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Europe Passes Controversial Online Copyright Reforms (venturebeat.com)
EU lawmakers today endorsed an overhaul of the bloc's two-decade old copyright rules, which will force Google and Facebook to pay publishers for use of news snippets and make them filter out protected content. From a report: The set of copyright rules known as the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market, but more succinctly as the EU Copyright Directive, has been debated and discussed for several years. While it is broadly uncontroversial in many regards, there are two facets to the directive that has caused the internet to freak out. Article 11, which has been dubbed the "link tax," stipulates that websites pay publishers a fee if they display excerpts of copyrighted content -- or even link to it. This obviously could have big ramifications for services such as Google News. Then there is Article 13, dubbed the "upload filter," which would effectively make digital platforms legally liable for any copyright infringements on their platform, which has stoked fears that it would stop people from sharing content -- such as GIF-infused memes -- on social networks. In a statement, EFF said, "In a stunning rejection of the will five million online petitioners, and over 100,000 protestors this weekend, the European Parliament has abandoned common-sense and the advice of academics, technologists, and UN human rights experts, and approved the Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive in its entirety."
Actually you and everyone else should read up on how the EU parliament actually works.
The EU parliament cannot propose laws, only veto proposed laws.
Who gets to actually propose the laws? An unseen group of unelected bureaucrats that are not under any elected control. Who runs them? Who knows? George Soros and company I guess.
The EU is built along the lines of the Soviet style politburo. It is designed to give the ILLUSION of democracy while keeping actual control in the hands of a select, hidden few.
Welcome the the Soviet Socialist Republic of Europe...
As an artist with multiple music projects, fuck you. I now have to worry about when my music will get falsely registered with ContentID & friends and I get blackmailed for it. Oh, or I can register with a local RIAA alternative, which doesn't actually redistribute money to anyone not signed to a major deal while completely killing any chance for a tour.
Yeah, I'm thrilled to be "protected".
And ContentID is a horrible failure. Blackmailing Youtube channels with the threat of illegitimate copyright claims against them has become a valid business model.
The parliament is democratically elected. Next election being in May.
The council is composed of elected ministers, one from each member state.
The commissioners are civil servants (and civil servants are not elected in any country I have ever heard of) that are appointed by the council.
More either uninformed or deliberate misinformation.
An unseen group of unelected bureaucrats that are not under any elected control. Who runs them? Who knows?
Laws a proposed by the Commission, which is made up of representatives appointed by each member state's government, which in turn is made up of people you elect.
They are a civil service, similar to how politicians on most member states don't actually write the laws themselves, they have civil servants write them and then review and ask for changes.
The idea is that the Commission takes direction from the Council, which is made up of member states' leaders (i.e. people you elected), comes up with proposals that they think will make things better and puts them to the Parliament. The Parliament can reject them or ask for changes if necessary.
In addition, member states have vetoes in many cases, including anything which requires a new treaty to implement.
Also, if the Parliament doesn't like what the Commission or the Council is doing, it can get rid of them. That happened in 1999. The Parliament is DIRECTLY elected by citizens of member states.
If you don't know this it's because you are wilfully ignorant.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC