube, rather than some obscure website like my prettycreation.com (which nobody sees or knows exists).

    Under current law people get to post things on the popular social sites..... under the proposed law they won't be able to, as they will be constantly seeing their work pulled down (or account banned).

    --
    "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
  14. To grasp notability, first grasp verifiability by tepples · · Score: 2

    Articles in an encyclopedia are supposed to be verifiable, containing claims supported by reliable secondary sources. If no reliable secondary sources have covered a subject, how is it even possible to build a verifiable article about that subject? I'm interested in your answer to that question, as it'll help others explain notability.