Hijacking the top comment: Can someone explain me why EU was considered knowledgable about the internet in case of GDPR, but isn't now? Have they lost their knowledge in the meantime?
Please don't hijack the top comment.
EU approves internet copyright law, including ‘link tax’ and ‘upload filter’
661–670 of 1001 posts
Re: EU approves internet copyright law, including ‘link tax’ and ‘upload filter’
#662So 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…
"So bad is this legislation that it's almost enough to make me change my views on Brexit."
I am not British and I don't (nor have I ever) live in the UK.
I also have a very limited knowledge of that culture and economy, garnering most of what I know from reading the LRB every few weeks.
But all else being equal I am happier in a world post-brexit because I want very much for there to be diversity in governance and nation states.
I realize it creates inefficiencies and I also realize that to what degree you can say states are "competing" with each other for citizens is quite low (since it's a fairly sticky relationship) but I want some diversity to exist.
Re: EU approves internet copyright law, including ‘link tax’ and ‘upload filter’
#663Earlier 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.
Somebody has to host the content. You can sue those people. P2P filesharing works the same way. Normal people get unfriendly letters from lawyers.
Re: EU approves internet copyright law, including ‘link tax’ and ‘upload filter’
#664So 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…
> we'll collectively need to finally start work on that peer-to-peer, onion-layered, encryption everywhere Internet we keep putting off building.
Not everyone! ;) MIT licensed.
Re: EU approves internet copyright law, including ‘link tax’ and ‘upload filter’
#665Earlier quoted context omitted.
You have the ability to vote Teresa May out of office and change UK laws through your member of parliament. The European Commission, the European Council, and the Council of the European Union are entirely undemocratic, and the European Parliament is democratic only in name. There's no serious argument that the EU is in any way responsive to voters.
> the European Parliament is democratic only in name It was representatives (MEPs) today that chose to vote in favour of this directive. They could have voted differently and rejected the proposal outright. Can you elaborate on how this is a "democratic only in name" institution?
EU parliament used to be a place to dump 2nd rate politicians who:
(1) Were appreciated by their party, but not so much by the voters. The real politics happened in the domestic parliament, so the parties would run their 1st rate politicians in the domestic elections.
(2) And were personally very interested in the EU, and thus wanted to run.
We have been sending 2nd rate but very pro-EU politicians to the EU parliament. So the opinions of the members of the parliament are quite far from the average opinions of the EU populace. We are slowly beginning to realize that the European Parliament actually matters, and we should give some serious thought about who we vote there.
Re: EU approves internet copyright law, including ‘link tax’ and ‘upload filter’
#666Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> If you want a quick example of why this is bad take a look at fair use and YouTube. Article 13 would make YouTube liable for copyrighted content on its service. What exactly is wrong with that? Seriously.
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…
And of course, say you negotiated a license with some other content creator that says you can use their work in yours.
How can YouTube check that?
Re: EU approves internet copyright law, including ‘link tax’ and ‘upload filter’
#667Earlier quoted context omitted.
Don't you think it is any bit concerning that they get to pick and choose who gets affected by a GDPR lawsuit?
It is insane. I see the same argument in every thread about GDPR and I just can't wrap my mind around it. I can't imagine how well represented or identified by nation-state politics these people must be that they are willing to concede such degrees of discretionality to a government.
There's a huge cultural difference where people generally assume regulators are going to be fair and even-handed.
FWIW it mostly works out.
Re: EU approves internet copyright law, including ‘link tax’ and ‘upload filter’
#668Earlier quoted context omitted.
> And what are we doing about it? Make our own content and host it ourselves? This type of law is only effective due to centralisation of Internet services. If everyone self-hosted and was accountable for their own content there would be no scope for such legislation. All HN would hold would be linked-lists of URLs, no actual comment content. Imagine a decentralised, federated HN where each comment originated from it…
>This type of law is only effective due to centralisation of Internet services. This type of law encourages that very centralization. Look at the provisions of GDPR, for example. Do you think a two-person startup is going to have the resources to deal with all of its provisions? Or in this case: do you think that a new video-sharing startup is going to have the resources to deal with the more stringent copyright enfo…
It’s not without precedent though:
“copying restrictions were authorized by the Licensing of the Press Act 1662. These restrictions were enforced by the Stationers' Company, a guild of printers given the exclusive power to print—and the responsibility to censor—literary works”
Re: EU approves internet copyright law, including ‘link tax’ and ‘upload filter’
#669Earlier quoted context omitted.
You have the ability to vote Teresa May out of office and change UK laws through your member of parliament. The European Commission, the European Council, and the Council of the European Union are entirely undemocratic, and the European Parliament is democratic only in name. There's no serious argument that the EU is in any way responsive to voters.
If a lot of people across EU is concerned about how democratic is the EU governance, can't we change this without necessary destroying the EU first?
First, people would have to vote an EU-sceptic majority for their domestic parliaments. This would need to happen in a majority of EU countries. Then this majority of EU-sceptic governments could achieve a majority either in the Council or in the Commission, and propose laws to change the EU governance. Then the Parliament would have to accept these laws.
I think it would have to be the Council, it's difficult to see the Commission proposing a law that decreases the power of the Commission.
Re: EU approves internet copyright law, including ‘link tax’ and ‘upload filter’
#670UKIP and the Green Party joined forces to prevent Article 13 from getting rammed through without a public discussion. It was a good first step, but here we are, 2 months hence, and it was passed with virtually no amendments to the original text. This is an abhorrent decision by people who have no idea how the internet works. Markus Meechum (aka Count Dankula) was at the hearings, and reported that MEPs voting on the…
> This is an abhorrent decision by people who have no idea how the internet works.
Same sad song as it ever was. Keep giving more control to the government and they'll keep ratcheting down the screws on you.
An economic union should be about tariffs and the free movement of goods, not an entirely unelected bureaucratic federal government. Centralizing authority only benefits the well connected political class.