
European Parliament approves copyright reform - haywirez
https://twitter.com/Senficon/status/1110509970213294081
======
dang
[https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/03/eus-parliament-
signs-d...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/03/eus-parliament-signs-
disastrous-internet-law-what-happens-next) is related.

------
random878
As someone who grew up alongside the internet, I wonder if this is just part
of the bigger picture of where the internet has always been heading...

The bigger, more popular, and ubiquitous it became the more corporate and
political powers were going to seek to rule it. Now were are at an age of
internet giants with the GDP of small countries, and political elections being
swayed by the bovine herds of Facebook and Twitter users (or useds as Stallman
calls them!). The internet has come so far from my happy memories of the late
90s.

My prediction is that we will see multiple 'internets'. Whether for political
reasons (e.g. China), or commercial (someone like Facebook or Google providing
_their_ version of internet to a 3rd world country).

Then of course we have things like dark web. I think many will stop seeing the
darkweb as a place of CP and drug dealing, and more of an internet free from
regulation.

It's an interesting point in history. . . . (I'm a bookwork so please share
any recommendations on this topic!)

~~~
nkkollaw
Very interesting.

If the dark web becomes popular though, won't the same people try to regulate
it?

They could make .onion link illegal for ISPs to load and kill it overnight.

~~~
mimimi31
That's actually already been proposed in Germany. The parliamentary state
secretary of the interior ministry just last month said:

"People who use the darknet usually are up to no good. This simple realization
should be reflected in our legal system."

and

"I understand why the darknet can be useful in autocratic systems. But in a
free and open democracy, in my opinion, there is no legitimate use."

~~~
johnzim
The irony is quite delicious.

~~~
a1369209993
Really? Tastes bitter and a tad coppery to me.

------
Funes-
This will be an unpopular perspective on the matter, so you have been warned:
Article 13 only affects _for-profit_ platforms that host and share copyrighted
material. These platforms are run by big corporations that turn a huge profit
by way of selling your personal data, violating your privacy, and having a
persuasive (addictive) design in order to glue you to the screen so they can
maximize their ad revenue, dismissing any human cost those practices entail.

You want to regain your freedom? Use not-for-profit, decentralized platforms
instead. You can use Mastodon [0] instead of Twitter, PeerTube [1] instead of
YouTube, Aether [2] instead of reddit, etcetera. Other interesting P2P
projects are DAT's Beaker Browser [3], and ZeroNet [4]. None of those will
have problems with Article 13.

[0] [https://mastodon.social](https://mastodon.social) [1]
[https://joinpeertube.org](https://joinpeertube.org) [2]
[https://getaether.net](https://getaether.net) [3]
[https://beakerbrowser.com/](https://beakerbrowser.com/) [4]
[https://zeronet.io/](https://zeronet.io/)

EDIT: "Such [content-sharing] services should not include services that have a
main purpose other than that of enabling users to upload and share a large
amount of copyright-protected content with the purpose of obtaining profit
from that activity." This is from page 62 of the document wherein Article
13/17 is to be found.

~~~
ralala
This also affects small online communities, who pay for their servers by
running a few ads. There are a lot of these platforms.

~~~
marcodave
> small online communities, who pay for their servers by running a few ads

if those communities are aiming for a break even at best, would those as well
be considered "for profit", though?

~~~
tremon
Yes. For-profit is a de-facto legal term, and includes every enterprise that
isn't registered as a non-profit.

------
philpem
As I said on one of the other threads...

26 March 2019. The day the Internet died.

(at least in Europe)

But of course -- "the Internet interprets censorship as damage and routes
around it" \-- so what we're likely to see is a massive spike in people
streaming video over encrypted tunnels into other countries.

That'd be interesting. It'd render GeoIP rather moot, among other things. I
suspect the EU and Member States' response would be either "VPNs are banned"
or "no service catering for EU users may talk through a VPN endpoint".

~~~
onlyrealcuzzo
What's weird to me is: Europe isn't exactly a content powerhouse. Why are they
so concerned with copyright protections?

~~~
koonsolo
Because politicians are stupid. If you look at the pros and cons of this law,
Europe has nothing to gain. Not for the people, not for the companies.

This is a law that works to mainly serve the big copyright holders, and in a
second degree, impacts the big tech multinationals (=read US companies) less
than the smaller ones.

It makes no sense at all. Especially since all member states will have their
own law. "Does our filter comply with Belgium law? Also with Luxemburg? And
what about Slovenia?".

It's a big farce, that can only be approved by total morons that don't even
bother to listen to people who actually know what they're talking about.

~~~
ABCLAW
This isn't a law that serves multinationals; quite the opposite.

The proportionality requirement in the text of Art. 13 is more onerous to
larger corporations. If you're a tiny blog with a banner ad or two, you're not
getting slapped off the internet for having a comments field, because it isn't
proportional to require cost and complexity increases of multiple orders of
magnitude to police your comments section. Unless someone comes up with
Compliance.ly & Co. which does the work for you at a price-point that is
reasonable, in which case we've just opened up a new industry which hopefully
results in Content ID going the way of the Dodo.

After some litigation occurs in which the boundaries of proportionality are
set, we'll be in a better position to analyze the impact of this law.

~~~
fhrow4484
When reading comments like this it feels like: there's no ambitious startup in
Europe to become one of the large companies. Because now a startup has less
than 3 years to add this content filtering, which provided as a service or
not, is going to cost €€€.

Do you think Spotify would be able to grow if it was created on March 27 2019
instead of 2008?

A successful Content filtering as a service (compliance.ly & co. In your
example), assuming it gets adopted by all major websites, seems like it would
shift the problem to an even bigger gatekeeper than YouTube, how is this a
good thing?

~~~
ABCLAW
>Because now a startup has less than 3 years to add this content filtering,
which provided as a service or not, is going to cost €€€.

Not really? This isn't a flat 'you need to pay 10k a yr regardless of your
size' imposition. Proportionality is important.

The articles, as written, are interesting because they already mention a ton
of the balancing considerations. All of those are completely absent in these
conversations.

Do you know why that's an issue? Because sometime soon people are going to
start getting bullshit copyright trolling demand letters, and all this furor
about how the internet is dead is going to convince them to close up shop or
cave instead of saying 'nah, serve me your originating documents, this is a
bogus claim'.

And _that 's_ how the internet will die.

>Do you think Spotify would be able to grow if it was created on March 27 2019
instead of 2008?

If the competitive landscape was the same? Yes. In fact, Spotify's arc is
exactly what this law is attempting to encourage. As they grew, they became a
quasi licensing clearinghouse instead of another Napster or Limewire. That's
the entire point.

>how is this a good thing?

Because you don't end up with 1 compliance service, and you can litigate
against the compliance service if they're inappropriately killing your content
creation business. As it stands now, if you try to fight YouTube or the
content delivery pipeline itself on the basis of their filters, you die.
That's not necessarily the case if there's a healthy competitive filter
ecosystem. Whether or not we get to that point is another question, though.

~~~
koonsolo
> Not really? This isn't a flat 'you need to pay 10k a yr regardless of your
> size' imposition. Proportionality is important.

In practice, it will all be up to the judge:

1\. Was your AI filter adequate enough to properly filter the content

2\. If not, how high can the fine be?

There is 1 easy solution to all of this: incorporate outside of the EU.

~~~
ABCLAW
>In practice, it will all be up to the judge

That's the case for any piece of legislation.

The test isn't 'if your AI was good enough'. For the majority of people the
most important part is: 'is it proportional to even use AI at your size?'

To which the answer is no.

If you're running a stream or youtube channel of self-created content, the
cost of moving dramatically exceeds the total cost of legal risk you're eating
in staying put.

~~~
koonsolo
The problem for streamers is not the legal part, it's the filtering part.

~~~
ABCLAW
Let's be precise then. Streamers are already getting abused by Content ID.

How does the EU legislation change how that works? It already exists.

Edit: Content ID already covers the requirements of Art. 13 under any
reasonable reading of the legislation. Things aren't going to get worse
because of the legislation. They'll get worse because of pressure from their
content partners and because they refuse to spend on human support. Why spend
when you can do nothing instead?

Your speculation doesn't make legal or business sense.

~~~
koonsolo
Since YouTube itself can be sued now, they will lean towards a stricter false
positive filter. If you think Content ID is bad, then this will be way worse.
Because letting through copyrighted material can be more costly than
disallowing new content.

But hey, if you are outside of the EU, no problem. So guess what streamers
will do.

This is not rocket science you know. This is just simple cause and
consequence.

Stricter filters for EU citizens. And hey, maybe if we are lucky, YouTube
decides EU isn't worth the effort anymore and decide to use the block filter.

------
montenegrohugo
A big part of the problem is that there is no single entity that defends the
citizens interest in this instance. You have the Disney's of the world heavily
lobbying to pass reforms like these, but who protests against it?

\- Online signatures? Gets laughed out of the room. They could be fake, they
don't mean anything, they are paid, etc..

\- Voting? Voting cycles are too long and voting decisions cannot be made on a
single issue, so this is ineffective at best.

\- Street Protests? It seems this is the only option. But as said in the
article, even the credibility of these can be put into question.

So what do we do?

~~~
zaarn
EU Elections are coming up. Vote for the pirate faction in your country or
check who voted what and only vote for those parties that voted against A13 or
if there are none, parties that are vocal against A13.

Same goes for your countries own election cycle.

~~~
Shivetya
American here.

Now I know some nations within the EU have proportional voting but I have to
ask, how difficult is it to unseat a politician? How difficult is it to do so
within their party, are there the equivalent of the US primary system?

For the US, unless they are not running the chance of reelection is very high
so without some sort of political shift not governed by one of our two parties
is near impossible.

~~~
jnaddef
French here.

To be honest in France almost nobody knows who is seating at the European
Parliament, we have absolutely no visibility to what is being voted, even less
who voted what.

A commonly accepted view (at least around me, I might be biased) is that our
representatives there are useless, whoever they are. We had about 60%
abstention in 2014's elections, I think that says it all.

------
paganel
> France’s current batch of national politicians have consistently advocated
> for the worst parts of the Directive, and the Macron administration may seek
> to grab an early win for the country’s media establishment.

Macron is a crook. If any other president from any other civilized country
would have sent the military to guard against its citizens' street protests
[1] then that president would have been (rightly) called out the worst names,
instead Macron is still seen by a large part of the mainstream media as this
savior of European civilization and democracy.

[1] [http://en.rfi.fr/france/20190320-military-be-deployed-
saturd...](http://en.rfi.fr/france/20190320-military-be-deployed-saturdays-
french-yellow-vests-protests)

~~~
nkkollaw
In Europe it's normal to use the military for a variety of reasons.

Specially since military draft was made voluntary, in Italy the military are
used to walk around at train stations, help out in case of protests, etc.

Actually, in Italy we have two institutions that are seen as "police": Police
and Carabinieri. Carabinieri are exactly the same, but they're part of the
military.

As for:

> Macron is still seen by a large part of the mainstream media as this savior
> of European civilization and democracy

The media is usually biased towards left-wing ideology, with a globalist spin.
Since Macron embodies both those ideals, it's easy to see why he gets helped
by the media.

I have no idea why the French would think that a banker who married his high-
school teacher would be one of them. He definitely turned out NOT to be on the
side of the average French citizen.

~~~
_ph_
I checked with a French friend, in France (like in Germany) it is illegal to
send military forces to do any kind of police like duties. However, under the
"terror fighting" emergencies still active, military forces are on French
streets.

~~~
ceejayoz
The line between police and military in France is a bit blurry, given that the
two national police forces - police nationale and gendarmerie nationale - are
themselves part of the French military.

Hell, the Paris fire department is an Army unit.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Fire_Brigade](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Fire_Brigade)

~~~
Juliate
Police Nationale is not part of the military. And fire department and
Gendarmerie Nationale being army units has more to do with
historical/organizational/governance reasons, than with a military-specific
purpose. GN core mission is one of police, pretty similar to PN. Nothing
related with the main army corps.

------
jostmey
Here's what will probably happen. A handful of websites and news outlets will
create blanket legal agreements allowing anyone to freely link to their
content. There may be some online paperwork that flies back and forth between
the content provider and the person wanting to create the link. Websites
offering these blanket agreements will flourish. Websites that do not provide
their content for free will go unnoticed and undiscovered by the internet.
Eventually, all websites in Europe will offer blanket agreements for anyone to
freely link to their content.

The net result of this proposed law will be more paperwork and more lawyers.
In the long run, it will not accomplish its stated goals. It will simply slow
down digital innovation in Europe and destroy any European dreams of becoming
the next silicon valley

~~~
_bxg1
I think the law precludes such agreements; i.e., publishers are forced to
claim license fees for their work whether they want to or not.

~~~
jostmey
That doesn't make any sense. Who sets the price?

~~~
riskable
Each country now has to implement their own version of this directive. That
includes pricing.

------
geff82
I will now start my move out of the EU. I know how heavily restricted Internet
feels like from my frequent Iran travels, and I will move out of any country
that moves 2 inches in that direction, whatever the "good reason" might be.
Politicians felt like your regular corrupt banana republic representatives
this time. And now they know how to get away with this, they will try it with
something different again soon.

~~~
IanSanders
>I will now start my move out of the EU

While good for you, EU will have one less citizen opposing internet
restriction. We need a better way to deal with this but I cannot think of one.

>Politicians felt like your regular corrupt banana republic representatives
this time.

That's what it converges to. Good ones don't survive.

~~~
makomk
There is nothing we can do, by design. The European Commission has the
exclusive ability to create new laws, and they're almost totally isolated from
any kind of democratic control.

~~~
dijit
That's not true at all; they are:

A) Elected (though, indirectly, through the elected officials that you elect
to be MEPs)

and

B) A body of law drafters and implementors with no powers to ascend anything
to law by themselves.

The EC requires the EU parliament to vote on laws that it drafts, the EU
parliament can require that laws be redrafted or amended. But the EU
parliament is the only place a proposal can become law and those are our
elected representatives voting.

~~~
repolfx
Commissioners are _not_ elected, that stretches the meaning of the word past
breaking point. By that definition literally any government employee right
down to sewage workers are 'elected'.

Realistically the Commission are in charge. Because the so-called Parliament
can't do anything except (at most) slow down the EU project a little bit, most
people who run for election are just EU fanboys/girls who want to be close to
the action. In the cases where they send new legislation back to the
Commission for more work, it's usually to demand the EU award itself even more
power than it was already doing. It doesn't act as any real check on the
Commissions power. Even in the rare case of dispute, nothing stops the
Commission just making minor changes and telling the Parliament to vote again,
which they do. In fact "vote again" is the modus operandi of the entire EU
project, whenever anything the Commission and related institutions wants gets
rejected.

This setup is unique in the world and exists primarily to obfuscate the
reality, as far as I can tell. Europhiles use it to claim the EU is
"democratic" although the word Parliament means "the body of government that
makes law" in English, and the EU Parliament doesn't meet that definition.
There are free elections but they can't change anything meaningful, and as a
result turnout has been falling steadily for decades, polls show the
population don't trust the EU and see it as "out of touch" although fixing out
of touch lawmakers is the entire point of elections. The whole thing is
theatre intended to distract from the real power brokers: men like Selmayr and
Juncker.

~~~
dijit
This is so thoroughly untrue that I'm concerned that you're intentionally
misrepresenting things.

In good faith I'll argue the following:

Just because you do not directly elect the commissioners does not mean that
they are "unelected". You can make the case that a garbage worker is
"elected", but that would be by civil servants (by way of interview) but that
is a stretch beyond the pale and a straw man (in all but the most charitable
perspectives).

You're right about the dwindling EU election turnout but this is largely
fuelled by a lack of campaigning; most people don't even bother with EU
politics because they're more concerned with their countries politics. The EU
itself suffers from being uncharismatic and so open that it's a sea of
information (which ends up seeming opaque because there's just /so/ much
information). I suspect this will largely change with brexit as people are
waking up to what the EU actually is. Largely in the UK for example everything
that was a political failure was blamed on the EU and those lies are the
foundation of what caused brexit.

The EU has many, many flaws, but characterising it as undemocratic is flatly
incorrect.

> although the word Parliament means "the body of government that makes law"

Technically parliament is an ancient french word that means "speaking", (akin
to parley) but that's a digression. What I largely meant was that while the
parliament itself cannot draft law, however it is the only body that can give
ascent to a draft-legislature to make it law.

That is not undemocratic, that is the definition of democracy with a
sprinkling of civil service.

~~~
repolfx
_Just because you do not directly elect the commissioners does not mean that
they are "unelected"._

In equally good faith, I'll observe that our disagreement is because I'm using
the word "elected" to mean "has run in some sort of election and won by
getting votes". You appear to be using a rather different definition,
something like "some N number of appointment steps away from someone who
directly ran in an election and won" where N is maybe 2 or 3 depending how you
count (local politician -> head of government -> commissioner), except that
commissioners are appointed one per country, no? So it's not like all the
heads of state get together and run a giant interview process. Rather, the
positions are dished out on a national basis. If the UK or Germany happens to
field half the most qualified candidates that doesn't matter, Portugal will
still get a commissioner.

 _most people don 't even bother with EU politics because they're more
concerned with their countries politics_

Yes, oddly they care more about the elections where candidates discuss the
issues they care about. The top concerns of populations in every country in
the EU, according to the EU's own polling, are quite consistent - immigration
then terrorism.

[https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-eu-
eurobarometer/immigrati...](https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-eu-
eurobarometer/immigration-terrorism-top-concern-list-of-europeans-poll-
idUKKBN1JA2IR)

How many MEPs are talking about restricting immigration or controlling
terrorism? When was the last time you heard about a tightly fought European
election where "tough on immigrants" was a factor?

It never happens because the Parliament is irrelevant; if someone wanted to
waste their time getting elected to the EP on such a platform it'd be useless,
Juncker has said "borders are the worst invention of politicians" and thus the
issue dies there.

The EU is _fundamentally_ uninterested in the top concerns of its citizens and
there is _no way to change that via voting_. That is the ground truth and why
the EU is correctly described as undemocratic.

------
pard68
I recognize the irony of my statement, the majority of the world has been
dealing with the US interfering with their nations' laws for nearly three
quarters of a century. Nonetheless, it irks me that laws in other nations,
like the EU, can have such an adverse impact on me.

~~~
duxup
I think it is less irony and just a matter of human nature. We're always more
critical / resistant when "someone else" imposes something, less so if we get
to do it.

I think the take away is to understand the values about what you don't like
about whatever is going on... and apply them to yourself as best you can.
Otherwise it is just finger wagging and finger wagging is so easy and fun that
we often miss the fact that if push came to shove, we might do the same thing,
or worse.

------
soheil
The misconception that somehow the old internet is gone is so widespread
mainly due to big brands pushing their content in everyone's face, the old
internet is alive and well it's just that the people who operate at that level
can't be bothered to market what they do. Want to hack on Linux kernel? There
is more vibrancy in that community than there has ever been. Want to find CVE
and learn how to hack binaries? There are fascinating tools to do that today
that no one dreamt of just a decade ago. Want to build a robot? Now we have
open source robot operating systems like Ros that you can just write your
python modules in and have a computer vision model tell where your robot
should go. There are millions of other examples of how internet has gotten
richer and more internet-y than ever! I don't buy the argument that the old
internet is gone for a second, it's here alive and well, you just have to stop
watching youtube videos, listen to idealogical podcasts, refresh HN/FB and not
get distracted by reading random blogs to see the good stuff again:)

~~~
pmlnr
> There is more vibrancy in that community than there has ever been

This is going to sound weird, but this _is_ why it feels like the old internet
is gone: everything is moving way too fast.

------
clarkmoody
It's called counter-revolution.

Many revolutionary movements are eventually co-opted by elites (often the
elites of the overthrown system) for their own purposes. Sometimes the new
system put in place after the counter-revolution is _worse_ than the system
the original revolution sought to overthrow.

The cypherpunks foresaw the dystopian surveillance state decades before the
reality and tried to get out in front of it via cryptography. But the raw
economics of central service network effects completely destroyed a
distributed, control-your-own-keys world. Going forward there are always
proposals for a state-controlled "third-key" on all encryption.

Likewise, the gatekeepers of the old system (record labels, Disney, etc), have
always used the state to enrich themselves. The Internet caught them off guard
and they tried to fight it in the early 2000s with lawsuits for file sharing,
which hurt their public image greatly. But centralized services came to
dominate distribution once again. And now we're seeing obvious self-enrichment
with these "reforms."

~~~
ABCLAW
This isn't a fight between elites and the proles - most people who are framing
the result today as such have not read the text of article 11 and 13. And I
don't blame them, most articles on the matter conspicuously refuse to link the
text, for some reason.

This is a fight between titans of industry in two different verticals. Content
is upset that publishing is getting all of the money - and a brief examination
of the valuations in those respective industries shows they're probably right
on that front. Is this the optimal tool to right those scales? Probably not,
but it certainly isn't constructed to kick Grandma's bakery and blogroll
website off the internet at the behest of Big Bread.

To the extent that Articles 11 and 13 have problems (and they do) they should
be addressed, but the fearmongering makes it very difficult to actually talk
about those issues and their context properly.

~~~
pera
They reworded Article 11 and 13 (now 15 and 17) so many times that I wouldn't
be surprised if "most people" haven't read the final text...

In my opinion the original version with the amendments was simply insane; the
work of technologically illiterate lawmakers in conjunction with copyright
lobbyists. The final version makes an awkward attempt to fix some of the
criticism by simply making things more vague, so each member state can decide
how draconian they want to go with its enforcement. Calling the political
discourse that opposes these articles "fearmongering" is disingenuous.

~~~
ABCLAW
>Calling the political discourse that opposes these articles "fearmongering"
is disingenuous.

I don't have an issue with political discourse that opposes these articles,
given that I criticize them in almost every post I've written in this thread.

I've criticized fearmongering, because it has immediate unwarranted
deleterious effects on the European tech scene. Fearmongering is also very
lucrative and sensational press material, so there's a need to speak out
against it: it comprises the overwhelming majority of reporting on the issue.

------
lgrebe
„German newspaper FAZ reports its investigation found strong indications that
Germany traded its support for the #copyright deal for French concessions on
Russian gas #northstream2„

[https://edition.faz.net/faz-
edition/wirtschaft/2019-03-26/f3...](https://edition.faz.net/faz-
edition/wirtschaft/2019-03-26/f30a5870c08cc1e1b4524c1be19d1faf/?GEPC=s3)

Via

[https://twitter.com/Senficon/status/1110278976654794753?s=20](https://twitter.com/Senficon/status/1110278976654794753?s=20)

~~~
DarkWiiPlayer
Maybe someone can explain to me why the hell France (or the rest of the EU)
even cares about where Germany gets their gas from in the first place?

~~~
activis
Nord Stream 2 would make gas system in Ukraine vurnable and allows further
military escalation from Russia side, as it would be possible to transport gas
via Nord Stream 2. This would make peace in EU under question also since
aggression won't be in Ukraine only in case it escalates.

Also Nord Stream 2 would make Germany more dependent on Russia gas.

At the same time US wants to have EU and Germany on their side in fight agains
China + sell resources to EU. Germany on the other side does not like "being
controlled" and has some attraction to Russia. There are thoughts that Germany
may want to make an allience with Russia to weaken US influence on EU.

I belive it is just a surface of what is happenning. And it is all related to
"peace/war" questions, who are allies to whom, global market shares, etc.

It is not just some "stupid decision", there are lots of issues hidden under
the hood. And more such decisions to come in the nearest future I belive.

~~~
DarkWiiPlayer
> Germany on the other side does not like "being controlled" and has some
> attraction to Russia.

Being German myself, I don't think it has so much to do with being controlled
or not, but the difference between several powers having some degree of
influence vs. one having it all. Russia and the USA are certainly two very big
players in world politics, and Germany already seems to have plenty of co-
dependence with the United States.

I don't mean to say Nord Stream 2 is necessarily a good thing, but I do
believe that some of the powers involved don't seek this balance as much as
just to isolate Russia.

~~~
activis
Sure. I agree. I used "controlled" word as some kind of abstraction. It is
more about influence.

From ukrainian point of view Germany seems to forget about risks of not
isolating Russia after Russia annexed territories and invaded several
countries. WW2 did begin some kind of similarly as I understand: countries
were seeking for "balance" and didn not want to make any rough decisions which
could influence their economics in a "bad" way. The result was not very good.

I understand that every country has interests. But in this very case we see
that Germany is already buying russian gas through ukrainian gas system
without any issues besides risks intriduced by Russia itself. So Nord Stream 2
is more about relationships and not the gas or economics alone.

At the moment we see Article 11 and 13 approved as a consequence. And it is
just the beginning.

------
paule89
Are we able to see, who voted how? I would like to have a website showing you
which persons not to vote, in your location for the upcoming eu votes in may.

~~~
zirror
The information is not yet published, however Julia Reda
([https://twitter.com/Senficon/status/1110514210176462850](https://twitter.com/Senficon/status/1110514210176462850))
is working on it. Also, I would suggest voting on a party-bases i.e. voting
for Pirates in your region.

~~~
gpvos
Sorry, I voted for the Pirate Party the last three times, and they still
didn't get enough votes for even half a seat the last time. There's a limit to
how often I'm throwing my vote away. Luckily there are a few other parties
with sensible policies.

~~~
throwaway357H
I‘ve heard the same reasoning from someone who voted for „one of the big
parties“ so his vote wouldn‘t be thrown away, the same person is ow
complaining about the politics of the party he voted for. If you don’t give
your vote to a party, just because it could be lost, you will ultimately end
up with only 1 party to vote for.

~~~
gpvos
Unlikely in Dutch parliament; we currently have 13 parties in its 150 seats.
And the PP isn't my perfect party, and also not the only one with good
internet and privacy (and social, and environmental, etc.) policies. I just
would have liked them to get at least one seat, to get a voice in parliament,
which can be quite effective, see e.g. the successes of the Party for the
Animals (PvdD), who started similarly. I tend to vote for small parties
anyway.

------
hektorrr
This is also huge blow in the artist community, because if they will have no
license or contract with big media entities their work will not be shared. And
I hope Google, MS and Wiki will stick together in blocking any content from
entities requiring any sort of pay. Of course this would not solve all issues
featured with these reforms. Smallest are always loosing when it comes to laws
like that.

~~~
fock
You can still share on your personal site (even your commercial one, as you
won't violate copyright I guess and so can't be sued effectively (if local
legislation would get their shit together even not in the typical extortion
form))... Random, unaccounted internet fame by the magic of some proprietary
algorithm might be harder too achieve though, but I see no censorship in this
(and indeed today, censorship is possible with this algorithms).

I'm not sure, how the blocking you propose should work (your comment shows as
much ignorance as most MEPs speaking for the reform do), as the directive
basically enables any rightholder to enforce claims against the platform as
soon as they publish any copyright violating material. The whole point is that
rightholders should not have to rely on takedown notices anymore, which imho
is not necessarily bad – this does also not in any way stand of overdue policy
which limits the outrageous fees on copyright violations (for example, why not
sign bills which make you pay the (standard) license fee+30% if you're
violating copyright, when you are using the protected works in your own work
(for blatant theft, like reuploading a music video, fines could still be like
they are today...)?).

~~~
marcodave
> Random, unaccounted internet fame by the magic of some proprietary algorithm

I'm wondering how much of the current user-created content on those platform
is driven by that

------
artiscode
Sad, sad day. I remember having discussions with my 14 year old son regarding
articles 11 and 13. He said it would be impossible for these articles to come
through, as _people_ are clearly against it. He then called me a pessimist and
naysayer. I wish he was right.

~~~
isostatic
> people are clearly against it

Which people? People in his peer group on youtube sure. The world is a big
place. I can see 5 people from my seat here on this train, I suspect not a
single one has any idea what article 11 or 13 are, not would they care.

Now it's possible pressure groups could argue that they should vote one way or
another in a vote on the subject -- i.e. google could turn people against it,
or murdoch could turn people for it, but your statement that "people are
clearly against it" is quite simply false.

------
circlefavshape
FWIW all the musicians rights societies in Ireland have been pushing FOR this
change, presenting it as protection for 'content creators'. If A13 affects
digital distributors like CDBaby and distrokid then independent musicians are
going to be effectively shut out of the modern music market

~~~
jandrese
If it forces musicians to sign with big labels (and their notoriously unfair
contracts), then the law is working as intended. More money for big business
means more money for politicians re-election campaign.

------
laacz
Individual votes are in: [https://juliareda.eu/wp-
content/uploads/2019/03/copyrightvot...](https://juliareda.eu/wp-
content/uploads/2019/03/copyrightvote.pdf)

~~~
mcjiggerlog
Can we get votes per national-level party (e.g. Labour, Conservatives etc.)?

EDIT - at least here's how the parliament groupings voted -
[https://twitter.com/Senficon/status/1110552457682264065](https://twitter.com/Senficon/status/1110552457682264065)

~~~
laacz
With some manual labor that's easily doable. There is opendata available for
Council[1], but Parliament vote dataset is yet to be found...

1: [https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/general-
secretariat/corpo...](https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/general-
secretariat/corporate-policies/transparency/open-data/)

------
cbg0
A bunch of people are about to lose their seats in the upcoming European
Parliament elections in May.

~~~
aembleton
Doubt it. I don't think many people know or care about this.

~~~
bashwizard
Just wait until they eventually are greeted with a notice "Sorry, we've
blocked all users from Europe due to the new copyright reform" on every major
social media site/app.

~~~
phatfish
I though this was supposed to happen after the GDPR was made law... still
waiting.

~~~
bashwizard
I didn't. I expected to be greeted with "We care about your privacy" and then
have to opt in or not being able to access the content.

I was right.

~~~
phatfish
Fair enough.

Although I remember plenty of comments on HN about how Facebook et al. would
be blocking EU users because it would be too expensive for them to comply with
GDPR.

One or two US based newspaper websites were all I noticed blocking access
because of compliance reasons. I expect a similar impact due to Article 13.

~~~
kaitnieks
The big ones will be fine. They are already using filters. It's all the forums
and such that have no way to implement the technology that the upcoming
directive calls for, and they will have no choice but to block EU. Regarding
news sites - usually it's the comments section that's the user created
content, so I guess they could simply remove that for EU visitors, or, if that
feels like a hassle, just block EU.

------
buboard
This is a great day for creators in the EU. We are finally going to be able to
upload our creations safely, in a platform that nobody will ever pay for.

[https://www.article13.org/best-of](https://www.article13.org/best-of)

~~~
philpem
"About us

We are EUROPE FOR CREATORS. A gathering of professional organisations of
writers, musicians, producers, comedians, films makers coming from all over
Europe.... [snip]"

Translation: "We are GEMA, BPI, ...., and we make our money from creators'
work. And we want more! More!"

~~~
glenndebacker
One of those organisations is the Belgian Sabam and are really crooks. In the
past they were sued for fraud, bribing, tampering with the books...

They are notorious for asking licenses for everything music related even if
the artist does not exists.

A Belgian satirical program created a concert with the artists Kenwood
(mixer), Suzy Wan (jar of Chinese food) , Mister cocktail and the party mix
(pack of nuts) and they still managed to send a bill of a couple of hundred
euros for these artists they represented...

------
Giorgi
If FB, Google or Yt gave a single damn shit, they could simply add message to
their frontpages regarding this upcoming legislation.

Not doing so means they all have something to gain from this.

~~~
thirdsun
They have. They are in a position to actually comply with these new
requirements - a potential upcoming competitor isn't.

------
bufferoverflow
So anybody can now shut down any website in the EU that allows uploading of
images or text or video or audio?

~~~
aequitas
They can't because you won't be allowed to upload anything that doesn't pass
the content filter, or anything at all for that matter.

~~~
bufferoverflow
Are you saying every single EU website will have a filter for all uploads?

~~~
feanaro
Yep, unless they are non-profit, and less than 3 years old, and have less than
10€ in revenue, and have less than 5 million unique visitors.

------
DarkWiiPlayer
Am I the only one who kinda feels like I'm not living in a democratic system
anymore?

Not saying this is the first such thing that happens, but it's probably the
one that will make me stop using the word to refer to the society I live in.

~~~
isostatic
The EU Parliament, who we vote for every 5 years (and have elections coming
up), vote for a law. You don't like said law, therefore it's undemocratic?

The way the parliament is elected is quite fair - it gives a little more power
to people in smaller countries, but that's not unusual (UK westminster
constituencies vary from 22k to 120k. U.S. congress areas are more even,
ranging from 500k to 1 million). There's an argument that it should be more
even than the current 11:1 ratio, but we call the U.S. senate democratic and
that's a 69:1 ratio.

The actual choice of MEP comes down to a proportionate election, meaning that
if you get 15% of the votes, you get 15% of the MEPs. This beats fptp systems
where MPs in the house of commons are elected with as few as 30% of the votes
cast.

Voting for a representative is the very essence of representative democracy.
Perhaps we should have direct democracy. As it happens I watched an episode of
The Orville[0] last night which covered this scenario.

Personally I'm a fan of representative democracy. It's the worst system except
for all the others. I expect my representitive to work full time in
understanding proposals and voting on my behalf, but they are a
representitive, not a delegate. This is where direct PR falls down (who gets
the seats is down to the party, not to the voter. I can't vote for Candidate B
rather than candidate A if they are part of the same party. STV works better
in this case, although 90% of voters don't really care and in the UK 80% don't
even know who their MP is!

[0]
[https://orville.fandom.com/wiki/Majority_Rule](https://orville.fandom.com/wiki/Majority_Rule)

~~~
DarkWiiPlayer
To make my point a bit clearer: I am almost convinced now that "representative
democracy" shouldn't count as a "democracy" just because the population can
vote who they get ####ed by.

It only works as long as the representatives see it as their duty to represent
the will of the voters accurately, which I'm starting to believe is an
antithesis to human behavior, and thus will never be the norm.

I'm not saying that European society (if such a thing even exists) is
inherently undemocratic; just that it's not democratic enough to be called a
proper Democracy.

And I'm not even asking for direct democracy on everything, but there should
be laws in place that force politicians to put decisions up for vote to the
public if there's a certain level of resistance from the population.

Take for an example the UK referendum to leave the EU. Even though it's
overall a complete shitshow, and all sides usually agree on that, nobody can
really claim that it wasn't a democratic decision. Was it a smart one? Who
knows, I doubt it. But it was democratic, and that's more than I can say about
this mess.

~~~
bad_user
Sorry, but the Brexit referendum is the perfect example of choices that should
not be made directly by the population, because it lacks the competence to
foresee the effects or even to distinguish fact from fiction.

If you told UK citizens that the choice is in fact for a No Deal Brexit and
what that will mean, they wouldn't have voted for Brexit. However the
population was lied to about the economic benefits and voted against their own
interests.

So when the population can be lied to on such a scale, what do you find as
being more democratic exactly?

And more importantly, after it was clear that Britain will not get a good
deal, why wasn't the referendum repeated?

~~~
ApolloFortyNine
>Sorry, but the Brexit referendum is the perfect example of choices that
should not be made directly by the population, because it lacks the competence
to foresee the effects or even to distinguish fact from fiction.

I still find it hard to not value your own autonomy. For thousands of years,
wars of independence were fought for this exact purpose. You might not value
it, but I don't think you can attack others for placing value on it.

~~~
thirdsun
The problem is that the UK seems wanting to cherry pick their autonomy and
make use of the benefits the EU has to offer while rejecting the obligations
and rules of such a union. Obviously it doesn't work like that and the eu
doesn't have any interest in letting them have their cake and eat it too.

The only Leave-scenario people actually could have voted for in the referendum
was a no-deal-brexit. Any other promsies were ranging from uncertain to
wishful thinking.

------
haywirez
A good thread explaining the next steps:
[https://twitter.com/why0hy/status/1110514962366189568](https://twitter.com/why0hy/status/1110514962366189568)

TL;DR summary: The directive will have to be implemented in national
legislations, a ~2 year long process. There are a bunch of contradictory laws
and regulations to be reconciled. Your app or platform can probably ignore the
new rules as they're too unclear and unenforceable - but do join trade
associations that can provide good, reliable legal support.

[Edit] here's another article from EFF explaining the next steps:

[https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/03/eus-parliament-
signs-d...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/03/eus-parliament-signs-
disastrous-internet-law-what-happens-next)

------
doh
The law will have a very negative impact on the society and it's very
unfortunate that it passed. I was really hoping to the last second, that it
will not.

As much as I can't do anything about the law itself, I can make sure that it
will not wipe out startups and small companies that are trying to compete with
the internet behemoths. We at Pex are making our Attribution Engine free of
charge to all content creators, rights holders and platforms [0]. We will
publicly announce it within next couple of days. I know it's far cry from the
law not being enacted at all, but we hope it's something.

[0]
[https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CLybxCFg_gz4n62UqVr3XEsy...](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CLybxCFg_gz4n62UqVr3XEsyYJbEv6hGI64-ptGgQB0/edit?usp=sharing)

------
JumpCrisscross
To what degree has Britain's waning influence contributed to this? London was
historically Europe's most competent commercially-minded city. I'm hopeful to
see a counterbalance emerge in Frankfurt or Paris, but the writing on the wall
indicates that's unlikely.

~~~
DanBC
What makes you think the UK is against stupid copyright measures?

It's currently unlawful to format-shift (eg, rip CD to MP3) in England, so
it's unlikely we'd have put up much argument against this.

~~~
jackweirdy
That's not quite true:
[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-29448058](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-29448058)

~~~
madjam002
That’s an outdated article, it has since been made illegal again.

~~~
cift
Not quite true

> Under the new regulations, only the individual who purchased the original
> copy of the work, and not others such as a friend or family, is legally
> allowed to copy it.

Source: [https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jul/17/high-
court-q...](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jul/17/high-court-
quashes-regulations-copy-cds-musicians)

~~~
DanBC
Those are the new regulations that were stopped by this court case.

The government said that this type of copying would have minimal impact on the
rights-holders. Those rights holders disagreed, went to court, and won, and so
now format shifting is not legal.

The court case is here:
[https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2015/1723.html](https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2015/1723.html)

It's long and complex. The first few paras are a good introduction.

EDIT:Genuinely baffled that this link to a primary source has been downvoted.

Currently, because of this case it's not lawful to format shift. I'm not
saying that I think this is a good thing; I'm describing the law as it is in
England.

Using the Guardian sources linked above:

> The high court has quashed regulations introduced by the government to allow
> members of the public to lawfully copy CDs and other copyright material
> bought for their own private use.

[...]

> On Friday, in a further decision, he said: “It is clear that I should quash
> the regulations. I make clear this covers the entirety of the regulations
> and all the rights and obligations contained therein.”

[...]

> The changes had come into force last October under the Copyright and Rights
> in Performances (Personal Copies for Private Use) Regulations 2014. Prior to
> 1 October, it was unlawful, for example, to “rip” or copy the contents of a
> CD on to a laptop, smartphone or MP3 player for personal use, although the
> format-shifting activity had become commonplace. The regulations introduced
> an exception into UK copyright law permitting the making of personal copies,
> as long as they were only for private use.

The law said format shifting was unlawful. The government introduced
regulations to make format shifting lawful, but they didn't include mechanism
to pay the rights holders. The judge ruled against the government, those new
regulations were quashed, and format shifting became unlawful again.

Here's what the judge said:
[https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2015/2041.html](https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2015/2041.html)

------
philpem
The stunning bit of this for me has been the attitude of my MEPs when I
emailed them.

One Labour MEP, both Conservatives - no response. Not even a form letter.

Other Labour MEP - "You are being brainwashed by Google. This is the best
thing for the Internet ever! You'll see!" (paraphrased as I don't have the
email to hand, but she did use the word "brainwashed"). Frankly the whole
exchange struck me as extremely immature on her part!

Two UKIP MEPs - reply a few hours after I emailed them. "We'll be fighting
this as much as we possibly can. It's a disaster. The Articles say one thing
and say something contradictory a few sections later!"

Much of the fightback seems to have been from the populist far-right parties
(with the obvious exception of the various Pirate parties). I wonder if the EU
has realised it's just handed a massive win to them -- all they have to say
now is "look, we tried to protect your Youtube but the EU stopped us!".

------
jgowdy
What amazes me is with GDPR, so many people were cheerleaders of Europe being
the regulator of the internet. Regardless of what you think of GDPR, once we
get a political body comfortable with the idea of regulating the internet,
this is what we get. The next wall they're working on knocking down is the
national sovereignty boundaries of the reach of laws. It's already in progress
and soon we will have European nations enforcing their perspectives including
limits on free speech, worldwide. We have started sliding down the slippery
slope my friends.

~~~
growlist
Not to mention, national sovereignty being overridden if a country has the
temerity to dissent from the globalist consensus: 'what, you have concerns
about the arrival of tens of thousands of undocumented migrants from countries
with cultures vastly different to your own? NAZI!'

------
piokoch
I am curious how this will affect Brexit. At some point it looked like public
opinion in UK leaned against it. Right now it seems that EU is ready to pass
any law which is pushed by a powerful lobby, even if this law is not the most
well-thought idea like Article 11 and 13. This does not make EU better place
to be in.

In fact if Germany and France agree on something, this going to happen. I
don't think that UK will accept that, even if they risk "hard brexit" (which
is largely demonized, I can't believe that any bigger EU economy would just
give up trading with UK, especially when World economy will start slowing down
and every eurocent will count).

~~~
yulaow
If I remember correctly UK was actually a strong proposer for this kind of
legislation

~~~
fock
And there were still British MEPs speaking for it, because it's the "future".
I wonder why they can't even abstain or just stay away (like about 13% of the
parliament did anyway...) after they engaged in Brexit for decisions which
won't affect them (implementation of this directive is still about ~2 years
off), but apparently paychecks are stronger than decency and common sense...

------
bemmu
Question to someone more familiar with how these votes work.

Is this the page for this vote? [https://www.votewatch.eu/en/term8-copyright-
in-the-digital-s...](https://www.votewatch.eu/en/term8-copyright-in-the-
digital-single-market-draft-legislative-resolution-procedural-vote-ordinary-
legisla.html)

If it is, it says 312 voted for it, 317 against it, 24 abstained. But it
passed? Why?

~~~
rkul
There were two votes: (1) Amendments to the Directive, (2) vote on the whole
directive.

Amendments did not pass 312-317 and Directive passed 3xx-247 (cant recall the
exact numbers)

------
napsterbr
As someone about to use Hetzner for vps hosting. If my company is based
elsewhere, but my product is hosted by a provider within the EU, am I still
subjected to this utter nonsense? How about if I use OVH on their Canadian
datacenter? It's a French based company but the product would be hosted
outside EU.

~~~
isostatic
If I host my content on an american conpany’s European data centre am i
subject to silly laws like patriot act?

~~~
napsterbr
Yes.

------
jaabe
I know this is an extremely unpopular opinion, but I’m actually fine with more
equality in copyright legislation. These “disastrous” copyright laws already
apply to you and me, and if you think they don’t, then just try hosting a top
1 music video on your personal domain.

Where the laws don’t apply is if your service is to host user content and you
have the size to circumvent justice. YouTube makes a lot of money off legal
content, how much is unknown because they literally won’t tell you how much
they earn from your content, but they also earn money from illegal content.
They avoid responsibility by being large, and these copyright laws is going to
combat exactly that.

It’s not perfect, but how else do you suggest that we make the laws that apply
to you and me also apply to big tech companies?

~~~
minton
I don’t think YouTube is against this law either. It limits their competition
by raising the barrier of entry for the next YouTube. The main problem with
this type of legislation is they hurt competition because only the large,
established corporations can afford the legal and technical investments
required for compliance. YouTube isn’t phased by this, they’ll barely notice
but they’re happy knowing a tiny startup from a garage won’t be able to
compete.

~~~
jaabe
Except the law includes exceptions and much less rigorous rules for startups
and small-medium companies. It’s directly targeting YouTube, Facebook and the
like, in an attempt to make them pay authors and creators.

Unless you’re against copyrights in general, I have a really hard time seeing
why you’d be against this law.

It simply pushes the responsibility from you, the YouTube uploader, to YouTube
itself. Maybe that will lead to YouTube preventing you from uploading videos,
maybe YouTube will block Europe, but I honestly doubt it because of money, and
in either case, the EU represents the people of Europe, YouTube represents a
few shareholders, I know whom I personally prefer taking a lead on copyrights.

I get the people who are opposed to copyrights in general, but I’m just not.

------
Funes-
Don't fret; memes are safe:

"The Copyright Directive protects freedom of expression, a core value of the
European Union. It sets strong safeguards for users, making clear that
everywhere in Europe the use of existing works for purposes of quotation,
criticism, review, caricature as well as parody are explicitly allowed. This
means that memes and similar parody creations can be used freely. The
interests of the users are also preserved through effective mechanisms to
swiftly contest any unjustified removal of their content by the platforms."[0]

[0] From the final press release: [http://europa.eu/rapid/press-
release_STATEMENT-19-1839_en.ht...](http://europa.eu/rapid/press-
release_STATEMENT-19-1839_en.htm).

------
mk89
According to [0]:

> The likes of Google News would have to pay publishers for press snippets
> shown in search results.

I don't really understand the rationale behind this. Really, I am trying to
put myself in the shoes of a policy maker, why would I do this law? It's the
publisher's role to ask for money, isn't it? Why should a country force a
company to pay for sharing content from another company? I don't understand...

[0]:[https://m.dw.com/en/eu-parliament-approves-controversial-
cop...](https://m.dw.com/en/eu-parliament-approves-controversial-copyright-
reform/a-48062142)

------
danielscrubs
It's interesting, usually, there are two sides, but in this issue, I've never
met anyone standing on the pro-side. Yet it got approved. 60% more people vote
for the normal parliament than the EU-parliament and in the EU-parliament we
get around 20 people to represent our whole country.

The countries with high corruption get more voting rights than the ones with
less corruption.

Wouldn't be so bad if they focused on just trading deficiencies, but no, they
want to have their own culture budget ffs.

------
C14L
Wow!

Never thought they'd actually pass this terrible "law".

Terrible.

But maybe not a complete surprise. Pandora's Box was opened two years ago when
Germany privatized censorship. Maybe, back then we did it for all the "right
reasons". But in politics, that's all too often just the beginning of a
slippery slope. And many of those who today protest this new censorship where
in favor of it the last time. Because that time it was supposed to censor "the
other side".

------
patwilison
This is good for democracy. The EU is a fine institution that has prevented
google from selling our search history to the government. I applaud this
decision and hope that it is part of broader anti-piracy campaign that would
create minimum sentencing for pirates caught and if necessary the use of
capital punishment would be deemed legal under EU law.

This should help prevent fake news and foster a more balanced online
discussion.

------
LifeLiverTransp
Good things the brits found the ejection seat lever for this before it was too
late. Will vote for any party thats want to get out of this next vote.

~~~
rcxdude
The UK will likely not go in a better direction. non-UKIP UK MEPs were in
general in favour of this legislation (UKIP only against because they are
against anything the EU does, not because they are in any way more informed on
the issue).

------
themagician
I don't know why this has so much hate. It doesn't seem like the best piece of
legislation, but it does address a serious issue that has gone ignored for far
too long.

YouTube really built an empire on copyrighted content, and still continues to
profit from it, as a result of liability shield that the DMCA provides. It has
never sat well with me.

Today YouTube no longer relies on copyrighted content to be relevant. User
generated content is now the primary source of views and ad revenue, but that
wasn't always so. I remember when YouTube was the place to go to watch The
Daily Show, SouthPark, SNL, and a host of other things. That's how YouTube
became popular. This, "It's okay to break the law as long as the end result
does more good than harm," is a weird line of thinking that seems to permeate
a host of tech startups these days. And in the case of YouTube, while it's
true that copyrighted content infringement is no longer their business driver,
there's still a large portion of content that is copyrighted and YouTube
shouldn't be profiting from that for no reason.

If YouTube was a public utility, as many people—particularly "creators"—seem
to want to treat it things might be different. But YouTube isn't a public
utility. Letting users hide behind anonymous accounts shouldn't magically
absolve you of liability.

I think letting things develop the way they have probably did more good than
harm at the end of the day, but I'm not sure that justifies it—and I don't
think it should just be allowed to continue.

~~~
AsyncAwait
> YouTube really built an empire on copyrighted content

The current content gatekeepers built their studios by violating Edison's
patents. In fact many innovators got started by subverting copyright
restrictions in some form.

Perhaps that tells you something.

Also, it's not a one-way street. YT is a platform where artists can
effectively reach a worldwide audience for free, something their publishers
would have to pay handsomely for before, in the form of prime-time ad spots on
multiple TV networks.

------
speeq
Who wants to work with me on a new startup? "EU Upload-Filter as a Service"...

~~~
rorykoehler
Tbh this should be an open sourced non profit tool by eff or similar

~~~
ApolloFortyNine
EFF wouldn't want to dignify this law by creating a tool like that. They are
fully against it.

~~~
rorykoehler
It's a poor plan b but possibly the best one.

------
yannovitch
Wow. Europe shot itself a massive bullet in the foot for the next EU
elections.

------
neop1x
Now they only have to force us install some kind of proprietary filtering
binary to the every server. It's starting to be like a chinese firewall on the
source side.

------
75dvtwin
Assuming that Brexit will happen.

Will this make companies headquartered anywhere in UK, in more advantageous
position, than a company serving user-created content, with HQ in European
Union?

------
stiangrindvoll
Could this directive speed the creation and adaptation of distributed
technologies? If the topic of uploading to centralized cloud entities is just
removed or ignored all together.

~~~
adrianN
Somebody has to own the computers. You can sue those people if they don't
comply with the law.

~~~
goblin89
With well-implemented and sufficiently widespread P2P there’d be too many
people to sue.

(I can’t name a strong contender in the wild currently, but I would also hope
that this regulation, if successfully implemented, catalyzes some progress in
this direction as a side effect.)

~~~
adrianN
You just sue the early adopters and write some articles about how the new
system is used for criminal activity only and then completely ban it. You
can't have technological solutions to political problems.

------
sidibe
This'll give the EU few more years of solid Google funding

------
brador
Will this affect news aggregators with just links (no text snapshots) like
[https://skimfeed.com](https://skimfeed.com) ?

------
bashwizard
Time for a swexit.

------
montzark
I'm wondering if VPN providers are also lobbying for more territorial
censorship. They have only to gain from this.

------
ddebernardy
The saddest part is how Brexit and the Mueller Report will eclipse this story
before it even makes headlines.

------
shmerl
Now other regions should resist spreading of this trash, through
"harmonization efforts".

------
pugwash
Someone remind me: did the Internet survive the introduction of the DMCA?

------
AnaniasAnanas
Time for things like tor, i2p, and freenode to become more popular!

------
sparkling
They pass all these silly laws like the cookie consent nag screen, the data
retention directive, GDPR and now this. Then a few years later they wonder why
there are basically 0 big digital players from the EU. Oh well ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ time
to sue the big US companies again.

Whatever, the faster _this_ EU fails, the better.

------
shmerl
Rather they approve censorship machine.

------
gbtw
Time to abolish copyright then :)

------
jakeogh
More xEXIT I bet. POLEXIT next maybe?

------
blacklight86
Those who backed the new copyright law claimed that it will guarantee a fair
share of revenue to flow from the IT companies to the authors of intellectual
property.

What they haven't realized is that paying authors a fair revenue when a
copyrighted content is shared is still a problem below the horizon. Or, to be
more precise, it's also a problem, and it requires a good degree of innovation
(see micro-payments, content consumption tracking, Blockchain+smart contracts
etc.) in order to be tackled.

But we haven't gotten there yet because the real problem is upstream: HOW do
we recognize that some uploaded content is copyrighted in the first place, and
who's the right copyright holder for that content?

How do we do it in a scalable way on platforms where thousands or millions of
videos, images or posts are shared per day?

How to pinpoint the right copyright holders for a certain content, taking into
account that the current situation is extremely fragmented to say the least,
that there are multiple national societies for authors that have barely
progressed technologically in the last decades (nor have been pushed to do
so), that many of them haven't even digitized their own records, let alone
provide a unique database where the information about their intellectual
property can be publicly accessed?

And finally, how to find the right balance between blocking the unauthorized
publication of copyrighted content and avoiding an over-zealous approach where
companies start blocking legit content as well? (Hint: it's not by putting
strict time constraints on taking content down and threatening huge fines on
companies).

YouTube has already had for some years some content filtering algorithms that
automatically block the upload of copyrighted material. It has taken years to
build to a company with the size of Google. It required billions of videos to
be collected and labelled, massive investments in manual reviewers and
engineers, and it's still an algorithm that makes lots of mistakes. How do we
expect a smaller start-up to successfully implement a better solution?

How could the EU regulators fail to see that this law will create more
entrance barriers than those it promises to take down? Google, Facebook etc.
have been fighting against this law because it's really bad for the internet
in general, but they'll be the ones to benefit most from it. Sure, they'll
have to pay a higher toll to make business in Europe, but it's guaranteed that
they won't have many competitors. Because, unless the EU pushed for a more
distributed and open access to intellectual property, they will be the only
ones who can afford to build an infrastructure that really complies with the
new regulation.

It's really a shame because the law could have been written in a way that
would have really solved the problem without creating new ones. Even people
like Tim-Berners Lee (the dude who created the web) and people at MIT,
Stanford and Berkeley have raised their voice: the EU had the moral obligation
to sit with them and listen to their concerns before going down its path, and
it failed to do so.

There were tons of better ideas. Pushing the associations of authors and
artists to digitize their information and make it available in open format.
Make a shared database of copyrighted content. Expose an API that businesses
can use, where you provide a snippet of some content or its hash digest and
the system will tell you whether it contains any copyrighted material, and who
are the authors. Set up a continental infrastructure for micro-payments to
make sure that authors receive their fair share for each play or view,
regardless of where the content is consumed. These are big things to build and
no company is really incentivised to do it alone: that's when politics should
step in and remove the blockers on the way. Unfortunately the EU this time has
chosen the "we set the bar, we don't know if it's too high, and actually we
don't even care, good luck you guys" approach without listening to anyone. And
that's a huge shame on them.

------
zelon88
I haven't made up my mind yet. Just thinking out loud for those who don't know
what to think yet.....

An upload filter would be good for the internet because.....

-It prevents copyright holders from being infringed upon and having to produce paperwork to enforce their copyright.

-It could possible prevent harmful material from being uploaded before it can be reviewed.

-It puts liability on the tech companies to account for their platforms.

-It protects content creators.

An upload filter would be bad for the internet because.....

-It raises the bar for entry into the tech market.

-It increases the amount of work a new-comer in the market must do before launching a product.

-It adds a lot of localized complexity to the internet.

-The internet was not made to satisfy the requirements of sovereign nations each imposing their own arbitrary laws.

-The internet was supposed too/has the potential to be a globalist resource that transcended political borders.

An upload filter would be good for my business because.....

-It requires me to perform some due diligence on user-submitted data that I otherwise would probably overlook.

-It reduces the likelihood that I'll receive a DCMA takedown request.

-It will increase public trust and perceived security.

-People like to see compliance with regulations, even the ones they don't agree with.

-I could roll out the filter to all users and market it as an added layer of protection.

An upload filter would be bad for my business because.....

-It greatly increases the amount of time I must spend processing simple uploads.

-The user must wait for the file to be processed before they can continue using my service (assuming they want to use their file right away).

-It will cost time and resources to design, test, and deploy a filter.

-It adds complexity.

-I will need some frame of reference before I can determine if a file is original or copyrighted.

-I cannot trust the user to tell me if they own the rights to an uploaded file.

-I could try and geo-fence Europe so I don't have to filter non-European files but what if the copyright holder being infringed is in Europe?

-What if a file I filtered out has a copyright holder in the US who has no rights in Europe?

-Technically OSS is copyrighted. A file licensed under MIT might not be infringing anything although a file licensed under GPLv3 might be infringing.

------
busterarm
So long, and thanks for all the fish.

------
trkh0
Remember that newspapers reported on this vote in passing if at all because
they supported it, they are not innocent observers especially with everything
concerning tech companies.

------
lisper
This is just one skirmish in an on-going war between democracy and capitalism.
Right now capitalism is winning, in no small measure because very few people
seem to realize that this war is even happening. Most people, especially in
the U.S., think that democracy and capitalism are inherently compatible with
each other, as if the principles of "one person one vote" and "one dollar one
vote" are not mutually antagonistic or can somehow be reconciled.
Corporations, of course, are only too happy to allow this misconception to
flourish.

------
Xelbair
Brexit might not be such a stupid idea after all..

------
cotelletta
Clueless twats. I will look up all who voted for this farce and let them know
individually it will haunt them for the rest of their political career.

No forgiveness for kneecapping free expression in return for some lobbyist
euros and pretending it protects artists.

And to the artists who were dumb enough to believe it: if your art wasn't
mediocre you wouldn't have any trouble drawing the attention of the copyright
industry, as they are always looking for something new to milk. So you traded
off a big break that won't happen anyway for the collective right to free
expression of the entire Union. Good job, you utter tossers.

~~~
tomtompl
Just keep in mind that EU bodies which have the legislative power don't really
have constituents, not really been elected by anyone.

~~~
anoncake
Which EU body is not elected? The European Parliament is directly elected by
the people. The Council consists of each member states elected governments.
The Commission could be considered not elected, but everyone involved in
choosing it is ultimately elected, either directly or indirectly. It also cant
make laws without the approval of the unambiguously elected bodies.

------
rv-de
most content based on copyrighted material is bland and low brow
entertainment. this regulation will force creators to think a bit deeper about
what they are actually putting out there. and i don't mind if 50% of YouTubers
are forced to actually find a real job.

having said that, it's still a stupid regulation which shows EU parliament's
incompetence in this regard.

------
olivermarks
I'm trying to get my head around how CDA 230 will work with these new EU
regulations...
[https://www.eff.org/issues/cda230](https://www.eff.org/issues/cda230)

~~~
coldacid
My guess is that anyone in the USA who doesn't do business in Europe will be
able to get away with saying "F you" to the EU.

~~~
adventured
You shouldn't be getting downvoted for that, you're entirely correct.

My new company in the US can safely ignore the EU when it comes to both
Article 13 and GDPR. There is nothing they can do about it. I can take on EU
users, who can freely upload content, and I do not need to comply with the EU
filter laws.

There is merely one primary requirement: all of my business and infrastructure
must remain outside of the EU. So long as I do that, I get to avoid those
laws. This of course isn't unique to the US, the same is true of most other
non-EU nations.

------
I_am_tiberius
Humanity did not change since WW2. The one big difference is/was the Internet.
Without a free Internet, who knows what happens. It is unbelievable.

~~~
dingaling
You can still communicate freely with your European colleagues. Take a photo,
send it in an IM. Chat about politics.

What you can't do is claim that uploading a rip of Generic Marvel Action Movie
VIII is 'communication'.

~~~
I_am_tiberius
When a company says it starts collecting data for the purpose of a and b then
it is correct. Fine. However, the company very soon finds out that it can make
more money out of the collected data when using it for purpose c and d.

I am sure the same will be done by the EU states in regards to upload filter.
First, they use it in order to block data because there's a copyright in
place, but very soon it's going to be blocked for other reasons (e.g. the user
sends a message with a keyword the EU doesn't like etc.).

------
varjag
A wild guess: nothing changes, or things even improve somewhat. Not very
invested into content distribution. If it has chilling effect on social
networks, so be it. And memes can die for all I care.

~~~
aldoushuxley001
Europe is more likely to be hived off from rest of internet as most companies
won't cater to such nonsense. Progress continues, just less so in Europe.

~~~
varjag
As long as their cashflow in Europe is in black, they will absolutely cater.
But we'll see soon enough.

~~~
nkkollaw
Doubt it.

It's very easy to implement GDPR compliance, and A LOT of websites opted for
blocking their content in Europe instead of working to make their services
compliant.

The requirements for being compliant with these directives are so difficult,
than only major companies will have the resource to do it, and many will
definitely not think it's worth the effort.

~~~
varjag
Businesses historically catered to a lot more expensive to implement laws.
Personal data territorial hosting, years worth of logging for law enforcement,
content filtering compliance, and it was barely on anyone's radar.

Reddit and other social networks rally users against this law however as it's
contrarian to their bottom line and growth curves. It is important to pause
and consider if the law (certainly promoted by large copyright holders) harms
these networks, individuals, or society at large.

~~~
nkkollaw
Sure, I guess... What size businesses are you talking about? There are a lot
of small websites that will go bankrupt (or, just close down) if this is
passed, where there's a solo developer that has no time nor money to implement
AI-powered filter to figure out if his users upload copyrighted content. If
you're talking about Apple and Google, then sure--but the internet is mostly
made up of extremely small, understaffed projects.

If companies catered to a lot more expensive to implement laws it's baffling
to me why many, many websites don't work in Europe after they passed GDPR
laws, then. I guess the fact that they can't use people's data however they
please anymore doesn't make it worth it to serve webpages here..?

