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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’

#681
post #676

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…

A regulator that can give you everything you dream of, can also take away everything you value. At the risk of sounding like a freshman libertarian.

At the risk of sounding like a freshman libertarian.

Not that there's anything wrong with that...

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

#682
post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that this is probably going to backfire spectacularly but if we give the proponents the benefit of the doubt it could be argued that while the big G might not care about Google News, users may. If these news aggregator shutdown they will look for alternatives which might create an opportunity for people to develop news aggregator that share the revenue more fairly with the newspapers. I doubt this is going to…

> If these news aggregator shutdown they will look for alternatives which might create an opportunity for people to develop news aggregator that share the revenue more fairly with the newspapers. The problem is, what revenue ? News aggregation is not a huge profit center to begin with. Then you take that already-small amount of money and split it between thousands of independent news organizations, each of which requ…

Well, radio stations don't earn a lot either, but still have to pay licence fees for the music they play. Perhaps some sort of flat fee paid based on some statistics how much content has been shared from which source would make sense. It will not be a huge money, but it's still better than no money at all. Aggregators/ search engines need the content produced at the volume, otherwise they'll be out of business too at some point, so it can be mutually benefitial.

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

#683

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…

> So bad is this legislation that it's almost enough to make me change my views on Brexit. I don't know how you came to that conclusion. Did you read the legislation? Which points of this legislation made you think that this is "enough to change view on Brexit" ? EDIT: Well, downvoting this comment will not make the discussion any better. I've read most of the legislation, that's why I am asking why OP is reacting li…

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

#684

Youtube, Facebook, etc., should simply pull out of Europe and block all European users. I don't think it would take very long for this to sort itself out...

Comments like this are extremely naive given the fact that Google/Facebook cannot do anything at whim without Board/Investors backlash. Stock price would crash, future projections would collapse and it would create a havoc for bailing out of a major market. It happens, but rarely (Google China exit).

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

#685
post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Complying with the GDPR is not really a cost thing, unless you count loss of revenue from not squeezing everything you can out of user data.

I think the fear is that troll law firms will sprout up that get really good and nailing smaller companies for a minor, relatively harmless infraction.

That's not how GDPR is enforced. A relatively minor, harmless infraction will get at most a letter from the regulator asking for it to be fixed. More likely is that fuck all will happen, which is what currently happens in the UK.

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

#686

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like the web without user content... Web 1.0? So much for free speech.

Wasn't Web 1.0 only user content?

Well, I was referring to the definition of the web 2.0. Wikipedia says:

Web 2.0, [...] refers to World Wide Web websites that emphasize user-generated content [...][1]

So while in the beginning most users were also authors, there was a time between when there were a lot of websites which served content, but didn't let users add theirs. At that time guestbooks were to only place you could add content to someone elses website. To some degree message boards where the start of the Web 2.0.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0

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

#687

Youtube, Facebook, etc., should simply pull out of Europe and block all European users. I don't think it would take very long for this to sort itself out...

Comments like this are extremely naive given the fact that Google/Facebook cannot do anything at whim without Board/Investors backlash. Stock price would crash, future projections would collapse and it would create a havoc for bailing out of a major market. It happens, but rarely (Google China exit).

I'm pretty sure it's still the case that Zuck can effectively do whatever he wants with FB due to his stock ownership position. But that isn't really the point... nobody said anything about anybody doing anything "on a whim". And if these companies were to get serious about playing the long-game, instead of fixating on short-term fluctuations in their stock price, I believe it is the case that what I propose is actually in their best interest.

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

#689
post #546

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…

> 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 GDPR arguably hurts small players most. Mismanagement of a single users data could cost the farm. It greatly increased the cost for small businesses to do business in Europe.

> Mismanagement of a single users data could cost the farm.

No it couldn't. This is a distortion that has been repeatedly debunked.

Here's a company who had a legal obligation to register with the UK ICO, and they didn't. They were handling medical data. Far from "losing the farm" they didn't even get fined. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-26/u-k-healt...

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

#690
post #455
post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have the feeling that EU is intentionally doing it. Sooner or later only big tech will be able to comply with all regulations.

I sometimes have the same feeling,but I'm not sure it's true. From an economical point of view it makes no sense to put legislation in place that will strengthen the market position of mostly US, non-EU companies. Another reasoning could be to "prepare" a censorship infrastructure, but I can't find any hard evidences to this.

>From an economical point of view it makes no sense to put legislation in place that will strengthen the market position of mostly US, non-EU companies.

The EU is failing in both the tech sector and the media sector. This is just sacrificing one to slow down the other's decline. Censorship is a bonus but it's not the goal, just like privacy was a bonus and not a goal of GDPR.

>Another reasoning could be to "prepare" a censorship infrastructure, but I can't find any hard evidences to this.

The only thing you need to watch for right now, and what will be seen in the future, is uneven enforcement. You'll have a choice to either censor material Europeans [are bound by law to] find offensive, or face a nice fine. Again, much like GDPR (though that law is also designed to get big tech companies to pay their taxes). This probably will come in the form of a deal with companies that won't be disclosed to the general public, but it's a nice backdoor way to get around US law which correctly doesn't require such censorship.

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