
Italy Wikipedia shuts down in protest at proposed EU copyright law - mikece
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-44696302
======
mabbo
> Mr Voss also rubbished claims of an "upload filter", saying the proposal
> would only affect 1%-5% of the internet. He also said the rules would apply
> to "only those that actually publish copyright protected content" and earn
> money from it.

The rubbish I see here is a man who doesn't understand the laws he's trying to
push forward. All websites (for the most part) are trying to make at least
enough money to keep running via advertising. Any website with a comments
section (hey, this one included) would need to extensively monitor all posts
by the public to ensure no one posts anything copyrighted.

What it will effectively mean is that many websites won't bother allowing
access from the EU anymore. Already, I have to screenshot and email my sister
in Britain recipes from a Canadian website that doesn't want to deal with
GDPR. Imagine how difficult it will be when there's copyright liabilities from
content you didn't know you were 'publishing'.

~~~
sgift
> The rubbish I see here is a man who doesn't understand the laws he's trying
> to push forward.

He fully understands what he wants, but he is a member of CDU, so he couldn't
care less. This whole shit happened because German publishers got their
beloved "Leistungsschutzrecht" kicked into the bin by the constitutional
court. So, instead of accepting defeat they and their cronies started lobbying
in the EU, so they can reintroduce it and say "Oh, we are so sorry, we didn't
want to do this, but they FORCED US!" ... its an age old strategy.

~~~
pjc50
This is one of the _real_ problems with EU policymaking: "policy laundering".
National governments are often in on it as well. Because the process is slow,
somewhat opaque, and badly covered in national press, lobbyists can get things
passed without adequate public debate.

(It's not precisely a "democratic/undemocratic" thing either, because it can
happen equally well at the national level.)

~~~
cordite
Isn’t this in concept what contributed to Brexit?

~~~
pjc50
Perhaps, but if anything the UK's own government and press were major
offenders in this regard. A lot of incidents where the UK government _could_
have done something within the EU framework but chose not to are blamed on the
EU by the press.

As we are now seeing on trade, immigration, agriculture, etc, having the UK
government try to take responsibility for those areas means the controversy
immediately blows up in their face as suddenly they can no longer say
different things to different audiences.

~~~
bograt
> Perhaps, but if anything the UK's own government and press were major
> offenders in this regard.

It's quite possible that this behaviour by the UK political classes is what
hastened to movement towards Brexit. I personally think that many people in
the UK were aware of the behaviour, by both major parties, of using the EU to
impose laws for which they lacked democratic support technocratically. Since
there was no electable party that stood in contrast to this, the electorate
took its opportunity by evicting the EU instead. Seen in this light, Brexit is
as much a reflection of a failure of national politics, as it is of
continental politics.

The mantra 'taking back control' of many Brexit supporters is perhaps better
seen as citizens wanting to stop their government from acting in ways they
don't vote for, than as the government taking back control from the EU.

The dissembling (as I see it) of politicians from across the EU on this law
(and others before it) indicates that this is not a problem that is restricted
to the UK.

~~~
simonh
Brexit was about immigration. Nothing else comes close. I think you're right
that this was in the mix, but so were a hundred other factors that might have
got raised here or there, but they're all dwarfed by immigration.

Britain more than any other member has managed to get exclusion clauses from
any EU regulations or rules we didn't want, so the argument that we couldn't
do anything about rules imposed by Brussels is obviously untrue. We opted out
of stuff all the time, it was routine. The irony is that if we end up in a
soft Brexit situation with an open trade deal with the EU, we won't be able to
negotiate any opt-outs anymore because we won't have any representation in
Brussels. We'll have to take everything Brussels serves up, or crash out hard.

~~~
ben_w
Not to deny that immigration was a major part, but the belief is more
important than reality for both that and sovereignty. Yes, the UK had a great
deal with loads of opt-outs, but that didn’t stop the papers blaming the EU
for everything — including immigration, which was mostly non-EU.

------
TekMol
The web is becoming more and more fragmented. I wonder where this will lead
to. Europe seems to fall behind the US at an accelerating pace.

During the last two decades, Europe already failed to take part in building
the internet. Now Europeans all use US services. Amazon, Ebay, Facebook,
Google, Dropbox, AirBnB, Uber...

This was due to the culture of Europes entrepreneurs which is often
"bureaucracy first, product later".

Now lawmakers seem busy putting another burden on top of that. Laws that put
Europe behind the rest of the world in how easy it is to build online
services.

Where will Europe be in 20 years? Will it become a developing continent of the
digital area? Or will German Engineers somehow make up for innovation via
assiduous execution? I find it hard to see how that could work.

Politicians might think 'Now that we have the web, lets regulate it'. But I
wonder: Now that we lost the web, how will we avoid the same with AI? AI will
have orders of magnitude more impact on our lives then the web. How will we
avoid losing crypto? In the age of crypto, people might freely chose what
currency to use. Do we want the worlds currency to be owned by a US company?
How will we avoid losing biotech? Will the same happen to our bodies that
happened to our data? Will they be owned by a handful of US companies?

~~~
akvadrako
Europe is not falling behind the US. That's bullshit. I'm an American living
in Amsterdam for a decade or so, so I have some perspective.

All those companies you mentioned are prominent, but they are only important
because they are a few percent cheaper or more useful or have better
marketing. But they come at a high cost to society.

European cultures are different. It moves slower. Rules are more acceptable.
But the things it produces are more polished. Amsterdam is better than any US
city, for example.

~~~
rorykoehler
I'm a European (born and bred) who just renounced US citizenship (gained
through parent) and I have to counter you. Yes Amsterdam is way better than
any US city but that has nothing to do with internet entrepreneurship. The EU,
European governments and European culture in general do not support
entrepreneurs. I bootstrapped a company in Berlin and all the government did
was try find ways to shut us down. Our main competitor (Rocket Internet
company) had the means to deal with this BS but as we were a small scrappy
bootstrapped company we were treated like dirt. The Stripe story is very
telling in this regard. Before moving to SV they tried to launch with Irish
banks as partners and were laughed at for being naive children. No one is
laughing anymore.

~~~
akvadrako
That example isn’t very convincing. I’ve only seen 1 or so service use stripe
and their transaction costs are very high. You can’t call it’s existence
positive without evoking some cultural values.

Plus, Europe is way ahead of the us in terms of banking convinence and
efficiency.

~~~
rorykoehler
Stripe is a multi-billion dollar company. It could have been Irish based for
free. The Irish government spend billions to attract companies like Stripe.
Also Stripe is a global brand now used by tens of thousands of businesses.

~~~
inflagranti
Wasn't Theranos multibillion valued at some point? Not trying to imply
anything about Stripe being fraudulent, just evoking an extreme example of
clear overvaluation to put such numbers into perspective. Stripe might also
very well not have made much sense for Irish banks and a lot for US ones. Time
will tell whether that was a mistake.

~~~
rorykoehler
Nonsense on all counts.

~~~
inflagranti
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theranos](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theranos)

Ironically, your single statement was actually "nonsense on all accounts" as
Theranos definitely was valued multiple billions at some point.

------
x775
I encourage everyone in the EU to reach out to their representatives by mail
(or by phone, even better!) and let them know how you feel about the proposal.
I have already sent mails to mine, and have at time of writing gotten two
responses indicating a shared opposition of the proposal. I moreover asked
whether they are experiencing any significant surge in comments compared to
other controversial topics to which they, much to my disappointment, said they
are not. Whilst this likely depends entirely on the representative in
question, I was reassured that every comment was read and taken into
consideration - if anything then in an aggregated manner.

~~~
LaurentS
I've just put together a simple list of MEPs and their voting intentions (far
from complete, it's only the few I've heard about more or less directly). It
would be great if you can add what you've heard from MEPs you've spoken to. If
anything, it may help focus efforts when speaking to MEPs.
[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1A8H7OQfyjzdn8RhQ7ifw...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1A8H7OQfyjzdn8RhQ7ifwMoKp8axVjjkEXRu4PJUY1zg/edit#gid=0)

~~~
Kliment
One important aspect about this is that this week's vote is a simple yes/no
matter. If the vote is yes, the proposal continues to the next stage
unamended. If the vote is no, each specific part of the proposal will be
subject to amendments, which can then be voted on in a separate session. So
having this table divided by article is not very sensible.

I called a bunch of German MEPs over the past few weeks. I spoke to every
parliamentary group except the far-right. The CDU and CSU are voting for this,
which makes sense as it's their proposal. They had zero interest in talking
about the actual contents, saying instead that Voss is their expert on the
topic and they trust his opinion. Every other parliamentary group among the
German MEPs is opposed. There is one person in the Green group that is an
exception (Helga Trüpel). She is violently in support and doesn't seem to want
to discuss the matter (when I called a staffer told me that they were
overwhelmed with calls about this topic and I should call another time but her
Twitter feed leaves zero doubts). Every other member of the Green group is
against, as are all the FDP representatives, all the SDP representatives, and
all the Linke representatives. I didn't feel comfortable speaking with any AfD
and associated people. I spoke to a handful of CDU people who asked me to
email with specific questions, and then replied to said email with a one-liner
saying they fully support their colleague's proposal. It's still a good idea
to call German representatives outside the CDU/CSU faction and ask them to
please attend the vote - attendance is possibly going to be more important
here than convincing them of a position because it appears the party lines are
now clear.

It might be a good idea to NOT call EPP/CDU/CSU members because that might
motivate them to attend and the lower their attendance the better.

------
abhiminator
>Article 13 has been the most controversial, requiring websites to enforce
copyright, _even on content uploaded by users._ (emphasis mine)

This is laughable. Laws like the aforementioned shows how disconnected the
lawmakers and regulators in the European Union (not that they're unique) are
from the tech/media industry and general internet-using public at large.

Regulations like these could backfire real bad even with best of intentions
from folks at the helm of regulatory bodies, who -- more often than not --
have scanty, if any, understanding of the how online social platforms work.

~~~
dokein
It turns out that regulations are made largely by old lawyers, who are more
connected and charismatic than smart and practical, and haven't operated in
the real-world for decades.

~~~
jonhendry18
"It turns out that regulations are made largely by old lawyers, who are more
connected and charismatic than smart and practical, and haven't operated in
the real-world for decades."

Maybe that's the career path for aging programmers. Get a law degree.

~~~
rorykoehler
This is a fantastic idea. Perhaps HN community could start an initiative to
support this. Ageism in tech is a huge problem that is widely discussed here
as is the disconnect between technology and law makers. It is in fact the
perfect intersection which will result in the maximum value add impact for
ageing technologists.

I have created a post to discuss this further:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17455017](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17455017)

------
walterbell
Since the companies who are advocating for economic censorship of the open web
like lists so much, is there a github repo of all companies:products:services
and associated lobbyists who are advocating for the proposed EU copyright law?

Such a list will be necessary for mass-market _boycott, divestment and
sanction_ of the companies who killed the open web. Users will have lots of
time available to focus and channel their energy, if these laws are passed,
economically outlawing most user-generated content.

In the history of online and offline publishing, what have been the commercial
and censorship consequences of centralized copyright registers/databases and
pre/post publication filters?

~~~
gota
Just some trivia, and I'm sorry if I get any details wrong;

a former colleague (who is now a PhD student at Northwestern, in the US) made
a Chrome extension that used publicly available data to transform every
mention of a politician or political party into a 'link'. By hovering the
mouse, the extension showed you exactly who/what companies donated how much to
that politican/party.

It was eye opening to read the news with that on. He even made national
headlines here (not EU).

Eventually the project was canned because the public source was discontinued
by the government.

~~~
317070
I made something similar for Belgium a while back [0]. Unfortunately, all I
had were the official resources. How much is earned for most of the positions
is not public information (or is well hidden in opaque structures). This form
of information augmentation has an enormous impact on how you can consume the
news.

[0] [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hoeveel-
verdient-e...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hoeveel-verdient-een-
poli/fflfmdjmelaknahhfdfphpebpfjhlcid)

------
anoncow
The internet that we have now, wouldn't have been possible with laws like
these in place. Remember that when you are trying to rationalise this and
other overreaching laws like the GDPR. We will be destroying the future if we
allow this.

~~~
supuun
What's wrong with GDPR?

~~~
jamesgeck0
It impacts the majority of the web and it's vague in a number of important
places.

------
CydeWeys
It's worth pointing out the slight error in the article title here --
Wikipedia isn't organized by countries but by languages. Now granted, most
Italian speakers are in Italy, so this isn't as bad of an error as conflating
the Portuguese Wikipedia (most readers are Brazilian) with Portugal, or the
English Wikipedia with England.

But Italian is also an official language of Switzerland, and fairly widely
spoken in other countries like Slovenia and Croatia, and of course the whole
expat Italian community in places like the US and Southern America.

And, most saliently, the Italian Wikipedia, like all Wikipedias, is run by a
US-based organization, the Wikimedia Foundation. This affects the legal
ramifications of this law on the Italian Wikipedia greatly.

~~~
circlefavshape
Wikipedia _servers_ are run by The Wikimedia Foundation. The wikipedias
themselves are run by their own communities

~~~
CydeWeys
The local communities can be (and have been) overridden on policies by the
WMF. They aren't sovereign. It all comes down to the WMF, ultimately. They
have final say on everything. Local language communities are more like _users_
of the site, from a legal perspective.

------
dejudicibus
We need support to ensure that everybody in world understand that the web is
in danger. Not the European web because there is nothing like that. Web is
global. If this law will be approved, it will impact the whole web and create
a precedent for other countries to approve similar regulations. All
governments, even the Western ones, want to control the web. This is a first
tragic step. So, please, shut down all Wikipedia in world for at least one
day. It is a small sacrifice to obtain a great victory for freedom. An Italian
Wikipedian

------
flurdy
I see the EC responded to Jimmy's tweet:
[https://twitter.com/EU_Commission/status/1014131021137285127](https://twitter.com/EU_Commission/status/1014131021137285127)

~~~
mljoe
The Wikimedia Foundation hosts collaborative projects which are not
encyclopedias. WikiNews for instance cuts right into the heart of what EC is
trying to stop. Really shows how much thought the EC put into their "arbitrary
exceptions to appease powerful entities" strategy.

------
tzfld
I don't know if there is something more irritating than seeing people in power
trying to regulate a field they have no idea about.

~~~
marcodave
I would guess that more irritating than that, are ignorant people trying to
discuss a field they have no idea about (I'm looking at you, antivaxxers)

------
hartator
Funny that we heard so much about net neutrality, but no one seems to care
about copyright laws or GDPR.

~~~
rarec
Funny how American dominated websites care more of American politics over
European ones.

To be glib about it, it also goes to show the demographics at work here. Even
now, GDPR resulted in more of a pain for Europeans than Americans; it's quite
common now to see comments about how this site is blocked in Europe or some
bypass method to get to an article. This copyright law will very likely amount
to the same deal, being a thorn in the side of Europeans but Americans
couldn't care less.

------
nopacience
Would Hacker News
([https://news.ycombinator.com](https://news.ycombinator.com)) suffer directly
since it exists out of content generated by users (Article 13) ? And it links
to other websites. (Article 11) ?

Who is behind the recent changes on the internet ?

Months ago Agit Pai(FCC) ended net neutrality.

Month ago, may 25th, GDPR initiated (except this benefits the individual).

Now there is a push for laws that defeat the basics of the internet, the
hyperlink:

Article 11: requires online platforms to pay publishers a fee if they link to
their news content.

Article 13: requiring websites to enforce copyright, even on content uploaded
by users.

There is a bigger force behind those recent major changes that can break the
internet as we know. But who ?

~~~
beagle3
GDPR is for the people, was passed over a year ago.

Don’t put all these things together.

------
ashelmire
I believe I found the text of the proposed law, though this may be an older
version: [https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-
content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A...](https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-
content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A52016PC0593)

>Article 11 of the proposed law requires online platforms to pay publishers a
fee if they link to their news content.

I don't see how the law does this. The proposal states, under section 33:

>This protection does not extend to acts of hyperlinking which do not
constitute communication to the public.

This is the only mention of linking that I could find in the law.

As for article 13, it does seem far too broad. There needs to be explicit
exemptions for what we call "fair use" in the US. Educational, research,
transformative uses, parody, etc, must be preserved.

------
TekMol
There would be a simple solution to a law that forbids linking to content
without consent of the author:

Only link to content where the author added a standardized 'You are free to
link to this page.' meta tag.

In no time, every page on the net would carry that tag. Because authors _want_
to be linked to.

------
lostjohnny
Could this be the renaissance of RSS syndication?

The users autonomously aggregate the RSS published by the authors or the
owners of the content an build their own personal aggregators at home.

You wanna share it?

Just share the links to the RSS (which are public and used exactly for that
purpose)

The owner is in control of what's being distributed, the user is in control of
what they are reading

Wikipedia itself is a form a centralization of data and content, which is
undesirable anyway.

------
kodablah
Ha. The scope and enforcement of these actions and their predecessors make me
want to write a new children's book entitled, "The Boy Who Cried 'Follow This
Large Internet Law'".

------
mongol
It is such bullshit to talk about "copyrighted content" as if there were
special more important kinds that are protected. Even CC content is
copyrighted

------
gonvaled
I hope this law is used to rebalance how unfairly the US has treated the EU in
services.

------
ccnafr
EU policy lobbying at its finest

~~~
akerro
Over 50000 people work full time lobbying in EU

[http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/headlines/eu-
affairs/2...](http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/headlines/eu-
affairs/20180108STO91215/transparency-register-who-is-lobbying-the-eu-
infographic)

------
personjerry
Why Italy? Why not a country with more impact on EU laws, like Germany or
France?

------
pier25
So I imagine this would only apply to servers hosted in the EU, no?

~~~
akerro
And services that make money in EU. Technically your service won't be able
sell or buy from EU companies without having this filter and respecting
(another dead regulation) GDPR.

------
lorenzobr
This is just another shitshow driven by publishers, unions and music labels
lobbying politicians in the attempt to make money given they have no clue how
to innovate and make money anymore.

I wish people in the news would call this bs out for what it is but I doubt
they ever will considered news publishers are among the ones lobbying. They'll
be happy for us to be forced through their bs paywalls.

This is a very different matter from the GDPR, don't get fooled.

------
Pica_soO
Once more into the breach deer friends..

Again and again we are supposed to rally, infinite protest against rows and
rows of copyright reform - this is a dead alley. No protest culture or NGO has
ever sustained a movement as long as the market interests undermining the
allmende and democracy.

The right to time wise inject laws similar in intention into the governing
process- must be limited. Once a proposal has been voted for or against, it
must be stable for 4 or 8 years. Stable being only open to more precise
definition, but not intent inversion or redefinition.

------
walterstucco
As Italian, I feel like this is gone completely out of hand.

Wikipedia content is licensed under CC license. There's no way their content
could not be linked elsewhere.

Wikipedia also rises the question of the content they link, as, for example in
the footnotes

In Italy it can be admitted under the "right to inform" (diritto di cronaca),
it applies to everyone, not only to the press

Most of all the law only applies to content sharing providers, not to
individuals

This is similar to what Xanadu envisioned, and could start a real fight back
to fake news and the spreading of lies and online violence towards minorities

EU has a long history of being with the people of EU, not the corporations and
I trust them

Besides, the law in Italy is being opposed by the worst kind of net abusers
around, some of them are in charge thanks to the wave of fake news that
started with Cambridge Analytica and some of them have been called out by CA
itself (even though they didn't explicitly said the names, there are evidences
that Matteo Salvini, leader of Lega, have been working with them)

------
x_marco_it_x
I thought that wikipedia was made for the use of the public, but it is using
the public (denying access to the encyclopedia to it) to promote the political
agenda of a smaller group (the wikipedia community) instead. If the role of
the internet is to concentrate resources, to put out of business alternatives,
to command and conquer the masses, it's better to legistlate it away. I want
my encarta disks back.

~~~
marcoc
You're either trolling or a russian bot. No sane person can believe that
Wikipedia is pushing a political agenda ("using the public" !?) to "put out of
business alternatives". Wikipedia is defending an idea on which the Internet
and Wikipedia itself is build. And the smaller group you refer to is a group
of hundreds of millions of daily users.

