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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’

#961

Post by stvswn »

jaimex2 wrote: post #728
stvswn wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a general rule, in most jurisdictions, you cannot do business across international borders in this way, no. As soon as someone from the EU pays Google while they are physically inside of the EU, that business is subject to the EU's laws.

So if I start an online service in the US and someone in the EU buys I'm liable to EU laws and fines?

If someone in the EU buys it while they are in the EU, you just imported something to the EU and the EU's laws apply to you, yes. If that person buys it from you in the US and then carries it back to the EU, they have the liability for following law, paying duties and taxes, etc. When it comes to things that are completely digital, I believe where the money is changing hands is what matters most.

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

#962

Post by antidesitter »

anigbrowl wrote: post #786
adrianratnapala wrote: post #760

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everywhere has this phenomenon in some guise, it's only the US that's self absorbed enough to think it is unique.

That's essentially a religious argument. Please provide evidence for your claim.

> That's essentially a religious argument.

?

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

#963

Post by hexane360 »

jexah wrote: post #899
hef19898 wrote: post #874

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

What you are describing is a merged set of other named rights, such as Freedom of Expression and Freedom of Association, etc. The US (as far as I am aware) is the only country in the world with the Right to Free Speech. Free being the keyword here, "unconstrained". 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.

The U.S. has many exceptions to free speech. Libel, slander, "fighting words" (see Chaplinsky v. N.H.), "imminent lawless action"(Brandenburg v. Ohio), obscenity (Miller v. California), etc. These have all been interpreted in varying ways throughout history, with the general trend being towards more protected speech (compare Brandenburg/"imminent lawless action" to Schenck v. U.S./"clear and present danger"). Additionally, the government can restrict speech further when acting in a special capacity, such as the FCC's regulation of the speech on the airwaves and public schools' regulation of free speech in classrooms.

It's delusional to think that the U.S. has unrestricted free speech, or to think that "free" implies completely "unconstrained".

>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.

This is a strawman. No EU country restricts free speech to speech criticizing the government.

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

#964

Post by anticensor »

ivan_gammel wrote: post #744
opportune wrote: post #597

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure small players shouldn’t be exempt from the law, but surely it’s ridiculous to expect every website with user uploaded content to have an on-call team of content managers to comply with takedowns. This hurts small players much more than big players, because now it’s not possible to be a small player in this area. It’s not exemptions which are important, it’s understanding why this makes the entire approach flawed…

I'm not sure it's entirely impossible to be a small player. Let's say, a small player allows their users to make a copyright statement with the "proof of original content" (not necessarily 100% valid, just something like "I, Max Mustermann, confirm that this work is my original content produced on 13.09 in Berlin..."), possibly, automatically. This statement will identify copyright holder of the content and mark it v…

Plagiarism^WSimilarity checkers do not work well.

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

#965

Post by nkassis »

majewsky wrote: post #768
cge wrote: post #746

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Don't they already have a corporation in Ireland with almost no employees and no profits due to selling licensed software made by the parent company at cost?

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

#966

Post by Nasrudith »

anigbrowl wrote: post #798
Nasrudith wrote: post #600

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is an analogy - imagine we crack down on theft at the source by massive fines for receiving stolen property. Sounds good? Try to sell anything secondhand then. Nobody wants to engage in the secondhand market because of the massive liability. Sure you own it but can you prove it to their satisfaction? You could be lying and that is mo excuse on their part. You try to sell crafts you made yourself instead but nobo…

Except this isn't backed up by empirical evidence, in reality flea markets and used good stores are widespread despite the existence of laws against trafficking in stolen goods. Just because you can imagine a bad outcome doesn't mean it's inevitable or even probable.

You missed the point - those laws have limits to secondary liability based on knowledge precisely because of that! At worst they just need to return stolen goods even if they paid for them. I am pointing out how draconian and stupid the law is. A law with similar strictness would destroy secondary markets.

This law requires websites to /know/ the copyright to be covered. And that is an impossible task if no false negatives are accepted. Old usenet pirates would use base64 strings to spread contents and there are countless ways to obfuscate to algorithms while remaining human recognizable. Which means to remain safe one needs to not even accept and display text input from users.

Copyright databases would be of no help here given both automatic copyright and the ease of dodging hashes. And a complete set would be massive and hillariously defeat the point by giving any implenter all of the media in the world.

Given that it is inevitable that it will have a bad outcome. Even if it is left to rot on the books it becomes a tool of tyranny via selective enforcement.

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

#967

Post by nkassis »

lovich wrote: post #935
aldoushuxley001 wrote: post #842

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes, the ol "but China is building a digital dystopia so we should too" argument. A classic.

Ah the old, let's imply your racist/afraid so you let american companies do as they please argument. It's easy to be trite, but it doesn't change the fact that foreign companies and governments were taking advantage of the EU while simultaneously having a different set of rules at home for EU companies. I think the EU overreacted her, hut it's hardly surprising that they had some sort of response

The whole thread should be about the EU response and how negative it will be for most EU citizens but have less of an impact on the intended targets, aka large corporations who can afford to be compliant.

I think arguing over who has the most censored internet or the worst corporations is probably starting to veer off topic.

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

#968

Post by Izkata »

kerrsclyde wrote: post #901
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.

Quite, but this ruling seems to strengthen Facebook's hand not weaken it.

I'm not so sure. Take a look at Google and YouTube:

YouTube regularly blocks fair-use videos (remixes, criticism, etc) because the automated filter finds something that matches and can't recognize context.

Google regularly gets DMCA takedown requests for search results that go to official websites and YouTube ads/trailers.

My Facebook feed is covered with old acquaintances sharing news links and other such content.

It seems like it would be really easy for Facebook to run afoul of this, just due to others' incompetence.

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

#969

Post by linuxftw »

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."

An apt quote indeed.

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

#970

Post by karthikb »

zaarn wrote: post #847
karthikb wrote: post #725

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there is only one possible outcome, then that outcome should be clearly encoded in the law. The whole purpose of the court system is to provide interpretation when a law is vague - intentionally or not.

Remember that the law in europe tends to not function like the american law, including how courts work. The law is almost always vague and courts will have to interpret it.

Right - and that's what would drive US based companies just to shut down access to EU versus trying to comply. The uncertainty may not be worth it for small companies just trying to gauge demand.
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