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European Governments Approve Controversial New Copyright Law (arstechnica.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the to-be-continued dept.

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.

8 of 96 comments (clear)

  1. Corporations can't handle.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    .. 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.

  2. Guess I'll need to find by bobstreo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Guess I'll need to find by JaredOfEuropa · · Score: 5, Informative

      1) Is not that hard. When the GDPR came into effect, people feared that a lot of non EU sites would opt to simply block EU traffic instead of taking steps to comply. In practice I have only seen one such site... as it turns out, complying with the GDPR is not hard or costly for most sites, and for many it takes no effort at all. But this is different. I expect a lot of smaller operators to block EU access or at least block them from uploading anything.

      But this is much worse: it's a first step to a priori censorship. MEPs are already contemplating using these filters to also stop the spread of terrorist ideology. Which at some point will also include extremist views. Which at some point will also include populist views. Which at some point will also include "fake" news. Which of course already includes any opinion not "fitting the narrative" of those in charge.

      --
      If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
    2. Re:Guess I'll need to find by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I regularly run into US news sites that block EU visitors because of the GDPR.

      What's much worse IMHO is that a lot of sites have these fucking useless popups. Which means I need to allow Javascript or they won't load. With Javascript comes loads of tracking bullshit and security risks. GDPR effectively made it easier to track people who don't want to be tracked.

      There were also a few hobbyist sites that shut down their forums, etc because they didn't have the time or resources to deal with it. That's a big consequence of all these EU regulations: they make it harder and harder for small companies and private citizens to be anything but consumers, thus concentrating the Internet in the hands of big corporations.

  3. Re:Don't link back to taxation and tyranny. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Or just fucking link to them, if you're not in an EU country.

    What are they going to do, extradite you?

    Don't be a pussy. This isn't even civil disobedience if you're not in their jurisdiction. Link the fuck out of them.

    If the laws aren't enacted in your country, then they're not your laws to follow. Link to the EU, take off your burqa, live like a person in a sovereign nation should live.

  4. Copyright is a tradeoff by Solandri · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Copyright trades off the right of the public to use/reproduce/distribute creative works, in exchange for the copyright holder to be incentivized to create more works. This is done under the presumption that the value the work adds to society, is greater than the cost to society of granting the copyright holder a temporary monopoly.
    • The value the work adds to society can be tabulated via how much money the copyright holder can make from selling the work during the monopoly period.
    • The cost of granting the temporary monopoly includes the cost of enforcing copyright.

    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.

  5. Re:Don't link back to taxation and tyranny. by fustakrakich · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Don't know wtf my fellow sheep are doing voting for these assholes.

    This is exactly the problem. All our problems are self inflicted. But we do need a way to protect the minority from the majority that wants to fuck them.

    --
    “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
  6. Re:Don't link back to taxation and tyranny. by thegarbz · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Don't know wtf my fellow sheep are doing voting for these assholes.

    Which arseholes? Or rather what's the alternative? Who should you vote for who you know will stand against a yet undisclosed issue lobbied for by corporations?

    Stupidity like this directive doesn't get created in a legislative vacuum by the people you vote.

    I vote pirate party all the way, but feels like I am the only one.

    The pirate party has a currently sitting MEP (Germany). You're definitely not the only one. But fundamentally the problem with parties like the pirate party is that they are single issue parties made up of people with different backgrounds and opinions on other things not core to the pirate party. That will forever keep them as a minority player.