4 ms·

While this "link tax" is indeed rather stupid, the EFF is to a certain degree overstating their case. If you check the current proposals (http://data.consilium

While this "link tax" is indeed rather stupid, the EFF is to a certain degree overstating their case. If you check the current proposals (http://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/ST-12513-2018-INIT/EN/pdf http://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/ST-12513-2018-I...) you will find (page 93) that the Council inserted a specific exemption for wikipedia and open source code. That's in addition to a few passages that had already been included previously, and that pretty clearly show that any requirement to collect from people linking to you only applies to large, commercial publishers. Many people attack this proposal with rather wild interpretations, often of the sort of hair-splitting non-lawyers consider very smart. Those usually just get a tired rolling of the eyes from judges. Real life is nothing but nuances, yet laws need to be abstract, and provide enough guidance to adequately capture future situations. Since it's impossible to make laws for every individual case (and actually illegal in many jurisdiction), there is no way around some ambiguity in the text. Closing that gap is the fundamental task of judges, and they actually have a pretty good track record of finding equatable outcomes. It's also worth to consider the problem the EU is trying to solve: journalism has seen its revenue crash by 50% to 75%, with the disappearance not just of readers, but classifieds and advertisers at the same time. Both in Europe and the US, local newspapers will be gone from vast swaths of the country. Those that remain are but shells of what they once were. Not having some professionals who show up at the 8am city council planning session every week means citizen will be effectively cut off from accurate information about politics. Yet if you don't know what is happening, it's is impossible to make decisions in the voting booth. Without this essential loopback, politicians' career prospects become entirely divorced from their actions, rendering democracy meaningless. This current proposal seems to be far too convoluted, and enough of the fears are credible to make it look like a bad idea to me. But instead of spinning conspiracy theories of who paid whom, it would (have been) far more effective to try to find some other mechanism to ensure the survival of at least some journalism. One idea I've been bouncing around for far too many years is an ad blocker that is smart enough to block only ads that are annoying or dangerous. I am quite sure that there's a balance that reduces annoyances by 80% while having far less of an impact on revenue. If something like this had succeeded in easing some of the economic pressure, it would be far less likely that politicians feel the need to devote their time to such hard-handed measures such as link taxes.

duckerude 8y ago
> If you check the current proposals (http://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/ST-12513-2018-I... http://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/ST-12513-2018-I...) you will find (page 93) that the Council inserted a specific exemption for wikipedia and open source code. Specifically, it says > The definition does not include services whose main purpose is not to provide access to copyright protected content with the purpose of obtaining profit from this activity. [...] Nor does this definition cover websites which store and provide access to content for non-for-profit purposes, such as online encyclopaedias, scientific or educational repositories or open source software developing platforms which do not store and give access to content for profit making purposes.
visarga 8y ago
> I am quite sure that there's a balance that reduces annoyances by 80% while having far less of an impact on revenue. It would be exponentially more difficult to convince every user not to block all ads, I don't think this is doable. Instead we should think of how information and misinformation propagates in the era of www as opposed to the era of newspaper and tv. What we need is to keep the public informed, not to prop up a failing business sector. For one, the www makes it much cheaper to spread targeted misinformation. That didn't happen before.
syshum 8y ago
>> you will find (page 93) that the Council inserted a specific exemption for wikipedia and open source code. Funny because EFF never once mentions Wikipedia in their statement on the problems with this law. So I am not sure why you believe they are "overstating their case" when their case has nothing to do with wikipedia nor open source code. >>there is no way around some ambiguity in the text. Closing that gap is the fundamental task of judges, and they actually have a pretty good track record of finding equatable outcomes. I have a feeling we will have massive disagreements on the track record of judges finding equatable outcomes. I could not disagree more this statement >It's also worth to consider the problem the EU is trying to solve: journalism has seen its revenue crash by 50% to 75%, It is not the proper role or function of government to protect the profits of any industry, and it is often very dangerous to society when they do. >Not having some professionals who show up at the 8am city council planning session every week means citizen will be effectively cut off from accurate information about politics. And this law will do nothing about that. Local News reporting has been on a downward spiral LONG before the internet, in fact one of the reasons people have turned to the internet for their news is because most local outlets are garbage. They love to blame everything but their own incompetence for this but at the end of the day they only have themselves to blame not google, reddit, or any other internet site. >One idea I've been bouncing around for far too many years is an ad blocker that is smart enough to block only ads that are annoying or dangerous. Annoying is far too subjective to ever be codified into blocking software. The task of blocking on "dangerous" ads while allowing "good" ads is an unsolvable problem, akin to having a computer only run "good code" while blocking "dangerous code"

duckerude 8y ago

> If you check the current proposals (http://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/ST-12513-2018-I... http://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/ST-12513-2018-I...) you will find (page 93) that the Council inserted a specific exemption for wikipedia and open source code. Specifically, it says > The definition does not include services whose main purpose is not to provide access to copyright protected content with the purpose of obtaining profit from this activity. [...] Nor does this definition cover websites which store and provide access to content for non-for-profit purposes, such as online encyclopaedias, scientific or educational repositories or open source software developing platforms which do not store and give access to content for profit making purposes.

visarga 8y ago

> I am quite sure that there's a balance that reduces annoyances by 80% while having far less of an impact on revenue. It would be exponentially more difficult to convince every user not to block all ads, I don't think this is doable. Instead we should think of how information and misinformation propagates in the era of www as opposed to the era of newspaper and tv. What we need is to keep the public informed, not to prop up a failing business sector. For one, the www makes it much cheaper to spread targeted misinformation. That didn't happen before.

syshum 8y ago

>> you will find (page 93) that the Council inserted a specific exemption for wikipedia and open source code. Funny because EFF never once mentions Wikipedia in their statement on the problems with this law. So I am not sure why you believe they are "overstating their case" when their case has nothing to do with wikipedia nor open source code. >>there is no way around some ambiguity in the text. Closing that gap is the fundamental task of judges, and they actually have a pretty good track record of finding equatable outcomes. I have a feeling we will have massive disagreements on the track record of judges finding equatable outcomes. I could not disagree more this statement >It's also worth to consider the problem the EU is trying to solve: journalism has seen its revenue crash by 50% to 75%, It is not the proper role or function of government to protect the profits of any industry, and it is often very dangerous to society when they do. >Not having some professionals who show up at the 8am city council planning session every week means citizen will be effectively cut off from accurate information about politics. And this law will do nothing about that. Local News reporting has been on a downward spiral LONG before the internet, in fact one of the reasons people have turned to the internet for their news is because most local outlets are garbage. They love to blame everything but their own incompetence for this but at the end of the day they only have themselves to blame not google, reddit, or any other internet site. >One idea I've been bouncing around for far too many years is an ad blocker that is smart enough to block only ads that are annoying or dangerous. Annoying is far too subjective to ever be codified into blocking software. The task of blocking on "dangerous" ads while allowing "good" ads is an unsolvable problem, akin to having a computer only run "good code" while blocking "dangerous code"