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."

Comments

So long and thanks for all the fish

[thereddaikon]

We all know how this will end. Google, Facebook et al are going to just drop all EU content and depending on how aggressive the individual laws are may even just block entire countries outright. They aren't going to give up their business model over this, it will be Spain all over again and soon Euro IP's will be blocked from /. Its been fun Euro users, may we meet again some day.

Wish American companies would gtfo of EU

[reanjr]

I really wish American companies would juet abandon the EU and let them try to make their own tech. It's worked well for Russia and China. That's where the EU is headed, and I don't want them to drag the American web behind them with their giant market.

As a copyright holder, this is awful

[gillbates]

I sell art online, and without search engines indexing my copyrighted material, would find it very difficult to make a living as an artist. A blanket prohibition on linking to copyrighted content would effectively "disappear" a lot of emerging and professional artists from the internet. The internet - and its ability to reach millions of people - has made it possible for countless artists to make a living who would otherwise be unknown. Without it, we'd go back to handing control over art back to the local, physical galleries and the "starving artist" model.

Re:As a copyright holder, this is awful

[Anonymous Coward]

TFA blows things a out of proportion as usually. If we don't want to be labelled trolls and mob, because the points we make are in fact strawmen, we should at least stick to some truth.

Hyperlinks to news articles, accompanied by “individual words or very short extracts”, can be shared freely

As sharing snippets of news articles is specifically excluded from the scope of the directive, it can continue exactly as before. However, the directive also contains provisions to avoid news aggregators abusing this. The ‘snippet’ can therefore continue to appear in a Google News newsfeeds, for example, or when an article is shared on Facebook, provided it is “very short”.
Uploading protected works for quotation, criticism, review, caricature, parody or pastiche has been protected even more than it was before, ensuring that memes and Gifs will continue to be available and shareable on online platforms.

The text also specifies that uploading works to online encyclopedias in a non-commercial way, such as Wikipedia, or open source software platforms, such as GitHub, will automatically be excluded from the scope of this directive. Start-up platforms will be subject to lighter obligations than more established ones.

From the official press release http://www.europarl.europa.eu/...

The issues that you may have to face is how much of your work would be free to use by platforms like google. After all, the press release says nothing about images. It only talks about hyperlinks, which are allowed and short texts. But of course for your case that won't be helpful. You'd like previews of your art to be displayed. What category would that fall under? I can't say. If you're in doubt you'd probably have to declare somewhere that all your stuff is free to use by anyone.

Re:Not democracy

[cayenne8]

Well, if this does stand....I think this might actually be the first legitimate situation where companies such as Google, etc....pull their servers OUT of Europe, or at least out of EU countries so they aren't beholden to such stifling laws?

I mean, EU countries can still reach Google, but without servers there in those countries, it might be milliseconds slower, but not noticeable by most humans using them?

Hell, if Brexit happens, Google could move them all to England, eh?

Easy Way To Solve The Problem

[pollarda]

Google / FB just requires a new HTML header that explicitly gives them permission. If the header isnâ(TM)t there, Google just displays the link and no additional information. As soon as the media outlets watch their views plummet they will either add the header or demand the law be changed immediately.

Re:Not democracy

[Anonymous Coward]

The commissioners are civil servants (and civil servants are not elected in any country I have ever heard of)

You are correct that civil servants in countries are not elected - but neither do they enjoy the powers of the EU commission. The EU commission is the only entity within the EU that can propose new legislation ... which is really a major part of the role of the elected legislature in a democracy.