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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’

#951

Post by betterunix2 »

jonathanstrange wrote: post #270
Retr0spectrum wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The likes of YouTube will be affected the least. They already have aggressive copyright enforcement measures in place, and they can afford to do that. Smaller, more independent platforms will not be able to afford to implement compliance with these new regulations, and will potentially be driven out of business.

What about distributed systems without central control? Will the new laws force them to introduce filtering into the software (which could e.g. be open source and forkable by anyone)? Or does this only apply to systems with a centralized repository? I'm curious how this is supposed to work.

"What about distributed systems without central control?"

The copyright industry and their bought-and-paid-for politicians have repeatedly demonstrated that they have no mental model for such forms of distribution. Have you forgotten the panic that ensued fifteen years ago, when the music industry was suing middle schoolers?

(The irony is that the very same platforms these industry lobbyists are whining about only became popular because they killed P2P via the courts.)

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

#952

Post by megous »

Gaelan wrote: post #375
megous wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compare that to my country, where it's perfectly legal to download whatever music or movies you like from the internet for personal use, pirate websites or not. Also a western democracy. So it's not so bad everywhere. Though a price for this is that we pay a special tax on every storage device we purchase.

If you don’t mind, where is this?

Czech republic

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

#953

Post by lucio »

alfredallan wrote: post #868
int_19h wrote: post #839

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US has a huge surveillance (both govt and private) problem, but censorship? Can you give some examples?

1. Reddit on the topic of Donald Trump is an example. 2. Forcing social media firms to delete specific kinds of content is another (albeit controversial) example. 3. Redacting all info about Saudi involvement in the 9-11 reports is a great example of censorship under the pretext of national security. 4. The SESTA/FOSTA bills are a recent (but again somewhat controversial) example. 5. Plenty of movies have been censor…

Twitter is now banning promoted tweets with the legal term "illegal alien"

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

#954

Post by betterunix2 »

laumars wrote: post #859
int_19h wrote: post #846

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 w…

You cannot police every website on the Internet, but you certainly can scrap the Internet. It is easy to forget how much regulation surrounds the physical infrastructure of the Internet and how easily the government could just shut it all down. A key property of the Internet is that there is a single public IP address space; there is no technical reason why the address space could not be divided into "client" and "server" addresses, with only "servers" being allowed to host applications, and we are already halfway there with NAT (IPv6 does not help either, as it could easily be fragmented and we already have things like ULA). It would be easy to require a special license to receive a "server IP address" and I can see the EU doing exactly that based on their recent pattern of behavior.

Europe has a long history of doing such things when confronted with new, disruptive technologies: the effort to license printing presses in various European countries is what eventually led to copyright law as we know it today.

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

#955

Post by godshatter »

anigbrowl wrote: post #780
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…

Maybe it's time technologists stopped assuming they're the cleverest persons in the room and rectified their ignorance of law and economics before assuming they're in the right about everything. I'm not a fan of onerous copyright legislation but simply asserting that 'information wants to be free' is stating an opinion, not some scientific law. Hackers and developers are just as subject to the Dunning-Kreuger effect…

When someone cites the Dunning-Krueger effect, I always wonder if they are a professional psychologist.

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

#956

Post by xxxaaaxxx »

joering2 wrote: post #882
mrhappyunhappy wrote: post #858

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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…

Take USA for example - they have facebook(if i spell it correctly) and politicians are all fine watching grandkids there; some probably dont even know what “vkontakte” is, as even POTUS doesnt speak Russian and constantly uses translators.

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

#957

Post by betterunix2 »

lossolo wrote: post #587
Retr0spectrum wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The likes of YouTube will be affected the least. They already have aggressive copyright enforcement measures in place, and they can afford to do that. Smaller, more independent platforms will not be able to afford to implement compliance with these new regulations, and will potentially be driven out of business.

This is wrong. Small and micro platforms are excluded from directive’s scope. Source from legislation: In particular, small and micro enterprises as defined in Title I of the Annex to Commission Recommendation 2003/361/EC, should be expected to be subject to less burdensome obligations than larger service providers. Therefore, taking into account the state of the art and the availability of technologies and their cos…

The problem is that the gap between such platforms and Youtube is enormous, and long before they are even remotely competitive they will be required to spend vast sums of money on compliance. A secondary effect will be a reduced willingness to invest in small-to-medium sized competitors due to the regulatory costs and the risks of non-compliance, further hampering growth.

Much as I hate to admit it, the biggest reason US tech companies have been so much more successful than European tech companies is that the US imposes far fewer regulations, which allows companies to use more of their revenue on growth.

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

#958

Post by hexane360 »

bcheung wrote: post #778
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…

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."

>The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals.

This just isn't true. The rest is garbage in, garbage out.

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

#959

Post by nickpsecurity »

int_19h wrote: post #915
alfredallan wrote: post #868

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Reddit on the topic of Donald Trump is an example. 2. Forcing social media firms to delete specific kinds of content is another (albeit controversial) example. 3. Redacting all info about Saudi involvement in the 9-11 reports is a great example of censorship under the pretext of national security. 4. The SESTA/FOSTA bills are a recent (but again somewhat controversial) example. 5. Plenty of movies have been censor…

Classifying government documents is not censorship, since it's not government suppressing anyone's speech. It's strictly a transparency issue. All of your other examples involve private censorship (which can be rephrased as "people and companies exercising their property rights and freedom of association"), not government censorship.

If you know about it, it's a felony to talk about it. That particular one was a huge omission that might have shifted national debate in a different direction, esp who U.S. would target in a war or sanction. I still remember the advertisements on the radio talking about how great Saudi Arabia is and how good buddies we are. Be a different picture if U.S. media said they were a huge sponsor of violent religion and terrorism with that part of 9/11 report highlighted for all to see.

Definitely an example of mandated censorship, corruption, and maybe some kind of conspiracy. Maybe protecting politicians' and Saudi's interests at everyone else's expense. Even if it kills a bunch of us. If that's how they use the power, they don't deserve to have it.

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

#960

Post by hexane360 »

HIPisTheAnswer wrote: post #815
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 only thing this will do is entrench massive players like Google and Facebook Incorrect. It will also speed up development of a new web which is impossible to regulate. So I rejoice. When they block entire services for days, I cry in joy. A 10 days blackout is what we need...

This idea is called accelerationism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerationism
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