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European Governments Approve Controversial New Copyright Law (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: A controversial overhaul of Europe's copyright laws overcame a key hurdle on Wednesday as a majority of European governments signaled support for the deal. That sets the stage for a pivotal vote by the European Parliament that's expected to occur in March or April. Supporters of the legislation portray it as a benign overhaul of copyright that will strengthen anti-piracy efforts. Opponents, on the other hand, warn that its most controversial provision, known as Article 13, could force Internet platforms to adopt draconian filtering technologies. The cost to develop filtering technology could be particularly burdensome for smaller companies, critics say.
Online service providers have struggled to balance free speech and piracy for close to two decades. Faced with this difficult tradeoff, the authors of Article 13 have taken a rainbows-and-unicorns approach, promising stricter copyright enforcement, no wrongful takedowns of legitimate content, and minimal burdens on smaller technology platforms. But it seems unlikely that any law can achieve all of these objectives simultaneously. And digital-rights groups suspect that users will wind up getting burned -- both due to wrongful takedowns of legitimate content and because the burdens of mandatory filtering will make it harder to start a new online hosting service.
Online service providers have struggled to balance free speech and piracy for close to two decades. Faced with this difficult tradeoff, the authors of Article 13 have taken a rainbows-and-unicorns approach, promising stricter copyright enforcement, no wrongful takedowns of legitimate content, and minimal burdens on smaller technology platforms. But it seems unlikely that any law can achieve all of these objectives simultaneously. And digital-rights groups suspect that users will wind up getting burned -- both due to wrongful takedowns of legitimate content and because the burdens of mandatory filtering will make it harder to start a new online hosting service.
Thank goodness for the Brexit!
.. that they can turn digital files into scarce property. They hate hate hate that nature defies capitalist logic in the digital realm. Supply can now always meet demand and they want us to live in some stone age corporatism of false scarcity to extract tribute from their serfs.
I was going to say something about wrongful take-downs but self-censored the post out fear of unpredictable and automatic Youtube-take-down.
1) A way to block EU access to my servers
2) A large retainer for lawyers to issue copyright takedowns for any EU access to my comments on any social media, which I own the copyright to.
3) A tax shelter for all the sweet sweet profit.
Route around bureaucratic EU censorship.
If the EU does not like the net and links, be aware of every link used.
Find the same link outside the EU, use that one.
Can only find a link into the EU?
Tell the world why you are not linking into the EU.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Participation in the European Union definitely means you're not a sovereign nation. Not being a sovereign nation means that you do not have an actual government, you have the local authorities. You know your nation is not sovereign because there are laws you cannot enact within its borders, such as limiting the freedom of movement to and from your nation from other nations that are in the agreement as well.
The United States of Europe is more accurate.
The DMCA enabled all large platforms that have user-contributed content by absolving them from liability in return for notice-and-takedown. Even though it is a much-hated law, this safety from liability is the foundation of the internet as we know it. The European copyright law is the complete opposite: It shifts liability from the people who upload back to the platforms, who can only avoid it by trying to get licenses for everything their users might upload. This will make sure that the internet in Europe will become a mere access network for platforms outside of Europe.
If the cost of enforcing copyright exceeds the benefit of copyright to society, then the tradeoff is no longer worth it. That is, copyright has outlived its usefulness, and should be abolished. But the simplest way to make this determination is to make sure that the copyright holder bears the full cost of enforcing that copyright. Then they can simply look at how much money they're making from copyright, compare it to how much they're spending to enforce copyright, and decide whether or not copyright is worth it.
If you shift copyright enforcement costs onto someone other than the copyright holder, then you make possible a solution where copyright becomes a net drain on society, yet we retain it because we have no easy way to determine that it has become a net drain on society. So it is imperative that the copyright holder be liable for all enforcement costs. The only two choices here that make sense are the copyright holder bears the enforcement costs, or we abolish copyright.
So shifting enforcement costs onto others is stupid, because it destroys your only direct means of determining if copyright is still worth it. If the copyright holder believes enforcement by ISPs is beneficial to copyright, then they should be paying ISPs to enforce copyright. That will make it obvious if the enforcement costs has exceeded the value of copyright to society, meaning copyright is no longer worth it and should be abolished.
And FINES for FALSE TAKEDOWNs, how about 5,000 if the takedown initiate by a private and 50,000,000 if by a company.
After all, these are budgets to make a video (private) or a movie (company), and 80% of the fine should go to the victim of the false takedown.
If it is in the LAW, it has to be respected.
Anyway. And they don't care.
The fewer the platforms the fewer to enforce their rule on.
Europeans isn't supposed to talk or rule themselves anyway. The elite got better ideas.
Lose memes? GOOD! PeopleÂs post aren't visible or they are removed from the platform? GOOD!
And if you don't agree you're a threat to democracy and Europe!"#ÂRT
I'm beginning to doubt all the propaganda we were taught in "history"
I'll feed the troll: lies are "assembled" using bits of truth.
In any case, the virtual non-existence of actually Semitic Jews (i. e. Sephardic Jews) should be a good indicator that the Holocaust was a real thing, despite the obvious shadiness of those pushing the narrative the hardest.
The devil will be in the implementation details and the interpretation of the law. A harsh rendering of the law would be something to worry about, but a tech-friendly rendering would require only minor adjustments.to what is now done.
... and some bad.
The GDPR is really good and gives authorities leverage over the large internet Megacorps that couldn't give a f*ck and now face bazillion Euro fines if they don't play ball and follow the law. Very nice.
This new copyright law however is total bullshit and something like Europe equivalent of the DMCA. It doesn't impact private people as much as it does impact corps and I expect a lot of anonymous forum activity to move overseas but it still is established by institutions that don't seem to have a clue how the internet works and stick with their old structures come hell or high water. I don't really like this new bill and the smell that cove with it and hope the European Parliament takes it down again or fixed it soon.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Maybe people will get so disgusted they will seek alternative means to get their content?
( Posting AC to preserve moderation to other comments )
The expected outcome is to prevent companies from making money off someone else's intellectual property. This makes sense; however, we will have to see if this can be implemented.
"Intellectual property" is an invented term used to frame the conversation in a light most favourable to rightholders and to the detriment of society at large. The original intent of copyright was to make an incentive to create by giving the creators some limited, and time-limited, exclusivity with regard to their works, not to treat those works as "property". The excuse was that it would end up enrich the public domain, which would be a net benefit to society at large. A social contract, if you will.
Originally, the duration of the copyright lasted for 14 years (some but not all jurisdictions allowed renewal for additional 14), required explicit registration, and did not cover things like derivative works. This was thought to be a reasonable compromise even at the time when the means of distribution were physical, and therefore slow and expensive. Also, infringement was a civil rather than criminal matter.
Comparing it to today, with copyright lasting for over a hundred years (life+70, or 120 in other cases) notwithstanding almost free and near-instantaneous world-wide distribution methods, includes derivative works, and results in criminal punishments often exceeding those meted for violent crimes, as well as the willingness to sacrifice every societal or technological benefit on the altar of copyright protection for the sake of perpetual profits for middlemen (such as legally unbreakable DRM that can prevent protected content from ever entering the public domain regardless of copyright expiration), it is clear that the social contract is irrevocably broken and gets even more so with every "reform" or "modernization".
The fact that attempting to actively participate in, extend and enrich their culture without paying gatekeepers for the privilege is criminal, is morally wrong and reprehensible. The fact that it also applies to one's children, grandchildren and so on for 4 generations all but ensures that by the time something enters the public domain it represents little more than a historical curiosity. The fact that it was allowed to happen is a failure of the democratic system, and arguably of the education system as well.
Copyright, in its current form, is a blight upon society.
A large retainer for lawyers to issue copyright takedowns for any EU access to my comments on any social media, which I own the copyright to.
That's cute. From https://www.facebook.com/legal...:
"Specifically, when you share, post, or upload content that is covered by intellectual property rights (like photos or videos) on or in connection with our Products, you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, and worldwide license to host, use, distribute, modify, run, copy, publicly perform or display, translate, and create derivative works of your content (consistent with your privacy and application settings). This means, for example, that if you share a photo on Facebook, you give us permission to store, copy, and share it with others (again, consistent with your settings) such as service providers that support our service or other Facebook Products you use. "
I don't respond to AC's.
You're 'free' to leave. They'll just do everything in their power to sabotage and punish you for doing so. See Brexit.
The other big difference is the requirement to ensure unavailability of unlicensed works based on information provided about works.
And that's a big question mark. How does the directive define "relevant and necessary information"? Is it just URLs and hashes, as seen in notices of claimed infringement pursuant to 17 USC 512? Or is a copyright owner permitted to say "block anything that looks like these keyframes and sounds like this recording"? The latter would require a counterpart to YouTube's Content ID.
And FINES for FALSE TAKEDOWNs
Some legal systems have a tort called "defamation of title" or "slander of title". Recklessly claiming you own copyright in someone else's work looks like a case of defamation of title. Which EU member states' legal systems have this?
Wouldn't Article 13 (or hypothetical foreign counterparts) make your web hosting service liable for your infringement?