
EU Cancels 'Final' Negotiations on EU Copyright Directive - rwmj
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190118/11062441423/eu-cancels-final-negotiations-eu-copyright-directive-as-it-becomes-clear-there-isnt-enough-support.shtml
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tyfon
So what I get from this is that the system works. When enough people voice
their concerns the people in charge actually listen.

At least there seems to be no internet disaster as of now? I usually postpone
my doomsday scenarios until they are fact . One just has to be vigilant in any
new proposals that is made on this subject. And scream loudly if the lobbyists
go at it again.

Eventually I hope EU completely bans organised lobbying, nothing good ever
comes from pandering to special interests.

~~~
xoa
> _So what I get from this is that the system works._

This is definitely really worth repeating and something everyone should always
keep in mind. It's very dangerous for educated people and experts in
particular to allow apathy or over cynicism to obscure the fact that it is
truly possible to lobby successfully for positive changes too.

> _I usually postpone my doomsday scenarios until they are fact._

I'm not quite sure what you mean by this? You mean you postpone your
contingency plan activation, or do you mean warning people around it? But if
you think it really is a doomsday scenario and you don't warn people until
after it's done how do you keep it from happening in the first place?

> _Eventually I hope EU completely bans organised lobbying, nothing good ever
> comes from pandering to special interests._

How would that not affect organizations like the EFF or ACLU or whatever the
EU equivalents are? I know that most of the population, even if they're
massively effected by the destructive effects of IP maximalism, are not
actually cognizant of it at all. That makes those of us opposed to it "special
interests" too doesn't it? We're trying to lobby for technocratic policy
changes that will benefit us personally even if it will also benefit others
too. It would likely benefit many of us commercially too, which isn't an
inherently bad thing. How do you create an objective set of rules around that?

~~~
tyfon
> I'm not quite sure what you mean by this? You mean you postpone your
> contingency plan activation, or do you mean warning people around it? But if
> you think it really is a doomsday scenario and you don't warn people until
> after it's done how do you keep it from happening in the first place?

What I mean is that I don't go screaming "the internet is doomed" for months
before the actual vote like I've seen many forums posts and articles claim.

However I have no issue in warning people that "if the proposal is accepted as
is it would do great harm".

>How would that not affect organizations like the EFF or ACLU or whatever the
EU equivalents are? I know that most of the population, even if they're
massively effected by the destructive effects of IP maximalism, are not
actually cognizant of it at all. That makes those of us opposed to it "special
interests" too doesn't it? We're trying to lobby for technocratic policy
changes that will benefit us personally even if it will also benefit others
too. It would likely benefit many of us commercially too, which isn't an
inherently bad thing. How do you create an objective set of rules around that?

They can still organise, spread information and argue their point. I might
have been a bit broad in my strokes. There should be no organised "secret"
lobbying, that is I wish all that the politicians do and talk about in their
official capacities should be recorded and open. This includes internal party
meetings, lobbyist meetings etc. It is very hard to create this objectively
but the end-game for me is to get back-door politics out in the open.

I once read a book by L.E. Modesitt Jr names "Haze" which has a system that I
actually find very appealing. It's a bit much to recap it here but if one
likes to explore different systems this is a good one imho.

~~~
Mirioron
> _What I mean is that I don 't go screaming "the internet is doomed" for
> months before the actual vote like I've seen many forums posts and articles
> claim._

The only reason this didn't pass is because people screamed at the tops of
their lungs.

~~~
Matticus_Rex
Yeah, the way I see it if the system only works because there was a bunch of
hyperbolic alarmism to balance out the awful impulse of industry-aligned
legislators, the system wasn't actually working that well. It may be
functioning, but the fact that this battle will get harder and harder to fight
every time it happens (which could be eternal) means that's not really
something that works well.

~~~
infogulch
Right, this result doesn't mean the system works, it means that the big red
EMERGENCY STOP button works, as long as everyone screams loud enough.

We'll see if the system itself works if the next time the industry makes a
push for stupid legislation like this and the politicians push back because
they know their constituents don't want it from the last time. How confident
are you that this will happen?

------
slim
Julia Reda (Pirate Party MEP) did a great job protecting our freedoms. I hope
she gets reelected.

~~~
TomMarius
This is what I hate about the European Union. Since I am from another (member)
country, I can't vote for her. Makes zero sense, her voice represents me more
(as in actual votes she can lobby - due to her country being bigger and thus
her party obtaining more mandates for the same result) than any party from my
country does.

~~~
kolinko
Hah, I think you're getting downvotes because people think by "other country"
you mean US and so on, and assume you expect Americans to be able to vote on
EU politicians :)

Being from Poland, my first thought was "well, of course someone from outside
EU cannot vote", and then realised you mean "from another EU country".

~~~
TomMarius
You're right, but well, it's not a federation (yet)... ;-)

~~~
mcv
Even if it was, that doesn't guarantee it. In the US, you also can't vote for
a candidate running in another state.

It's stupid, but not every democratic system uses proportional representation.

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BossingAround
It seems to me that the EU has been surprisingly good in terms of internet
literacy and laws (though this is probably not the end of the Article 11 or
13).

In view of recent leaks, I have filed a number of request for account
deletion, given to me by GDPR, and all of them have been completed. This is
pretty amazing in my mind.

~~~
luckylion
Have you ever tried having your accounts deleted before the GDPR roll-out?
Because I have, and no company ever said no.

~~~
Kudos
There's a big difference between "delete my account" and "delete all
information you have on me". From people I've spoken to, there have been a lot
of companies implementing the latter in order to be compliant.

------
cronix
I am glad cooler heads were able to prevail, and I'm heartened at the long
list of countries that voted NO.

------
rue
Some of the comments here are a little too optimistic, although this is a
victory.

The fight is not over yet. The directive needs to be written, and ideally in a
way that prevents this from being brought back to the table again.

------
lbj
Im glad to see now support was found for 11/13, but Im afraid they'll poke
their nasty heads in the near future. Now if we could only get GDPR trimmed
down to half its current size and remove all the ambiguities I'd be thrilled.

~~~
Mirioron
Add a minimum threshold of company size, revenue, and data amount to GDPR.
This would get rid of the biggest problems with it. In practice it already
works that way.

~~~
icebraining
And then the big players will use Hollywood accounting but for data - make a
bunch of small companies with little revenue that handle the actual data and
"sell" those services to the mothership.

The whole point of using revenue-based fines was to avoid such tricks, and you
want to add them back in?

~~~
Mirioron
The fine says "$20 million or 4% global revenue, whichever is _greater_ ".
That definitely penalizes small companies more.

> _And then the big players will use Hollywood accounting but for data - make
> a bunch of small companies with little revenue that handle the actual data
> and "sell" those services to the mothership._

This is why there would be a threshold on data itself. Come on, a guy running
a forum with 100 users from his basement shouldn't be expected to legally have
as much responsibility as somebody running a website that has revenue in the
millions. It just discourages start ups and hobby developers, because nobody
wants to open themselves up to "denial of service attacks" where people get
the DPA to audit you because they didn't like what you had to say on Twitter.
Just don't run the small site and there is no risk of that.

But I guess Europe is already so weak in the web industry that it might be
irrelevant. We're going to rely on American websites anyway.

