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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."
I told you this is what would happen if we let regular people use computers.
Laws not written by the people for the people, the EU showing it doesn't give a fuck about democracy.
Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
Hope they pull facebook from europe good!
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.
This means that I can't link to any legitimate news site. However, fake news sites are fair game ...
I wouldn't blame any company for completely blocking all uploads of anything including text / comments, this law simply isn't workable, it's complete censorship. Fucking idiot politicians and yes I contacted my meps about this more than once.
Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
The internet was built around two basic principles: links are free and you can upload everything and sort out the mess later.
Now really, what's the rationale behind charging for a hyperlink, even if no content is displayed? Greed? Stupidity? Idiocy?
I suppose this is European content providers trying to build a wall around their "internet?"
This is very easy to fix. All search engines and websites in general boycott publishers that backed this and that would demand payment for linking/snipping by simply removing all links to them, period. No search results. No links from other websites. Let's see how long publishers survive when nobody can find their shit.
The end result? The publishers will be begging the EU to reverse this.
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.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
Seriously? You still believe that Copyright "protects artists"?
We had such a law in Germany. The Urheberrecht! An author's privilege law! Implicit and non-transferable too!
Copyright is a *distributor's privilege*! To take power *away* from artists. By the same distributors that regularly try to *lower* the meaningless peanuts that artists get from the cake.
If you had ever been an artist, you'll know that they get their money from gigs and merchandising, and it has been shown time and time again, that if they just share all their works as a form of marketing, they make *more* money, than they ever did from copyright!
I've worked in the organized crime called "media industry" for two decades now. My mentor did since the 60s. We've personally seen it all. EMI bosses *requiring* hookers and blow to even consider negoating contracts. Band after band hooked on contracts, sucked dry, and thrown away. Designer after designer used, madr money from, and laughing in his face when he has to go buy his own work in the shop and license it, to be even able to play with it. Even parties that turned into "Wolf of Wall Street"-style "basically mass-rape" orgies.
And we both agree that the ENTIRE "media industry" thing is just cokehead paranoia and overconfidence turned into a "business", and is, will be, and has always been solely for the purpose of leeching on artists and their fans without doing any value-adding work whatsoever yourself.
So excuse me if I, in the name of all artists ever, give you a big fat FUCK YOU from the middle of my fingers.
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.
Yes, that's why the EU parliament is essentially powerless. It's mostly a dump for politicians you can't keep at home because they're a liability and you can't just fire because they know too much. Essentially, it's what we came up with when political murder went out of fashion.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.