
Key Polish Political Party Comes Out Against Article 13 - DiabloD3
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/03/could-be-it-key-polish-political-party-comes-out-against-article-13
======
xlii
Oh how funny.

Few months back when the previous voting took place all of their
representatives were voting for article 13. Right now, due to forced coalition
most of the current EU parlamentarists got rather bad starting places (giving
them low election changes even in light of good voters support) and there were
talk about switching parties already.

Now, week later I find out they changed their mind and are going to protect
European Internet after being so eager to push this law. Smart, not that
surprising yet funny move nonetheless.

Oh, and when approving it they were defending it very vocally. They didn’t
pass it by ignorance. That’s for sure.

~~~
matt4077
A less cynical interpretation would be that democracy is still working
somewhat well, even in Poland.

~~~
mamon
What's with this "even in Poland"? Democracy in Poland is as good as ever.
Compared to previous government it is even an improvement.

~~~
matt4077
[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/20/world/europe/poland-
europ...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/20/world/europe/poland-european-
union.html)

------
b0rsuk
Speaking as someone who voted for Platforma once, these guys have no
credibility today because they don't commit to any program and are fickle.
They can't communicate what is that they're trying to do, what's their
program, and have no internal consensus on any major subject. Their decisions
are based on polls and what they think will get them votes. Polish parties are
heavily leader-based and leaders push others around. Current leader of PO is a
schemer and back room dealer with insincere smile, he knows how to stay afloat
and prevent defeat but not how to win or inspire people.

~~~
RobLach
That’s how democracy is supposed to work, no?

The opposite would be the UK situation where people are slowly realizing that
Brexit is a bad idea and the ruling body refuses to back down despite the
popularity of the move dwindling.

~~~
freshm087
Brexit is bad for me personally, but I'm sure that respecting results of a
political procedures (referenda, elections) is exactly what should be done in
a democracy, because not sticking to rules of the game is a direct way to
destroy trust, and incentive to vote. "Diminishing support" is what often
happens to very freshly elected MPs, governments, or presidents, and it
doesn't cancel electoral outcomes.

~~~
RobLach
While I agree from a practical governance sense, having n number of votes on
the same issue is still democratic despite it being increasingly inefficient.

As is voting out leaders you don't wish to follow anymore, even immediately.

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sytelus
People in US perhaps have no idea what is Article 13. It basically says that
websites which allow their users to share/upload copyrighted content are now
liable resulting in fees to copyright owners. This is big deal in Europe right
now although not many in US seems to have heard about it. Lot of European
versions of websites are going "dark" in protest.

The law is obviously lobbied by entertainment industry to target likes of
YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram etc. However its sure sounds pretty dumb. Next
time if I want to backrupt a website, I can just upload tons of copyrighted
material there.

~~~
llukas
Website would only be bankrupt unless it does absolutely nothing to verify
content.

[https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-47239600](https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-47239600)

~~~
WA
And what do you think can be done somewhat cheaply on every blog out there
that has a comment function and allows someone to upload excerpts of Harry
Potter?

The bare minimum technical solution seems to be excessive. You need some kind
of "Shazam for all the things", which can identify copyrighted material by
having a small snippet. And for that you actually need a huge database with
fingerprints or whatever of copyrighted material.

Please let us know if you have a simple and cheap solution that every blog
owner can implement (without high costs).

~~~
doh
Let me state first that Article 13 is a very dangerous idea that will have bad
consequences.

That said, we're making our Attribution engine (the shazam for all audio-
visual content) free to all platforms and rights holders [0]. It's surely not
a great situation, but we don't want to stay still and let the small platforms
to crumble under the weight of the giants.

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

~~~
AnthonyMouse
Is this actually helpful? It seems like there are really two options here.

One is that you can have your own database of copyrighted works, let anyone
submit one, and the law considers that sufficient. But then everyone has their
own database that starts with nothing in it, none of them really ever have
more than 1% of the total copyrighted works in them nor ever really catch
anything, and uploading everything to everyone's database is completely
intractable so nobody bothers.

The other is that having an incomplete database is insufficient, but having a
complete database is still intractable because anyone else can at any time
create a new copyrighted work that isn't in it. And then troll you with it
because they _know_ it isn't in any database but can have someone upload it to
your site just so they can use the law to destroy you. _No database_ will ever
contain more than 1% of the total copyrighted works, because they're created
by the millions every minute of every day.

So does pooling together like that actually buy you something? It doesn't seem
to change the "are you screwed" calculus much one way or the other.

~~~
doh
The way we read the article 13 is that platforms have to offer tools to
identify copyrighted work, but also the rights holders have to register the
work for them to be identified.

That would imply that one database with an obvious way for rights holders to
register their content should be the right way to go.

But we will not know up until an EU country actually writes the law.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
> That would imply that one database with an obvious way for rights holders to
> register their content should be the right way to go.

Having a single database seems unusually problematic. If there is only one
operator, who is that supposed to be? What happens if/when they give up or go
out of business? What happens when they charge monopoly rents or their system
is unreliable or full of bugs?

On the other hand, if there is one submission process that submits works to
everybody's database and people have their own copies, that seems like it
would be of particular interest to pirates -- go sign up as a database
recipient and the copyright holders will send you copies of all their works.

It's as if no one has even attempted to think through how this would work.

------
akerro
>Article 11 is now 15 and Article 13 is now 17 for my fellow inter users from
Europe and everywhere else on the planet.

[https://old.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/b434e9/article_11_i...](https://old.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/b434e9/article_11_is_now_15_and_article_13_is_now_17_for/)

------
GlitchMr
While I would like this to be the case, I don't trust Platforma Obywatelska
after they said they would vote against EU Copyright Directive
([https://twitter.com/platforma_org/status/1015184834623365120](https://twitter.com/platforma_org/status/1015184834623365120))
and then everyone from Platforma Obywatelska voted for it.

------
idlewords
The name of the party is misspelled in the article, it should be Platforma
Obywatelska (Citizens' Platform), not Platformy.

Every single time, goddammit.

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speeq
I hope that the Internet doesn't turn into various subnets like US-NET, EU-
NET, CHINA-NET .. Article 13 is a worrying development.

------
jarym
We need tougher laws to put these politicians behind bars if they’ve not acted
in the best interests of its citizens.

~~~
briandear
Supposedly you have elections?

~~~
b0rsuk
Poland is a pretty young democracy. There are no strong democratic
institutions, there isn't much faith in them and people are quite doubtful.
After partitions Poland spent a few hundreds years off the map, at the time
when many social changes were talking place (at the start of industrial
revolution). For a few centuries Poles no longer ruled themselves and there's
no strong tradition of civilized debate. Don't get me started about "democracy
of gentry", because the class composed at most 20% of society. So a vast
majority had no say in what's going on.

There's still admiration for strong figures like Putin, Piłsudski, Churchill,
even Stalin. People who don't trust institutions are sympathetic towards
autocrats and their displays of strength.

The Polish law works in such a way that a party member can jump ship, join
another party and still have a seat in parliament. Then if he's loyal enough
they put him on a voting list (in many cases you vote on lists of people, not
individuals).

~~~
V-2
_> After partitions Poland spent a few hundreds years off the map_

Your being incorrect on such a basic historical fact is quite a red flag.

 _> For a few centuries Poles no longer ruled themselves_

1.23 of a century (1795-1918) is not "a few". Unless my 8 year old nephew is a
few meters tall :)

 _> and there's no strong tradition of civilized debate_

Yes and no. It's true that when Poland didn't exist as an independent state,
much of the political debate was pushed underground - or abroad.

On the other hand, this very political debate - at least among the
intelligentsia - flourished nevertheless. A great many of Poland's finest
political writers (such as Staszic, Ściegienny or the Stańczycy) were active
in the 19th century.

 _> Don't get me started about "democracy of gentry", because the class
composed at most 20% of society. So a vast majority had no say in what's going
on._

"Don't get me started about Athenian democracy, they had slavery".

That's blatant ahistoricism. Democracy of gentry predated the concept of
nation in its modern sense. By the standards of the era, this political system
was way ahead of its times. The gentry - or the citizens with political rights
- accounted for no more than a few percent of the population elsewhere in
Europe.

And it Poland they weren't a closed caste, either; you could attain the status
as well as lose it. There was some degree of social mobility.

Poor gentry was pretty much indistinguishable from commoners in terms of
affluence, and mixed marriages weren't anything out of the ordinary.

Also note that Poland eg. granted voting rights to women as soon as it
regained independence (1918). Quite a few democratic countries kept them
waiting longer. It wasn't until 1944 in France or 1971 in Switzerland that
roughly 50% of the population had no voting rights.

 _> There's still admiration for strong figures like Putin, Piłsudski,
Churchill, even Stalin. People who don't trust institutions are sympathetic
towards autocrats and their displays of strength._

I find it doubtful whether Churchill really counts as an autocrat.

And would you care to substantiate your claim of "admiration" for Putin or
Stalin?

 _> The Polish law works in such a way that a party member can jump ship, join
another party and still have a seat in parliament._

That's the whole point of democracy. The mandate comes from the voters, not
the party. If the voters feel cheated, they shouldn't elect the guy the next
time.

