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’

#851

Post by sosborn » Thu, Sep 13, 2018, 5:07 AM UTC

int_19h wrote: post #837

mcv wrote: post #817

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not in the same way as in the US, and I don't think campaign contributions are a thing, at least not at the same level as in the US. But there are many, many lobbyists active in the EU, and some of them have a surprising amount of influence over politicians. There has even been a case where two different parties, independently from each other, introduced the exact same bill, which had been written by a lobbyist.

What leverage do they use for lobbying, if campaign contributions are off the tables?

The art of lobbying doesn't have anything to do with contributions. They will typically donate equally to all viable candidates and sitting politicians to avoid becoming anyone's enemy.

The leverage they use is their relationships with other politicians to engage in vote trading.

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

#852

Post by saurik » Thu, Sep 13, 2018, 5:08 AM UTC

zaarn wrote: post #563

dmix wrote: post #558

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No it doesn't > No judge will put up a fine for that. You're contradicting yourself...you have to go to court to get charges dropped by a judge.

No I'm not. No sane lawyer will even recommend dragging you to court for that because the judge will like fine the suer and find the sued party not guilty. No legal department I know would stand behind such a decision, it would be absolutely stupid to drag anyone to court. And most likely the Judge would even have the suing party pay for your expenses and damages incurred by such charges.

How did they enact such a fine on you without taking you to court? Is the EU crazily different in this regard than the US?

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

#853

Post by zaarn » Thu, Sep 13, 2018, 5:16 AM UTC

saurik wrote: post #852

zaarn wrote: post #563

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No I'm not. No sane lawyer will even recommend dragging you to court for that because the judge will like fine the suer and find the sued party not guilty. No legal department I know would stand behind such a decision, it would be absolutely stupid to drag anyone to court. And most likely the Judge would even have the suing party pay for your expenses and damages incurred by such charges.

How did they enact such a fine on you without taking you to court? Is the EU crazily different in this regard than the US?

A C&D in Germany is the usual way to resolve disputes, in which case you get a letter + bill + C&D form to sign, you can either comply and sign the C&D and pay the fine or ignore it or just sign the C&D but not pay the bill, in which case the other party can drop it, send more letters or take it to court.

If you take it to court and the court finds the complaint invalid then they can (and usually do) force the party that sent the C&D to pay your expenses and damages (ie, lost business due to you having to turn up to court) and usually a restraining order with hefty fines on it.

Atleast in germany it is expected that disputes are resolved via C&D and letter correspondence, court is a last resort.

To my knowledge, the court system in other countries varies but is not that different...

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

#854

Post by em3rgent0rdr » Thu, Sep 13, 2018, 5:19 AM UTC

> "Exactly how the legislation will be interpreted will be up to individual nations, but the shift in the balance of power is clear: the web’s biggest tech companies are losing their grip on the internet."

I don't see it very clear that the biggest tech companies are losing their grip on the internet with these new laws. They will be able to weather this and even profit just fine.

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

#855

Post by Too » Thu, Sep 13, 2018, 5:23 AM UTC

tomelders wrote: post #792

As bonkers as this may seem, I suspect it will fall flat on it's face the second it's put before a court. For example, someone defends their right to use the title or quote from an article from some other news gathering organisation. Someone will need to convince a judge that it's OK for The Sunday Times, or Der Spiegel to do that, but it's not OK for Reddit or Hacker News to do that. And eventually, someone will nee…

> And eventually, someone will need to convince a court

I think this is exactly what they want. They don't want to automatically tax every teenage kid making memes. They just want to create a legal minefield so whenever they decide a link is not ok they will have a law that backs them up.

In a way it's good because most fair use most likely will fly under the radar just as it does today, but on the other hand it's also scary that you never really know when you are passing the threshold and might face an army of lawyers.

It's very much like patent trolls. They strike like lightning on a sunny day if you happen to build a mildly successful product that can be remotely associated with their patent.

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

#856

Post by imbur » Thu, Sep 13, 2018, 5:39 AM UTC

bcheung wrote: post #773

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…

The stronger they push ridiculous laws like this the more it will force perfectly legitimate business to go underground. We will end up with all the problems of prohibition all over again. > is intended to give publishers and papers a way to make money when companies like Google link to their stories So Google should pay you when they send you more traffic? More traffic = more money. Most companies would be overjoyed…

Why should Google be able to profit off of others content without compensating them? Compulsory licenses are standard in the music industry, and in theory the same could work well for journalism. But the devil is in the details.

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

#857

Post by cmsefton » Thu, Sep 13, 2018, 5:49 AM UTC

int_19h wrote: post #837

mcv wrote: post #817

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not in the same way as in the US, and I don't think campaign contributions are a thing, at least not at the same level as in the US. But there are many, many lobbyists active in the EU, and some of them have a surprising amount of influence over politicians. There has even been a case where two different parties, independently from each other, introduced the exact same bill, which had been written by a lobbyist.

What leverage do they use for lobbying, if campaign contributions are off the tables?

This is one mechanism: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolving_door_(politics)

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

#858

Post by mrhappyunhappy » Thu, Sep 13, 2018, 6:00 AM UTC

bcheung wrote: post #773

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…

The stronger they push ridiculous laws like this the more it will force perfectly legitimate business to go underground. We will end up with all the problems of prohibition all over again. > is intended to give publishers and papers a way to make money when companies like Google link to their stories So Google should pay you when they send you more traffic? More traffic = more money. Most companies would be overjoyed…

Fuck it, block Europe entirely. See how quickly the politicians there crawl back on their knees when they cant use Facebook to see their grandkids pictures.

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

#859

Post by laumars » Thu, Sep 13, 2018, 6:05 AM UTC

int_19h wrote: post #846

laumars wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the OP did also state that point as well. The comparison was just to illustrate that this law is unenforceable at large scale so people might just disregard it. The danger is, as he and yourself have both stated, you then have a situation where the law becomes a weapon to be abused rather than legislation to safeguard businesses or consumer interest.

Unfortunately, it's quite enforceable. That's the whole point of this legislation - it goes after those entities that it can be enforced against (businesses), forcing them to turn around and enforce it against the smaller fish in their domain.

You're missing the point being made. We are not saying "it cannot be enforced, period". What we are saying "you cannot police every single website on the internet." Thus what will happen is this law will be used as a weapon to target sites that publish reviews that paint a particular product in a bad light, or user contribution sites that compete with big social networks. Or even, in the worst case scenario, forums which are critical of a particular government party.*

A law like this can and likely will be selectively enforced since it will be impossible to police every single independent thought published on the internet.

* I appreciate those points may not be in breach of the new legislation per se. But there is a pretty good chance that some content on sites of those style would be in breach. So it's a little like police using a broken tail light as an excuse to stop and search a car.

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

#860

Post by visarga » Thu, Sep 13, 2018, 6:25 AM UTC

imbur wrote: post #856

bcheung wrote: post #773

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The stronger they push ridiculous laws like this the more it will force perfectly legitimate business to go underground. We will end up with all the problems of prohibition all over again. > is intended to give publishers and papers a way to make money when companies like Google link to their stories So Google should pay you when they send you more traffic? More traffic = more money. Most companies would be overjoyed…

Why should Google be able to profit off of others content without compensating them? Compulsory licenses are standard in the music industry, and in theory the same could work well for journalism. But the devil is in the details.

By that logic, should the phonebook have to pay people to include them? Should the travel pamphlet pay the restaurants it sends people to? Using snippets of the content to send people to the source is essential for online dialogue, not just for Google. Should we all have to pay for referring to an article in a forum?

Mark my words: if this were enforced, people and most companies would simply stop linking these sites. What I think will happen instead is that many websites would not want this kind of situation, so we will add a new clause to the robots.txt permitting linking and small snippets, and most websites would enable it rather than lose the link and search traffic. Then we'd be back where we started.

By the way, what happens when an European newspaper is hosted in US? What laws apply?