I'm opposed to this EU proposal, but maybe not quite as strongly as many others... The general sense I get is that people are completely indifferent (at best)

I'm opposed to this EU proposal, but maybe not quite as strongly as many others... The general sense I get is that people are completely indifferent (at best) to the interests of creators. This leads, unfortunately, to rather shallow discussions. You may, for example, see complaints about "artificial scarcity", and I actually share their opinion that the deadweight losses of copyright are rather terrible. What you won't see is any appreciation or consideration or even interest in the reason for the existence of copyright, except for lazy clichés of all politicians being corrupt. That's a shame, because it precludes this community (and most of the wider tech community) from being a meaningful source of improvements. It also renders its opposition somewhat meaningless, because reasonable people who may be open to arguments tend to stop listening when they encounter the first platitude. I think if people were less entrenched in this mindset, you'd see far more ideas for better solutions being generated in the comment. Just imagine a threat like this, but with an obtrusive law trying to prevent, say, lawnmower-related accidental deaths: You'd see a litany of ideas, some of which may actually not involve the blockchain. One example very close to this copyright law is, well, this copyright law's other well-known provision establishing a new sort of IP for news publishers. It's similarly broad, and full of practical difficulties. But when/if it becomes actual law, the tech community will shoulder (part of) the blame for it. Because over the last decade or so, it has watched, or even cheered, the destruction of journalism. The early 2000s' glee of a future of independent bloggers replacing professional journalism has thankfully passed because nobody can still cling to that fantasy with straight face, except Clay Sharky (or whatever his name is; the self-appointed expert that looks like Tom Hanks). Today most seem to have adopted the alt-right's propaganda against "mainstream media", or at least lost interest in anything beyond oneself's short-term comfort. Case in point: I think you could make an ad blocker that blocks 100% of ads that are annoying, dangerous, or tracking you, yet let unobtrusive ads pass. Something like that would likely block maybe 20% of ads, leaving 80% (and journalism's business model) intact while almost completely giving the users what they want. But the tech community sees no possible value in such a compromise, and ad blockers singularly compete on their ability to hurt creators (see, for example, the ad blocker that proudly proclaimed they would remove affiliate codes from amazon links: absolutely no difference for the reader, except possibly the joy of seeing others suffer). It's quite obvious that the "other side" of the copyright debate isn't blameless. Perpetual extensions of copyright are a travesty, and so is the loss of appreciation of the value of "fair use". Personally, I believe copyright of maybe 5 years on movies, 10 on music, and two days on newspapers would, once again, deliver 80% of the upside (incentive to create) while also activating the potential of re-use, and generally making these works available for a far larger audience.