11 ms·

"The biggest and most worrisome changes are to the "link tax" proposal, which would establish a special copyright-like fee to be paid by websites to news publis

"The biggest and most worrisome changes are to the "link tax" proposal, which would establish a special copyright-like fee to be paid by websites to news publishers, in exchange for the privilege of using short snippets of quoted text as part of a link to the original news article. Voss's latest amendments would make the link tax an inalienable right, that news publishers cannot waive even if they choose to." "...that news publishers cannot waive even if they choose to." This is horrendous. I generally favor: "Do not ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence." However this seems like a blatant attempt to shut down any interpretive or third party news sites in favor of centralized media control.

nannePOPI 9y ago
European leaders are creating a crony-capitalism hellhole where globalists reign supreme. Recent laws like the cookie regulations or GDPR are made for the purpose to stop the spread of free information and favor regulatory bodies and the already estabilished companies. Of course I'm citing the laws that directly influence the web, but there are many more in all industries. With this proposal they want to impede freedom of information while at the same time get some of that sweet tax money in the pockets of their allies. It is that simple, and it's not a conspiracy: it's a natural process, they just have to support people who align with them and push them forward while slowing down the rise of other forces. You don't need a conspiracy for that, just a common culture and a shared goal, and the globalists have them.
- ggm 9y ago
  GDPR is not about stopping the spread of free information. its about personal data. You are completely mis-characterising the nature of the GDPR legislation. Regulators are not enemies. Regulators are the enemies of established companies, and operate in favour of civil society as civil servants: they are subject to oversight, and are imposed to create oversight over entities who are not equilibriating in favour of wider society. They are anti monopolist. Your response is really strange in this regard. Freedom of information is not an absolute. You have a right to privacy as an individual. If you hold certain digital assets like domain names, you are losing some of that privacy to have a WHOIS record, and GDPR is restoring some of it. If you browse web pages and entities hold onto your cookies and create value by integrating over sets of cookies at different websites GDPR is returning to you, the individual, some control over that.
  - jccooper 9y ago
    That sort of democratic heroism is far from certain. "Regulators" and legislation are just as likely (or perhaps more) to be captured by and/or favor large incumbents as to combat them. By its very nature regulation favors established companies, who can afford better to pay for the burden.
    - civilitty 9y ago
      And yet, the result of our regulatory system has been net positive to an extreme degree - you argument is trying to throw the baby out with the bath water. The very nature of political development in the western world has, for the last few centuries, been as much about how to put the "right" people and systems in positions of power. Let's continue to focus on that instead of giving up. To use an analogy: if you love to travel the world but keep getting sick from preventable infectious diseases, the solution is to buy bottled water, mosquito repellent, and vaccinations, not stop traveling all together.
  - nannePOPI 9y ago
    You must have a really short memory to say that "regulators are not enemies". Just look at any history book, tell me what you find. Since English is not my first language, it tires me to write in it, so I'll give a little example that will destroy the "GDPR protects privacy" once and for all. If I make a website with a comment system, or maybe a forum, I need to reveal to the world my identity otherwise the EU will go after me. You see, before GDPR I could put up a website, put on WHOIS privacy using a company unreachable by the EU, and then create a cool forum where I criticize the stupid policies of the european governments (and I can tell you, there are a lot). My identity would be REALLY protected, and even my political stance. "Who is this guy explaining people why we're so bad? Damn him!", would say the evil bureaucrats while stroking his Stalin-inspired mustache. Instead now I need to write a stupid page where I say "[MY NAME] will manage your data this and this way". So, the government will know my political stance and my opinions, will have a complete name to easily link to the website. But there is more! After that, not only they'll have my name, but yet an extra set of law, with wide space for interpretations, that they can use to persecute me further. They can drag me to court because "I didn't treat data right", and it doesn't matter if I was complying or not, the risk of going to court is enough for many people to just not open the website. Of course, I make the political example, but think about sexual fetishes forum and things like that. The EU wants me to reveal to the world what my sexual preferences are, with all the risks that come with it! That's what the GDPR is. I can't even make a website to discuss my sexual tastes without telling the world who I am! To sum it up: if you create a website, your privacy will be lost, and everyone will be able to know that you are the creator of that website. Then, many people won't create websites because they'll be scared of being dragged to court. Small, indpendent, websites will die and only big companies will rule the internet. This is the reality and I don't know how people who supposedly use the internet in a professional way can't see it.
- sykh 9y ago
  With this proposal they want to impede freedom of information while at the same time get some of that sweet tax money in the pockets of their allies. This sounds plausible but do you have evidence that it is actually true? An equally plausible reason for the proposed change is that European leaders see what media consolidation leads too. Too many people relying on too few sources for information. Perhaps this legislation is an ill thought out way to try to counteract the Facebook/Cambridge Analytica controversy. Newspapers, and magazines are dying. They are no longer able to do the sort of investigative journalism like in the past. Consolidation has led to a degradation of quality and has caused too few people to control too much information. Witness the shenanigans of Sinclair Broadcasting recently. I don't know the merits of the legislation in question but without evidence it's a hard sell to ascribe its passing to what you claim.
  - nannePOPI 9y ago
    These kind of laws make it much more difficult to spread content and therefore they consolidate informations in few player, often loved by the governments and their puppeteers. We used to be able to put a website online, gather emails to send newsletters, offer services to our users, etc without any help from the government. Now, every time I put a new website online I have to fill pages of pages with stupid policies and I know I'm not even fully compliant because honestly it's impossible to really be since it's all about how it's interpreted by the current bureaucrat. These kind of laws don't deserve a place in Europe. You need people to be able to be naturally compliant, so that they can promote their stuff wihout being scared of persecution if they say something the government doesn't like. Today you don't make a website and say controversial stuff, otherwise you know that when the government will notice it will uses the broad interpretations that stupid laws like the cookie law or GPDR give them to drag you into court and destroy you. By government of course I mean bureaucrats, political figures and your bigger competitors. These kind of laws, like the GDPR, where they say "we will use them for good, don't worry, we will ony use them on big companies" are those that freedom-minded people should be mostly scared about. Of course the proposal in OP is much worse and makes no sense.
    - sykh 9y ago
- losteric 9y ago
  What do you of America? No net neutrality, media monopolization, telecom-monopolization, rising economic oligarchy, active collusion by heads of the executive branch, unsubstantiated attacks on quiet well-justified investigations, war mongering around the globe... to start with. I'm curious what kind of language you'd use to describe America after throwing that hyperbole at Europe.
  - nannePOPI 9y ago
    My judgement is that US is also in a bad spot, but at least the first amendment give them a little more protection, and there is a much stronger stance on freedom of speech, and even more variety in opinions compared to Europe.
- mattsfrey 9y ago
  The cookie regs seem largely a moot effort given the pervasiveness of cookie usage, GDPR though I think is actually a generally good idea. The "nightmare scenario" that certain articles have detailed might be overburdening for companies, but in general having the right to be forgotten and know how your data is being distributed are large advancements in personal data rights. This new reg to me is just bewildering however - not even allowing media sources to opt out of it? That just makes no sense to me and comes off as an attempt to destroy smaller / independent outlets. Hopefully it dies on the vine.
  - destructaball 9y ago
    On something of a tangent I suspect that large parts of the GDPR will be comparably moot. Many companies including Twillo and Delta have rolled out their tracking controls behind feature flags. If you decide that you'd rather not be tracked they make you stare at a spinner for ~100 seconds while your privacy settings are "being applied". Keeping privacy as inconvenient as possible is big business.
    - TeMPOraL 9y ago
      > Keeping privacy as inconvenient as possible is big business. To some extent, this risks running afoul of GDPR and getting hit with a big fine. But no doubt companies will try to find the sweet spot of being as annoying as possible while still being technically compliant.
      - Ygg2 9y ago
        Let HHGTG be your guide. "The information was on display on Alpha Centauri for at least 20 years". I.e. if they make a GDPR request put them on the waiting line with rest of customers. Press 1 for account related matter, Press 2 for account information, please enter your account number. Please enter your account number to confirm. Press 3 for privacy related information. Press 4 for information regarding GDPR. Please enter account information. Please verify account number. Redirecting to customer support. Please press 9 to continue. Please press 2 for verifying you are EU citizen. Enter verification data.
- fao_ 9y ago
  > Recent laws like the cookie regulations or GDPR are made for the purpose to stop the spread of free information and favor regulatory bodies and the already estabilished companies. How are the cookie regulations made to stop the spread of free information? GDPR explicitly restricts certain kinds of information. Things that you would consider private and not want to be leaked to the public, like your tax documents, and your healthcare records. From what I can see, it's America that's the problem, with things like TPP. America is generally more crony-capitalist than Europe, even though some European countries do have crony-capitalism, they're usually good at fending it off. Globalism isn't inherently a bad thing for the individual and workers, however. It lends huge power to the worker to strike and obtain better conditions, as you can see: But the reality is the very opposite. When 3,000 General Motors brake parts workers went on strike in Dayton, Ohio, in 1996, they shut down General Motors operations across the United States, Canada and Mexico. Over 125,000 General Motors workers were laid off within days. The strike cost the company around $45 million a day, and the Clinton government screamed at both sides to settle. When an almost general strike took place in Denmark, Saab was forced to stop car production in Sweden because it ran out of essential components from Danish suppliers. The assembly of Saab’s convertible motors in Finland was also forced to stop. Volvo also announced that its production lines in Sweden and the Netherlands had been very badly affected. In 1988, when Ford workers in Britain struck, they brought the whole of Ford Europe to a halt within three or four days. Because of the multinationals, the impact of an individual group of workers can be much greater than ever before. One need only compare the above examples with the first general strike in history that took place in England in 1832. Then workers had to move from one factory to another to “turn over” the workers. Behind the theory of globalisation there is complete mechanical formal logic. The dialectic is completely foreign to it. The logic of the globalisation theory is similar to that which motivated the Pentagon when it launched its war on Vietnam. They were convinced that the United States military machine was omnipotent and that the Vietnamese were relatively powerless. And the argument went like this. In the 19th century Britain beat India into submission. The military machine of the United States in the 1960s was incomparably stronger than the military machine of Britain in the 19th century. At the same time Vietnam is a much smaller country with a much smaller population than India. If Britain could win in the 19th century, the United States could certainly have a walkover in the 20th century. Looked at dialectically the picture is exactly the opposite. In the Indian uprising of 1857, when a British soldier was killed, how much damage did it do to Britain? How much is a British soldier, a worker in uniform, worth? Let us say £100. The American military machine is in comparably greater. A US aeroplane is worth, let us say, $1 million. What a temptation for a Vietnamese to throw a hand grenade at it. (https://www.marxists.org/archive/cliff/works/2000/millennium/chap04.htm https://www.marxists.org/archive/cliff/works/2000/millennium...)
- henrikschroder 9y ago
  > globalists Did you mean actual globalists, or were you just using a racist dog-whistle to imply Jews?
  - YouAreGreat 9y ago
    Did you mean to suss out dog whistlers or are you just trying to divert attention from globalists? #notyourshield
  - swebs 9y ago
    Is that an actual question, or are you trying to deflect the valid criticisms of globalism by slandering it's opponents?
    - henrikschroder 9y ago
      It was an actual question. Sometimes people who use the word are genuinely interested in the debate. Most of the time though, it's just some idiot who is interested in blaming everything that's bad with the world on some nefarious Other.
IAmEveryone 9y ago
That's a strange interpretation, and I say it doesn't seem like you're trying too hard to assume good faith. The EU is worried about publishers both big and small. Currently, investing half a year's worth of a journalist's work into investigations is a rather bad business decision, because everyone can freely reuse the facts you uncovered: spend a year finding corruption, write it up in a day, 10 minutes later it's on AP. Ther 'inalienable' is to ensure you're not pressured into giving those rights away by a stronger actor such as Google. The principle is the same that makes it impossible for you to agree to buy something new without warranty. Your idea also doesn't make much sense because the current crisis of journalism has hit smaller publishers hardest. The New York Times will survive. The Bodunken Tribune is probably long dead already. And the major players for centralization are obviously Google and Facebook, the two largest targets of this legislation. All this DOES NOT mean I believe this proposal to be a good idea! I think it's too much beaurocracy for too little effect, plus probably unintended consequences. But it's hard to completely disregard the true motivation and ascribe malice.
- mattsfrey 9y ago
  The way I look at it is it will constrain the ability to deliver news to those who can afford to produce original content, which will be larger outlets with more resources. This allows a vastly smaller group to control the narrative. How will this effect google or facebook at all? Anyone with a blog looking to quote a news outlet and provide commentary is now mandatorily taxed? How do you NOT see this as bad? What good can come of it at all?
  - IAmEveryone 9y ago
    > How will this effect google or facebook at all? Google and Facebook show titles and quotes of linked articles. This legislation is specifically aimed at them. Noncommercial actors (bloggers etc) are supposed to be exempt. > How do you NOT see this as bad? It is extremely frustrating how people on HN apparently have no ability to acknowledge a valid argument for a position they oppose. Read the last two paragraphs of my post again. It clearly states, in rule-braking all-caps even, that I do not support this legislation. > What good can come of it at all? It will shift (as you note) money from those reprinting news to those producing original content. The former is cheap, commoditized, and in no danger. The latter is fundamental for a functioning democracy.

nannePOPI 9y ago

European leaders are creating a crony-capitalism hellhole where globalists reign supreme. Recent laws like the cookie regulations or GDPR are made for the purpose to stop the spread of free information and favor regulatory bodies and the already estabilished companies. Of course I'm citing the laws that directly influence the web, but there are many more in all industries. With this proposal they want to impede freedom of information while at the same time get some of that sweet tax money in the pockets of their allies. It is that simple, and it's not a conspiracy: it's a natural process, they just have to support people who align with them and push them forward while slowing down the rise of other forces. You don't need a conspiracy for that, just a common culture and a shared goal, and the globalists have them.

ggm 9y ago
GDPR is not about stopping the spread of free information. its about personal data. You are completely mis-characterising the nature of the GDPR legislation. Regulators are not enemies. Regulators are the enemies of established companies, and operate in favour of civil society as civil servants: they are subject to oversight, and are imposed to create oversight over entities who are not equilibriating in favour of wider society. They are anti monopolist. Your response is really strange in this regard. Freedom of information is not an absolute. You have a right to privacy as an individual. If you hold certain digital assets like domain names, you are losing some of that privacy to have a WHOIS record, and GDPR is restoring some of it. If you browse web pages and entities hold onto your cookies and create value by integrating over sets of cookies at different websites GDPR is returning to you, the individual, some control over that.
- jccooper 9y ago
  That sort of democratic heroism is far from certain. "Regulators" and legislation are just as likely (or perhaps more) to be captured by and/or favor large incumbents as to combat them. By its very nature regulation favors established companies, who can afford better to pay for the burden.
  - civilitty 9y ago
    And yet, the result of our regulatory system has been net positive to an extreme degree - you argument is trying to throw the baby out with the bath water. The very nature of political development in the western world has, for the last few centuries, been as much about how to put the "right" people and systems in positions of power. Let's continue to focus on that instead of giving up. To use an analogy: if you love to travel the world but keep getting sick from preventable infectious diseases, the solution is to buy bottled water, mosquito repellent, and vaccinations, not stop traveling all together.
- nannePOPI 9y ago
  You must have a really short memory to say that "regulators are not enemies". Just look at any history book, tell me what you find. Since English is not my first language, it tires me to write in it, so I'll give a little example that will destroy the "GDPR protects privacy" once and for all. If I make a website with a comment system, or maybe a forum, I need to reveal to the world my identity otherwise the EU will go after me. You see, before GDPR I could put up a website, put on WHOIS privacy using a company unreachable by the EU, and then create a cool forum where I criticize the stupid policies of the european governments (and I can tell you, there are a lot). My identity would be REALLY protected, and even my political stance. "Who is this guy explaining people why we're so bad? Damn him!", would say the evil bureaucrats while stroking his Stalin-inspired mustache. Instead now I need to write a stupid page where I say "[MY NAME] will manage your data this and this way". So, the government will know my political stance and my opinions, will have a complete name to easily link to the website. But there is more! After that, not only they'll have my name, but yet an extra set of law, with wide space for interpretations, that they can use to persecute me further. They can drag me to court because "I didn't treat data right", and it doesn't matter if I was complying or not, the risk of going to court is enough for many people to just not open the website. Of course, I make the political example, but think about sexual fetishes forum and things like that. The EU wants me to reveal to the world what my sexual preferences are, with all the risks that come with it! That's what the GDPR is. I can't even make a website to discuss my sexual tastes without telling the world who I am! To sum it up: if you create a website, your privacy will be lost, and everyone will be able to know that you are the creator of that website. Then, many people won't create websites because they'll be scared of being dragged to court. Small, indpendent, websites will die and only big companies will rule the internet. This is the reality and I don't know how people who supposedly use the internet in a professional way can't see it.
sykh 9y ago
With this proposal they want to impede freedom of information while at the same time get some of that sweet tax money in the pockets of their allies. This sounds plausible but do you have evidence that it is actually true? An equally plausible reason for the proposed change is that European leaders see what media consolidation leads too. Too many people relying on too few sources for information. Perhaps this legislation is an ill thought out way to try to counteract the Facebook/Cambridge Analytica controversy. Newspapers, and magazines are dying. They are no longer able to do the sort of investigative journalism like in the past. Consolidation has led to a degradation of quality and has caused too few people to control too much information. Witness the shenanigans of Sinclair Broadcasting recently. I don't know the merits of the legislation in question but without evidence it's a hard sell to ascribe its passing to what you claim.
- nannePOPI 9y ago
  These kind of laws make it much more difficult to spread content and therefore they consolidate informations in few player, often loved by the governments and their puppeteers. We used to be able to put a website online, gather emails to send newsletters, offer services to our users, etc without any help from the government. Now, every time I put a new website online I have to fill pages of pages with stupid policies and I know I'm not even fully compliant because honestly it's impossible to really be since it's all about how it's interpreted by the current bureaucrat. These kind of laws don't deserve a place in Europe. You need people to be able to be naturally compliant, so that they can promote their stuff wihout being scared of persecution if they say something the government doesn't like. Today you don't make a website and say controversial stuff, otherwise you know that when the government will notice it will uses the broad interpretations that stupid laws like the cookie law or GPDR give them to drag you into court and destroy you. By government of course I mean bureaucrats, political figures and your bigger competitors. These kind of laws, like the GDPR, where they say "we will use them for good, don't worry, we will ony use them on big companies" are those that freedom-minded people should be mostly scared about. Of course the proposal in OP is much worse and makes no sense.
  - sykh 9y ago
losteric 9y ago
What do you of America? No net neutrality, media monopolization, telecom-monopolization, rising economic oligarchy, active collusion by heads of the executive branch, unsubstantiated attacks on quiet well-justified investigations, war mongering around the globe... to start with. I'm curious what kind of language you'd use to describe America after throwing that hyperbole at Europe.
- nannePOPI 9y ago
  My judgement is that US is also in a bad spot, but at least the first amendment give them a little more protection, and there is a much stronger stance on freedom of speech, and even more variety in opinions compared to Europe.
mattsfrey 9y ago
The cookie regs seem largely a moot effort given the pervasiveness of cookie usage, GDPR though I think is actually a generally good idea. The "nightmare scenario" that certain articles have detailed might be overburdening for companies, but in general having the right to be forgotten and know how your data is being distributed are large advancements in personal data rights. This new reg to me is just bewildering however - not even allowing media sources to opt out of it? That just makes no sense to me and comes off as an attempt to destroy smaller / independent outlets. Hopefully it dies on the vine.
- destructaball 9y ago
  On something of a tangent I suspect that large parts of the GDPR will be comparably moot. Many companies including Twillo and Delta have rolled out their tracking controls behind feature flags. If you decide that you'd rather not be tracked they make you stare at a spinner for ~100 seconds while your privacy settings are "being applied". Keeping privacy as inconvenient as possible is big business.
  - TeMPOraL 9y ago
    > Keeping privacy as inconvenient as possible is big business. To some extent, this risks running afoul of GDPR and getting hit with a big fine. But no doubt companies will try to find the sweet spot of being as annoying as possible while still being technically compliant.
    - Ygg2 9y ago
      Let HHGTG be your guide. "The information was on display on Alpha Centauri for at least 20 years". I.e. if they make a GDPR request put them on the waiting line with rest of customers. Press 1 for account related matter, Press 2 for account information, please enter your account number. Please enter your account number to confirm. Press 3 for privacy related information. Press 4 for information regarding GDPR. Please enter account information. Please verify account number. Redirecting to customer support. Please press 9 to continue. Please press 2 for verifying you are EU citizen. Enter verification data.
fao_ 9y ago
> Recent laws like the cookie regulations or GDPR are made for the purpose to stop the spread of free information and favor regulatory bodies and the already estabilished companies. How are the cookie regulations made to stop the spread of free information? GDPR explicitly restricts certain kinds of information. Things that you would consider private and not want to be leaked to the public, like your tax documents, and your healthcare records. From what I can see, it's America that's the problem, with things like TPP. America is generally more crony-capitalist than Europe, even though some European countries do have crony-capitalism, they're usually good at fending it off. Globalism isn't inherently a bad thing for the individual and workers, however. It lends huge power to the worker to strike and obtain better conditions, as you can see: But the reality is the very opposite. When 3,000 General Motors brake parts workers went on strike in Dayton, Ohio, in 1996, they shut down General Motors operations across the United States, Canada and Mexico. Over 125,000 General Motors workers were laid off within days. The strike cost the company around $45 million a day, and the Clinton government screamed at both sides to settle. When an almost general strike took place in Denmark, Saab was forced to stop car production in Sweden because it ran out of essential components from Danish suppliers. The assembly of Saab’s convertible motors in Finland was also forced to stop. Volvo also announced that its production lines in Sweden and the Netherlands had been very badly affected. In 1988, when Ford workers in Britain struck, they brought the whole of Ford Europe to a halt within three or four days. Because of the multinationals, the impact of an individual group of workers can be much greater than ever before. One need only compare the above examples with the first general strike in history that took place in England in 1832. Then workers had to move from one factory to another to “turn over” the workers. Behind the theory of globalisation there is complete mechanical formal logic. The dialectic is completely foreign to it. The logic of the globalisation theory is similar to that which motivated the Pentagon when it launched its war on Vietnam. They were convinced that the United States military machine was omnipotent and that the Vietnamese were relatively powerless. And the argument went like this. In the 19th century Britain beat India into submission. The military machine of the United States in the 1960s was incomparably stronger than the military machine of Britain in the 19th century. At the same time Vietnam is a much smaller country with a much smaller population than India. If Britain could win in the 19th century, the United States could certainly have a walkover in the 20th century. Looked at dialectically the picture is exactly the opposite. In the Indian uprising of 1857, when a British soldier was killed, how much damage did it do to Britain? How much is a British soldier, a worker in uniform, worth? Let us say £100. The American military machine is in comparably greater. A US aeroplane is worth, let us say, $1 million. What a temptation for a Vietnamese to throw a hand grenade at it. (https://www.marxists.org/archive/cliff/works/2000/millennium/chap04.htm https://www.marxists.org/archive/cliff/works/2000/millennium...)
henrikschroder 9y ago
> globalists Did you mean actual globalists, or were you just using a racist dog-whistle to imply Jews?
- YouAreGreat 9y ago
  Did you mean to suss out dog whistlers or are you just trying to divert attention from globalists? #notyourshield
- swebs 9y ago
  Is that an actual question, or are you trying to deflect the valid criticisms of globalism by slandering it's opponents?
  - henrikschroder 9y ago
    It was an actual question. Sometimes people who use the word are genuinely interested in the debate. Most of the time though, it's just some idiot who is interested in blaming everything that's bad with the world on some nefarious Other.

IAmEveryone 9y ago

That's a strange interpretation, and I say it doesn't seem like you're trying too hard to assume good faith. The EU is worried about publishers both big and small. Currently, investing half a year's worth of a journalist's work into investigations is a rather bad business decision, because everyone can freely reuse the facts you uncovered: spend a year finding corruption, write it up in a day, 10 minutes later it's on AP. Ther 'inalienable' is to ensure you're not pressured into giving those rights away by a stronger actor such as Google. The principle is the same that makes it impossible for you to agree to buy something new without warranty. Your idea also doesn't make much sense because the current crisis of journalism has hit smaller publishers hardest. The New York Times will survive. The Bodunken Tribune is probably long dead already. And the major players for centralization are obviously Google and Facebook, the two largest targets of this legislation. All this DOES NOT mean I believe this proposal to be a good idea! I think it's too much beaurocracy for too little effect, plus probably unintended consequences. But it's hard to completely disregard the true motivation and ascribe malice.

mattsfrey 9y ago
The way I look at it is it will constrain the ability to deliver news to those who can afford to produce original content, which will be larger outlets with more resources. This allows a vastly smaller group to control the narrative. How will this effect google or facebook at all? Anyone with a blog looking to quote a news outlet and provide commentary is now mandatorily taxed? How do you NOT see this as bad? What good can come of it at all?
- IAmEveryone 9y ago
  > How will this effect google or facebook at all? Google and Facebook show titles and quotes of linked articles. This legislation is specifically aimed at them. Noncommercial actors (bloggers etc) are supposed to be exempt. > How do you NOT see this as bad? It is extremely frustrating how people on HN apparently have no ability to acknowledge a valid argument for a position they oppose. Read the last two paragraphs of my post again. It clearly states, in rule-braking all-caps even, that I do not support this legislation. > What good can come of it at all? It will shift (as you note) money from those reprinting news to those producing original content. The former is cheap, commoditized, and in no danger. The latter is fundamental for a functioning democracy.