European Parliament approves copyright reform • Hacker News Board

Re: European Parliament approves copyright reform

#281

Post by Hamuko » Tue, Mar 26, 2019, 2:13 PM UTC

dingaling wrote: post #273

philpem wrote: post #226

As I said on one of the other threads... 26 March 2019. The day the Internet died. (at least in Europe) But of course -- "the Internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it" -- so what we're likely to see is a massive spike in people streaming video over encrypted tunnels into other countries. That'd be interesting. It'd render GeoIP rather moot, among other things. I suspect the EU and Member States'…

> The day the Internet died. No. The day the ”Upload Other People's Work" Internet died. > what we're likely to see is a massive spike in people streaming video over encrypted tunnels Or just creating their own content. Wouldn't that be awesome?

You sure about that?

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-42580523

Re: European Parliament approves copyright reform

#282

Post by natch » Tue, Mar 26, 2019, 2:13 PM UTC

skrebbel wrote: post #193

I_am_tiberius wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean "It's poorly democratic" and not "It's purely democratic", right?

I'm seriously baffled about the amount of HN commenters, who I'd assume are highly educated, who think that democracy doesn't work if they don't agree with every law produced by it.

Who’s saying it doesn’t work? It works, poorly.

As in, with poor results. Which is exactly how it does work when it is working. Almost invariably the results are poor because so many of the voters are ignorant.

Re: European Parliament approves copyright reform

#283

Post by rv-de » Tue, Mar 26, 2019, 2:13 PM UTC

most content based on copyrighted material is bland and low brow entertainment. this regulation will force creators to think a bit deeper about what they are actually putting out there. and i don't mind if 50% of YouTubers are forced to actually find a real job.

having said that, it's still a stupid regulation which shows EU parliament's incompetence in this regard.

Re: European Parliament approves copyright reform

#284

Post by DanBC » Tue, Mar 26, 2019, 2:13 PM UTC

cift wrote: post #219

madjam002 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s an outdated article, it has since been made illegal again.

Not quite true > Under the new regulations, only the individual who purchased the original copy of the work, and not others such as a friend or family, is legally allowed to copy it. Source: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jul/17/high-court-q...

Those are the new regulations that were stopped by this court case.

The government said that this type of copying would have minimal impact on the rights-holders. Those rights holders disagreed, went to court, and won, and so now format shifting is not legal.

The court case is here: https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2015/1723.html

It's long and complex. The first few paras are a good introduction.

EDIT:Genuinely baffled that this link to a primary source has been downvoted.

Currently, because of this case it's not lawful to format shift. I'm not saying that I think this is a good thing; I'm describing the law as it is in England.

Using the Guardian sources linked above:

> The high court has quashed regulations introduced by the government to allow members of the public to lawfully copy CDs and other copyright material bought for their own private use.

[...]

> On Friday, in a further decision, he said: “It is clear that I should quash the regulations. I make clear this covers the entirety of the regulations and all the rights and obligations contained therein.”

[...]

> The changes had come into force last October under the Copyright and Rights in Performances (Personal Copies for Private Use) Regulations 2014. Prior to 1 October, it was unlawful, for example, to “rip” or copy the contents of a CD on to a laptop, smartphone or MP3 player for personal use, although the format-shifting activity had become commonplace. The regulations introduced an exception into UK copyright law permitting the making of personal copies, as long as they were only for private use.

The law said format shifting was unlawful. The government introduced regulations to make format shifting lawful, but they didn't include mechanism to pay the rights holders. The judge ruled against the government, those new regulations were quashed, and format shifting became unlawful again.

Here's what the judge said: https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2015/2041.html

Re: European Parliament approves copyright reform

#285

Post by belorn » Tue, Mar 26, 2019, 2:13 PM UTC

chris_mc wrote: post #189

nabla9 wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Climate change denial is large problem only in Anglosphere. Germany did more than any other country to realize the modern renewable-energy industry and it's failed its climate goals. The lesson should be that you have to try every tool in the toolbox, including nuclear energy. Fukushima accident revealed the irrationality of the public. Fukushima-scale accident every decade somewhere in the world would be low cost to…

Nuclear isn't built because it isn't financially viable. I'd love to see more nuclear, but it just isn't going to happen anytime soon. Maybe if we added a carbon tax that was reasonable considering the climate emergency it might be.

A carbon tax would be nice, but I rather see in EU a complete ban on burning coal, oil and gas for electricity. From there people can do what ever they want to solve the energy shortage during production lows, be that nuclear or other solutions.

I doubt we will see any reasonable economics for nuclear as long coal, oil and gas is allowed to be burned.

Re: European Parliament approves copyright reform

#286

Post by marcodave » Tue, Mar 26, 2019, 2:14 PM UTC

sprash wrote: post #94

isostatic wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The EU Parliament, who we vote for every 5 years (and have elections coming up), vote for a law. You don't like said law, therefore it's undemocratic? The way the parliament is elected is quite fair - it gives a little more power to people in smaller countries, but that's not unusual (UK westminster constituencies vary from 22k to 120k. U.S. congress areas are more even, ranging from 500k to 1 million). There's an ar…

Parliamentary democracy is a type of fake democracy that legitimizes tyranny. If people were able to vote directly Art. 17 would have never passed.

> If people were able to vote directly Art. 17

The cynical in me would complete the sentence with "...a vast majority would not even understand what the article is about"

Re: European Parliament approves copyright reform

#287

Post by Funes- » Tue, Mar 26, 2019, 2:14 PM UTC

Gudahtt wrote: post #260

Funes- wrote: post #76

This will be an unpopular perspective on the matter, so you have been warned: Article 13 only affects for-profit platforms that host and share copyrighted material. These platforms are run by big corporations that turn a huge profit by way of selling your personal data, violating your privacy, and having a persuasive (addictive) design in order to glue you to the screen so they can maximize their ad revenue, dismissi…

Not all for-profit websites are run by big corporations. The companies you're describing here are also the ones that will find it easiest to comply with these new regulations. YouTube for example was already pressured to create a filtering system, ContentID. Behemoths like Facebook will have a far easier time adapting than your typical startup. Article 13 dooms smaller companies and startups, thus further entrenching…

>Article 13 dooms smaller companies and startups, thus further entrenching these big corporations.

Only "smaller companies and startups" whose main purpose is "enabling users to upload and share a large amount of copyright-protected content with the purpose of obtaining profit from that activity". That's what the document says; how it will actually be enforced is still a mystery, of course.

P. S. I have pointed to that "protection" on a previous comment [0].

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19491806.

Re: European Parliament approves copyright reform

#288

Post by golergka » Tue, Mar 26, 2019, 2:15 PM UTC

montenegrohugo wrote: post #241

A big part of the problem is that there is no single entity that defends the citizens interest in this instance. You have the Disney's of the world heavily lobbying to pass reforms like these, but who protests against it? - Online signatures? Gets laughed out of the room. They could be fake, they don't mean anything, they are paid, etc.. - Voting? Voting cycles are too long and voting decisions cannot be made on a si…

You could vote for your country to exit EU.

Re: European Parliament approves copyright reform

#289

Post by bashwizard » Tue, Mar 26, 2019, 2:15 PM UTC

phatfish wrote: post #275

bashwizard wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just wait until they eventually are greeted with a notice "Sorry, we've blocked all users from Europe due to the new copyright reform" on every major social media site/app.

I though this was supposed to happen after the GDPR was made law... still waiting.

I didn't. I expected to be greeted with "We care about your privacy" and then have to opt in or not being able to access the content.

I was right.

Re: European Parliament approves copyright reform

#290

Post by lagadu » Tue, Mar 26, 2019, 2:15 PM UTC

amelius wrote: post #78

DarkWiiPlayer wrote: post #16

Am I the only one who kinda feels like I'm not living in a democratic system anymore? Not saying this is the first such thing that happens, but it's probably the one that will make me stop using the word to refer to the society I live in.

I want to see who voted yes, plus I want to read for each MEP a short statement explaining why they think it is a good idea. Better yet, a short video fragment with their statement, so the media can use that to make them look stupid when this legislation turns out to be a total failure.

I'm curious why you're not making the same demands out of the ones who voted no.