Slashdot Mirror
European Parliament Votes in Favor of Controversial Copyright Laws (engadget.com)
The EU has voted on copyright reform, with members of European Parliament this time voting in favor of the extremely controversial Articles 11 and 13. The 438 to 226 vote, described as "the worst possible outcome" by some quarters, could have significant repercussions on the way we use the internet. From a report: The Copyright Directive, first proposed in 2016, is intended to bring the issue of copyright in line with the digital age. Articles 11 and 13 have caused particular controversy, with many heralding their adoption as the death of the internet. Article 11, also known as the "link tax", would require online platforms such as Google and Facebook to pay media companies to link to their content, while Article 13, the "upload filter", would force them to check all content uploaded to their sites and remove any copyrighted material. How this will affect regular internet users is still subject to debate, but it could seriously limit the variety of content available online -- and it could pretty much spell the end of memes.
Unsurprisingly, these parts of the bill have been met with opposition from digital rights groups, computer scientists, academics, platforms such as Wikipedia and even human rights groups. Supporters, however, say the consequences of the measures are being blown out of proportion, and that the provisions are merely intended to give creators and smaller outlets the opportunity to reclaim the value of their work. More details on Reuters.
Unsurprisingly, these parts of the bill have been met with opposition from digital rights groups, computer scientists, academics, platforms such as Wikipedia and even human rights groups. Supporters, however, say the consequences of the measures are being blown out of proportion, and that the provisions are merely intended to give creators and smaller outlets the opportunity to reclaim the value of their work. More details on Reuters.
...suddenly doesn't look quite so bad, does it?
Next time say something original.
You're saying that like you didn't know big companies regularly steal content from smaller outlets and then file copyright claims against the original creator
Until Brexit all laws voted apply to UK. And if you think for a SECOND that the UK government will remove that particular one post-brexit, when they will be lobbied left and right to keep it by content holder, I have a bridge to sell you in London. Cheap.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
News sites will be rubbing their hands in glee at the prospect of being paid to be linked to, in reality what's going to happen is those links will stop when news aggregators etc decide fuck this. Then we'll be in for the crying that their business is going even further down the pan.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
I've been saying this for a long time: this is the kind of result one expects to see when most of the people who vote in EU elections are over 50. I mean, voter turnout has been low in EU elections consistently (43 % in the last elections, pathetic really) because people would rather nitpick about the Union than do anything to affect it, but it's especially low among the younger generations. (source. "Turnout was again highest among the oldest respondents. Some 51% of the 55+ group voted in the European elections, while only 28% did in the 18-24 age group.") Is it any wonder that when most of the people sitting in the parliament have little to no understanding of what the internet actually is, the lobbyists are able to spoonfeed them all kinds of bullshit and we end up with sub-par legislation like this?
Obviously we're still a long way from implementation, from the article:
So whatever impact this will or will not have is still to be seen, and I personally hope the coming debates and negotiations will make it clear just how absurd the law in its current shape is and how hard (if not impossible) actual implementation and enforcement would be and reason will win, but we'll see.
We've got slightly over half a year to next EU elections people. To paraphrase Obama's recent speech to anyone else here in Europe who doesn't like it: 'If this pisses you off, don't hashtag, vote!"
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" -Alfred North Whitehead
Are you kidding? The copyright lobby and their insane demands started in Europe. The US managed to avoid their madness for a long time and didn't implement the Berne convention until 1989. One particularly evil aspect of the Berne convention was the removal of the requirement for copyright registration.
The general approach is that once you have put your idea in material form, you automatically have copyright over "that particular expression" of that idea. No problem there. Creators deserve a chance to exploit their creations.
The stupidity of current practice as lobbied for by large conglomerates however.........
They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
The EU accepted the rule that the FPV, first-person-view, transmitter of an RC aircraft, or a drone, cannot have the power more than 25 mW, while a smartphone can have the transmitting power of 1000, or even 3000 mW.
It basically destroyed the emerging UAV & FPV market and the industry in the EU countries. It made existing FPV drones unreliable and dangerous, while the FPV videolink starts to break at about 100 meters.
The content owners, or the content indexers?
Content owners like large media companies are still desperately clinging to the past.
Google and other online gatekeepers hold sway over large percentages of the audience.
I eagerly await a final smackdown for Murdoch & friends, when the reality of distributed information finally hits home. Hits home to them of course, the rest of us already know.
Google and others have no obligation to list anything. If they decide that it costs too much to link items to media websites, well... tough. The other media companies will gladly waive costs if it means their content gets listed at the top of page 1 while Murdoch & co are relegated to page 2 or 3.
They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
think this is really about censorship, which the young people all support
You assume that young people will do any better or that they have a "real" understanding of the internet. If you look at some of the groups of young people that are screaming the loudest, they'd seem to be the biggest censors of the internet with their demand for safe spaces and a ban on any expression that hurts their feelings. There are also a lot of young people that are going to throw in with the right-wing anti-immigration parties that are starting to spring up because they see that as more important than something going on with the internet. I don't know if those groups even have any opinion on this particular topic, but I don't think getting the younger voters involved will do anything.
In the U.S. the joke (from about two decades ago) about younger people voting was that it was the younger college voters in Minnesota that got Jesse Ventura elected. If you're not familiar with him, he's a bit of a conspiracy nut among other things. Probably an okay guy to be friends with, just not what I would consider governor material. I think the youth vote was also up in the 2016 election and we ended up with Trump, so I don't see it making a difference in this case either.
That is actually a huge problem. In the US, it used to be the case that you only got a copyright if you registered it with the government. That created legal clarity. The crappy system we have now is the result of bad European copyright legislation.
The justification for copyright in the US is purely utilitarian. In any case, "creators" had that right under US law before adoption of the Berne convention.
The proportional election system in Europe does the opposite: it allows parties to shield politicians from the voters; meaning, powerful party figures who have fallen out of favor with voters are simply moved from a direct mandate to a party position.
Furthermore, the parliamentary system in Europe has resulted in numerous extremists and dictators taking over, foremost Hitler; people like that have no chance under the US system.
And European governments are far more under the control of large corporations than the US government.
As an aside, you aren't actually violating copyright for performing or even, with the permission of an artist, playing these works, they are long in the public domain.
However, you are probably violating copyright if you perform or play any of several arrangements, as these are re-arranged regularly to be published anew.
One of the quirks of public domain, if there's no financial reward to publishing it, then it is unlikely to be published. How much is a score for Ode to Joy worth? Such a great question, but of course it's never just *a* score, it's the entirety, at least what, 20 separate scores for orchestra. Me? I'd pay for Mahler's First, not so much for Mendelssohn, but that's just me.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
At this point I am longing for the AOL days.
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
The public domain doesn't mean a single fucking thing when you have to defend yourself against Disney in a lawsuit - because they believe they own Cinderalla, Snow White, etc, etc, etc.
All that matters is money.
Meanwhile Trump is pushing a bunch of IP bullshit in NAFTA including forcing Canada to take down sites based on the say so of private companies along with extending copyright. Then there is the patent shit that they're mostly hiding to make sure the drug companies continue to have increasing profits.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Nah the Trump vote came mainly from grumpy old white people. The youth vote would have gone to Bernie Sanders, but I suspect most of those who would have voted Bernie ended up not voting at all. The ideals of socialism seem to appeal most strongly to the youth, who are still idealistic, with a strong sense of morality (as they see it).
Furthermore, the parliamentary system in Europe has resulted in numerous extremists and dictators taking over, foremost Hitler; people like that have no chance under the US system.
ahahahhahahahahahahahahahahahha
ode to joy existed before eu and will exist long after the demise of that undemocratic bureaucratic authoritarian state with its out of touch unelected leaders.
Considering that Canada's priorities seem to be womens issues, and payments to natives as a core component of NAFTA? I'm perfectly fine with Trump crashing it so fucking hard that the Liberal Party of Canada won't exist by next year.
Om, nomnomnom...
One particularly evil aspect of the Berne convention was the removal of the requirement for copyright registration.
That's not evil at all - that's a very good thing. It allows artists to control their copyrights without needing to spend their time navigating bureaucracy. It's one of the few changes in copyright law that has been beneficial for the people who create at those who would exploit them by removing obstacles to ownership of their material.
If you want to talk about indefinite copyright being a major issue, I'm right there with you. But anything that allows creative people to keep their creations for a reasonable length of time is a good thing.
And ignore the Spanish Empire, the French Empire, the German "troubles" (times two), Portuguese expansion, Italian expansion, etc... Yeppers, it's just those bloody brits who were terrible!
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Wealthy people don't elect our president or representatives, the middle class does because only the middle class has the votes. So, we get smaller government when the middle class decides that it is in their interest. For the last half century, the American middle class has been propagandized and manipulated into believing that big government is in their interest, but more and more people are realizing that the American dream they were sold by government was a fraud, and new technologies makes it easy to undermine the old institutions and corrupt arrangements. That's why corporations like the NYT, institutions like public schools, and politicians like Clinton and McCain are bitching and whining.
Wealthy people pick the candidates and finance their campaigns. While in theory you are right about the voters deciding, in practice it doesn't seem to work that way and you end up with billionaire Presidents that pretend to care and a Congress full of millionaires that everyone hates but they keep getting re-elected.
As you say, there is also a lot of propaganda to get people to vote a certain way and to consider only a limited number of choices. Look at how few votes the other parties got last election even though both candidates were horrible.
Small government is a good thing to strive for, but it is going to be quite an uphill battle and as the media is owned by the rich and the internet is getting more locked down (lack of network neutrality, copyright laws that allow sites to be knocked off the internet just by accusing them of breaking copyright are two examples), it is going to get harder and harder.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism