
EU copyright reforms draw fire from scientists - touristtam
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-03837-7
======
elihu
> Concerns focus on a provision that would let publishers claim royalties for
> the use of snippets of information, such as tables or headlines. This was
> included with the aim of enabling news publishers to secure revenue from
> social-media platforms such as Facebook and Google. But a proposal added by
> a European Parliament committee would mean that the provision also applies
> to academic publications.

In other words, this proposed rule is to address the made-up problem that
publishers aren't content that third-party news aggregators are doing them a
favor by sending them readers; they want to milk them for additional revenue.

The EU parliament committee seems to be acting consistent with the belief that
fixing this perceived unfairness is more important than considering the
unintentional negative side-effects.

~~~
Gys
The questions asked by the parlement (and the US senate) to Mark Zuckerberg
show very clearly how minimal knowledge politicians have of the reality as
percieved by 'the rest of us'.

~~~
mathinpens
did you actually read or watch the whole testimony (of either testimony) or
you basing this on ~5 minutes of youtube click bait footage of older senators
being confused...

I watched the entire zuckerberg united states senate testimony and I found
much of the questioning incisive and valuable

~~~
Gys
I admit I only read some articles on both encounters (in reputable
newspapers). However, those are very much in line with my personal experiences
from the years that was running a media company. Politicians are focussed on
getting in office and staying there. Being friends with (listing to) the big
guys (big names, important companies) is cool and good for status. Mingling
with the little guys is only neccessary every so many years (because, what do
they know anyway ?). Yes, it made me a little frustrated ;-)

~~~
lakechfoma
I watched a couple of hours of it myself and saw moments like the "senator, we
run ads" moment happen. A lot of the things the media was running off about
was taken well out of context. That moment, for example, was not nearly as "oh
my god look at this old fart" as Twitter made it. They had already established
the fact that FB makes money off ads and the senator was basically poking to
see if there was any thought towards another way to make money.

Honestly a fair number of quality questions were asked and deflected by Zuck,
and he knew how to play some moments to make the senators look stupid for
those social media soundbites. But to be fair, an alarming number of questions
were also either very poorly formed (intention was there, a millennial
proofread would have helped though) or were thinly veiled self indulgent
political maneuvers. Zuck actually did a good job defending net neutrality at
one point where the line of questioning was obviously a nod to the ISP cabal.

------
qwerty456127
> Intellectual-property experts agree that existing EU copyright rules need an
> overhaul for the digital age

Variations of this idea are the root of all the bullshit that has began with
the DMCA and keeps on with periodical attempts to expand it with
SOPA/PIPA/ACTA etc.

~~~
eikenberry
And the sad fact is that they are right, it does need an overhaul, just pretty
much in the opposite direction. With the need for traditional publishers and
distributors a thing of the past we should be looking into other ways to
monetize the arts to support the artists rather than doubling down on
scarcity.

~~~
dpwm
Experts cost money. One side can pay for experts, the other can't. In this
case it's the newspapers and publishers. Other times it will be the copyright
lobby.

It's reminds me of well-funded think-tanks providing experts with academic
credentials very articulately arguing that supply-side effects are a great
reason to cut taxes for the super-rich and decrease or privatize those costly
public services.

How many think-tanks advocating increasing taxes for the rich to pay for
public services for all get a steady income stream?

It's like a biased random walk. Sometimes things go backwards a bit, but the
direction's set by underlying bias of the system.

~~~
adventured
The other side can pay for 10000x more experts. Google is on the other side
and the EU has been intentionally ignoring what they've said on the subject
for years.

------
gnomewascool
If you're am EU citizen, you can call an MEP, either with Mozilla's simple but
basic tool[0] or by looking at the list of swing MEPs[1] and using EDRi'S
talking points[2].

[0] [https://changecopyright.org](https://changecopyright.org)

[1]
[https://edri.org/files/Copyright_JURI_MEPs_undecided.pdf](https://edri.org/files/Copyright_JURI_MEPs_undecided.pdf).

[2] [https://edri.org/stop-the-censorshipmachine-suggested-
talkin...](https://edri.org/stop-the-censorshipmachine-suggested-talking-
points/)

~~~
tremon
I also want to mention
[https://saveyourinternet.eu/](https://saveyourinternet.eu/), a joint campaign
from some 20 organizations (including Creative Commons and Wikimedia).

The FSFE and EFF are running their own campaigns as well:

[https://savecodeshare.eu/](https://savecodeshare.eu/)

[https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/06/internet-luminaries-
ri...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/06/internet-luminaries-ring-alarm-
eu-copyright-filtering-proposal)

------
haywirez
Please help out to make sure this directive proposal is voted against next
week by the majority of the JURI committee. List of handles of reportedly yet
undecided MEPs:

@Emil_Radev @1PavelSvoboda @KaufmannSylvia @enricogasbarra @mady_delvaux
@FrancisZD @TadeuszZwiefka @marinhoepinto

(source:
[https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DfrJ6kpWAAEifEL.jpg](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DfrJ6kpWAAEifEL.jpg))

Full list of Legal Affairs (JURI) committee members that will cast a vote:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/8q1mfc/on_the_eu_co...](https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/8q1mfc/on_the_eu_copyright_reform/e0lavem/)

MEP @Senficon is leading the charge against this on Twitter with some sensible
alternatives proposed.

A good takedown of this proposal that gets into details:

[https://www.communia-association.org/2018/05/22/council-
parl...](https://www.communia-association.org/2018/05/22/council-parliament-
edge-towards-finalizing-positions-article-13-remains-mess/)

This reddit thread is also a great resource:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/8q1mfc/on_the_eu_co...](https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/8q1mfc/on_the_eu_copyright_reform/?st=jig36rhl&sh=1d6eb9ca)

------
cft
Just the mere fact that the EU government can be so technically inept as to
draft and circulate such a legislation makes me totally distrust its
intentions.

~~~
skywhopper
I don't think it's bad intentions, just very very poor intuition about how
computers and software works. They take it as a given that software-based
content filters can and do work reasonably well and that the exceptions are
exceedingly rare. Just like the press and government and most Hacker News
patrons think that self-driving cars are imminent and real AI is just around
the corner, and electronic voting is a good idea; and how the press believe
that there's probably a backdoor solution for encryption that is still totally
safe.

~~~
cft
I think their calculation is far more rational: "There are no large internet
companies in Europe (due to their own anti-startup regulation and taxation
regime btw), but there are large copyright owners. So let's at least maximize
the the value to the EU copyright lobby without any regard for the EU internet
lobby (since we have none)".

~~~
lumberjack
>due to their own anti-startup regulation and taxation regime

Mention one such law.

~~~
Silhouette
_Mention one such law._

EU law that creates a barrier for startups? Here are just a few examples that
are likely to be relevant to a typical startup we might have been discussing
on HN, in addition to the various attempted IP changes mentioned elsewhere in
today's discussion:

* Article 82(c) (the foundation of the anti-price-discrimination regime)

* Consumer Rights Directive

* ePrivacy Directive

* VAT regulations (particularly the 2015 changes affecting digital services)

* GDPR

All of these could credibly have been introduced with good intentions. Many of
us would probably support reasonable consumer rights protections or privacy
provisions, for example.

However, all of them have been criticised for their practical implementation
and their adverse (and possibly unintended) effects on smaller businesses.

------
JumpCrisscross
> _Concerns focus on a provision that would let publishers claim royalties for
> the use of snippets of information, such as tables or headlines. This was
> included with the aim of enabling news publishers to secure revenue from
> social-media platforms such as Facebook and Google. But a proposal added by
> a European Parliament committee would mean that the provision also applies
> to academic publications._

The EU repeatedly shoots itself in the foot with badly-written laws—aimed at
Facebook and Google—landing on itself. Revenue thresholds, for GDPR or this,
only above which these requirements activate, are a simple fix. No idea why
the European bureaucracy repeatedly opposes such thresholds.

~~~
Brotkrumen
How GDPR is always listed as bad is beyond me. Do you actually know what it
does or are you just repeating what the sellers of your data are moaning about
right now?

Privacy is broken, GDPR with informed consent requirements for nonessential
data uses, is a first step in the right direction. All the bitching right now
is from companies that made money off of selling you out.

~~~
fjsolwmv
And from consumers who want those services to exist at the prices they are
currently offered at.

------
forapurpose
I worry that the days of openness - of FOSS and SV startups, as leading
examples - might be looked back on as a halcyon nirvana, a wild and free era,
remembered by the few who understand what openness means and what its
implications were, and who still remember as new generations grow up
accustomed to something else. In the case of something so fundamentally
technical, most of the public doesn't understand it; they would not understand
the significance and what it has begotten. How many noticed what happened to
the streetcars? How many Americans notice their horrible healthcare system,
despite overwhelming evidence of far better alternatives?

Look at the CPTPP[0], net neutrality, and this proposed law. Look at the
brazen abuse of power by big business in Washington (and in American state
capitals and in Seattle and in campaign finance). If you think horrible laws
won't happen, won't become fate; if you think it will work out in the end, you
haven't read history. There not only have been horrible things like
segregation and mass incarceration, which (have) lasted generations, or war
upon war, but again and again industry has seized power and cemented their
position, and soon it becomes a norm that nobody notices, with vested
interests that won't want to change. Look at the current patent system, as a
modern, IT-implicated example. Or a better example: Most people blindly accept
region restrictions, for example on films, as a norm - maybe something they
try to workaround, but an inevitable situation; it's not.

[0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17313484](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17313484)

EDIT: Added region restrictions example

~~~
mar77i
Why is it hard to do sane policy?

Because if you listen to the key powers, those key powers act not in the
interest of the public but in their own instead. The problem isn't going to
get better, as history already shows.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs)

I wonder how it would even theoretically be possible to balance such gravely
contrasting needs/wants by whatever definition of representation without
ending up at Douglas Adams' quote about summarizing this problem.

------
shmerl
_> The European Parliament legal committee’s vote on the law, scheduled for
23–24 April_

The vote will be on June 20, 2018.

See [https://juliareda.eu/eu-copyright-reform/](https://juliareda.eu/eu-
copyright-reform/)

Hopefully enough people will protest, like happened with ACTA.

------
andrenth
This should be eye-opening to a number of Europeans here on HN who, in the
GDPR debate, basically dismissed any possible negative implications of the law
by trusting their politicians and basically saying “we don’t have to worry
because this is not the United States”.

~~~
cyphar
The problems with EU's incredibly overzealous copyright laws have been known
and talked about for decades (in Germany if you take a photograph of the
building _the architect_ has some copyrights to that photo). It is a
significant issue, and one that is probably perpetuated by the large EU
publishing houses like Springer Verlag and so on.

But I think that arguing that because of this issue, other unrelated
legislation like GDPR is now somehow "tainted" is being a bit melodramatic.
It's not. Privacy laws have been incredibly important in Europe's history and
have also been a theme over many decades as well. Not to mention that GDPR was
effectively an extension of previous privacy general directives passed in 1995
and earlier. Many non-EU countries also have EU-style privacy laws (like
Switzerland).

~~~
germanier
> _in Germany if you take a photograph of the building the architect has some
> copyrights to that photo_

FWIW that is the case i'm almost every country (by the Berne Convention) and
some are even more restrictive. See e.g.
[https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Freedom_of_panora...](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Freedom_of_panorama)
for an overview of the international situation (but please don't depend on
that for subtleties).

------
sandworm101
I am not an EU lawyer, but in north america this sort of academic use would
not be a copyright violation.

(1) You cannot copyright facts. A study saying that there are "100 hamsters
per square kilometer" does not control that fact. Anyone else can also say
that there are "100 hamsters per square kilometer". They don't even meed to
cite the original study (plagiarism is different than copyright). This is
well-understood doctrine, especially for people who make things like maps. A
chart or a table is just a representation of facts. Copyright would only be an
issue for something like a diagram or photograph, something with some creative
input. And even then ... see (2).

(2) Academic citation is covered by 'fair use'. One academic paper
incorporating a bit from another does so to either rely upon it for some
grander theory (comment) or to say that it is wrong about something
(criticism). Google and similar entities covered by this law add nothing and
so are not covered by fair use.

------
mindslight
How is it even difficult to reform copyright? You focus on the term, and set a
timeline for it to ramp down. Say 5 years per year.

~~~
dingo_bat
Their definition of "reform" is different.

------
merinowool
This proposal shows how a body that has a power of creating regulation can get
corrupted and there is nobody dare to investigate. I won't mention how much
tax payer money could have been already wasted on this. People should be in
jail over this.

------
expertentipp
At this stage it’s clearly an open war between German publishers and media
industry with Google and Facebook. The EU citizens will receive the beatings,
particular how western world was patronizingly teasing the Great Firewall of
China only 5-10 years ago.

------
slimshady94
The vote mentioned in the article was almost 2 months ago.

~~~
mtgx
The vote by the European Parliament, which is what matters, is next week on
June 20.

------
bausshf
Worse than net neutrality

~~~
Tharkun
Are you saying net neutrality is a bad thing? Why so?

~~~
bausshf
I mean the net neutrality ban. I should probably have been clear about that.

