EU approves internet copyright law, including ‘link tax’ and ‘upload filter’ • Hacker News Board

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

#761

Post by Dylan16807 » Wed, Sep 12, 2018, 10:54 PM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #618

simias wrote: 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…

And it's not like my news app can't make 50 http requests to do good-enough aggregation itself, for free.

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

#762

Post by svilen_dobrev » Wed, Sep 12, 2018, 10:56 PM UTC

zaarn wrote: post #648

dmix wrote: post #566

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't need to drag you to court. They fine you using the new EU law, then you refuse to pay and you essentially decide to go to court instead of paying. Even if the company decides to drop the complaint in response either way you have to put a significant amount of effort to get to that point. Merely because you got an email at night. This could happen 100x (or even thousands) for any mid-sized content platform.…

>Merely because you got an email at night. As mentioned multiple times, if they did this the judge would simply deny the entire fine and suit and they'd have to pay you damages and they'd likely receive a cease&desist order from the court. You must inform parties of violations and allow for adequate time to react to them. Sending an email is already a nono for legal notices as there is no guarantee that the other par…

Are you talking about this from experience? or just plain (outside-EU) theory?

In practice though, most of EU gov-burocracy, incl. courts, prosecutors, statisticians, taxation, food-control, cultural/educational, whoever, esp. in recently-joined former-this-or-that countries, exist mostly in order to make work to each other = i.e. support/keep the whole system. Sadly, that is the reality.

And yes, they may charge u of (inexisting) offense (and even without sending u email), if that has any chance of putting oil in the cogwheels for some years. No matter what, the state does not lose.. it just somebody's nerves and taxpayers money wasted, but who cares.

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

#763

Post by adrianratnapala » Wed, Sep 12, 2018, 10:57 PM UTC

Joeri wrote: post #694

linuxftw wrote: post #670

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

An economic union should be about tariffs and the free movement of goods, not an entirely unelected bureaucratic federal government. The vote that occurred today was by the EU parliament, which is entirely elected. The directive was prepared inside the JURI committee, which also exists entirely out of elected representatives. Also, you can't have a single digital market without a single copyright regime. The economic…

> Also, you can't have a single digital market without a single copyright regime. The economic union implies the single market which implies a single copyright directive.

Why?

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

#764

Post by Guvante » Wed, Sep 12, 2018, 11:00 PM UTC

bjelkeman-again wrote: post #719

dannyobrien wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Disclosure -- I work on this for EFF) You can read the recitals this commenter is describing here, including the latest amendments that were voted in the Parliamentary plenary. As you'd imagine, I disagree with his interpretation. https://juliareda.eu/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Copyright_Se... Firstly, these are just recitals. They're not a binding part of the Directive, they just lay out the justifications for the…

> it's that if you use any text of an article, including its title, you can be sued or made to sign a license. This seems a great place to use automated translation technology, but into the same language. Link to the news article, but rewrite it using a similar meaning, with different words. (I am an EU citizen and I think this is major overreach by the legislator who thinks they are saving the newspapers, but have n…

News articles are written with the understanding that the reader could stop reading at any time so information is put as early as possible. This applies especially to the title which is used as the very first filter for user interest. Requiring rewriting titles is a bad idea as you are never in an automated fashion going to make a better title.

As an example note that this very website heavily prefers the original title for the link text, only changing it when substantial updates are made or the original title is heavily biased.

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

#765

Post by wolfgke » Wed, Sep 12, 2018, 11:00 PM UTC

08-15 wrote: post #741

0x5f3759df-i wrote: post #711

>However, those backing these provisions say the arguments above are the result of scaremongering by big US tech companies, eager to keep control of the web’s biggest platforms. This is the most hilarious quote in the article. The only thing this will do is entrench massive players like Google and Facebook who already have these systems in place. I honestly cannot comprehend how anyone could support this law while ha…

> Do these politicians really not understand the awful implications of these filtering systems for free speech and fair use? They do, and free speech and fair use are important issues to them.

> They do, and free speech and fair use are important issues to them.

The German law that is related to what US citizens call "copyright law" (Urheberrechtsgesetz) (note that I use this careful formulation, since Urheberrecht and copyright are based on different ideas) has no concept of "fair use".

Also, traditionally, in Germany, there is culturally a different understanding of what US citizens call "free speech" (freie Meinungsäußerung). "Freie Meinungsäußerung", for example, does not include defamation criticism or libel. So free speech in the US sense is no important issue for these politicians, because this concept is simply not ingrained in German culture.

To all the US free speech advocates: why is posting a copyrighted file in the internet not considered free speech and thus copyright law is to be abolished?

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

#766

Post by AnssiH » Wed, Sep 12, 2018, 11:02 PM UTC

jonathanstrange wrote: post #319

heavenlyhash wrote: post #116

So since the majority of the voices here on HN seem to be pretty negative towards this, I think it's worth noting there are some creative voices who are in favor of some copyright law. For example, here's one fellow on the twitter machine who's a composer and seems pleased: https://twitter.com/Howard_Goodall/status/103983376226213478... Simultaneously, I'm not campaigning in favor of the "link tax" component, here. I…

The crucial issue that I miss both in this directive and the current practice is that companies are encouraged to use automatic filters while actual copyright holder have almost no way of appealing against false copyright claims. I'd be fine with automatic content tagging if at the same time false copyright claims by someone who does not actually hold the copyright would lead to a hefty fine and/or be considered a cr…

> For all it's worth, it seems to make things worse.

Actually, adopted amendment 160 reads:

> Members States shall ensure that online content sharing service providers referred to in paragraph 1 put in place effective and expeditious complaints and redress mechanisms that are available to users in case the cooperation referred to in paragraph 2a leads to unjustified removals of their content. Any complaint filed under such mechanisms shall be processed without undue delay and be subject to human review. Right holders shall reasonably justify their decisions to avoid arbitrary dismissal of complaints. Moreover, in accordance with Directive 95/46/EC, Directive 200/58/EC and the General Data Protection Regulation, the cooperation shall not lead to any identification of individual users nor the processing of their personal data. Member States shall also ensure that users have access to an independent body for the resolution of disputes as well as to a court or another relevant judicial authority to assert the use of an exception or limitation to copyright rules.

List of amendments (adopted and non-adopted): http://www.europarl.europa.eu/plenary/en/report-details.html...

Vote result of each amendment: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-%2f%2f...

Edit: PDF of all amendments adopted today (includes the full amended text of articles 11 and 13): http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//...

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

#767

Post by majewsky » Wed, Sep 12, 2018, 11:05 PM UTC

nothrabannosir wrote: post #753

isostatic wrote: post #748

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These are the same politicians that brought us the law that forces every website to ask EU visitors permission to store cookies with a big fat modal dialog No it doesn't. For example https://news.ycombinator.com/ Does not have any such dialog

And to preempt the pointless but inevitable thread to follow: it also wouldn't need the dialog if it were based in the EU. How do I know? I don't. Maybe it does track users. But the website was used as a counter example to "forces every website", and a hypothetical news.ycombinator.eu which doesn't track users or keep any PII on them (conceivable by any reasonable person) is acceptable as a counter argument. The poin…

> And to preempt the pointless but inevitable thread to follow: it also wouldn't need the dialog if it were based in the EU.

Exactly. The only thing that every EU-based website should have is a data protection statement. The one on my blog is short and stout:

> No system under my control records any personal data of users of this website.

I also have an imprint because German law requires it. The regulation is clearly aimed at businesses, for private websites it just makes doxxing easy since I'm required to put my post address on there. (I considered getting a PO box, but going to the post office to empty it is pretty tedious.)

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

#768

Post by majewsky » Wed, Sep 12, 2018, 11:10 PM UTC

cge wrote: post #746

linuxftw wrote: post #724

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do these politicians really not understand the awful implications of these filtering systems for free speech and fair use? They believe what their wealthy donors tell them to believe. It won't affect the well connected politicians in any measurable way, they'll still be wealthy. Meanwhile, independent organizations will suffer while the big players get all the sweet licensing deals. Regulations are ALWAYS about pun…

Note that Article 2 point 4(b) appears to entirely excludes from Article 13 rules organizations that are "small" or "micro," which, unless I am mistaken, means organizations that have less than 50 employees and €10m turnover or balance sheet value.

I imagine that Google Europe and Facebook Europe will just slice themselves up into a swarm of subsidiaries that each have less than 50 employees and less than €10m turnover.

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

#769

Post by oldandtired » Wed, Sep 12, 2018, 11:12 PM UTC

Let's take a look at some background here. Freedoms are in the eye of the beholder and what is considered a "right" by one can be and often is quite different to what is considered a "right" by another.

The changes going on at such governmental levels should not be unexpected. These kinds of changes have been happening over many decades. Very few, if any, governments (I am not talking about politicians here) want to give the citizens of itself the freedoms that could threaten the well-being and growing control of that government.

Politicians may have agendas (obviously they do) and can in some way direct how the relevant government will operate. They have less control than they think and they are there only fo relatively short periods of time. Most of the legislation that citizens end up suffering under is dictated not by the politicians but by other control structures.

Policy changes made by the various political representatives will be warped by those who are in charge of bringing these policies into reality.

The changes being discussed here for the EU are in line with the premise that government will gain more control over its citizens and the ones who have pushed for this will find out quickly enough that there are very large unintended side-effects that will come back and haunt them.

The fundamental concept driving all this movement towards control of what citizens can and can't do is to ensure that when needed those same citizens will follow whatever directives are given. This is just repeating what has happened in the past many times.

Does that mean we lie down and just take it or is there something that we can do?

If you are going to actively do something, you must start out first realising that there are going to be consequences. You have to make up your mind as to whether or not you are willing to face those consequences.

Then you need to look at what action you can take and take without the destruction of others. Peaceful civil disobedience can be a strong motivator of change in some cases.

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

#770

Post by majewsky » Wed, Sep 12, 2018, 11:16 PM UTC

dannyobrien wrote: post #458

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…

(Disclosure -- I work on this for EFF) You can read the recitals this commenter is describing here, including the latest amendments that were voted in the Parliamentary plenary. As you'd imagine, I disagree with his interpretation. https://juliareda.eu/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Copyright_Se... Firstly, these are just recitals. They're not a binding part of the Directive, they just lay out the justifications for the…

> the language echoes a previous fight that rightsholders are still pursuing, which is links to infringing content should be punished as strongly as hosting content itself.

There was a story in a similar direction a few years back: A state court in Hamburg decided that when you set a link to some other website, you have to check whether that website contains any illegal content.

The fine journalists at Heise wanted to link to the verdict, and because they are law-abiding citizens, they inquired with the court if they can guarantee that all content on the court website was legal. The request was denied.