26 ms·

EU wants to require platforms to filter uploaded content, including code

681 points by calcifer 9y ago

amarant 9y ago
man..I thought brexit was bad, but maybe they're on to something? this isn't the first time EU cracks down on new tech, hindering progress in the process. (this is however the worst such case yet, if it goes through)
- d33 9y ago
  I'd say it's the same old copyright trolling over and over - unless they switch to the brand new "anti-hate speech" propaganda. Those moves look desperate and what is most depressing is that we're feeding MAFIAA everytime we consume culture - via legal means or not (it's shown that piracy increases sales anyway).
- BuildTheRobots 9y ago
  Brexit is giving the UK politicians the chance to enact some pretty draconian laws _without_ the European courts being able to stop them because it's illegal or goes against human rights. The fact that the EU is _following_ us into some of this madness is not a good thing and certainly doesn't imply that the UK is onto something good.
  - gadders 9y ago
    Which laws are those?
    - John_KZ 9y ago
      Even though at the time they only ban neo-nazis, the UK can now criminally charge you for having opinions they dislike. That's not a step forward. Also surveilance and anti-privacy laws in the UK are horrible.
      - 111_1_111 9y ago
        Germany has been actively policing thought-crime since the 1930s. EU or no, you can't stop fascists from abusing their power.
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
    - detuur 9y ago
      The porn filter springs to mind.
    - BuildTheRobots 9y ago
      The snoopers charter that got enacted recently keeps getting proven illigal, so they keep changing the law. Currently politicians have said a number of times that they'd like to get rid of human rights. There's currently talks about making social media platforms responsible for editing content rather than acting as a transport layer. There's plenty more, I'm sure others can chime in.
      - gadders 9y ago
        >>Currently politicians have said a number of times that they'd like to get rid of human rights. That's not true at all. They may want to leave the European Court of Human Rights but that's not the same as suddenly rolling back loads of human rights in the UK. I'm old enough to have been an adult before Tony Blair signed the European Convention on Human Rights into law in the UK. People's rights didn't massively change for the better when that was signed, so I wouldn't expect them to change for the worse if it is repealed.
    - ben_w 9y ago
      Investigatory Powers Act 2016, currently being challenged under human rights laws that are a requirement of EU membership.
  - vixen99 9y ago
    Well the British electorate can decide on whether they like those laws and kick out the executive and those laws if they do not. But I guess that's `populist`. Illegal is a loaded term. Bit like 'international law' which boils down to mean international agreements.
    - ben_w 9y ago
      Can do that with MEPs, too.
      - timrichard 9y ago
        Except that the real power is with the Commission, not the MEPs. It's the opposite of the UK parliamentary system, where the (elected) House of Commons initiates legislation and the (unelected) House of Lords occasionally returns it with small suggestions for change. Here, the MEPs effectively rubber stamp the legislation initiated by the Commission (who knows, they may even make it to the Commission one day if they behave). It's all very well trotting out the line that "they can can shortcut Parliaments and pass the sort of laws that any right-thinking person should support, or the proles on the street might not understand", but that's the crux of my objection. The democratic rights of the populace were never yours or theirs to subvert or give away. As Tony Benn wisely said, "I'd rather have a bad Parliament than a good King".
        ben_w 9y ago
        I have never understood why proposing, rather than analysing and modifying, laws is considered more important. Every so often the UK House of Lords gets in the news for “wrecking amendments”. There is enough power in each domain that I am comfortable with only the MEPs being directly elected in the EU, and with leaving the Lords unelected in the UK until (like this will ever happen) there is enough time to replace them with a carefully thought out alternative.
        timrichard 9y ago
        I have to disagree about the House of Lords just as a point of principle, because I don't agree with a higher authority made up of the clergy, aristocrats, and political stooges. There are some exceptions, but I don't think it's an unfair caricature by the British people that the HOL are symbolic, senile or sedated.
  - amarant 9y ago
    agreed, they're most definitely not. I was just trying to express my frustration with this suggested policy.. I accept whatever punishment the internet sees fit for my careless violation of Poe's law
- IAmEveryone 9y ago
  US Congress wants to mandate pornography filter: “that’s a bad law” EU Parliament wants to mandate filter: “lets burn this place down”
  - detuur 9y ago
    People don't seem to understand that the entertainment industry doesn't just lobby in the US, but worldwide. A few years ago we had the SOPA scare which imposed draconian measures to stop copyright infringement, and those were proposed by the US. We'll have to accept that every few years, a lobbying attempt manages to get a concrete proposal to the floor either in Congress or in the Commission, and we'll have to respond with outrage every time.
    - piracykills 9y ago
      The worst part is that they only need to succeed once - if the laws are changed it will become exponentially harder to change them back. So they have every motivation to keep dumping resources at this.
  - pjc50 9y ago
    Don't forget the UK's own porn filter, implementation of which has been delayed following inability to answer the question of "how on earth is this supposed to work?"
  - netheril96 9y ago
    Well, the outcome of American Civil War precludes the possibility of, say, Texas Exit, but France Exit or Dutch Exit are still within the realms of reality.
- pjc50 9y ago
  Brexit is bad. The EU is not great and does make some indefensible decisions, but the UK government is increasingly obviously descending into some kind of Greek-style basket case. As a sibling comment says, after Brexit the UK will most likely try to enact all kinds of bad ideas that it feels it's been held back from by the EU. Most of which will be directed at "immigrants".
Lunatic666 9y ago
Why would GitHub as an American company follow EU law? Or are they just really trying to prevent bad laws?
- mbel 9y ago
  > Why would GitHub as an American company follow EU law? Because they might be interested in doing business in EU?
- dtech 9y ago
  Because they have users and business in EU. If you want to sell stuff in EU, that product must comply with EU law.
  - Lunatic666 9y ago
    Yes I understand that they want to offer their services in Europe, but the servers are in the US and billing is also not handled by a European branch company afaik. I’m really just wanted to know if and how the EU could force GitHub to comply with this law. Ban their service? Or could it have to do with the successor agreement of safe harbor?
    - nl 9y ago
      The EU can impose penalties. For example the new EU data protection laws have this as the maximum penalty: a fine up to €20 million or up to 4% of the annual worldwide turnover of the preceding financial year in case of an enterprise, whichever is greater I guess Github could decline to pay. But then they could do no business in the EU, and then there is the likely impact on Github employees - similar to how BetonSports' CEO was arrested when he changed planes in the US: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/arrests-in-us-put-world-of-online-betting-on-red-alert-5544310.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-feat...
- richrichardsson 9y ago
  Relevant username is relevant.
Dude2023 9y ago
> automated filtering of code would make software less reliable and more expensive I can see how it's bad for business, but as a developer wouldn't it mean more jobs and more of custom libraries to make?
- C14L 9y ago
  And less fun writing them.
- mikerg87 9y ago
  Things like this or the GPDR favor the rich and the bigger companies who can, while not convenient, devote resources to compliance. It’s not just GitHub that would have to comply. I suspect that the code snippet sharing in Slack would have to monitor code snippets pasted in various programming chat areas to be in compliance.
IAmEveryone 9y ago
If you are in the EU, do follow the advise and contact your MEP. The EU parliament is surprisingly accessible and open to criticism, especially if it is respectful and well-argued. (It’s probably a result of constantly having their legitimacy questioned and and vile insults having hurled at them)
- peoplewindow 9y ago
  And they will do what, exactly? The EU Parliament has no real power. It can only say yes to things or delay them. As a consequence the only people who run for seats in it are either fanatically pro-EU or anti-EU, but none of them are going to have any real interest in copyright. They can say no and send it back and the Commission - if it wants this - will just send it back for re-approval again, or bypass them entirely.
  - IAmEveryone 9y ago
    The EU Parliament gets to edit all legislation. There are often thousands of amendments offered, debated, voted on, and approved or rejected. Here is an example with 500 proposed amendments to draft legislation on cybersecurity: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/committees/en/amendments.html?ufolderComCode=IMCO&ufolderLegId=8&ufolderId=11043&linkedDocument=true&urefProcYear=&urefProcNum=&urefProcCode=#documents http://www.europarl.europa.eu/committees/en/amendments.html?... Click on the pdf icons to read the actual texts. Please don’t spread falsehoods.
    - calpaterson 9y ago
      I think your post is also misleading. Under co-decision, the EP only gets to /propose/ amendments, not to approve them. The council are able to reject parliament amendments and get the law passed anyway. And of course, there are other procedures than co-decision for creating primary legislation which give the EP even less power. While the grandparent wasn't 100% technically correct I think the broad view (that "The EU Parliament has no real power") is effectively correct. The lion's share of the power of the EU still rests in the Commission and the Council. By all means, write to your MEPs, but don't get too hopeful
conradk 9y ago
Frexit seems to be coming ever closer. Le Pen got 35% in 2017, pro-frexit parties are flourishing in France. EU has got to be careful. It's doing good things (free roaming, which as citizen who has family in both France and Germany, I highly appreciate) and the GDPR, which seems to force companies to think more about privacy. But if Github's phrasing accurately represents what EU wants to do with online sharing, then I feel like this change is a step in the wrong direction, restricting privacy to make big-corps even richer than they already are.
- discordianfish 9y ago
  Free roaming and peace. The small things..
  - gadders 9y ago
    The peace was due to Nato, not the EU.
    - nl 9y ago
      Both. The EU bound counties together through trade and NATO protected against external threats.
      - timrichard 9y ago
        Internal/external. So presumably there would be a higher risk of France, Germany and Britain going to war with each other if it wasn't for a trade agreement and customs union? Despite them all being NATO members, unable to by treaty, with the whole NATO organisation geared up to enforce that? How exactly would your scenario play out? I'm genuinely curious.
        antientropic 9y ago
        The first precursor of the EU was the European Coal and Steel Community [1]. It had the express purpose of putting control over coal and steel under supranational control, thereby making war between the members materially impossible. It's also important to note that NATO does not provide prosperity (that was the goal of the EEC through closer trade and cooperation). So it does absolutely nothing to prevent the rise of extremist movements that could cause a repeat of the 1930s. There is also nothing it can do to prevent a member from quitting, just like Germany quit the League of Nations. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Coal_and_Steel_Community https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Coal_and_Steel_Commun...
titanix2 9y ago
I would gladly contribute to software which filter laws submitted to the parliament.
- epicide 9y ago
  If only common sense could be made into a filter.
friedButter 9y ago
They should consider partitioning the internet into 2 parts: 1) Public access internet, where everything is regulated by the hosting company 2) Restricted access internet where everything uploaded in linked to a real life ID and the uploader has liability for whatever is uploaded. Access would be granted after a basic licensing test, but hosting companies would not be required to police the content This way, media companies can easily regulate the mass market internet to keep pirated content off of it, and the restricted access network would have a link to the uploader with personal liability, so people are not likely to upload pirated stuff anyways. In exchange, they arent harassed in the name of anti piracy
- John_KZ 9y ago
  > Restricted access internet This is already done in closed-doors forums and whatnot. If you mean the ID should be government-issued, you have Facebook where fake accounts area nearly impossible at this point and it's pretty close to a "Governet". In the Governet you'd still be censored because their goal isn't to sue everyone (that's expensive and doesn't always work), it's just to control them.
  - friedButter 9y ago
    > In the Governet you'd still be censored Only for stuff that would be illegal in offline life as well... anything that you're allowed to do in offline life, under whatever extent of freedom of expression is permitted by your country would still be uncensored.
  - lambda_lover 9y ago
    The several fake Facebook accounts I use for testing purposes would like to have a word with you. In my experience Facebook doesn't try to filter out fake accounts very heavily unless you use them to create spam. And I prefer to keep Facebook as far as possible away from "real" IDs like my passport, driver's license, etc.
- ben_w 9y ago
  This is incompatible with the encryption required to keep everyone safe online.
AJRF 9y ago
That response at the top of the article was a really good way of hitting the point home quickly
tmdk 9y ago
If you actually read the EU proposal then it does not require filtering upon upload, it seems fine to perform filtering upon download. Secondly the proposal states that the measures should be proportional, which might mean that code is not affected in any significant way.
- type0 9y ago
  > it seems fine to perform filtering upon download. What that suppose to mean? My web service should be fine as long as I agree for the Government to MITM me?
scandox 9y ago
Well I'm instinctively against this, but on the other hand wouldn't it encourage serious adoption of a decentralized system? Which might not be a bad thing. Or?
- onion2k 9y ago
  As with most things it's not a simple black and white, good versus evil issue. It could lead to developers actually bothering to put a license on their open work, stricter enforcement of open source agreements, and, like you suggest, people looking at alternative ways of hosting code. On the other hand, it would also mean that we'd be 'randomly' told that we can't commit something because it looks too similar to some other code someone wrote. In the case of Google vs Oracle that would be a relatively trivial, obvious-to-an-experienced-developer 10 line method. That wouldn't be great...
  - zerostar07 9y ago
    it also means the end of the internet as a disruptive force, the prevalence of legal force over everything and the end of utopians
  - shapiro92 9y ago
    for me this is very weird. While being employed by a company the code you write is theirs, so what happens if I move to another company and reuse code from my brain? Also do they understand how amazingly complex it would be to do code checks for similarity of code?
    - pixl97 9y ago
      >so what happens if I move to another company Don't worry, at our current rate that won't be allowed. As a programmer you are now company property. I guess that also means "You're fired" means "Literally fired in an incinerator"
- mtgx 9y ago
  It could. After all the internet has tended to route around censorship so far. Or it could make the whole internet more like the Chinese internet. I'd rather not take that chance and allow the decentralized systems to grow organically instead (and they do, albeit quite slowly).
legostormtroopr 9y ago
GitHub has had no problems implementing censorship on their platform if it’s using their own values (see: WebM for Retards), so why should we care if they are now forced to censor using an external parties values? I was concerned when GitHub started censoring repositories that didn’t meet their code of conduct, but was told it was for the greater good. Now the issue is coming back to bite them it seems.
- jwilk 9y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9966118 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9966118
- ekianjo 9y ago
  Your comment is misguided. When private actors behave badly, you can opt out and go for competiting services. When the state mandates something your options run out. It is a pure attack on Freedom.
  - dingo_bat 9y ago
    When private actors that have a monopoly behave badly you can go to another but you will have a severely degraded experience. For example reddit, YouTube, Facebook, etc. There is no alternative if they block you, you just have to accept that you're no longer allowed to participate in a certain activity. GitHub is also quite like this.
    - yock 9y ago
      Alternatives exist, what you're complaining about is that they're not popular. You aren't entitled to viable alternatives. If a private business acts in a way contrary to your beliefs, your only option is to stop using them. Having an alternative private business to choose is nice, but never guaranteed.
      - dingo_bat 9y ago
        Can you tell me what's the alternative for Youtube? Or github? The alternative should be a real alternative, not a useless replica. For example, I should be able to watch latest movie trailers, music videos, tech reviews, etc. on the youtube alternative. And I should be able to report issues to Microsoft's VS code project. This is not just about popularity. On the internet, winner takes all. The monopoly is extreme in every type of website/service. If you can't use Youtube, you effectively cannot watch videos on the web. If you are banned by github, you cannot participate in the global open source community. There are 2 solutions: 1. Break the monopolies. 2. Force them to respect my rights, similar to the government.
thriftwy 9y ago
I think it's time for distributed git a-la bittorrent. We should have everything sensitive in encrypted P2P networks and then demand that snail-mail privacy laws are applied. I'm not expecting this position to be popular on HN tho, you can't build an unicorn on freedom.
- antocv 9y ago
  We have gittorrent already. Much better alternatives than bittorrent, from privacy and censorship-resistence aspect is, git-ssb which is git on secue scuttlebot aka SSB. Bittorrent can be censored, the DHT can/is monitored and can be eclipsed to prevent lookups. Scuttlebot can work offline, over WiFi or sneakernet. Transport layer is encrypted, unlike bittorrent. Another alternative is Dat Project, which is similar to SSB, but focuses on larger data files.
chmod775 9y ago
As someone who runs a large filesharing platform I don't really care since we are already more-or-less compliant. We already check newly uploaded files automatically against known bad content and stuff copyright holders have reported in the past. It's basically just file checksums though, nothing fancy. I don't know what what would be "appropriate and proportionate" according to the directive though, and having to check code for copyright infringements sounds absolutely painful and vain.
wukerplank 9y ago
People need to understand the different parts that make the EU administration. The EU commission is not "the EU". It's the parliament that decides if proposals of the commission become law. The parliament has a history of rejecting stupid proposals (e.g. software patents). But the Github folks are right! Please, tell your MEPs that/why this is a stupid idea - it's important! (I sometimes wonder why the commission proposes stupid things. Uninformed? Corruption, uhm I mean lobbying?)
- pjc50 9y ago
  I'm sure there's no corruption going on here. http://www.euronews.com/2017/06/28/why-won-t-brussels-release-report-on-eu-wide-corruption http://www.euronews.com/2017/06/28/why-won-t-brussels-releas...
  - harel 9y ago
    Stuff like that is one of the reasons we're now in Brexit mode in the UK... I blame both sides for whatever is to come.
    - IAmEveryone 9y ago
      Because there has never been any corruption in UK politics?
      - harel 9y ago
        Did I ever say that? Of course we have corruption in the UK. Like in any country in the wold. What I said, and I said it as a staunch remainer, is that the EU has done nothing on their side to prevent the catastrophe we're facing now. They are to blame as much as people like Mr. Farage. They could have prevented this when Cameron went to them before the referendum to adjust the UK membership deal. All I said is that everyone is to blame for this.
        Maken 9y ago
lowry 9y ago
Automated filters on content sharing platforms kill creativity. Entire sports disappear from Youtube because they are traditionally accompanied by music. Think of ice skating. It's been years since I stopped uploading videos of ice skaters to Youtube, because they are automatically deleted based on music matching their filtering database. Others in my ice skating circle share videos on Amazon Prime Photos or similar platforms, never on Youtube.
- crtasm 9y ago
  Is this music a skater has picked to perform to or background music played by the venue?
  - jdc0589 9y ago
    I doubt it matters.
    - lowry 9y ago
      It does not, but indeed I was referring to the music used in the skating programme.
      - crtasm 9y ago
        So if I understand correctly it's picked by the skater and integral to their performance made to an audience. Is it licenced for use at the event? I would prefer you didn't have such issues with sharing videos.
        lowry 9y ago
        An ice skater programme does not use the music as is. The music is edited one way or another to fit the time allocated for the programme. Sometimes a skater uses two or more pieces of music mixed together. I do not know about the Olympics but I checked with the national ice skating federation, and there are apparently no special licensing fees for ice skating events. Ice rinks pay the usual fees for public performance, though.
xstartup 9y ago
I think EU on its way to make the world more equal. Some folks owning platform have literally amassed mega fortunes of money in absence of costs (regulation etc...) without creating many jobs which people in other jobs can't even dream of acquiring.
- tudorconstantin 9y ago
  Is there something bad that folks that build platforms are able to amass mega fortunes? Why should I care that Zuckerberg is a zillionaire as long as he didn't took his money from me forcefully? I dislike him profoundly, but his money are his money. I don't resent him because of his mega fortune and I don't expect an authority to take that mega fortune from him and distribute it to ones like me. As long as we're focused on how to convince others to rob the rich and distribute their wealth to us instead of focusing on how to create nice things that people want, we'll keep being a break to the mankind.
  - r00nb00m 9y ago
    That's not the issue, the issue is huge disproportion of influence that these platforms create for their owners. You are practically saying that monopolies are fine as long as you're not getting robbed. The fact is, you probably are getting robbed, by paying too much money for the dominant service.
    - tudorconstantin 9y ago
      OP seems to be resentful especially toward the mega fortunes amassed by some folks. Regarding digital monopolies like facebook and google, those markets didn't even existed 20 years ago. It's them who created them, almost from zero. They created the need in the market. I still can't see any reason why a third party (aka government, in the name of the people) would use force to break them apart. Mostly because they're not monopolies for services related to basic human needs.
      - xstartup 9y ago
AKifer 9y ago
If the copyrighted code, against which your pushes would be compared, are by definition closed source, how could these filters work ? Or will software companies reach an agreement with repo providers like github so the filter robot can parse their closed source code ? Kind of a politics BS just destined to keep the discussion boiling for a few months.
- akerro 9y ago
  What if copyrighted source code contains a method copy-pasted from stackoverflow?
  - shapiro92 9y ago
    what about for(var i=0...) ???
  - c4h8o3del 9y ago
    It's MIT licensed by default. The StackOverflow code, that is.
    - yjftsjthsd-h 9y ago
      Are we taking bets on whether proprietary code includes all the relevant attribution?
roomey 9y ago
I've emailed my MEPs. One is sick but it'll be interesting to see what the others say
- roomey 9y ago
  That was impressive, I have received a response already. It appears my MEP had a few concerns with some other aspects of it already, so has had their eye on it for a year. She said she has contacted "the Rapporteur for the file, Axel Voss MEP to ask for his clarification on the issues you raised related to code-sharing platforms and why the scope of the proposal suggests to include them." I'm kind of surprised at getting such a genuine response so quickly! I will update once I get more information
crispyporkbites 9y ago
Could we build in client side encryption of source code inside git, pre-push, and then provide decryption keys to CI services and other software that needs to review code (e.g. in browser decryption)? We could use pre-shared keys for OSS software available from a separate registry, with a legal disclaimer on there that code hosts cannot use the keys to decrypt the code. That way github could not physically access your code to run these checks.
- 45h34jh53k4j 9y ago
  Check out https://keybase.io/blog/encrypted-git-for-everyone https://keybase.io/blog/encrypted-git-for-everyone
jcadam 9y ago
Hearing about stuff like this, it's easy to imagine a future in which the 'bootstrapped' internet startup is simply no longer possible due to the costs of complying with various governments' regulations.
- flyinghamster 9y ago
  My cynical side thinks that this is the goal of such legislation - an "unintended consequence" that really is intentional.
  - fokov 9y ago
    You can call it being cynical, but honestly it is just applying the past actions to a "new" medium. People have already created laws, regulations, and other utilities to regulate free speech in various forms (books, newspapers, magazines, film, VHS, DVD, etc). History shows us there are many people that either do not understand or believe in free speech.
- josephagoss 9y ago
  Give any technology time to sit long enough weeds in the form of lawyers and regulators will grow over it and snuff it out. Rarely is society left with an efficient technology after government is done with it. Unfortunately most of my peers call for more and more regulation of business and all technology. More regulation is always good in their eyes. I've explained how regulation should be viewed as a constant push and pull, as society needs to be willing to repeal a regulation if it's not logical or relevant. Unfortunately the word repeal and regulation in the same sentence is dirty and I get looks for even mentioning how large unnecessary barriers to entry via regulation isn't always a good thing. In some ways this is why I support crypto currencies. Not for the scams and pump and dumps of today, but rather the building of a decentralized internet that may survive the lawyers and usher in a new era of freedom and creativity. Of course we are still about 5 years from having a GitHub or a search engine on top of crypto currency at the current rate of development. Unfortunately the bubble craze attracted a lot of unsavoury characters that is currently doing this space a lot of harm. Thankfully the lawyers can't shut Bitcoin down so we're safe for now.
DINKDINK 9y ago
Banned books
clishem 9y ago
I wonder if they read the article. It most certainly won't apply to GitHub, and it only mentions content filtering as an example. Until proven otherwise this is simply FUD spreading. Dissapointing.
quickben 9y ago
The other issue not discussed here is that Google and the rest will be required to remove offending content within an hour. Notwithstanding the rest of the discussions, this will only create more jobs. I realize Google may not like the hit to the profit line, bit it's a bit disingenuous to ask only the developers to sharpen the axes and fight the Google's war while not informing them of the rest of the legislation: "Illegal content means any information which is not in compliance with Union law or the law of a Member State, such as content inciting people to terrorism, racist or xenophobic, illegal hate speech, child sexual exploitation, illegal commercial practices, breaches of intellectual property rights and product safety. What is illegal offline is also illegal online." I guess I object the delivery. Tell us everything, and then ask us for support. This way they are just spinning it to fit their agenda in a way that keeps us less informed: "they are after your GitHub". Classical FUD Edit: Here is a much better overview http://ec.europa.eu/newsroom/dae/document.cfm?doc_id=50096 http://ec.europa.eu/newsroom/dae/document.cfm?doc_id=50096
- wyager 9y ago
  > this will only create more jobs. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window
  - Wohlf 9y ago
    We can create even more jobs by banning construction equipment and computers!
  - lumberjack 9y ago
    too bad Google quickly offshores all profits and pays zero taxes
    - adventured 9y ago
      Google commonly pays around 15% to 17% for its overall corporate income tax rate. By comparison, the statutory rate for Norway is 23%, Sweden is 22%, Denmark is 22%, Portugal is 21%, Slovakia is 21%, Finland is 20%, Estonia is 20%, Iceland is 20%, Russia is 20%, Czech is 19%, the UK is 19%, Poland is 19%, Switzerland is 18%, Ukraine is 18%, Romania is 16%, Serbia is 15%, Lithuania is 15%, Ireland is 12.5%, Moldova is 12%, Macedonia is 10%, Hungary is 9%. I'll emphasize again, those are just the statutory rates. Google is obviously aggressive in their tax avoidance, however they're not in fact paying low rates compared to what can be managed in more than a dozen European nations.
huffmsa 9y ago
"Your private repository has been removed because you received 3 take down notices from copyright holders who own'foo = bar'."
- jdc0589 9y ago
  "Your private repository has been removed because you received 475 take down notices from copyright holders who own '// fucking timezones, right?"
  - falcolas 9y ago
    Your repository has been made public, with code inserted to serve ads to users. Please note that the revenue for the ads will be sent to the copyright holders, and your access to the repo has been revoked. Also note that this is our final communication on this matter.
    - sli 9y ago
      Your private repositories have been locked unless you pay money. You cannot set the private repo to public, you must pay. Except GitHub actually tried to do that to me for real, and failed. Luckily, they unlocked the repos while trying to charge me (no billing details on my account, so... nice try?) and I was able to snag my code back without being extorted for money. At no time was I given the option to opt-out of private repos. My only other option had they not screwed up was to pay.
      - noname120 9y ago
        Out of curiosity, how did this happen? Were you on a trial / student plan that expired?
zan 9y ago
Frankly this title is worthy of the Daily Mail. I expected more of GitHub. It merely describes one individual proposal currently going through the process of consultation before being debated in the parliament, nothing else.
- ptero 9y ago
  This is a fair point. However, it is still a (bad) proposal and while it is possible to hope that policy makers will make the right decision on their own, some public pressure does not hurt. This may be unlikely to pass as is, but the trend of stifling new software and algorithm development in the name of copyright (or security) is pretty strong. IMO it is worthwhile to push back using chance we have.
- wyager 9y ago
  The EU has passed similar(ly destructive) policies in the past, like the GDPR. This would be perfectly consistent with their standard behavior.
  - dtf 9y ago
    Is the GDPR a bad thing? Previous commentary on HN seemed broadly positive.
    - wyager 9y ago
      It’s extraordinarily destructive, but HN has a soft spot for government privacy directives, no matter how ineffectual or costly.
      - GordonS 9y ago
        I initially felt the same way, but after actually reading through the GDPR materials, and a bit of Q&A on HN, I've come to the conclusion that it's a good thing. It doesn't really place any burden on business - it simply means that you must be transparent with users about how you use their data, allow them to know what data you hold about them, and allow them to delete it if they wish. As a consumer, as well as a founder, that seems very reasonable.
dasmoth 9y ago
This certainly seems like a legislative overreach and worth watching if it progresses. But not really clear to me why code should be a specific exception? I’m a little disappointed in Github for trying to carve out a specific exemption just for their area of business rather than fighting the proposal as a whole.
megaman22 9y ago
The EU wants a lot of things... At some point, they are going to make the cost of doing business there too high for it to be worthwhile.
Rotareti 9y ago
How do they want to accomplish this? Checking every user upload against a database that stores every copyrighted piece of data under the sun seems kinda heavy?
staticelf 9y ago
Suggestions like this makes me feel very comfortable in voting on a EU-negative political party. In am in general EU-positive, but they have too much say in random things like this. The EU should not be able to dictate things like this.
- naiveai 9y ago
  Definitely agree here. The EU in general is a good idea in terms of diplomacy, but it really shouldn't have this much power.
- coffeeaddicted 9y ago
  What about the EU preventing countries from doing such things? There's a lot of countries with governments which really like filters. I'm against _any_ government or organization which proposes such filters, but I do not have much hope killing the EU would help to stop such proposals. I rather hope the EU parliament will help to prevent such filters like they did with software patents. And per-country rules don't really make much sense anyway for the internet. Global rules would make it easier for developers - unless they are completely stupid like this proposal obviously.
  - staticelf 9y ago
    It's easier to avoid one country or move either yourself or your business from a country (or even threaten to move) than from a large union. For example, let's say the EU would vote to make the internet illegal inside EU. I could move to Norway but otherwise my nearest alternative would be either the US or Russia. Neither of which is an easy move or even thinkable. I agree that it would be awesome if they only passed sensible legislation, but unfortunately the risk of them passing stuff like this is too great for them to have this power to begin with. The EU have done so much good stuff, but also so much stupid stuff and if this gets passed I'm probably going to vote against staying in the EU if given the choice. The scariest part about EU is how no one understand how the process of creating legislation is. It is very hard to keep track on stuff as a normal citizen and you are completely reliant on information from third parties like in this case Github. Also when stuff like this happens, I have no idea who to write to unless someone tells me who to write to and I don't have a directly huge belief that they would care about what I have to write about it anyway. The power to make grass root changes within the EU is super small compared to making it within your own country. If Github wouldn't have posted this I would never have known and that scares me a lot.
naiveai 9y ago
https://www.eff.org/cyberspace-independence https://www.eff.org/cyberspace-independence
stuaxo 9y ago
It sounds like such a shitty law it must have originated from the UK ?
redleggedfrog 9y ago
I think this is an excellent proposal. It will help American coders have an edge over their Europeon counterparts.
anonbig5 9y ago
Yes at-least Big Platforms needs to be made responsible for content they host (a law that is better than DMCA). Here is a Proof of how platforms are hurting everyone (i.e Everyone who lives by law): https://imgur.com/a/qYWGj https://imgur.com/a/qYWGj Notice 4 of top 6 Entertainment apps (In US) launched in last 30 days on Google Play are pirating Movies? This not only hurts Movie Studio, it hurts every developer on the platform because they are taking those downloads away from Developers who abide by rules.
- r3bl 9y ago
  Two of them (maybe, I haven't tried them). One of those you're referring to is just a blatant case of false advertising (Netsub IT Services one), because it's just showing the trailers and info about the movies, and the Scooby Doo one is just playing sounds from Scooby Doo, not letting you watch Scooby Doo. And just because such apps exist, doesn't mean that every developer needs to validate every input to make sure that it doesn't infringe on someone's copyright. It just means that Google needs to do a better job at detecting such apps.
ezoe 9y ago
There is a simple solution. Just block the access from the EU. Let them suffer for the consequence of stupid law.
- edko 9y ago
  And give up all EU-based revenue too?
  - ahartman00 9y ago
    In 2014 eu news publishers tried to use recent eu copyright laws to get google to pay for snippets used in their news and search products. Google said that publishers can opt in to having their snippets shown for free, and the publishers refused. About two weeks later they voluntarily opted in. [1] So I'm curious to see what would happen if many tech companies refused service to europe. I believe twitter was seeing around 6,000 tweets per second, a few years back. 6,000 * 60 * 60 * 24 * 365 = ~189.2 billion tweets per year. Say 1 minute to analyze them, you would need 3.15 billion man hours. 8 hours a day * 40 hours a week, * 50 weeks per year = 16,000 hours per employee, per year. So thats 197,100 employees, not counting management. The last time I checked, they had 3,600 employees, and lost about $.5 billion per year. Automated analysis works, but not perfectly. What happens when you AI filter misses something? So refusing service might have to be an option? [1] "The law went into effect last August and, while some details still need to be ironed out in court, the controversial heart of it — whether search engines will pay money to publishers — has an uncertain future. Google has refused to pay fees to publish snippets from news sites, and instead asked German publishers last year to opt in if they want to be included in Google News search results, waiving their right to cash in on the use of their content according to the new law. To avoid paying the collection agency, VG Media, which represents the publishers that chose not to opt in, Google stopped showing snippets from their news articles on Oct. 23. Shortly after that, the publishers in VG Media gave Google a license to restore snippets to their search results — for free. Berlin-based Axel Springer, one of Europe’s largest publishers, announced on Nov. 5 that it had caved to Google’s pressure after traffic to its websites from Google dropped by 40 percent and from Google News by 80 percent when snippets were left out of search results." http://www.niemanlab.org/2014/12/the-fight-to-get-google-to-pay-for-news-continues-in-europe/ http://www.niemanlab.org/2014/12/the-fight-to-get-google-to-...
nkkollaw 9y ago
There's a huge difference between a proposal and a law. However, the EU succeeded in passing the idiotic requirement for cookie notices, so I guess it's not a bad idea to watch out for more.
hartator 9y ago
I am glad the U.S. doesn’t push for this kind of regulation.
nannePOPI 9y ago
Little by little, using privacy, copyright protection and fearmongering, the EU is trying to destroy free speech on the internet. As it often happens and as it certainly happens with the EU, while they say they are for free speech and want to protect it, the truth is that they only want people to repeat what they think it's a valid opinion. The main reason why they are pushing so much for internet regulation in EU is that the governments of EU countries really, really hate "fake" news, aka talking about immigration and related policies. This is the whole deal. Since they can't make a law that says "don't talk about immigration", they have to resort to laws that slowly destroy the ability of people to spread informations. By implenting things like cookie law, GDPR, and now upload control for copyright they make sure that few people can have websites and therefore they can control them easily. Personally, I think that people who hold any kind of public office and propose such laws should be banned from public office, and voting, for life, and should also be investigated to see if there were any kind of external influence and eventually considered for a penalty up to life in prison. Free speech is a BIG deal, and when you attack it, it's like you are making a life-threatening attack to people and should be dealt accordingly. No compromises.
sandov 9y ago
I don't know how there are people who still defend the EU with shit like this. And don't say it's an exception, have you heard about cookie law?. The EU just doesn't care about freedom.
jakeogh 9y ago
I don't think freedom speech and general purpose computing are separable issues. Code is speech; arguably the most important form as we merge with our creations.
emh68 9y ago
This will be an interesting experiment. The EU keeps coming up with ways to essentially destroy the internet as we know it. But I theorize that the internet is the only reason the economy continued to grow after the 90s. I think they may rewind themselves back to insignificance. Even China, with it’s draconian Great Firewall, wouldn’t be where it is today if academics and businesspeople weren’t regularly VPNing out to access the collected knowledge of the world.
snovv_crash 9y ago
So has someone solved the halting problem then? How can you filter code without knowing what it does?
rednerrus 9y ago
We should turn the internet off to the EU for a while and let them simmer. They're completely out of line and misaligned with technological understanding.

681 points by calcifer 9y ago

man..I thought brexit was bad, but maybe they're on to something? this isn't the first time EU cracks down on new tech, hindering progress in the process. (this is however the worst such case yet, if it goes through)

d33 9y ago
I'd say it's the same old copyright trolling over and over - unless they switch to the brand new "anti-hate speech" propaganda. Those moves look desperate and what is most depressing is that we're feeding MAFIAA everytime we consume culture - via legal means or not (it's shown that piracy increases sales anyway).
BuildTheRobots 9y ago
Brexit is giving the UK politicians the chance to enact some pretty draconian laws _without_ the European courts being able to stop them because it's illegal or goes against human rights. The fact that the EU is _following_ us into some of this madness is not a good thing and certainly doesn't imply that the UK is onto something good.
- gadders 9y ago
  Which laws are those?
  - John_KZ 9y ago
    Even though at the time they only ban neo-nazis, the UK can now criminally charge you for having opinions they dislike. That's not a step forward. Also surveilance and anti-privacy laws in the UK are horrible.
    - 111_1_111 9y ago
      Germany has been actively policing thought-crime since the 1930s. EU or no, you can't stop fascists from abusing their power.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
  - detuur 9y ago
    The porn filter springs to mind.
  - BuildTheRobots 9y ago
    The snoopers charter that got enacted recently keeps getting proven illigal, so they keep changing the law. Currently politicians have said a number of times that they'd like to get rid of human rights. There's currently talks about making social media platforms responsible for editing content rather than acting as a transport layer. There's plenty more, I'm sure others can chime in.
    - gadders 9y ago
      >>Currently politicians have said a number of times that they'd like to get rid of human rights. That's not true at all. They may want to leave the European Court of Human Rights but that's not the same as suddenly rolling back loads of human rights in the UK. I'm old enough to have been an adult before Tony Blair signed the European Convention on Human Rights into law in the UK. People's rights didn't massively change for the better when that was signed, so I wouldn't expect them to change for the worse if it is repealed.
  - ben_w 9y ago
    Investigatory Powers Act 2016, currently being challenged under human rights laws that are a requirement of EU membership.
- vixen99 9y ago
  Well the British electorate can decide on whether they like those laws and kick out the executive and those laws if they do not. But I guess that's `populist`. Illegal is a loaded term. Bit like 'international law' which boils down to mean international agreements.
  - ben_w 9y ago
    Can do that with MEPs, too.
    - timrichard 9y ago
      Except that the real power is with the Commission, not the MEPs. It's the opposite of the UK parliamentary system, where the (elected) House of Commons initiates legislation and the (unelected) House of Lords occasionally returns it with small suggestions for change. Here, the MEPs effectively rubber stamp the legislation initiated by the Commission (who knows, they may even make it to the Commission one day if they behave). It's all very well trotting out the line that "they can can shortcut Parliaments and pass the sort of laws that any right-thinking person should support, or the proles on the street might not understand", but that's the crux of my objection. The democratic rights of the populace were never yours or theirs to subvert or give away. As Tony Benn wisely said, "I'd rather have a bad Parliament than a good King".
      - ben_w 9y ago
        I have never understood why proposing, rather than analysing and modifying, laws is considered more important. Every so often the UK House of Lords gets in the news for “wrecking amendments”. There is enough power in each domain that I am comfortable with only the MEPs being directly elected in the EU, and with leaving the Lords unelected in the UK until (like this will ever happen) there is enough time to replace them with a carefully thought out alternative.
        timrichard 9y ago
        I have to disagree about the House of Lords just as a point of principle, because I don't agree with a higher authority made up of the clergy, aristocrats, and political stooges. There are some exceptions, but I don't think it's an unfair caricature by the British people that the HOL are symbolic, senile or sedated.
- amarant 9y ago
  agreed, they're most definitely not. I was just trying to express my frustration with this suggested policy.. I accept whatever punishment the internet sees fit for my careless violation of Poe's law
IAmEveryone 9y ago
US Congress wants to mandate pornography filter: “that’s a bad law” EU Parliament wants to mandate filter: “lets burn this place down”
- detuur 9y ago
  People don't seem to understand that the entertainment industry doesn't just lobby in the US, but worldwide. A few years ago we had the SOPA scare which imposed draconian measures to stop copyright infringement, and those were proposed by the US. We'll have to accept that every few years, a lobbying attempt manages to get a concrete proposal to the floor either in Congress or in the Commission, and we'll have to respond with outrage every time.
  - piracykills 9y ago
    The worst part is that they only need to succeed once - if the laws are changed it will become exponentially harder to change them back. So they have every motivation to keep dumping resources at this.
- pjc50 9y ago
  Don't forget the UK's own porn filter, implementation of which has been delayed following inability to answer the question of "how on earth is this supposed to work?"
- netheril96 9y ago
  Well, the outcome of American Civil War precludes the possibility of, say, Texas Exit, but France Exit or Dutch Exit are still within the realms of reality.
pjc50 9y ago
Brexit is bad. The EU is not great and does make some indefensible decisions, but the UK government is increasingly obviously descending into some kind of Greek-style basket case. As a sibling comment says, after Brexit the UK will most likely try to enact all kinds of bad ideas that it feels it's been held back from by the EU. Most of which will be directed at "immigrants".

Lunatic666 9y ago

Why would GitHub as an American company follow EU law? Or are they just really trying to prevent bad laws?

mbel 9y ago
> Why would GitHub as an American company follow EU law? Because they might be interested in doing business in EU?
dtech 9y ago
Because they have users and business in EU. If you want to sell stuff in EU, that product must comply with EU law.
- Lunatic666 9y ago
  Yes I understand that they want to offer their services in Europe, but the servers are in the US and billing is also not handled by a European branch company afaik. I’m really just wanted to know if and how the EU could force GitHub to comply with this law. Ban their service? Or could it have to do with the successor agreement of safe harbor?
  - nl 9y ago
    The EU can impose penalties. For example the new EU data protection laws have this as the maximum penalty: a fine up to €20 million or up to 4% of the annual worldwide turnover of the preceding financial year in case of an enterprise, whichever is greater I guess Github could decline to pay. But then they could do no business in the EU, and then there is the likely impact on Github employees - similar to how BetonSports' CEO was arrested when he changed planes in the US: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/arrests-in-us-put-world-of-online-betting-on-red-alert-5544310.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-feat...
richrichardsson 9y ago
Relevant username is relevant.

Dude2023 9y ago

> automated filtering of code would make software less reliable and more expensive I can see how it's bad for business, but as a developer wouldn't it mean more jobs and more of custom libraries to make?

C14L 9y ago
And less fun writing them.
mikerg87 9y ago
Things like this or the GPDR favor the rich and the bigger companies who can, while not convenient, devote resources to compliance. It’s not just GitHub that would have to comply. I suspect that the code snippet sharing in Slack would have to monitor code snippets pasted in various programming chat areas to be in compliance.

IAmEveryone 9y ago

If you are in the EU, do follow the advise and contact your MEP. The EU parliament is surprisingly accessible and open to criticism, especially if it is respectful and well-argued. (It’s probably a result of constantly having their legitimacy questioned and and vile insults having hurled at them)

peoplewindow 9y ago
And they will do what, exactly? The EU Parliament has no real power. It can only say yes to things or delay them. As a consequence the only people who run for seats in it are either fanatically pro-EU or anti-EU, but none of them are going to have any real interest in copyright. They can say no and send it back and the Commission - if it wants this - will just send it back for re-approval again, or bypass them entirely.
- IAmEveryone 9y ago
  The EU Parliament gets to edit all legislation. There are often thousands of amendments offered, debated, voted on, and approved or rejected. Here is an example with 500 proposed amendments to draft legislation on cybersecurity: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/committees/en/amendments.html?ufolderComCode=IMCO&ufolderLegId=8&ufolderId=11043&linkedDocument=true&urefProcYear=&urefProcNum=&urefProcCode=#documents http://www.europarl.europa.eu/committees/en/amendments.html?... Click on the pdf icons to read the actual texts. Please don’t spread falsehoods.
  - calpaterson 9y ago
    I think your post is also misleading. Under co-decision, the EP only gets to /propose/ amendments, not to approve them. The council are able to reject parliament amendments and get the law passed anyway. And of course, there are other procedures than co-decision for creating primary legislation which give the EP even less power. While the grandparent wasn't 100% technically correct I think the broad view (that "The EU Parliament has no real power") is effectively correct. The lion's share of the power of the EU still rests in the Commission and the Council. By all means, write to your MEPs, but don't get too hopeful

conradk 9y ago

Frexit seems to be coming ever closer. Le Pen got 35% in 2017, pro-frexit parties are flourishing in France. EU has got to be careful. It's doing good things (free roaming, which as citizen who has family in both France and Germany, I highly appreciate) and the GDPR, which seems to force companies to think more about privacy. But if Github's phrasing accurately represents what EU wants to do with online sharing, then I feel like this change is a step in the wrong direction, restricting privacy to make big-corps even richer than they already are.

discordianfish 9y ago
Free roaming and peace. The small things..
- gadders 9y ago
  The peace was due to Nato, not the EU.
  - nl 9y ago
    Both. The EU bound counties together through trade and NATO protected against external threats.
    - timrichard 9y ago
      Internal/external. So presumably there would be a higher risk of France, Germany and Britain going to war with each other if it wasn't for a trade agreement and customs union? Despite them all being NATO members, unable to by treaty, with the whole NATO organisation geared up to enforce that? How exactly would your scenario play out? I'm genuinely curious.
      - antientropic 9y ago
        The first precursor of the EU was the European Coal and Steel Community [1]. It had the express purpose of putting control over coal and steel under supranational control, thereby making war between the members materially impossible. It's also important to note that NATO does not provide prosperity (that was the goal of the EEC through closer trade and cooperation). So it does absolutely nothing to prevent the rise of extremist movements that could cause a repeat of the 1930s. There is also nothing it can do to prevent a member from quitting, just like Germany quit the League of Nations. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Coal_and_Steel_Community https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Coal_and_Steel_Commun...

titanix2 9y ago

I would gladly contribute to software which filter laws submitted to the parliament.

epicide 9y ago
If only common sense could be made into a filter.

friedButter 9y ago

They should consider partitioning the internet into 2 parts: 1) Public access internet, where everything is regulated by the hosting company 2) Restricted access internet where everything uploaded in linked to a real life ID and the uploader has liability for whatever is uploaded. Access would be granted after a basic licensing test, but hosting companies would not be required to police the content This way, media companies can easily regulate the mass market internet to keep pirated content off of it, and the restricted access network would have a link to the uploader with personal liability, so people are not likely to upload pirated stuff anyways. In exchange, they arent harassed in the name of anti piracy

John_KZ 9y ago
> Restricted access internet This is already done in closed-doors forums and whatnot. If you mean the ID should be government-issued, you have Facebook where fake accounts area nearly impossible at this point and it's pretty close to a "Governet". In the Governet you'd still be censored because their goal isn't to sue everyone (that's expensive and doesn't always work), it's just to control them.
- friedButter 9y ago
  > In the Governet you'd still be censored Only for stuff that would be illegal in offline life as well... anything that you're allowed to do in offline life, under whatever extent of freedom of expression is permitted by your country would still be uncensored.
- lambda_lover 9y ago
  The several fake Facebook accounts I use for testing purposes would like to have a word with you. In my experience Facebook doesn't try to filter out fake accounts very heavily unless you use them to create spam. And I prefer to keep Facebook as far as possible away from "real" IDs like my passport, driver's license, etc.
ben_w 9y ago
This is incompatible with the encryption required to keep everyone safe online.

AJRF 9y ago

That response at the top of the article was a really good way of hitting the point home quickly

tmdk 9y ago

If you actually read the EU proposal then it does not require filtering upon upload, it seems fine to perform filtering upon download. Secondly the proposal states that the measures should be proportional, which might mean that code is not affected in any significant way.

type0 9y ago
> it seems fine to perform filtering upon download. What that suppose to mean? My web service should be fine as long as I agree for the Government to MITM me?

scandox 9y ago

Well I'm instinctively against this, but on the other hand wouldn't it encourage serious adoption of a decentralized system? Which might not be a bad thing. Or?

onion2k 9y ago
As with most things it's not a simple black and white, good versus evil issue. It could lead to developers actually bothering to put a license on their open work, stricter enforcement of open source agreements, and, like you suggest, people looking at alternative ways of hosting code. On the other hand, it would also mean that we'd be 'randomly' told that we can't commit something because it looks too similar to some other code someone wrote. In the case of Google vs Oracle that would be a relatively trivial, obvious-to-an-experienced-developer 10 line method. That wouldn't be great...
- zerostar07 9y ago
  it also means the end of the internet as a disruptive force, the prevalence of legal force over everything and the end of utopians
- shapiro92 9y ago
  for me this is very weird. While being employed by a company the code you write is theirs, so what happens if I move to another company and reuse code from my brain? Also do they understand how amazingly complex it would be to do code checks for similarity of code?
  - pixl97 9y ago
    >so what happens if I move to another company Don't worry, at our current rate that won't be allowed. As a programmer you are now company property. I guess that also means "You're fired" means "Literally fired in an incinerator"
mtgx 9y ago
It could. After all the internet has tended to route around censorship so far. Or it could make the whole internet more like the Chinese internet. I'd rather not take that chance and allow the decentralized systems to grow organically instead (and they do, albeit quite slowly).

legostormtroopr 9y ago

GitHub has had no problems implementing censorship on their platform if it’s using their own values (see: WebM for Retards), so why should we care if they are now forced to censor using an external parties values? I was concerned when GitHub started censoring repositories that didn’t meet their code of conduct, but was told it was for the greater good. Now the issue is coming back to bite them it seems.

jwilk 9y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9966118 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9966118
ekianjo 9y ago
Your comment is misguided. When private actors behave badly, you can opt out and go for competiting services. When the state mandates something your options run out. It is a pure attack on Freedom.
- dingo_bat 9y ago
  When private actors that have a monopoly behave badly you can go to another but you will have a severely degraded experience. For example reddit, YouTube, Facebook, etc. There is no alternative if they block you, you just have to accept that you're no longer allowed to participate in a certain activity. GitHub is also quite like this.
  - yock 9y ago
    Alternatives exist, what you're complaining about is that they're not popular. You aren't entitled to viable alternatives. If a private business acts in a way contrary to your beliefs, your only option is to stop using them. Having an alternative private business to choose is nice, but never guaranteed.
    - dingo_bat 9y ago
      Can you tell me what's the alternative for Youtube? Or github? The alternative should be a real alternative, not a useless replica. For example, I should be able to watch latest movie trailers, music videos, tech reviews, etc. on the youtube alternative. And I should be able to report issues to Microsoft's VS code project. This is not just about popularity. On the internet, winner takes all. The monopoly is extreme in every type of website/service. If you can't use Youtube, you effectively cannot watch videos on the web. If you are banned by github, you cannot participate in the global open source community. There are 2 solutions: 1. Break the monopolies. 2. Force them to respect my rights, similar to the government.

thriftwy 9y ago

I think it's time for distributed git a-la bittorrent. We should have everything sensitive in encrypted P2P networks and then demand that snail-mail privacy laws are applied. I'm not expecting this position to be popular on HN tho, you can't build an unicorn on freedom.

antocv 9y ago
We have gittorrent already. Much better alternatives than bittorrent, from privacy and censorship-resistence aspect is, git-ssb which is git on secue scuttlebot aka SSB. Bittorrent can be censored, the DHT can/is monitored and can be eclipsed to prevent lookups. Scuttlebot can work offline, over WiFi or sneakernet. Transport layer is encrypted, unlike bittorrent. Another alternative is Dat Project, which is similar to SSB, but focuses on larger data files.

chmod775 9y ago

As someone who runs a large filesharing platform I don't really care since we are already more-or-less compliant. We already check newly uploaded files automatically against known bad content and stuff copyright holders have reported in the past. It's basically just file checksums though, nothing fancy. I don't know what what would be "appropriate and proportionate" according to the directive though, and having to check code for copyright infringements sounds absolutely painful and vain.

wukerplank 9y ago

People need to understand the different parts that make the EU administration. The EU commission is not "the EU". It's the parliament that decides if proposals of the commission become law. The parliament has a history of rejecting stupid proposals (e.g. software patents). But the Github folks are right! Please, tell your MEPs that/why this is a stupid idea - it's important! (I sometimes wonder why the commission proposes stupid things. Uninformed? Corruption, uhm I mean lobbying?)

pjc50 9y ago
I'm sure there's no corruption going on here. http://www.euronews.com/2017/06/28/why-won-t-brussels-release-report-on-eu-wide-corruption http://www.euronews.com/2017/06/28/why-won-t-brussels-releas...
- harel 9y ago
  Stuff like that is one of the reasons we're now in Brexit mode in the UK... I blame both sides for whatever is to come.
  - IAmEveryone 9y ago
    Because there has never been any corruption in UK politics?
    - harel 9y ago
      Did I ever say that? Of course we have corruption in the UK. Like in any country in the wold. What I said, and I said it as a staunch remainer, is that the EU has done nothing on their side to prevent the catastrophe we're facing now. They are to blame as much as people like Mr. Farage. They could have prevented this when Cameron went to them before the referendum to adjust the UK membership deal. All I said is that everyone is to blame for this.
      - Maken 9y ago

lowry 9y ago

Automated filters on content sharing platforms kill creativity. Entire sports disappear from Youtube because they are traditionally accompanied by music. Think of ice skating. It's been years since I stopped uploading videos of ice skaters to Youtube, because they are automatically deleted based on music matching their filtering database. Others in my ice skating circle share videos on Amazon Prime Photos or similar platforms, never on Youtube.

crtasm 9y ago
Is this music a skater has picked to perform to or background music played by the venue?
- jdc0589 9y ago
  I doubt it matters.
  - lowry 9y ago
    It does not, but indeed I was referring to the music used in the skating programme.
    - crtasm 9y ago
      So if I understand correctly it's picked by the skater and integral to their performance made to an audience. Is it licenced for use at the event? I would prefer you didn't have such issues with sharing videos.
      - lowry 9y ago
        An ice skater programme does not use the music as is. The music is edited one way or another to fit the time allocated for the programme. Sometimes a skater uses two or more pieces of music mixed together. I do not know about the Olympics but I checked with the national ice skating federation, and there are apparently no special licensing fees for ice skating events. Ice rinks pay the usual fees for public performance, though.

xstartup 9y ago

I think EU on its way to make the world more equal. Some folks owning platform have literally amassed mega fortunes of money in absence of costs (regulation etc...) without creating many jobs which people in other jobs can't even dream of acquiring.

tudorconstantin 9y ago
Is there something bad that folks that build platforms are able to amass mega fortunes? Why should I care that Zuckerberg is a zillionaire as long as he didn't took his money from me forcefully? I dislike him profoundly, but his money are his money. I don't resent him because of his mega fortune and I don't expect an authority to take that mega fortune from him and distribute it to ones like me. As long as we're focused on how to convince others to rob the rich and distribute their wealth to us instead of focusing on how to create nice things that people want, we'll keep being a break to the mankind.
- r00nb00m 9y ago
  That's not the issue, the issue is huge disproportion of influence that these platforms create for their owners. You are practically saying that monopolies are fine as long as you're not getting robbed. The fact is, you probably are getting robbed, by paying too much money for the dominant service.
  - tudorconstantin 9y ago
    OP seems to be resentful especially toward the mega fortunes amassed by some folks. Regarding digital monopolies like facebook and google, those markets didn't even existed 20 years ago. It's them who created them, almost from zero. They created the need in the market. I still can't see any reason why a third party (aka government, in the name of the people) would use force to break them apart. Mostly because they're not monopolies for services related to basic human needs.
    - xstartup 9y ago

AKifer 9y ago

If the copyrighted code, against which your pushes would be compared, are by definition closed source, how could these filters work ? Or will software companies reach an agreement with repo providers like github so the filter robot can parse their closed source code ? Kind of a politics BS just destined to keep the discussion boiling for a few months.

akerro 9y ago
What if copyrighted source code contains a method copy-pasted from stackoverflow?
- shapiro92 9y ago
  what about for(var i=0...) ???
- c4h8o3del 9y ago
  It's MIT licensed by default. The StackOverflow code, that is.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 9y ago
    Are we taking bets on whether proprietary code includes all the relevant attribution?

roomey 9y ago

I've emailed my MEPs. One is sick but it'll be interesting to see what the others say

roomey 9y ago
That was impressive, I have received a response already. It appears my MEP had a few concerns with some other aspects of it already, so has had their eye on it for a year. She said she has contacted "the Rapporteur for the file, Axel Voss MEP to ask for his clarification on the issues you raised related to code-sharing platforms and why the scope of the proposal suggests to include them." I'm kind of surprised at getting such a genuine response so quickly! I will update once I get more information

crispyporkbites 9y ago

Could we build in client side encryption of source code inside git, pre-push, and then provide decryption keys to CI services and other software that needs to review code (e.g. in browser decryption)? We could use pre-shared keys for OSS software available from a separate registry, with a legal disclaimer on there that code hosts cannot use the keys to decrypt the code. That way github could not physically access your code to run these checks.

45h34jh53k4j 9y ago
Check out https://keybase.io/blog/encrypted-git-for-everyone https://keybase.io/blog/encrypted-git-for-everyone

jcadam 9y ago

Hearing about stuff like this, it's easy to imagine a future in which the 'bootstrapped' internet startup is simply no longer possible due to the costs of complying with various governments' regulations.

flyinghamster 9y ago
My cynical side thinks that this is the goal of such legislation - an "unintended consequence" that really is intentional.
- fokov 9y ago
  You can call it being cynical, but honestly it is just applying the past actions to a "new" medium. People have already created laws, regulations, and other utilities to regulate free speech in various forms (books, newspapers, magazines, film, VHS, DVD, etc). History shows us there are many people that either do not understand or believe in free speech.
josephagoss 9y ago
Give any technology time to sit long enough weeds in the form of lawyers and regulators will grow over it and snuff it out. Rarely is society left with an efficient technology after government is done with it. Unfortunately most of my peers call for more and more regulation of business and all technology. More regulation is always good in their eyes. I've explained how regulation should be viewed as a constant push and pull, as society needs to be willing to repeal a regulation if it's not logical or relevant. Unfortunately the word repeal and regulation in the same sentence is dirty and I get looks for even mentioning how large unnecessary barriers to entry via regulation isn't always a good thing. In some ways this is why I support crypto currencies. Not for the scams and pump and dumps of today, but rather the building of a decentralized internet that may survive the lawyers and usher in a new era of freedom and creativity. Of course we are still about 5 years from having a GitHub or a search engine on top of crypto currency at the current rate of development. Unfortunately the bubble craze attracted a lot of unsavoury characters that is currently doing this space a lot of harm. Thankfully the lawyers can't shut Bitcoin down so we're safe for now.

DINKDINK 9y ago

Banned books

clishem 9y ago

I wonder if they read the article. It most certainly won't apply to GitHub, and it only mentions content filtering as an example. Until proven otherwise this is simply FUD spreading. Dissapointing.

quickben 9y ago

The other issue not discussed here is that Google and the rest will be required to remove offending content within an hour. Notwithstanding the rest of the discussions, this will only create more jobs. I realize Google may not like the hit to the profit line, bit it's a bit disingenuous to ask only the developers to sharpen the axes and fight the Google's war while not informing them of the rest of the legislation: "Illegal content means any information which is not in compliance with Union law or the law of a Member State, such as content inciting people to terrorism, racist or xenophobic, illegal hate speech, child sexual exploitation, illegal commercial practices, breaches of intellectual property rights and product safety. What is illegal offline is also illegal online." I guess I object the delivery. Tell us everything, and then ask us for support. This way they are just spinning it to fit their agenda in a way that keeps us less informed: "they are after your GitHub". Classical FUD Edit: Here is a much better overview http://ec.europa.eu/newsroom/dae/document.cfm?doc_id=50096 http://ec.europa.eu/newsroom/dae/document.cfm?doc_id=50096

wyager 9y ago
> this will only create more jobs. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window
- Wohlf 9y ago
  We can create even more jobs by banning construction equipment and computers!
- lumberjack 9y ago
  too bad Google quickly offshores all profits and pays zero taxes
  - adventured 9y ago
    Google commonly pays around 15% to 17% for its overall corporate income tax rate. By comparison, the statutory rate for Norway is 23%, Sweden is 22%, Denmark is 22%, Portugal is 21%, Slovakia is 21%, Finland is 20%, Estonia is 20%, Iceland is 20%, Russia is 20%, Czech is 19%, the UK is 19%, Poland is 19%, Switzerland is 18%, Ukraine is 18%, Romania is 16%, Serbia is 15%, Lithuania is 15%, Ireland is 12.5%, Moldova is 12%, Macedonia is 10%, Hungary is 9%. I'll emphasize again, those are just the statutory rates. Google is obviously aggressive in their tax avoidance, however they're not in fact paying low rates compared to what can be managed in more than a dozen European nations.

huffmsa 9y ago

"Your private repository has been removed because you received 3 take down notices from copyright holders who own'foo = bar'."

jdc0589 9y ago
"Your private repository has been removed because you received 475 take down notices from copyright holders who own '// fucking timezones, right?"
- falcolas 9y ago
  Your repository has been made public, with code inserted to serve ads to users. Please note that the revenue for the ads will be sent to the copyright holders, and your access to the repo has been revoked. Also note that this is our final communication on this matter.
  - sli 9y ago
    Your private repositories have been locked unless you pay money. You cannot set the private repo to public, you must pay. Except GitHub actually tried to do that to me for real, and failed. Luckily, they unlocked the repos while trying to charge me (no billing details on my account, so... nice try?) and I was able to snag my code back without being extorted for money. At no time was I given the option to opt-out of private repos. My only other option had they not screwed up was to pay.
    - noname120 9y ago
      Out of curiosity, how did this happen? Were you on a trial / student plan that expired?

zan 9y ago

Frankly this title is worthy of the Daily Mail. I expected more of GitHub. It merely describes one individual proposal currently going through the process of consultation before being debated in the parliament, nothing else.

ptero 9y ago
This is a fair point. However, it is still a (bad) proposal and while it is possible to hope that policy makers will make the right decision on their own, some public pressure does not hurt. This may be unlikely to pass as is, but the trend of stifling new software and algorithm development in the name of copyright (or security) is pretty strong. IMO it is worthwhile to push back using chance we have.
wyager 9y ago
The EU has passed similar(ly destructive) policies in the past, like the GDPR. This would be perfectly consistent with their standard behavior.
- dtf 9y ago
  Is the GDPR a bad thing? Previous commentary on HN seemed broadly positive.
  - wyager 9y ago
    It’s extraordinarily destructive, but HN has a soft spot for government privacy directives, no matter how ineffectual or costly.
    - GordonS 9y ago
      I initially felt the same way, but after actually reading through the GDPR materials, and a bit of Q&A on HN, I've come to the conclusion that it's a good thing. It doesn't really place any burden on business - it simply means that you must be transparent with users about how you use their data, allow them to know what data you hold about them, and allow them to delete it if they wish. As a consumer, as well as a founder, that seems very reasonable.

dasmoth 9y ago

This certainly seems like a legislative overreach and worth watching if it progresses. But not really clear to me why code should be a specific exception? I’m a little disappointed in Github for trying to carve out a specific exemption just for their area of business rather than fighting the proposal as a whole.

megaman22 9y ago

The EU wants a lot of things... At some point, they are going to make the cost of doing business there too high for it to be worthwhile.

Rotareti 9y ago

How do they want to accomplish this? Checking every user upload against a database that stores every copyrighted piece of data under the sun seems kinda heavy?

staticelf 9y ago

Suggestions like this makes me feel very comfortable in voting on a EU-negative political party. In am in general EU-positive, but they have too much say in random things like this. The EU should not be able to dictate things like this.

naiveai 9y ago
Definitely agree here. The EU in general is a good idea in terms of diplomacy, but it really shouldn't have this much power.
coffeeaddicted 9y ago
What about the EU preventing countries from doing such things? There's a lot of countries with governments which really like filters. I'm against _any_ government or organization which proposes such filters, but I do not have much hope killing the EU would help to stop such proposals. I rather hope the EU parliament will help to prevent such filters like they did with software patents. And per-country rules don't really make much sense anyway for the internet. Global rules would make it easier for developers - unless they are completely stupid like this proposal obviously.
- staticelf 9y ago
  It's easier to avoid one country or move either yourself or your business from a country (or even threaten to move) than from a large union. For example, let's say the EU would vote to make the internet illegal inside EU. I could move to Norway but otherwise my nearest alternative would be either the US or Russia. Neither of which is an easy move or even thinkable. I agree that it would be awesome if they only passed sensible legislation, but unfortunately the risk of them passing stuff like this is too great for them to have this power to begin with. The EU have done so much good stuff, but also so much stupid stuff and if this gets passed I'm probably going to vote against staying in the EU if given the choice. The scariest part about EU is how no one understand how the process of creating legislation is. It is very hard to keep track on stuff as a normal citizen and you are completely reliant on information from third parties like in this case Github. Also when stuff like this happens, I have no idea who to write to unless someone tells me who to write to and I don't have a directly huge belief that they would care about what I have to write about it anyway. The power to make grass root changes within the EU is super small compared to making it within your own country. If Github wouldn't have posted this I would never have known and that scares me a lot.

naiveai 9y ago

https://www.eff.org/cyberspace-independence https://www.eff.org/cyberspace-independence

stuaxo 9y ago

It sounds like such a shitty law it must have originated from the UK ?

redleggedfrog 9y ago

I think this is an excellent proposal. It will help American coders have an edge over their Europeon counterparts.

anonbig5 9y ago

Yes at-least Big Platforms needs to be made responsible for content they host (a law that is better than DMCA). Here is a Proof of how platforms are hurting everyone (i.e Everyone who lives by law): https://imgur.com/a/qYWGj https://imgur.com/a/qYWGj Notice 4 of top 6 Entertainment apps (In US) launched in last 30 days on Google Play are pirating Movies? This not only hurts Movie Studio, it hurts every developer on the platform because they are taking those downloads away from Developers who abide by rules.

r3bl 9y ago
Two of them (maybe, I haven't tried them). One of those you're referring to is just a blatant case of false advertising (Netsub IT Services one), because it's just showing the trailers and info about the movies, and the Scooby Doo one is just playing sounds from Scooby Doo, not letting you watch Scooby Doo. And just because such apps exist, doesn't mean that every developer needs to validate every input to make sure that it doesn't infringe on someone's copyright. It just means that Google needs to do a better job at detecting such apps.

ezoe 9y ago

There is a simple solution. Just block the access from the EU. Let them suffer for the consequence of stupid law.

edko 9y ago
And give up all EU-based revenue too?
- ahartman00 9y ago
  In 2014 eu news publishers tried to use recent eu copyright laws to get google to pay for snippets used in their news and search products. Google said that publishers can opt in to having their snippets shown for free, and the publishers refused. About two weeks later they voluntarily opted in. [1] So I'm curious to see what would happen if many tech companies refused service to europe. I believe twitter was seeing around 6,000 tweets per second, a few years back. 6,000 * 60 * 60 * 24 * 365 = ~189.2 billion tweets per year. Say 1 minute to analyze them, you would need 3.15 billion man hours. 8 hours a day * 40 hours a week, * 50 weeks per year = 16,000 hours per employee, per year. So thats 197,100 employees, not counting management. The last time I checked, they had 3,600 employees, and lost about $.5 billion per year. Automated analysis works, but not perfectly. What happens when you AI filter misses something? So refusing service might have to be an option? [1] "The law went into effect last August and, while some details still need to be ironed out in court, the controversial heart of it — whether search engines will pay money to publishers — has an uncertain future. Google has refused to pay fees to publish snippets from news sites, and instead asked German publishers last year to opt in if they want to be included in Google News search results, waiving their right to cash in on the use of their content according to the new law. To avoid paying the collection agency, VG Media, which represents the publishers that chose not to opt in, Google stopped showing snippets from their news articles on Oct. 23. Shortly after that, the publishers in VG Media gave Google a license to restore snippets to their search results — for free. Berlin-based Axel Springer, one of Europe’s largest publishers, announced on Nov. 5 that it had caved to Google’s pressure after traffic to its websites from Google dropped by 40 percent and from Google News by 80 percent when snippets were left out of search results." http://www.niemanlab.org/2014/12/the-fight-to-get-google-to-pay-for-news-continues-in-europe/ http://www.niemanlab.org/2014/12/the-fight-to-get-google-to-...

nkkollaw 9y ago

There's a huge difference between a proposal and a law. However, the EU succeeded in passing the idiotic requirement for cookie notices, so I guess it's not a bad idea to watch out for more.

hartator 9y ago

I am glad the U.S. doesn’t push for this kind of regulation.

nannePOPI 9y ago

Little by little, using privacy, copyright protection and fearmongering, the EU is trying to destroy free speech on the internet. As it often happens and as it certainly happens with the EU, while they say they are for free speech and want to protect it, the truth is that they only want people to repeat what they think it's a valid opinion. The main reason why they are pushing so much for internet regulation in EU is that the governments of EU countries really, really hate "fake" news, aka talking about immigration and related policies. This is the whole deal. Since they can't make a law that says "don't talk about immigration", they have to resort to laws that slowly destroy the ability of people to spread informations. By implenting things like cookie law, GDPR, and now upload control for copyright they make sure that few people can have websites and therefore they can control them easily. Personally, I think that people who hold any kind of public office and propose such laws should be banned from public office, and voting, for life, and should also be investigated to see if there were any kind of external influence and eventually considered for a penalty up to life in prison. Free speech is a BIG deal, and when you attack it, it's like you are making a life-threatening attack to people and should be dealt accordingly. No compromises.

sandov 9y ago

I don't know how there are people who still defend the EU with shit like this. And don't say it's an exception, have you heard about cookie law?. The EU just doesn't care about freedom.

jakeogh 9y ago

I don't think freedom speech and general purpose computing are separable issues. Code is speech; arguably the most important form as we merge with our creations.

emh68 9y ago

This will be an interesting experiment. The EU keeps coming up with ways to essentially destroy the internet as we know it. But I theorize that the internet is the only reason the economy continued to grow after the 90s. I think they may rewind themselves back to insignificance. Even China, with it’s draconian Great Firewall, wouldn’t be where it is today if academics and businesspeople weren’t regularly VPNing out to access the collected knowledge of the world.

snovv_crash 9y ago

So has someone solved the halting problem then? How can you filter code without knowing what it does?

rednerrus 9y ago

We should turn the internet off to the EU for a while and let them simmer. They're completely out of line and misaligned with technological understanding.