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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.
This means that I can't link to any legitimate news site. However, fake news sites are fair game ...
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.
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.
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