4 ms·

I also love how most mainstream media does not report this or cover it at all. Yeah they might have the odd article but nothing else. I personally would be extr

I also love how most mainstream media does not report this or cover it at all. Yeah they might have the odd article but nothing else. I personally would be extremely happy, if this pile of shit passes, to see FB and google block all EU news outlets and drive them to the ground. I mean that should be the price to pay when meddling with the freedom of information. Having your revenue down by 50-60% (hopefully) because you’re dumb enough to think that your lobbying is the smartest idea sound like justice. I just can’t believe that the EU is actually doing this. It puts a really bad taste in my mouth that it tries to regulate something it does not really understand just because of large lobbyist corporations.

emiliobumachar 8y ago
If that could fall only on those who had an active role, however minor, in lobbying for this, than yes, it sounds like justice. But there will be too much collateral.
Devils_Avocado 8y ago
> I just can’t believe that the EU ... actually ... tries to regulate something it does not really understand just because... This is generally how government works! But it's even worse than usual in the EU, since it's an unaccountable transnational mega-bureaucracy; MEPs are not directly elected, they are appointed by their political party after proportional representation votes (which haven't had turnout higher than 50% since 1994). You think Congress is beholden to lobbyists now? Imagine how bad it'd be if state representatives could get "re-elected" each term without ever having to put their record to a public vote!
- martimarkov 8y ago
  Actually not 100% true with the MEPs because it's up to each individual member state. I think in Bulgaria you had to vote for a political party and a person from it. Then add proportianl representation and the ppl with the most votes in each party will go into the EP based on their respective % of the total votes. (idk if this makes sense as it might sound a bit confusing)
  - SaltyBackendGuy 8y ago
    It's confusing on purpose.
    - aleksei 8y ago
      It's not confusing on purpose. Coordinating law, economy and movement of people across 28 countries is just fucking complex.
hoaw 8y ago
I think the EU understands perfectly fine. It is the Internet that doesn't understand how copyright works. Most countries don't have comprehensive fair use. Copyright rules and e.g. quotation rights are fairly 'weak' exceptions. Various people and organization, like Lawrence Lessig and the Pirate Party, have advocated for reform. Companies like Google and Facebook have instead basically made it their business to abuse copyright, which especially online most people seem happy with. Unfortunately reality tends to catch up with you and 2018 is turning out to be the year when grace period on how to operate the Internet is running out.
- driverdan 8y ago
  I downvoted you because linking and showing a few sentences does not mean a company's business is to "abuse copyright."
  - dangjc 8y ago
    Google shows a lot more than a link and increasingly is tailored to answer your question and prevent you from going to the site that provided the information in the first place.
    - danShumway 8y ago
      > is tailored to answer your question In the US, factual information can not be copyrighted. I believe it can in the EU, although I might be misrepresenting their official stance. At the very least, I'm pretty sure that the EU allows you to copyright databases. I'm sure EU residents can correct me if I'm missing some kind of subtlety. At least in the US though, there is nothing remotely illegal about looking up a fact on a website and then giving it to someone else directly, even if that diverts traffic away from the original site. Copyright was never intended to cover stuff like that.
  - hoaw 8y ago
    According to what? Because as I said, as far as I know, many European countries have a limited right to quote something. If the law is written to let people quote other people under specific conditions and one entity uses that to quote everyone then that is, whether you like copyright or not, an abuse of copyright. The reasonable position here is either something like what the EU wants or to reform copyright to allow this kind of use, not "Google has such a large legal team that they can get away with it until they don't". I can't really find any good summary, but this sparse wikipedia article will give you an idea: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_quote https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_quote
konschubert 8y ago
What will happen is that the publishers will make an agreement with Google and Co, cementing their monopoly and making it impossible for challengers such as DuckDuckGo to compete with them.
- danShumway 8y ago
  From the sound of things, the proposal is designed to make this more difficult to do, since that's effectively what already happened in Germany and Spain. > Recital 32 suggests that (1) anyone who wants to link to the news has to have a separate, commercial license; and (2) news companies can't waive this right, even through Creative Commons licenses and other tools for granting blanket permission. Unless they're enforcing across-the-board licenses with standard fees though, it's difficult for me to imagine how you would force a publisher not to enter into some kind of special agreement, so I don't know how extensive these kinds of restrictions can actually get in practice.

emiliobumachar 8y ago

If that could fall only on those who had an active role, however minor, in lobbying for this, than yes, it sounds like justice. But there will be too much collateral.

Devils_Avocado 8y ago

> I just can’t believe that the EU ... actually ... tries to regulate something it does not really understand just because... This is generally how government works! But it's even worse than usual in the EU, since it's an unaccountable transnational mega-bureaucracy; MEPs are not directly elected, they are appointed by their political party after proportional representation votes (which haven't had turnout higher than 50% since 1994). You think Congress is beholden to lobbyists now? Imagine how bad it'd be if state representatives could get "re-elected" each term without ever having to put their record to a public vote!

martimarkov 8y ago
Actually not 100% true with the MEPs because it's up to each individual member state. I think in Bulgaria you had to vote for a political party and a person from it. Then add proportianl representation and the ppl with the most votes in each party will go into the EP based on their respective % of the total votes. (idk if this makes sense as it might sound a bit confusing)
- SaltyBackendGuy 8y ago
  It's confusing on purpose.
  - aleksei 8y ago
    It's not confusing on purpose. Coordinating law, economy and movement of people across 28 countries is just fucking complex.

hoaw 8y ago

I think the EU understands perfectly fine. It is the Internet that doesn't understand how copyright works. Most countries don't have comprehensive fair use. Copyright rules and e.g. quotation rights are fairly 'weak' exceptions. Various people and organization, like Lawrence Lessig and the Pirate Party, have advocated for reform. Companies like Google and Facebook have instead basically made it their business to abuse copyright, which especially online most people seem happy with. Unfortunately reality tends to catch up with you and 2018 is turning out to be the year when grace period on how to operate the Internet is running out.

driverdan 8y ago
I downvoted you because linking and showing a few sentences does not mean a company's business is to "abuse copyright."
- dangjc 8y ago
  Google shows a lot more than a link and increasingly is tailored to answer your question and prevent you from going to the site that provided the information in the first place.
  - danShumway 8y ago
    > is tailored to answer your question In the US, factual information can not be copyrighted. I believe it can in the EU, although I might be misrepresenting their official stance. At the very least, I'm pretty sure that the EU allows you to copyright databases. I'm sure EU residents can correct me if I'm missing some kind of subtlety. At least in the US though, there is nothing remotely illegal about looking up a fact on a website and then giving it to someone else directly, even if that diverts traffic away from the original site. Copyright was never intended to cover stuff like that.
- hoaw 8y ago
  According to what? Because as I said, as far as I know, many European countries have a limited right to quote something. If the law is written to let people quote other people under specific conditions and one entity uses that to quote everyone then that is, whether you like copyright or not, an abuse of copyright. The reasonable position here is either something like what the EU wants or to reform copyright to allow this kind of use, not "Google has such a large legal team that they can get away with it until they don't". I can't really find any good summary, but this sparse wikipedia article will give you an idea: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_quote https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_quote

konschubert 8y ago

What will happen is that the publishers will make an agreement with Google and Co, cementing their monopoly and making it impossible for challengers such as DuckDuckGo to compete with them.

danShumway 8y ago
From the sound of things, the proposal is designed to make this more difficult to do, since that's effectively what already happened in Germany and Spain. > Recital 32 suggests that (1) anyone who wants to link to the news has to have a separate, commercial license; and (2) news companies can't waive this right, even through Creative Commons licenses and other tools for granting blanket permission. Unless they're enforcing across-the-board licenses with standard fees though, it's difficult for me to imagine how you would force a publisher not to enter into some kind of special agreement, so I don't know how extensive these kinds of restrictions can actually get in practice.