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EU approves internet copyright law, including ‘link tax’ and ‘upload filter’

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Re: EU approves internet copyright law, including ‘link tax’ and ‘upload filter’

#331

Post by jonathanstrange »

wongarsu wrote: post #262

I don't think the link tax will have any real implications. Any individual party that starts charging for links will simply not be liked to. It would only work if an entire industry/sector would start charging for links to them, but then we are talking about collusion and price-fixing which is already illegal. It's hard to start demanding money for something that was free and costs you nothing. And the link tax has e…

Every sufficiently large publishing company on earth will demand a link tax, where "sufficiently large" means they can afford one or two lawyers.

Why shouldn't they? It's money lost otherwise.

Re: EU approves internet copyright law, including ‘link tax’ and ‘upload filter’

#332

Post by curtisblaine »

This law is to prevent any non-mainstream news outlet to share content. From the UKIP site:

"The great danger is that it will destroy the capacity for free speech on the internet and social media, which has exploded in recent years and is an invaluable alternative to the so-called mainstream media."

https://www.ukip.org/national-ukip-news-item.php?id=18

The law is about the so-called "fake news", now that we're close to the 2019 European parliament elections.

Re: EU approves internet copyright law, including ‘link tax’ and ‘upload filter’

#333

Post by chillidoor »

AllegedAlec wrote: post #198
raverbashing wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chans have much worse than copyright infringement going on

I'm not sure if I know what you're talking about. Could you expand on this?

Chans allow anonymous users to upload images and historically this leads into a lot of illegal content, especially stuff like child porn, to be uploaded unless you have strict moderation.

Re: EU approves internet copyright law, including ‘link tax’ and ‘upload filter’

#334

Post by aldoushuxley001 »

beaconstudios wrote: post #102
gaius wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly, Farage wasn’t actually a part of that, BoJo wouldn’t let him join the official Leave campaign. So you can blame UKIP for lots of things, but not the bus.

> So you can blame UKIP for lots of things Such as what? I hear UKIP demonised a lot, but I genuinely don't know of anything they've done that is bad that wasn't simply political disagreement (wanting to leave the EU) or talking about contentious issues in a clumsy and ham-fisted way (immigration).

You're getting downvoted because you have a different political view than more liberal-minded HN posters. It's just the way hive-minds work.

Re: EU approves internet copyright law, including ‘link tax’ and ‘upload filter’

#336

Post by oihoaihsfoiahsf »

the6threplicant wrote: post #188

A comment from someone who has actually read the article: https://np.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/9ely8y/why_the_w... For example: ...the EFF argue that the idea of what constitutes a link is not fully defined. I'm not sure what they're talking about. Recitals 31-36 set out the concepts in article 11, fairly clearly. They make it clear that what is being protected is substantial or harmful copying of significant…

I read the articles as well, and this commenter is right that, on their face, they don't seem like they would apply to a site like Google News. That said, everyone, including Google, seems to think they do. And as far as I am aware, nobody at the EC has said anything to the contrary, even though it would be easy to do so. So it seems most likely to me that the naive reading of the text is incorrect, and that both this reddit commenter and myself are missing something.

Re: EU approves internet copyright law, including ‘link tax’ and ‘upload filter’

#337

Post by cyphar »

mrunkel wrote: post #89
cyphar wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that Google is without question a monopoly, and so I think that there is a valid argument that it needs to be regulated and be forced to be impartial in the results shown. The fact that they show people's content without giving them page views (in a world where page views are how you get significant amounts of money, not to mention subscription opportunities) is a conscious decision to implement a feat…

> The problem is that Google is without question a monopoly This is just false. bing.com exists. news.ycombinator.com exists. reddit.com exists.... > The fact that they show people's content without giving them page views.. This is just false. Google shows at most an excerpt (that is defined by the publisher) or a headline (on news.google.com). Unless you're talking about AMP, but that's a decision made by the publis…

> [Google being a monopoly] is just false. bing.com exists. news.ycombinator.com exists. reddit.com exists....

I don't think the existence of other websites on the internet is not really an argument against Google being a monopoly. Without question, the vast majority of the population (outside China) uses Google. This means that the majority of people who use the internet are using Google as their method of accessing websites, and thus Google has an effective monopoly on what links people see (and thus by proxy what articles they read and what they think about topics).

I'm arguing all of this from a point of view where you don't really care how Google or anything behind the scenes works -- most people view Google as a utility that just tells you what "the internet" has to say on a topic. Given it's prevalence and significant impact on people's decision making, it should have far more accountability.

> Google shows at most an excerpt (that is defined by the publisher) or a headline (on news.google.com).

Google also has their Q&A thing where they parse the contents of web pages to answer questions you ask Google -- so you don't end up on the person who wrote the answer's website. I think that is pretty clearly an example of Google showing people's content without giving them page views (whether or not you agree that it is an issue).

Re: EU approves internet copyright law, including ‘link tax’ and ‘upload filter’

#338

Post by mosselman »

sparkzilla wrote: post #297
jonathanstrange wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both strategies have been tried and are unlikely to hold up in court.

A bit challenging to sue a project when it has no owners and no jurisdiction. PS: Jonathan Strange: Great books and even better TV.

Nor customers/users.

The problem is that 'normal' people don't know how to use most distributed/encrypted/stick-it-to-the-man products, nor do they care.

Re: EU approves internet copyright law, including ‘link tax’ and ‘upload filter’

#339

Post by aldoushuxley001 »

yummybear wrote: post #322
vorpalhex wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"If you are in the EU, you are not allowed to use this website." Pretty much the same solution for kids under 13 years of age (which is to say, they of course still do use these sites, they simply lie about it which shifts the burden...)

Yeah, but wouldn't cutting 500 million of the wealthiest customers from your solution have a pretty significant business impact?

Not as significant as curtailing free-speech. Some things don't have a price tag.

Re: EU approves internet copyright law, including ‘link tax’ and ‘upload filter’

#340

Post by oihoaihsfoiahsf »

sebst wrote: post #316
oihoaihsfoiahsf wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it may be true that they may suffer the law better than their competitors. But I think if it was likely that they would benefit absolutely, they'd be in favor of the law, or at least ambivalent, rather than strongly opposed. Don't you?

I personally believe (without any evidence) that they are ambivalent, maybe slightly opposed. However, they needed to oppose in public, otherwise, this would have been a PR disaster: Publishers: "You steal our content and are unwilling to pay, so we need a law!" Google: "You're right, please do the law, because it would harm our competitors!"

They could easily couch the statement in such a way that they would appear blameless, if they really wanted to make a positive statement. E.g. "We recognize the critical contribution of publishing companies to our society and want to do our part to ensure the continued existence of a strong publishing industry."
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