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European parliament committee approves vote on ‘disastrous’ copyright bill

bbc.com

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Re: European parliament committee approves vote on ‘disastrous’ copyright bill

#181

Post by jerf »

phicoh wrote: post #104
sampo wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So Google gets licenses to link to new sites for free, but smaller companies and private people's website cannot link to news sites?

Note the text 'and an inalienable right to obtain an fair and proportionate remuneration for such uses' The idea is to make it impossible to give Google a free license. The best outcome would be if Google would refuse to link to any content of European publishers.

"The best outcome would be if Google would refuse to link to any content of European publishers."

Not so much sure that's the "best" outcome as the only possible one. As rich as Google looks, when you start dividing their income by multiple multiplicative factors it doesn't last long; the log of Google's income isn't all that large.

On the other hand, Google definitely has a lot of cash to weather what to them will be at most a partial disruption of their money making system (as this is back in the linear domain rather than the log domain), whereas the online publications that get delisted from Google will be devastated.

I would predict with some confidence that if this does pass all the way into law in the EU that it would be unlikely to last very long as law. But it can cause a lot of damage in the meantime.

Re: European parliament committee approves vote on ‘disastrous’ copyright bill

#182

Post by iaml »

leifg wrote: post #107

As a EU citizen I have always been (and still am) a strong advocate for the European Union. I think the founding of the European Union was one of the greatest things that could ever happen to European citizens. I full heartedly believe this institution played a major role in retaining the piece after World War 2. The concept of open borders in (most of) Europe is something I would never want to miss. But seeing the l…

A lot of the people who voted for this also want to end EU. Make of this what you will.

Re: European parliament committee approves vote on ‘disastrous’ copyright bill

#183

Post by tom_mellior »

teamhappy wrote: post #29

Here's the final document: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL... Searching for "article 11" (the link one) and "article 13" (the filter one) will help you find the relevant paragraphs. They're both very short and fairly easy to understand.

That's a document from 2016. It's only "final" in the sense that it's the final version of the Commission's proposal, I think.

https://edri.org/copyright-reform-document-pool/ has a whole lot of different versions of the text, though I don't know how to find out what text was actually voted on today. I expect it to show up at http://www.europarl.europa.eu/oeil/popups/ficheprocedure.do?... though apparently that may take a few days.

Anyway, the version at http://www.consilium.europa.eu/media/35373/st09134-en18.pdf for example adds the following paragraph to Article 11: "The rights referred to in the first subparagraph shall not apply in respect of uses of insubstantial parts of a press publication. Member States shall be free to determine the insubstantial nature of parts of press publications taking into account whether these parts are the expression of the intellectual creation of their authors, or whether these parts are individual words or very short excerpts, or both criteria."

I don't find this particularly easy to understand, but one reading is "Member States may define article titles to be 'substantial'", in which case any use of them (as in linking) would be prohibited without a license.

Re: European parliament committee approves vote on ‘disastrous’ copyright bill

#185

Post by myfonj »

tomp wrote: post #101
mrleiter wrote: post #12

It was approved on in a committee of the European parliament (for legal matters), which means that now they will enter negotiations with the European Council and then after some time and processes laid out in Art. 293ff TFEU, it will be debated in the European Parliament at some point. So yes, there is still plenty of room and time to discuss this rather unfortunate policy. EDIT: For more info: http://www.europarl.eu…

Is there a list of who voted and how available anywhere?

Video: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/ep-live/en/committees/video?ev...

Re: European parliament committee approves vote on ‘disastrous’ copyright bill

#186

Post by bertil »

Scarblac wrote: post #142
josteink wrote: post #10

This is what happens when those in control don't understand, know or care about the things they regulate. So I guess this is bad. --goes and reads article-- > Article 11, requiring online platforms to pay publishers a fee if they link to their news content, was also approved. What the fucking FUCK? Pay to send companies actual traffic? Pay to be allowed to use the basic building-block of the world wide web on the wor…

On the one hand I can see how stupid these laws are in view of how the Web currently works and how successful it is. On the other hand, I think companies like Google and Facebook are FAR too large and powerful and I think the only way to deal with that is by making the Web less good at what it does.

Those laws have been tried in several European countries, and the strategy is always the same:

- Google had to exclude the plaintiffs or shut down the service because they were not allowed to operate it without a license, and could not get a license in time;

- Deprived of Google traffic, the News site audience suddenly dropped and they granted Google a free license, as an emergency process to keep the lights on;

- Google keeps that free license for all sites, every other operator simply doesn’t have the capacity to reach out to every site, so competition to Google is completely killed.

The worst part of all this? There is a very old convention, well enforced, that already handles it: robots.txt

Re: European parliament committee approves vote on ‘disastrous’ copyright bill

#188

Post by ghunbb »

Accacin wrote: post #139
nailer wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hate them as most people in the UK do (I've never voted for them and wouldn't either), UKIP already resolved this (in a far more permanent way than the greens) by ensuring EU law does not apply to the UK in future.

Well that's completely false. We'll still be abiding by EU laws long after we leave. By 'most people', I'm assuming you mean the 30% who actually voted to leave?

> We'll still be abiding by EU laws long after we leave.

That's a rather ignorant comment.

The 'Great Repeal' bill as it was called was/is - I lose track of where it is in the law process at the moment - effectively did/will do a 'mv' of all EU regulation that the UK was beholden to over its own UK laws and when this has to be done before the UK leaves and will probably be done sooner.

Then the parliament will cherry pick the bits they want to keep and update/change/remove those that we do not.

> I'm assuming you mean the 30% who actually voted to leave?

Actually while the Brexit vote to leave was significantly more than 30%, the past polls that have asked a more specific question of sovereignty/law making by the EU commission that seems to override UK Law is significantly larger than the amount that voted to leave.

Voting Leave != Does not like EU Commission making Laws by people the UK did not and cannot vote out.

Re: European parliament committee approves vote on ‘disastrous’ copyright bill

#189

Post by Sammi »

cc-d wrote: post #151
leifg wrote: post #107

As a EU citizen I have always been (and still am) a strong advocate for the European Union. I think the founding of the European Union was one of the greatest things that could ever happen to European citizens. I full heartedly believe this institution played a major role in retaining the piece after World War 2. The concept of open borders in (most of) Europe is something I would never want to miss. But seeing the l…

> I full heartedly believe this institution played a major role in retaining the piece after World War 2 I think you are getting the UN/NATO and EU confused, friend. The rest of your post is spot on.

The two aren't mutually exclusive, so careful you don't set up a false dichotomy.

And the EU as since it inception always been about making European nations interdependent, so that they cannot wage war against each other.

As the original proposal for precursor to the EU said: "The solidarity in production thus established will make it plain that any war between France and Germany becomes not merely unthinkable, but materially impossible" [0].

[0] https://europa.eu/european-union/about-eu/symbols/europe-day...

Re: European parliament committee approves vote on ‘disastrous’ copyright bill

#190

Post by laumars »

kasey_junk wrote: post #63
winkeltripel wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> much of what the EU does is try to hurt US tech companies Well, somebody's got to take the fight to US tech titans. They're unhealthy for every economy.

I think that is a defendable position so long as you are willing to accept the other side, which is massive tariffs against big EU industries. Someone has to take it to the German auto industry which has used lies & deception to up their market share while destroying the environment. Note that I disagree with both points, but they are internally consistent so long as you accept both.

I don't think that is an equivalent comparison as the tariffs you described are targeting specific businesses where as the EU regulations the GP described affect anyone who do business in Europe - including European businesses.

However I don't have any particular issue with such tariffs either. If America want to promote their own industries by artificially rising the cost of buying overseas goods and/or subsidising local industries then that is their own decision. However it should be noted that such tariffs often end up costing their economy more.

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