891–900 of 1001 posts
This is so sad but kind of expected. EU is run by politicians and the public has very little to no insight. After this goes through I will become a single-issue voter, to leave the EU.
Same. This institution has given me enough. Not only in tech.
As an American, I can gladly say fuck the EU. Their laws do not and never shall be imposed on me or the work I do ever. I'm glad not to do business within the EU.
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> 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…
Does the EU have a problem with wealthy donors? I've heard this criticism levelled against US politicians and it's justified, but in this case I think it might just be sheer ignorance on the part of the EU legislators.
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How would this work in practice? I could easily set up a news company. Would they have to link to my articles as much as other news articles?
Equality really wasn’t what the german publishers had in mind. They wanted Google to pay for being able to show a snippet of their content in News. A ridiculous idea, that was countered by the only sensible answer: Google asked publishers if they wanted to continue to have their content listed in Google News for free or if their content should be removed. Needless to say that almost all of the proponents, including t…
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> 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…
It's also a form of control. "There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws."
I guess it’s true that some people in positions of power view themselves as rules over others, but I always thought that most people here in the western world held the view that the government exists to serve the people, not the other way around. Is this not the case?
There is plenty of things the government can spend their time on that is actually beneficial to its people, including:
- Regulating industry where necessary to protect employees and the public from harm; physical, economical, psychological, privacy, or otherwise.
- Negotiate with other countries so that mutually beneficial agreements are reached with regards to import and export of goods, as well as immigration, emigration and travel relating to the exchange of labor forces.
- Creating and enforcing laws for how the public is allowed to act so as not to cause harm. Things like laws that prohibiting DUI etc.
- Coming up with ways to protect and help people that get sick or have permanent illnesses or handicaps, to ensure that everyone can have quality of life.
That is what government should be about, not about control for the sake of control itself.
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Honestly I think the point they are trying to make is that they don’t need US-based behemots to control internet in Europe. Take Russia for example - they have vkontakte (if i spell it correctly) and politicians are all fine watching grandkids there; some probably dont even know what “facebook” is, as even POR doesnt speak English and constantly uses translators. Whats happening in real i think is that EU realized it…
Won't these “made in European Union” social networks have exactly the same problems as the Americans in complying with the regulations? In Russia and China, I believe they just openly discriminate against foreign companies.
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> 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" (f…
As much as this may annoy Angela Merkel, Germany and the EU are not the same thing. We're talking about EU legislation, and translating and relating that to German, French, British, Italian, Romanian, etc. law will always result in awkward translations that are not quite spot on. We are not lawyers, this isn't a court, and we can afford a bit of imprecision to get the point across with finitely many words, can't we?…
There is indeed an exception for quotes (Zitate) and parodies (for the latter cf. https://www.ferner-alsdorf.de/urheberrecht__urheberrecht-zur... since it is not written down explicitly in the law). But, for example, memes fall into neither category and are thus typically illegal under German law, but legal under US copyright because of fair use.
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> if you get dragged to court because you got the email at 1AM and you were asleep, then you're not guilty of anything Getting dragged to court is disruptive, unsettling and expensive.
And the other party will be found guilty of disrupting your business by having you get into court for complaints without legal grounds.
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As much as this may annoy Angela Merkel, Germany and the EU are not the same thing. We're talking about EU legislation, and translating and relating that to German, French, British, Italian, Romanian, etc. law will always result in awkward translations that are not quite spot on. We are not lawyers, this isn't a court, and we can afford a bit of imprecision to get the point across with finitely many words, can't we?…
We do have free speech in the EU, claming otherwise would indicate that the European countries are no democracies. While the extent of free speech might vary from country to country, denying it is there goes way to far. Sure, there are limitations to it, e.g. denying the Holocaust or using Nazi symbols in Germany, and with regards to defamation. But otherwise just about any opinion can be voiced freely. Thid doesn't…
Free Speech doesn't mean having the right to say bad things about the government. It means having the right to say anything you want.
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I think the newspapers forgot that Google doesn’t need them .
The issue is that we as a society need diverse and independent newspapers.
The issue comes from companies that were too powerful before they went to ask google for money.