
The text of Article 13 and the EU Copyright Directive has been finalised - TimWolla
https://juliareda.eu/2019/02/eu-copyright-final-text/
======
beezischillin
> What’s important to note, though: It’s not “the EU” in general that is to
> blame – but those who put special interests above fundamental rights who
> currently hold considerable power. You can change that at the polls! The
> anti-EU far right is trying to seize this opportunity to promote their
> narrow-minded nationalist agenda

The article describes how German and French financial interests pushed through
the biggest BS of a law package to hit internet regulation this side of the
Atlantic, despite every objection and protest, even against sensible opinions
from their camp, behind closed doors, led mostly by representatives of German
political power in the driving seat who were unclear on the details of what
they're pushing, despite pushing it and defaming critics. After bungling so
many things in relation to policy in the recent few years, I simply do not
trust these countries to represent anything that's good for me or my own
interests as an EU citizen.

Call me crazy, but this does sound like what the "anti-EU far right" takes
issue with, more specifically the French-German political control of Europe,
beholden to their financial interests. Now I'm not advocating for joining
their side, against the EU, by any measure, but it seems to me that people
should heed this warning and draw some sensible conclusions in time --- before
they find themselves between two terrible extremes and no reasonable way out.

~~~
chatmasta
> Call me crazy, but this does sound like...

This comment reveals what the current social climate is most lacking: open-
mindedness and the willingness to consider the nuance of an argument before
labeling the person giving it as a villain. For every opinion someone has,
they have to qualify it and proclaim allegiance to the in-group, lest their
opinion be stripped of nuance in an effort to ascribe that person to the out-
group. The end result is a gradual dulling of social discourse amongst an
increasingly, inevitably polarized electorate.

~~~
freehunter
I agree, but it's a bit necessary online. Psuedo-anonymity means no one really
knows who you are or what you believe. You could be trolling. You could be
sarcastic. You could be serious. There's tons of bad actors who seek to sow
discord or steer a conversation through subtle manipulation, and it works. It
doesn't even have to be politics: for the longest time here saying something
negative about Rails was a death sentence for your comment score. These days
suggesting Rails as an answer might have that effect. And it doesn't even have
to be an entire group: some threads commenting positively about Android will
bring the wrath of the people. Other threads draw a pro-iPhone crowd.

If someone mentions they're excited about the new Samsung phone and I say
"yeah but isn't Android known for a malware problem?" how does anyone know if
I'm seriously asking a question, if I'm trolling, or even more effective: if
I'm spreading FUD by just putting the tiniest little bug in someone's ear?
Someone who might see that statement enough times to say "I don't know if
that's true, but a lot of people are saying it", and then they repeat it and
the snowball keeps rolling.

The only way to survive in that world is to wear your allegiance on your
sleeve. "I use Android, but even I've had a couple of malware issues". But now
that's being co-opted too, so you have to go deeper sometimes. "I've used
Android since it came out and I hate iPhone and would never use an Apple
product but Google should do more about the malware issue".

Forums are weaponized now. By nations, by corporations, by interest groups of
all shapes and sizes and means and goals. If something is the least bit
controversial, you have no way of knowing what the person (if it was a person)
actually meant by it. Which leads to people going out of their way to convince
you of their sincerity. Rarely will you find this happening in the real world,
unless there is a serious threat that the person's comments might be taken out
of context and put on the Internet for judgement.

~~~
belorn
As a counter weight, communities are built on the assuming of good faith. If
we assume a psuedo-anonymous stranger is a bad actor then it is impossible to
have functional open community online.

Open communities must balance the risk of bad actors with the health of the
community, and most does so through a few selected moderators which job it is
to screen for bad actors. This only work as long as the remaining members
continue to assume good faith in each other, including the moderators.

I would say that wearing your allegiance on your sleeve kills open
communities. Dissenting views are eliminated and thus we get echo chambers.
Anything slightly dissenting is seen as bad actor, and we get a oppressive
environment where the perceived risk of weaponized accounts becomes a tool for
control.

------
josteink
I can spend days and days trying to find a legal copy of an album I can
purchase in reasonable quality (read FLAC) so I don’t have to pirate (done in
less than a minute). And I often fail, because the content is strictly geo-
fenced and incredibly complexly licensed and as a EU-citizen I cannot have
those ones and zeros.

The system is madness and sometimes impossible to navigate, even for strongly
dedicated humans.

And here the EU expects that any website which has user uploads should make a
“best effort” effort to try to automatically license _all the copyright of
anything ever_.

How the fuck can they claim to mean this seriously? No really. Just how do
they plan for this to work?

~~~
sigfubar
I pay for Spotify. I pay for concert tickets. As far as I'm concerned, this
fulfills my obligation to support my favorite artists. Digitally downloaded
music is thus already inherently "paid for" and can be downloaded from any
source, even if some random entity considers this source "against the rules".
No moral hazard, no hassle. Just music.

~~~
josteink
My point was not the moral aspects of pirating.

It was about the impossible complexity of doing anything IP by the books, even
as a end-customer, as a single instance transaction.

And here the EU expects all companies out there, as intermediaries, to solve
this generically and automatically.

It’s a joke surely?

~~~
ahje
It's not a joke. I think most of the people behind this are simply so naive
that they can't believe the free market won't fix this.

~~~
nonbel
> _" the free market won't fix this."_

I've been seeing a large increase in comments like this across the internet.
Can you share where you learned the definition of "free market"?

~~~
ahje
> definition of "free market"?

Basic supply/demand. Many people believe that a demand for something will
result in someone deciding to make money by providing the sought-after
good/service.

~~~
nonbel
Where did you learn about the concept of "free markets" though? Is it the
school system of a certain country? A website?

I don't mean to try to hide why I am asking, it is because trying to tie a
situation like this to "free markets" is ridiculous if you know it means "free
of government meddling".

~~~
ahje
No worries. I learnt the concept at school, I guess? Mid or late 90's? :D

My definition is the same: Free from government meddling, although most
markets obviously have some regulations on certain products and services and
that they obviously aren't completely free.

Anyway, "free market" is being used by a lot of neo-liberal politicians here
in the EU at least. The idea is that if you create a demand for some good or
some service, then the private sector will automagically start providing the
good and/or service simply because there's money in doing so.

What I meant was that I do believe that the politicians behind Article 13
think that the private sector will simply provide the 100% foolproof upload
filters they're mandating, simply because they pass a law that mandates such
filters.

I hope that made it a bit more clear. Some of it might have been lost in
translation. English isn't my first language.

------
Someone1234
Google should just cut off YouTube and other impacted platforms for 24 hours
in the EU with a message telling them that the service is against Article 13.
It might sound absurd but it would be effective, and this is the real danger
with article 13.

~~~
tomatotomato37
It's not that absurd; remember the SOPA protests of 2012? It prevented the US
from enacting retarded legislation, no reason it couldn't work against EU too.

~~~
pexaizix
EU busybodies are unaccountable, unelected and practically live in another
dimension. There's no way something like the SOPA protests could work here.

~~~
c3o
In fact, they already did: The ACTA protests.

~~~
rmoriz
True. But mostly due to anti-americanism.

I was strongly against ACTA because it was kind of a black box, I supported
one of the biggest events in Germany against it.

But I had hopes that we could change the way such big contracts are getting
designed and agreed upon. How naively I was...

~~~
ionised
> True. But mostly due to anti-americanism.

I'd love to see you prove this.

~~~
rmoriz
Just listen to members of the left party or the pirate party. That was also a
reason I left and quit all my political work.

------
tick_tock_tick
The EFF released a short tweet with additional information
[https://twitter.com/EFF/status/1095775278683512832](https://twitter.com/EFF/status/1095775278683512832)

If this really applies to everything it's going to drastically change the
internet.

~~~
DelightOne
Or split it.

~~~
anticensor
Russian internet has already split itself off global one.

~~~
cronix
Sure, it's a logical move, just like having their own GPS system. It's fairly
established the NSA has everything tapped and collecting/storing all traffic.
The majority of the internet traffic still flows through the US at some point
as well. Why would any nation-state logically settle for that, especially
adversarial ones?

~~~
AnabeeKnox
_" It's fairly established the NSA has everything tapped and
collecting/storing all traffic."_

That's nonsense though. Even a basic understanding of internet technology
would show that such a thing is impossible.

~~~
cronix
Hmm. People who built it, or in charge of building it, seem to disagree.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3owk7vEEOvs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3owk7vEEOvs)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjwW1JlGG4o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjwW1JlGG4o)

And I'm sure you've read Snowdens revelations, and lack of denials from the
intelligence community, and Binney and Drake, among others, confirming, and
what the gov't did to try to silence them.

~~~
strictnein
No NSA program has ever been "collecting/storing all traffic". Please, I
understand you think there is one, but just start to think about the bandwidth
and storage needed to do something like that. You're talking about Zettabytes
worth of data each and every day. Just insane levels of data.

Binney and Drake were upset because their Thinthread project was passed over
and a much more advanced and expensive project was chosen (that later failed
miserably).

Hayden directly refutes them in his book "Playing to the Edge". I'm sure you
won't take his statements as anything, but you said there was a "lack of
denial" from the intelligence community, and his book is full of them.

------
DuskStar
I'm liking the "Ban them all and let God sort them out" approach more and more
now. It looks like the service restrictions and potential penalties for
serving EU customers are going to continue to increase, and we might as well
get off at the beginning.

~~~
rolph
im wondering how well that would demonstrate the point. It would definitely be
noticed if EU was cut off from US based services before this directive even
sees legislative review and voting.

------
yummybear
This is absolutely horrible and MEPs voting for this do not have EU citizens
best interests in mind.

~~~
beezischillin
Politicians rarely do.

------
jupp0r
Given the implications, wouldn't be a SOPA-like website blackout be in order?

~~~
pmlnr
If only. So many things changed online since the SOPA times; people don't
care. If they still have Instagram and Facebook, it's enough for them...

~~~
jupp0r
I’m pretty sure Favebook doesn’t like the new laws...

------
mehh
The Hargreaves Report from the UK Gov seemed a more sensible approach to
copyright.

[https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/32563/ipreview-
finalreport.pdf)

~~~
Silhouette
And the UK government tried to introduce a more reasonable exception along
those lines, allowing private copying activities such as format shifting...
which was then sunk by a judicial review, based on limits imposed under EU law
and the UK government's lack of willingness to fight that battle.

[https://www.gov.uk/government/news/quashing-of-private-
copyi...](https://www.gov.uk/government/news/quashing-of-private-copying-
exception)

------
surak
This is the best thing for innovation on the decentralized web, the focus on
websites in the legal text will force platforms down on the protocol level.

~~~
marknadal
Yes and no, I'm the author of the P2P tech behind notabug.io, d.tube, and
other sites, ([https://github.com/amark/gun](https://github.com/amark/gun)) so
I have some experience with this:

\- It works as well as WebRTC does. But browser vendors (Google, Microsoft,
Apple) have kept WebRTC crippled. Firefox is doing work to make this better.

\- When WebRTC fails (which is like 60% of the time), you have to fallback
through a DHT of IPv6 peers.

According to the law, I believe, any one of those peers could be liable.

As a result, anybody who has a consistent IPv6 address or domain winds up
needing to run a peer-specific "blacklist" of :( :( :( DMCA take down or else
they could possibly be sued or have their door smashed in.

We're trying to make this better by creating a network of WebRTC DHT signaling
peers called AXE (check the github for more info).

This will let users comply with the law (even be protected by things like
GDPR) and then transfer data directly to their friends (not using any
middleman service) and this data can stay protected with encryption (see our
WebCrypto wrapper that makes this easy,
[https://gun.eco/docs/SEA](https://gun.eco/docs/SEA) ).

This will be the best way for users to stay legally compliant while not
screwing over people's freedom and property-rights.

~~~
pmontra
If people will learn that (example) to view videos they must use Firefox,
they'll use Firefox. Than Google and Apple will fix their browsers.

------
kodablah
> What’s important to note, though: It’s not “the EU” in general that is to
> blame – but those who put special interests above fundamental rights who
> currently hold considerable power.

Who's to blame for the general environment of encroaching information
"protections" and general government oversight of the internet? You can't out
of one side of your mouth decry everyone warning about slippery slopes as
though they are nonexistent and then on the other side blame others for taking
advantage of said slope you pretended didn't exist. The slope never had to be
there. When you can't take the bad with the good of an open internet, this is
what you get. Sadly with slippery slopes in either direction (whether or not
people acknowledge their existence), hovering in the middle becomes
unsustainable.

Freedom has consequences, regulations have consequences, many times they are
mutually exclusive, so pick and accept said consequences. Only liking the good
parts and not liking the bad parts, while convenient to shirk responsibility,
ignores that they are often inseparable.

------
pagutierrezn
This Directive will make p2p greater than ever

~~~
rolph
im thinking p2p will be the next major target as well.

~~~
feanaro
Then tor and i2p.

------
StavrosK
So, if this passes, does it mean we can all go to the sites of the politicians
who voted for it and post copyrighted content in their comments and then sue
them?

------
shmerl
They should just drop this garbage for good already, instead of bringing this
horrible zombie back.

~~~
pojzon
There is enough interest to lobby it through. And politicians are braindead
sellouts..

~~~
shmerl
There should be more protests like against ACTA then. I haven't seen such now.

------
piokoch
Is EU going to survive all this? Brexit. This absurd regulation. Eurozone
debts problems (Italy situation is far from being stable). This could be a hot
summer for EU, especially if Euro parliament will be full of EU-hostile MPs.

------
I_am_tiberius
This is the destruction of the internet. I don't think there's anything other
than lobbying from the European media industry behind this directive. At least
we can assume decentralized systems will get more attention in the future.

------
amsvie
Link to the video of the press conference after the bill passed the EU-
parlament in July 2018: [https://multimedia.europarl.europa.eu/en/press-
conference-on...](https://multimedia.europarl.europa.eu/en/press-conference-
on-the-copyright-directive-by-axel-voss-epp-de-rapporteur-virginie-rozire-sd-
fr-pervenche-bers-sd-fr-jean-marie-cavada-alde-fr-helga-trpel-greensefa-
de_I158421_01-V_rv)

Somehow, this is doublespeak, somehow it make sense too..

~~~
animuj
Ok, watched it with open mind .

My impressions:

* Axel saying that Wikipedia shouldn't be against it because they added exception for them. He is missing the point so confidently...

* Missing all points raised by people not connected with Google/Amazon/Facebook. Nobody said it will be copyright issue for uploader. Everybody is saying that service owners will be more prone to removing content, just to be safe, in effect limiting access to information sharing. They also don't address existing issues YouTube has with copyright management and how it's abused by other firms.

* They are all talking about Monopolies and forgetting that such law will only strengthen them and minimize EU chance to create their own versions of google/facebook etc.

* They are focusing on newspapers/text and aggregators. If you don't want to be on google. Use robot noindex metatag. If you want to ensure your content is not aggregated further... hide it behind paywall or any other UX wall. There are technical solutions to do it. And in the end, if nothing helps, I believe if someone just copies your content 1:1, you can sue him for it. Even if it's news article.

* As for uploads and copyright detection. I hate myself for saying it... but leave it to copyright owners. Add legal tools for easier copyright challenges and arbitration. But at current state, our legal system is to slow to handle copyright management on such wide scope without hitting issues like Youtube has with many agents gaming the system. Let's maybe do some baby steps first by allowing for easier legal arbitration in general and then let's focus on also doing it for copyright issues. However... there is no money in it.

TLDR: Yes, we need changes to handle copyright management on the internet.
However their approach is premature, to generic and uninformed.

------
stakhanov
It seems to me like good news on the "Article 11" front, though. The way I'm
reading this, "link tax" is pretty much off the table.

------
blfr
Do I understand correctly that leave.eu will be available shortly?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19099150](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19099150)

------
xorand
I think the discussion is a bit myopic. Yes, this is horrible news for the new
aggregators of content. What about the creators of content? What if authors
hodl their copyright (or else be filtered)[1]

Who keeps google, facebook and others to share the original content instead of
hiding it in favor of the same or worse content taken from big media or
publishers? I don't stand by this extremely stupid legislation but before it
the net turned into TV.

[1] [https://chorasimilarity.wordpress.com/2018/09/12/authors-
hod...](https://chorasimilarity.wordpress.com/2018/09/12/authors-hodl-your-
copyright-or-be-filtered/)

------
rolph
of course we are not in EU but how will this effect our ability to even use HN
at all if this mentality spreads here. would it be an offence to post articles
from EU resources?

{adde} russia is apparently experimenting with some sort of xenophobia net, so
if perfected could we even see internet partitioning based on nation of origin
and destination, perhaps even internet passport and visa type of procedures
complete with excise and inspection procedures to simply use the internet
across international borders.

~~~
anticensor
Largest segments expected: CERN-ARPA (Americas+Switzerland), BEREC-RIPE (most
of Europe+most of Africa), RKnZ (EEU+OIC), OCCA (PRC). North Korea, South
Korea and India will determine the future of internet by choosing which
segment to join.

------
GhostVII
Hopefully this encourages the development of platform that can't be shut down
by overreaching governments. There will always be new laws trying to restrict
what you can and can't share online - the only true way to prevent this kind
of censorship, in my opinion, is to develop platforms that are impossible (or
very difficult) to censor. I've heard of lots of different decentralized
social media platforms and video platforms being developed, maybe one day
those will become mainstream rather than just being used mainly for extreme
and illegal content.

------
jillesvangurp
IMHO it's not that strange of a proposition to regulate what has been a
problem for copyright owners where big multi national companies monetize
content that isn't theirs by looking the other way. E.g. I love watching bbc
tv program uploads on Youtube but I do see that there may be a few issues with
the status quo where apparently this is normal and just the way things work.

Misguided or not, this law is trying to fix some things that are broken
currently. I think content fingerprinting as a technology is something that
could actually provide a way out. The key challenge is coming up with good
enough registries for those finger prints and making sure that they are not
being abused.

My big fear with this law is that it codifies the existing practice of giving
a monopoly on this to the defacto copyright monopolists that currently govern
royalties in most countries. IMHO the key would be allowing others to run such
registries and simply regulating the use of proof where a content owner has to
prove that content with a finger print is 1) theirs and 2) their rights were
violated. A registry solves that problem and as long as that registry has good
processes for managing conflicts, there's nothing wrong with requiring media
distributors to do reasonable due diligence in the form of checking some
finger prints.

What worries is the tone in this discussion and similar discussions regarding
e.g. the GDPR last year. In retrospect, the GDPR did not end the internet,
probably is an improvement for end users, and is now causing very reasonable
politicians elsewhere to consider similar legislation. I'd say that probably
they got that one mostly right. There are some cases in the courts currently
but mostly that seems to be for the right reasons like e.g. Facebook or Google
violating people's privacy on a large scale for profit.

I'd say arguing how this law should be improved/fixed is the debate that needs
to be happening. Instead we are getting nothing else than people trying to
argue that this is some internet ending apocalyptic event based on some blog
post they read. I'm seeing a lot of headless chickens and not a whole lot of
good argumentation on how to fix this. That feels wrong to me. These things
have a habit of coming back until some legislation is passed.

Also, people from the US singling out the EU here; the US has quite a bit of
history on this front. E.g. the DMCA, software patents, mickey mouse copyright
extensions, the whole net neutrality fiasco, etc. Also, there's probably more
than a little bit of lobbying going on by US owned media corporations in favor
of this. In fact those are probably the same corporations that got us the
before mentioned stuff as well.

------
buboard
I 'm curious to see the "industry" that will be set up to police this
directive. The gdpr has already created an industry of 'experts', consultants
and lawyers who all claim to know the One True Law (though they don't agree),
a bunch of agencies etc.

~~~
Matticus_Rex
I and most of the privacy professionals I know (with a couple of exceptions)
are pretty open about the fact that we can't be sure what a lot of the GDPR
means until there's more firm guidance.

------
cromwellian
John Perry Barlow must be spinning in his grave.

------
HyperTalk2
I would happily assist in the destruction of any company that bends the knee
to these unelected parasites by complying with their "laws." Helping to
perpetuate the illusion that they deserve or possess any legitimate power
makes you the enemy.

------
ur-whale
It's actually a very good thing.

It will create a huge opportunity for new decentralized (IPFS-like) tech. that
will run circles around this dumb regulation _and_ force incumbent established
players (YouTube and the like) to evolve or die.

~~~
phoe-krk
Until the copyright people, after noticing that the profits they expected
aren't up to their expectations, start digging deeper in search for gold that
isn't there.

~~~
Asooka
From what I can see, piracy doesn't hurt profits and as long as it's available
only to technologically literate people, it will pretty much fly under the
radar.

~~~
phoe-krk
Of course it doesn't hurt profits. It doesn't prevent copyright lobbyists from
saying that it does, though.

------
CamTin
The possible upside of this may be the decentralization of massive content
silos like youtube or facebook, toward federated or self-hosting platforms
where the administrators of individual "sites" can better know their users. I
can see the "fediverse" (the main public ActivityPub network, notably
including most Mastodon users) benefiting from this, for example, since a
club/gaming clan/media company could run their own Mastodon instance and be
responsible for the things posted using it.

