Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

'VPNs are lawful technical tools,' says EU Court in landmark copyright ruling

techradar.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 150 posts

Re: 'VPNs are lawful technical tools,' says EU Court in landmark copyright ruling

#41

Post by LunaSea »

VWWHFSfQ wrote: post #23
spiderfarmer wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think it’s crazy to enforce laws, especially given the leeway the government gave that predatory website.

> given the leeway the government gave that predatory website. They are only blocking it because the French gambling mafia/authority is not getting their cut. They do not care in any way at all about a "predatory" gambling website. They just want their share.

So why are all 50 US states not allowing sports betting?

Re: 'VPNs are lawful technical tools,' says EU Court in landmark copyright ruling

#42

Post by EmbarrassedHelp »

ChrisArchitect wrote: post #6

EU posts about it: Copyright in the European Union and geo-blocking: a work that is in the public domain can be published online free of charge in a Member State even if it remains protected in another Member State [pdf] https://curia.europa.eu/site/upload/docs/application/pdf/202... Other blog post: CJEU clarifies when geo-blocking limits online copyright liability https://intellectual-property-helpdesk.ec.europa.eu…

> Now, the Supreme Court of the Netherlands must determine whether the geo-blocking used by the website was state of the art and effective in practice. If so, the intended audience would not have included Dutch users, and no communication would have been made to the public in the Netherlands.

This seems extremely problematic, depending on what "state of the art and effective" means. It seems like blocking VPN users is unfortunately still on the table, as are other invasive enforcement methods.

Re: 'VPNs are lawful technical tools,' says EU Court in landmark copyright ruling

#43

Post by gbuk2013 »

Havoc wrote: post #4

Now watch the octogenarian UK lawmakers outlaw them anyway...right after they print the proposed law out because they don't do so well with computer stuff

Leaving aside the fact that there are not enough octogenarians in the Commons to pass any legislation, there’s no need to for ageist statements like that.

Re: 'VPNs are lawful technical tools,' says EU Court in landmark copyright ruling

#44

Post by yorwba »

derdi wrote: post #26
ChrisArchitect wrote: post #6

EU posts about it: Copyright in the European Union and geo-blocking: a work that is in the public domain can be published online free of charge in a Member State even if it remains protected in another Member State [pdf] https://curia.europa.eu/site/upload/docs/application/pdf/202... Other blog post: CJEU clarifies when geo-blocking limits online copyright liability https://intellectual-property-helpdesk.ec.europa.eu…

And the actual judgment: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:62... I find these are often very readable and interesting.

It seems like the article title was inspired by this sentence "By contrast, the provider of a VPN or similar services that are used in order to circumvent an ineffective geo-blocking measure and are lawful technical tools which users may legitimately use cannot be regarded as also having communicated the work to the public." I.e. if a VPN is a lawful technical tool, then the VPN provider isn't liable as the publisher of works accessible through it. That leaves open the possibility for VPNs that are not lawful or not mere technical tools to be liable.

Re: 'VPNs are lawful technical tools,' says EU Court in landmark copyright ruling

#45

Post by petcat »

LunaSea wrote: post #41
VWWHFSfQ wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> given the leeway the government gave that predatory website. They are only blocking it because the French gambling mafia/authority is not getting their cut. They do not care in any way at all about a "predatory" gambling website. They just want their share.

So why are all 50 US states not allowing sports betting?

I don't care about sports betting. I care about government blocking websites just because it exists on the internet. It was already illegal for Polymarket to accept bets from French people.

FanDuel cannot operate in France but their website isn't blocked. So how do we explain this?

France, EU, Italy, Spain, La Liga are just consistently making fools out of themselves trying to block everything on the internet when they don't like it.

Maybe it's just because regulatory censorship is inconsistent and doesn't make any sense. It's like the China firewall but even dumber and less effective.

Re: 'VPNs are lawful technical tools,' says EU Court in landmark copyright ruling

#46

Post by dzonga »

Age verification + plus some states trying to ban VPNs - what states miss - yeah they will destroy the so called big social networks or media providers like porn aggregation sites.

what will simply happen - due to the following - HDDs are cheap, Torrents, Open source / cheap community software like Discord

- communities will move to be mostly private and small. era of large social media is done.

for media - download content via torrent - store in cheap HDDs. you can probably get an 8TB spinning metal for $250. cheap enough and good enough.

payments - these already moved to crypto. for criminals monero.

the internet as gated by bureaucrats will be left to the dweebs.

Re: 'VPNs are lawful technical tools,' says EU Court in landmark copyright ruling

#47

Post by Fnoord »

irishcoffee wrote: post #31
lokar wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They want them to follow legally enacted laws in an open democracy.

If you’re aware of the organization called “FIFA” you can’t believe this is true. I responded to the wrong comment, I ment to respond to the GP.

Fifa is Swiss, not French.

Re: 'VPNs are lawful technical tools,' says EU Court in landmark copyright ruling

#48

Post by tomhow »

tjwebbnorfolk wrote: post #24
tomhow wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't post tasteless comments like this on HN. We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48998094 and marked it off topic.

ok but is it correct or incorrect?

Please don't act like a jerk. Everyone knows it's possible for a statement to be correct and vile at the same time.

Re: 'VPNs are lawful technical tools,' says EU Court in landmark copyright ruling

#49

Post by irishcoffee »

Fnoord wrote: post #47
irishcoffee wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you’re aware of the organization called “FIFA” you can’t believe this is true. I responded to the wrong comment, I ment to respond to the GP.

Fifa is Swiss, not French.

I didn’t say anything about the French.

Re: 'VPNs are lawful technical tools,' says EU Court in landmark copyright ruling

#50

Post by Sleaker »

petcat wrote: post #13
sebastiennight wrote: post #2

For those who (like me) missed the essential key word in the OP's title: This ruling is about copyright, and seems mostly unrelated to recent conversations about escaping censorship and surveilance, and the overall final throes of the open web. It's still pretty important since the lawsuit filed by the Anne Frank Fonds could be caricatured as "if this content is illegal in our country, it should not be on the Interne…

Somewhat related to this same debate on censorship: French regulators order block of Polymarket's website [0] > The French gambling regulator said the site's continued availability constituted advertising. A ban on financial transactions to the site was already in place. After failing to compel Polymarket to geoblock France, it's crazy that French "regulators" can just order ISPs to block a website without any judici…

Devils advocate question: Isn't registering an ip to name essentially advertising? You're paying a registrar to return your Internet address location when searched for.
Post reply on HN