Live data from Hacker News

Four Wikipedias to ‘Black Out’ over EU Copyright Directive

wikimediafoundation.org

161–170 of 204 posts

Re: Four Wikipedias to ‘Black Out’ over EU Copyright Directive

#161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's democratic at all. In case of my small country, almost literally no one wants this law - but that doesn't matter, we're a small country. The whole thing feels terribly wrong - 10 million people, the 100% majority of this rather big geographical location that is even separated by mountains on all sides, are just overruled, while they don't even understand the language these politicians are talking i…

I don't think the Art 13 legislation will last in its current form. But whatever form it does take, if your country was "independent", I wouldn't be surprised if it signed up to harmonize anyway as part of a trade deal. Your real enemy is globalization and modern conveniences of globally cheap goods, and globally high quality goods being available for you to purchase and manufacture and export. The alternatives are s…

Hmm, I'd like to see future where most [high quality] goods are produced locally - thanks to robots and AI. That's why I'd like the country to stay independent and of course automation and IT/tech/knowledge-based export economy is the only way it'd work in the long term for such country.

For that we need our citizens to be as free in doing business as possible, and for the whole thing to be as easy as possible. The EU is directly influencing our economical growth and technological and societal progression in this way.

Re: Four Wikipedias to ‘Black Out’ over EU Copyright Directive

#162
post #147

Here are part of the lyrics of "Enter Sandman" of Metallica: Exit light Enter night Take my hand We're off to Never—, Neverland Now I lay me down to sleep Pray the Lord my soul to keep If I die before I wake Pray the Lord my soul to take YCombinator is now in violation of article 13. Some filter should have prevented me from posting this. That is what article 13 is about.

Article 13 is bad enough without needing to make up absurd interpretations of it. EU law is enforced on the basis of proportionality, and the wording of the proposed directive already covers that. There's never going to be some legal obligation to remove something like the quote you just posted. Furthermore, since it's a directive each member state will need to implement it in a way that's compatible with both the di…

There is however a legal requirement to get a license- or have a licensing service get the microtransaction necessary to pay to metallica or the lyrics owner his due.

Re: Four Wikipedias to ‘Black Out’ over EU Copyright Directive

#163
post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's democratic at all. In case of my small country, almost literally no one wants this law - but that doesn't matter, we're a small country. The whole thing feels terribly wrong - 10 million people, the 100% majority of this rather big geographical location that is even separated by mountains on all sides, are just overruled, while they don't even understand the language these politicians are talking i…

Obviously a political and economic union will impose laws on its member states. Your country, holding 2% of the votes, being able to overrule the entire union wouldn't be very democratic either. It sounds like you want to have the cake and eat it too. Get the benefits of the union but be able to refuse the laws it imposes. If the EU decides on a law, that the majority of the union agrees on but your country doesn't,…

Why does it have to regulate everything?

why not leave some space for local regulation and souvereignity?

Re: Four Wikipedias to ‘Black Out’ over EU Copyright Directive

#164
post #6

The big websites participating in the blackout like Wikipedia or some porn sites do have vast access to eyeballs across europe, and would be affected directly and adversely by the new rules. As the lobbying fight has already been mostly won by the local publisher industry, they use their access to those eyeballs to fuel democratic protests of the rule. I hope they win and that Article 11 and 13 will be removed. I thi…

I don't think it's democratic at all. In case of my small country, almost literally no one wants this law - but that doesn't matter, we're a small country. The whole thing feels terribly wrong - 10 million people, the 100% majority of this rather big geographical location that is even separated by mountains on all sides, are just overruled, while they don't even understand the language these politicians are talking i…

Coincidentally, I am also from a 10 million country surrounded by mountains... and I feel the need to say a few words.

What sovereignty are you talking about? The one we had before WW2, right before we were occupied by Germans? Or after WW2, that brief moment before we were controlled and later even occupied by Russians? That sovereignty is an illusion, especially in today's interconnected world. We can either be small and be controlled by the big ones or be a small part of a big one. Is EU perfect? Certainly not. We can talk about reforms. But despite all shortcomings, I would still say that being part of the EU is the best era of our history.

And saying that people had more say over our country during the communist regime than we have today... that contradicts my experience and this is the sentiment I would like to express in the strongest possible terms.

And I would not be so sure about what "most people here would rather..." - if I might share my position on this: I voted yes to join the EU in order to get roughly what I got and I would not change my vote.

Just my $0.02 - article 13 is not about what Germans and French want, it is about what powerful lobbies want - being outside of EU would not save us from something like that despite what majority of the country wants - the fact is that we were not overruled; check the stances of our representatives (https://saveyourinternet.eu/cz) - unless there is some other mountains-surrounded country I do not know about, most of our MEPs voted for the article 13.

Re: Four Wikipedias to ‘Black Out’ over EU Copyright Directive

#165
post #3

The EU started as a union to promote freedom of movement, peace and trade inside Europe. Since then, it has grown to be an oversized bureaucracy that restricts the freedoms of European citizens. Everyone who criticize it is immediately labelled as a right winger.

I am not sure why you are being down-voted. I know people have a distaste for political insights in general here, but it seems apt to have comments like these on an article about protesting a governing body. Why is German Wikipedia having to have a blackout? They are unhappy with the EU restricting their freedoms.

He is being downvoted because his comment was factually incorrect. That's not why the EU was started.

Re: Four Wikipedias to ‘Black Out’ over EU Copyright Directive

#166
post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously a political and economic union will impose laws on its member states. Your country, holding 2% of the votes, being able to overrule the entire union wouldn't be very democratic either. It sounds like you want to have the cake and eat it too. Get the benefits of the union but be able to refuse the laws it imposes. If the EU decides on a law, that the majority of the union agrees on but your country doesn't,…

I absolutely don't think an economic union (our citizens did not vote in a referendum to join a political union, that was forced on us) needs to impose such laws (environment, human rights) not regarding international trade between member states and third state policies. It should impose treaties regarding export and import between member states, and maybe provide a civil court. Whatever the EU is, it's not an "econo…

You can elect a government that can trigger article 50. There is no exception, any country can do it.

Re: Four Wikipedias to ‘Black Out’ over EU Copyright Directive

#167
Shame that the CTA of e.g. the German Wikipedia is so weak: "Kontaktieren sie ihre Abgeordneten " (translted: contact your representative) which links to https://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/de/home.

Besides the site being super slow right now, I couldn't even figure out how to actually find _my_ representative. Is my representative the one of the city where I live? How can I search by city? Is this even by city? Doesn't seem so. So now I have a list of 96 random people. Which ones can actually influence this? Or which one actually need their opinion changed?

I also wouldn't really know how to contact them - just send an email and write that I hate that the make so bad politics that Wikipedia had to shut down their site in protest?

Politics is hard :/

Re: Four Wikipedias to ‘Black Out’ over EU Copyright Directive

#168
post #147

Here are part of the lyrics of "Enter Sandman" of Metallica: Exit light Enter night Take my hand We're off to Never—, Neverland Now I lay me down to sleep Pray the Lord my soul to keep If I die before I wake Pray the Lord my soul to take YCombinator is now in violation of article 13. Some filter should have prevented me from posting this. That is what article 13 is about.

Article 13 is bad enough without needing to make up absurd interpretations of it. EU law is enforced on the basis of proportionality, and the wording of the proposed directive already covers that. There's never going to be some legal obligation to remove something like the quote you just posted. Furthermore, since it's a directive each member state will need to implement it in a way that's compatible with both the di…

That might be true from the law perspective, but a major objection to copyright filters is that they go beyond the requirements of copyright law and ignores fair use. Youtube filter being a prime example.

If you include the above quoted snippet of the song in a youtube video, the probability that it will receive a copyright claim is close to 100%. Fair use is a legal defense that a person can use in court, but the purpose of copyright filters and thus the purpose of Article 13 is to resolve the issue in favor of the author before it end up in court. Article 13 in practice eliminates fair use.

Article 13 do not require copyright filters to consider fair use. If it did we would likely see a very nuanced discussion since it would force youtube to change their system in order to be compliant, but alas thats not the case.

If HN implemented a copyright filter we should expect from experience that such filter would not consider fair use, nor would it enforce copyright on the basis of proportionality. We could claim that this result is not the fault of article 13, but that is a naive perspective.

Re: Four Wikipedias to ‘Black Out’ over EU Copyright Directive

#169

As an EU citizen, I hope large portions of the internet will just block us. A couple of days without YouTube, Wikipedia and other services would create sufficient outrage to put pressure on the EU for introducing these idiotic laws. I mean, GDPR is bad enough for start ups, but Article 13?

"Username checks out" as they say on the alien website.
Post reply on HN