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Latest Text of EU Copyright Directive Shows It's Even Worse Than Expected
- b11484 8y agoThe report released is here: [1] And a pdf of it is here:[2] [1]http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-%2f%2fEP%2f%2fTEXT%2bREPORT%2bA8-2018-0245%2b0%2bDOC%2bXML%2bV0%2f%2fEN&language=EN#title1 http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-%2f%2f... [2]http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//NONSGML+REPORT+A8-2018-0245+0+DOC+PDF+V0//EN http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//...
- drtillberg 8y agoI think the better point about hyperlinking is that you shouldn't have something so ambiguous at the center of the law concerning the use of the Internet.
- icc97 8y agoI do wonder how the law works - does it work by the weight of the arguments in the text or by the simplest reading of it. So if the text literally says 'does not apply to hyperlinks' then any does infringement of other laws by hyperlinks win because it's there in black and white or does the weight of all the other arguments win?
- ahakki 8y agoIANAL, but usually if something is explicitly allowed by law you can rely on that even if other parts of the law forbid it.
- drtillberg 8y agoThe rule of lenity works that was for US criminal laws. For US civil law, it is not quite so.
- Kliment 8y agoThis is a directive not a regulation - each EU member state gets to decide that.
- olliej 8y agoRight? What is the maximum depth of links before it stops being illegal?
- shiado 8y agoIndeed. Is it just the anchor tag or are other methods cool? If the site lets me embed their content in an iframe is that cool? What about bookmarks, all I am really doing is saving a link. What about link shorteners? Do they become illegal? What about instead of a link somebody programs an extension that intercepts links and manually types the link url into the address bar and programmatically presses return? If I drop the referer header are they even going to know it is a link? Is a bot that indexes their page into a search engine saving an illegal link? The answer to all of the above is probably whatever the IP holder deems the most profitable in each circumstance.
- pdkl95 8y agoTechnically-minded people are used to systems that are at some level logically consistent. A common misconception is that the same rules apply to politics and social or political power[1]. Laws and politics are not logical, internally consistent systems by design. Of course laws are written ambiguously; the uncertainty about the scope of a law is a feature. Laws that might apply to a very broad set of behaviors and situations can be selectively enforced. If you are uncertain if you activities became illegal, you are incentivized to err on the safe side and self-censor. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs
- DanBC 8y agoWhy do you think hyperlinks are illegal? What possible interpretation of the law are you using? > What about bookmarks, all I am really doing is saving a link Perfect example of the confusion caused by these fucking stupid articles. i) The law doesn't apply in any way to your book marks. ii) The only way the law could apply to your book marks is if you're a commercial organisation, and you publish them as part of a commercial venture, and if they are also more than hypertext links but include non-fair use portions of a copyright work.
- growt 8y agoThe problem is, there is no "fair use" in europe. At least theoretically you can be sued for any use of copyrighted material.
- larkeith 8y agoQuery: if this directive passes and the outcomes are in line with the negative predictions, what happens? If it becomes standard practice for all except certain large corporations to ban all EU addresses, how will this impact the web and the EU?
- Kenji 8y agoThe web in the EU will be dead and everyone will use a VPN to participate in the actual internet, i.e. the internet outside the EU.
- slipstream- 8y agoI would hope that Tor usage in the EU goes up.
- mirimir 8y agoTor isn't such a great solution here, because too many sites discriminate against Tor users, in one way or another. Some impose horrible CAPTCHAs. Or block access entirely. Some allow access, and even logins, but don't allow account creation. And maintaining usable Google or Facebook login accounts via Tor is virtually impossible. Using VPN services would be far more practical. Although some sites do discriminate against VPN users, it's much less common than for Tor users. The EU could of course block access to VPN servers, just as China has done. But some VPN services use obfsproxy, and so can piggyback on obfuscation efforts by the Tor Project.
- incompatible 8y agoWhat we see is the logical extension of what's required for continuation of the copyright system: a highly regulated Internet where nothing can be published unless its copyright status has been accurately identified. Only authorized people can be relied on to produce new content, otherwise there's no way to tell if they just copied it from someone else. The next step would be to shut down proxies, systems such as Tor, and connections to sites in rogue states that don't sufficiently enforce copyright.
- ekianjo 8y agoand the shutdown of basically any kind of public forum on a small site since it is going to be nearly impossible for small entities to comply with regulations.
- olliej 8y agoBut they say that you don’t need to filter all content! Like if you know no one will ever upload copyrighted content there’s nothing to worry about. And that not all content will be covered (although they appear to have accidentally forgotten to include that bit in what they published).
- swsieber 8y ago"if you know no one will ever upload copyrighted content" How in the world could I know that as a website master? How am I supposed to know the range of actions for any future users.
- draugadrotten 8y agoLegally, perhaps it could be sufficient to include a check box saying "I certify that I am the copyright holder to everything I upload". Compare with the way EU handles the cookie law and GDPR consent click-yes.
- deleted 8y ago
- marcus_holmes 8y agoDo you want darknets? Because this is how you get darknets...
- mirimir 8y agoIf this applied to the entire world, sure. But this just adds the EU to China, Russia, Iran, etc. That is getting to be a huge chunk, I admit. But EU users will just need VPNs and/or Tor to escape.
- marcus_holmes 8y agoI think it works the other way around. If one of Facebook's users (anywhere in the world) posts a piece of copyrighted material, and that material is served to a European user, then the copyright owner can take Facebook to court for copyright infringement under this legislation. I'm not even sure the owner has to be a European entity. European law considers the offence to occur in the browser's country, not the server's country (hence Yahoo having to block all references to Nazi memorabilia as a result of a French court case held in France under French law despite Yahoo not being a French company). Mind you, the US takes the same viewpoint, hence them suing to extradite Mr Dotcom from New Zealand for trial in the US for transgressing US law. The fact that he wasn't a US citizen, MegaUpload wasn't a US company, and he had committed no crime according to New Zealand law didn't matter. The US still considered his breach of copyright to have occurred on US soil, so he had committed a crime on US soil. At least that's how I read it... I am not a lawyer.
- mirimir 8y ago> ... and that material is served to a European user ... But in this scenario, Facebook would be blocking all EU users, based on IP address, DNS lookup, and so on. Just like Netflix blocks non-US users from accessing US-licensed media. So EU users could only access Facebook through Tor, or VPN services. And Facebook could still argue (and make sure that it held no conflicting data) that it knowingly served no users in the EU.
- walterbell 8y agoIf this law passes and the EU loses access to the current functionality of Google, HN, Github, Facebook and Twitter, can EU companies build local versions of those services, like China did?
- contravariant 8y agoIf that happens I'd seriously consider pulling the plug on the whole EU. I can only hope enough people share this sentiment.
- rorykoehler 8y agoI'm very pro-EU in general but this path they are on now is a step too far for me. Way overstepping their mandate.
- walterbell 8y agoIs it possible that a small number of strategic EU legislative roles have been newly influenced/captured by special interests? E.g. the Axel Springers of the world have long held certain positions. Why are they getting their way now, in 2018? Did legislation in EU or elsewhere set a recent precedent to lay the ground for this proposal?
- rorykoehler 8y agoIt's possible but I think it has more to do with constantly chipping away. The more initiatives they push through the more brazen they get. GDPR was widely supported so now they go in for the kill.
- adrianN 8y agoI don't think that you should compare GDPR with this copyright stuff. GDPR is fundamentally about protecting normal people. This here is about propping up obsolete business models.
- duxup 8y ago>Online content sharing service providers perform an act of communication to the public and therefore are responsible for their content. As a consequence, they should conclude fair and appropriate licensing agreements with rightholders. Therefore they cannot benefit from the liability exemption provided... W T F
- DanBC 8y ago> Because it still creates a license requirement on a snippet of any length, No it doesn't. For fucks sake, the law is lousy, but we don't need shit articles from techdirt who are completely unable to read and understand law.
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- rbehrends 8y agoThe analysis of Article 11 is misleading. The actually relevant part is in Article 11 (3), which incorporates (by reference) the usual limitations and exceptions to copyright [1], including the right to quote. This is necessary, anyway, because the Berne convention mandates that right [2]. Article 11 targets news aggregators and search engines. Unlike blog posts or newspaper articles, they generally cannot benefit from the right to quote [3]. Article 11 has two goals. One, it aims at protecting pieces of a work that are generally too short to enjoy regular copyright protection; second, unlike the usual practice in continental European copyright law, it grants ancillary copyright to publishers, not authors, for easier enforcement of these rights. Note that this does not mean that I endorse Article 11 (I do not and actually consider it harmful and the result of misguided lobbying), but we should be clear what we are actually talking about. [1] Article 5 of Directive 2001/29/EC. [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_quote https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_quote [3] As the Wikipedia article above summarizes it, "the resulting new work is not just a collection of quotations, but constitutes a fully original work in itself".
- stakhanov 8y ago...what Article 11 is really about is that the European contentmafia wants to collect taxes from Google. We've already seen how that played out when Spain introduced something like this on the level of national law. IIRC, Google retaliated by taking Spanish media companies' content out of the index which is something that advertising clients of those media companies were less than pleased about, and a deal was quickly reached between Google and them, saying that Google didn't have to pay. So, what it will really do will be to create a monopoly enshrined in law, that news aggregation and search is a business you can only be in, if you already wield Google-esque influence over the world of media. Which is wrong. It's just wrong, on so many levels.
- Angostura 8y agoTo raise a counterpoint, the point where I though Google as a Search engine started being "a bit evil" was the point where it stopped redirecting users to search result websites, and instead started displaying content on its own pages, in the form of snippets, thus reducing traffic to those cites. I don't deny the util of being able to see movie times without having to click through, or a businesses contact details, but the effective redirection of traffic with reduction in site's ad revenue of whatever feels 'wrong'.
- stakhanov 8y agoAnd it's very telling, regarding the quality of journalism nowadays, that the battlefield has moved to fighting over who gets to monetize headlines pointing to content that's too shitty for people to click through to. Regarding links that people actually click on, the current situation is that it'll take users to the publishers' websites, where the publisher monetizes it through advertising. Nothing wrong with that. But, apparently, that's not enough. Because the state of journalism has been reduced to providing headlines that make people go "...naaaah. not worth it." At the same time, the way they lobbied for this law was based on the notion that media companies don't get adequately rewarded for the bang-up job that they're doing, creating all this high-quality and highly original content.
- hrktb 8y agoTotaly agree. Also sometimes headlines used to link to articles are way better than the whole article itself. It’s a noble art on 2ch and japanese groups to sum up articles in the most insane way possible. I understand bean counters wanting money on where the action is happening, irrelevant to their deserving of any.
- fauigerzigerk 8y agoThe proposal is bad enough, but I don't believe the part about URLs being considered snippets. URLs are technically necessary for linking and any publisher can decide what goes into their URLs. Rather than lawyers not understanding technology I think this interpretation is just the reverse.
- harel 8y agoI'm a pro EU remain voter who respects the results of the referendum in the UK. If this law passes, I will be a former pro EU remain voter, and will flip to the leave camp (should my vote ever be required for a second referendum). This will be going too far.
- dpwm 8y agoI feel similarly, but history suggests that if it's a terrible idea then the UK government will be very keen on passing domestic legislation that is similar but more extreme.
- harel 8y agoI'm hopeful common sense will prevail here. I just wish the EU would have had the sense to see the growing sentiment around their lack of transparency and where it leads (i.e., Brexit and that is probably just the beginning).
- fjsolwmv 8y agoYou think UK, the land where whistleblowing and news reporting is illegal libel, is better for free speech than the EU?
- harel 8y agoActually whistleblowing is not only legal in the UK, but encouraged by the government and whistleblowers can expect protection: https://www.gov.uk/whistleblowing https://www.gov.uk/whistleblowing
- gnode 8y agoWhile I fundamentally oppose this proposed legislation, I wonder whether the law becoming inhospitable to centralized services like Google, Twitter, and so on, could have the positive effect of pushing users towards a more free decentralised and less commercial Internet.
- stakhanov 8y agoThe need to implement upload filters is probably a greater burden on smaller players than it is on large players, so it could have the opposite effect. Facebook can afford to just implement the damned upload filter. But if you're an operator of a small blog, you'll likely just turn off commenting functionality and stuff like that. If you're even smaller, and relying on other people to provide infrastructure for you to be able to comment on stuff, where does that push you? You guessed it. Back to the likes of Facebook, Twitter, etc.
- gnode 8y agoI'm not talking about smaller centralised services, but rather distributed peer-to-peer systems, using IPFS for instance. Use of such systems has fallen out of fashion largely because of the rise of centralised alternatives (e.g. you can listen to music for free on Youtube nowadays). I think the tide could reverse if the law harms the centralised services.
- adventured 8y agoNearly all users want a commercial, centralized Internet. They want specific, centralized corporations or entities (eg government) that they can get upset with when something goes wrong, whether that's PayPal, or Amazon, Twitter, or Comcast. They love that aspect, it provides a blanket (which tech people will call an illusory blanet). The decentralization premise is a standard techie failure to understand product, markets and average consumers. It's solely an allure for tech people. That's why for it has been thrown about as a lure for so long with so little success to show for it, there's a reason for that: it's a fantasy for an extraordinarily small niche of people. A decentralized Internet is the absolute last thing on a list of wants from the bulk of users that make up the Internet, they have no idea what it is, no idea why it matters, and couldn't care less. It will not be possible to get them to care about it, because their Internet works for them right now. The average user is not upset about the Internet and how it operates now. In fact quite the opposite, they're overwhelmingly satisfied with the Internet. You can see an ideal representation of the techie failure to understand the average user, in the dire predictions thrown at Facebook the last number of months, and the actual end results of what the average user did (they didn't quit Facebook, the techies were entirely wrong and didn't understand average users). Decentralized Internet is an emotional issue for most techies, just as Facebook is, that's where the fog comes in, and obvious reasoning mistakes are made.
- banku_brougham 8y agoThis discussion is informative but narrowly focused on the latest draft. Can anyone post some links to a long form article that can explain how we got here and what is the logical fulfillment of these forces? To me it looks like the destruction of the internet and transformation to a new version of televison.