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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’

#591

Post by JoeSmithson »

h91wka wrote: post #489

This is wrong on more levels than it seems from the first glance: 1) I've witnessed creeping internet censorship starting just like this: first it's something as innocuous as "let's protect creators" or "let's protect children from harmful content", then 6 years later you can't criticize the government. They've just created a legal framework for massive automated censorship, and also Overton window was moved. I expec…

Where have you witnessed creeping internet censorship starting like this? (Not disputing, I'd just be interested to study it)

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

#592

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

Milner08 wrote: post #541
headmelted wrote: post #519

So bad is this legislation that it's almost enough to make me change my views on Brexit. It's ludicrous to me that the same body that approved something so user-centric as GDPR could come up with legislation so incredibly hostile to small players as to effectively abolish the open internet by financial attrition. Once this comes in, we'll collectively need to finally start work on that peer-to-peer, onion-layered, en…

I believe the EU would be the lesser of two evils here. If we leave it up to the UK Government and Mrs May we will have it far worse. She has tried several times to ban WhatsApp and encryption in general. I wouldn't put anything like this past her.

The UK is currently (it's law!) going to impose mandatory online age verification for “adult content”, including IIRC the ability to block non-compliant foreign sites (will they block twitter, tumblr?)

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

#593

Post by vkou »

gnulinux wrote: post #530
vkou wrote: post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who is the little guy, and why are we optimizing for him, instead of making the world better for everyone? I mean, I think the link tax is backwards, but a vague emotional appeal to the health of... a mom and pop internet news site...(?) is not the argument I'd use.

Internet is supposed to be THE free platform a mom and pop internet news site can prosper. You are, at this very moment, here in HN, in a mom and pop internet news site.

> Internet is supposed to be THE free platform a mom and pop internet news site can prosper.

The internet has the attention economy, which follows a power law of popularity, with a long tail of unpopular content that has <50 readers. I would not consider that 'prosperous'.

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

#594

Post by geezerjay »

ericdykstra wrote: post #68
Retr0spectrum wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The likes of YouTube will be affected the least. They already have aggressive copyright enforcement measures in place, and they can afford to do that. Smaller, more independent platforms will not be able to afford to implement compliance with these new regulations, and will potentially be driven out of business.

YouTube, the company, will be fine. They'll just ban any content that triggers their enforcement systems. I'm worried about YouTube, the platform, and the bastion of free exchange of information and ideas that is has been until now. A response-type video or movie review will almost certainly be false-flagged by a system like this. Of course, I agree with you that independent platforms are going to have a rough time.…

> A response-type video or movie review will almost certainly be false-flagged by a system like this.

To be fair, that hypothetical problem is caused by a broken classifier and not the law. After all, youtube already blocks and removes content like you've described but no one is accusing the classifier of stiffling free speech.

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

#595

Post by dragonwriter »

geezerjay wrote: post #583
interfixus wrote: post #579

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Communists are ideologically against privare property. Historically, not so much. Be that as it may, I don't get your point. Communists opposing private property, therefore I, as opponent of the "law", must be a communist? Please, I expect better from the HN crowd, although not from the insufferable mr. Rohde, MEP.

> Be that as it may, I don't get your point. Communists opposing private property, therefore I, as opponent of the "law", must be a communist? I'm not defending the idea. I'm pointing out that the accusation is not baseless. If you oppose the right to use private property as a means of production, and consequently oppose a law that enforces your right to profit from your private property, then you're clearly advocati…

> I'm not defending the idea. I'm pointing out that the accusation is not baseless.

Having a tangential thematic connection with a fact doesn't stop an accusation from being baseless.

> If you oppose the right to use private property as a means of production, and consequently oppose a law that enforces your right to profit from your private property, then you're clearly advocating a basic communist dogma.

No, you aren't. Communists do not oppose the right to derive profits from property, they oppose the right to have propietary ownership of the physical instrumentalities of production.

Intellectual property is not a thing which can be a “means of production” in the sense used in “basic communist dogma”, and thus ownership of it is not “private property” in the sense of “basic communist dogma” (in communist theory, “private property ” is exclusionary ownership of the “means of production”, and the “means of production” are physical instruments to which human labor is applied in the production process.)

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

#596

Post by JoeSmithson »

Milner08 wrote: post #541
headmelted wrote: post #519

So bad is this legislation that it's almost enough to make me change my views on Brexit. It's ludicrous to me that the same body that approved something so user-centric as GDPR could come up with legislation so incredibly hostile to small players as to effectively abolish the open internet by financial attrition. Once this comes in, we'll collectively need to finally start work on that peer-to-peer, onion-layered, en…

I believe the EU would be the lesser of two evils here. If we leave it up to the UK Government and Mrs May we will have it far worse. She has tried several times to ban WhatsApp and encryption in general. I wouldn't put anything like this past her.

> She has tried several times to ban WhatsApp

What? Did you swallow some fake news or did I miss something massive?

---

Downvoters, this is not Reddit. The top Google results for "UK WhatsApp Ban" are all related to this - https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/science-technology/9521... - which is EU rules causing age requirement to jump from 13 to 16.

Is this what you are referring to?

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

#597

Post by opportune »

closeparen wrote: post #577
Grumbledour wrote: post #78

As terrible as this is, I am actually even more shocked by this proposal: https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/12/europe-to-push-for-one-hou... Having one hour to remove offending content, draconian fines and no, absolutely no exceptions for small content providers would, I think, end the internet as we know it in Europe. I see no way to host any kind of content under such jurisdiction and surely all non European content p…

The pro-GDPR "good riddance" argument applies just as well here: obliterating operations which are too fly-by-night to obey the law is, in fact, the socially desired outcome. The law is the law. We shouldn't exempt small players from internet regulation any more than we should exempt small factories from pollution controls or small automakers from safety rules. European institutions do no wrong [0]. If a website's co…

Sure small players shouldn’t be exempt from the law, but surely it’s ridiculous to expect every website with user uploaded content to have an on-call team of content managers to comply with takedowns. This hurts small players much more than big players, because now it’s not possible to be a small player in this area. It’s not exemptions which are important, it’s understanding why this makes the entire approach flawed to begin with

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

#598

Post by darpa_escapee »

h91wka wrote: post #489

This is wrong on more levels than it seems from the first glance: 1) I've witnessed creeping internet censorship starting just like this: first it's something as innocuous as "let's protect creators" or "let's protect children from harmful content", then 6 years later you can't criticize the government. They've just created a legal framework for massive automated censorship, and also Overton window was moved. I expec…

This is just how Western societies are sold China-style censorship and surveillance.

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

#599

Post by yspeak »

marknadal wrote: post #555
headmelted wrote: post #519

So bad is this legislation that it's almost enough to make me change my views on Brexit. It's ludicrous to me that the same body that approved something so user-centric as GDPR could come up with legislation so incredibly hostile to small players as to effectively abolish the open internet by financial attrition. Once this comes in, we'll collectively need to finally start work on that peer-to-peer, onion-layered, en…

Already got you covered! The Internet Archive ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17685682 ) & notabug.io (a P2P Reddit alternative, pushing terabytes traffic) have already moved to using our decentralized tools ( https://github.com/amark/gun ). Coming up, we're also working on IP masking (onion layering), and we already have an option to do end-to-end encryption (which prevents middlemen from being able to read y…

How does decentralization, p2p and encryption change anything? They won't protect you or prevent enforcement. If there are issues they will just tighten the law and increase enforcement mechaniams.

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

#600

Post by Nasrudith »

geezerjay wrote: post #573
virmundi wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This can have a chilling affect on content creation, and thus the dissemination of ideas. YouTube will have to create a filter that covers their liability. They might be able to automate, but it depends on the jurisdiction. For example, the US has fair use laws. A person may copy a segment of a copyrighted work to comment on it. There are territories in the EU where they can't. How does YouTube filter this? If the ne…

> This can have a chilling affect on content creation, and thus the dissemination of ideas. I'm not sure it's reasonable to conflate ripping off creators by enabling massive commercial use of unauthirized copies of their original content with actually creating something. > YouTube will have to create a filter that covers their liability I believe they already did that for some years now.

Here is an analogy - imagine we crack down on theft at the source by massive fines for receiving stolen property. Sounds good? Try to sell anything secondhand then.

Nobody wants to engage in the secondhand market because of the massive liability. Sure you own it but can you prove it to their satisfaction? You could be lying and that is mo excuse on their part. You try to sell crafts you made yourself instead but nobody can be sure you didn't just steal them because you aren't a big name crafter. Big corporations can sell directly but small manufacturers and businesses are SOL. And worse yet this includes petitions and pamphlets too!

That is exactly what secondary liability does.

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