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This is not a free speech issue at all, nor are the EU regulations free speech issues. The problem with these laws and their interpretation is that they target

This is not a free speech issue at all, nor are the EU regulations free speech issues. The problem with these laws and their interpretation is that they target the wrong organizations and technologies. If a website is illegal, it needs to be taken down by police. Instead, idiot judges rule that certain DNS entries should be blocked. If you shouldn't be allowed to read some pay-walled journal, then the publisher has to implement proper DRM. Instead, they take down arbitrary plugins from the directories of arbitrary browser makers. It's the publishers' right to ask for money for their products, but it's also their obligation to protect it and ensure that their business model is viable and technically feasible. It's the end of 2018 and lawmakers and executive still don't understand how the Internet works. That's the problem.

JeanMarcS 8y ago
I mostly agree with you, but the problem with illegals websites is often that they are illegal in a country but hosted in another. So you can’t really send your own police taking down servers in other countries. So for the DNS blocking it works because it blocks casual users of those website (I’m thinking torrent or streaming sites essentially). Of course when you know a bit how it works you use international DNS. And if you know even more, you use your own :-)
- AdrianB1 8y ago
  One country cannot police Internet, otherwise China will shut it down tomorrow. If a site is legal in the country where it is hosted, then it is legal and that's it, connecting to Internet assumes you obey this simple rule.
  - shaki-dora 8y ago
    Well, seems like some people don't actually "obey" this rule you just invented. And, for now, they have that other invented rule on their side, the rule of law.
    - AdrianB1 8y ago
      The law applied in the country that established it, not worldwide. This is what I said.
  - bad_user 8y ago
    No, a country has sovereignty on its territory and can do whatever they want, including blocking whatever websites they want and not giving a crap about whom they offend. This is why you need to follow the law in the countries wher the service is operational, otherwise the service risks being blocked at the very least. Of course, countries have trade agreements and the circumstances under which services and products can be blocked is negotiable. And this can cut both ways, e.g. companies in the US selling services and products in the EU have to be lawful in the EU, otherwise they can be fined, even without a presence in the EU. This is why most US companies selling their services in the EU have started charging VAT, even if the US has no such thing. As to your remark, a website can be at the same time legal in one country and illegal in another. What can happen next depends on the country you’re talking about and the trade agreements that are in place. But generally, when we’re talking about avoiding payments and taxes, you’d better live in a country with no extradition agreements.
    - AdrianB1 8y ago
      It is not about sovereignty, it is about jurisdiction. If a site on Internet in a different country is upsetting you, you cannot simply shut it down just because you can convince a judge to do it. The law in your country does not apply to the site in a different country. In the same way, you completely misunderstood how VAT works: when you sell something in EU you collect VAT, but only when the buyer is there and only if you have any presence as a seller in EU. If a EU citizen buys something in Wallmart in New York, Wallmart is paying no VAT.
      - bad_user 8y ago
        > you cannot simply shut it down Indeed, but you can block it. And speaking of big organizations like Mozilla or Google, they have to comply with the laws of the countries they operate in. Meaning that they need to block browser extensions in the countries in which they are unlawful and they received a take down request. So in this case Mozilla would need to block extensions based on jurisdiction. For which they'd need to track their user's location while they are using said extensions, like various websites or game platforms are doing, but which for Mozilla would be a privacy nightmare. What would you rather have? A browser that tracks extension usage in real time, or a browser that bans those extensions from their repository? At the very least the easier path is the later.
IAmEveryone 8y ago
“Just take down the website” is disingenuous. You, and I, and those idiot judges all know it’s often much harder, and sometimes impossible, to get to the website owners. “Abolish all copyright” is a legitimate opinion. It’s wrong,of course. But it’s possible to discuss it. Don’t demean yourself and others by starting discussions with disingenuous arguments.
- betterunix2 8y ago
  I am not sure abolishing copyright is "wrong," given that copyright developed as a response to a major shift in how written material was disseminated (the invention of the printing press), and that we are now seeing another major shift. A lot of the problems being argued about today, including the issue of paywall circumvention add-ons, have parallels to the historical arguments over printing. Given that copyright replaced a previous system of regulation in response to a new technology, why would we not want to replace copyright with something totally different that is better suited to a technology that has largely replaced printing?
  - scarface74 8y ago
    So with copyright being removed, are you okay with companies using GPL code in their proprietary closed sourced software? The GPL is only protected by copyright laws.
    - betterunix2 8y ago
      Yes, I am fine with that tradeoff, because on net society would come out ahead.
      - scarface74 8y ago
        So if you are concerned with copyright being removed because you think it will increase the freedom of information, how will that not do just the opposite when companies can take open source code and lock it down? So in this hypothetical future world, not only will their not be a financial motive for people to create works since anything they create can be freely copied, there will also not be an altruistic motive for people to give back to the community through open source knowing that a for profit company can build on top of the work they did and not give back to the community. This seems like a lose lose.
realthing 8y ago
Yes, but you are missing my point. Link tax is not censorship in and of itself, but it does hinder the sharing of information, the cornerstone of the "information highway". Removing a plugin, or any tooling for that matter, is akin to censorship, in that it silences a computational action. Someones voice may not have been censored, but their tooling was removed by force by the powers that be.
- IAmEveryone 8y ago
  > it silences a computational action HN generally does not like comedy accounts...
  - realthing 8y ago
    you sir, are a troglodyte.
AnaniasAnanas 8y ago
At least in USA software is considered free speech, as it should be. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/04/remembering-case-established-code-speech https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/04/remembering-case-estab...

JeanMarcS 8y ago

I mostly agree with you, but the problem with illegals websites is often that they are illegal in a country but hosted in another. So you can’t really send your own police taking down servers in other countries. So for the DNS blocking it works because it blocks casual users of those website (I’m thinking torrent or streaming sites essentially). Of course when you know a bit how it works you use international DNS. And if you know even more, you use your own :-)

AdrianB1 8y ago
One country cannot police Internet, otherwise China will shut it down tomorrow. If a site is legal in the country where it is hosted, then it is legal and that's it, connecting to Internet assumes you obey this simple rule.
- shaki-dora 8y ago
  Well, seems like some people don't actually "obey" this rule you just invented. And, for now, they have that other invented rule on their side, the rule of law.
  - AdrianB1 8y ago
    The law applied in the country that established it, not worldwide. This is what I said.
- bad_user 8y ago
  No, a country has sovereignty on its territory and can do whatever they want, including blocking whatever websites they want and not giving a crap about whom they offend. This is why you need to follow the law in the countries wher the service is operational, otherwise the service risks being blocked at the very least. Of course, countries have trade agreements and the circumstances under which services and products can be blocked is negotiable. And this can cut both ways, e.g. companies in the US selling services and products in the EU have to be lawful in the EU, otherwise they can be fined, even without a presence in the EU. This is why most US companies selling their services in the EU have started charging VAT, even if the US has no such thing. As to your remark, a website can be at the same time legal in one country and illegal in another. What can happen next depends on the country you’re talking about and the trade agreements that are in place. But generally, when we’re talking about avoiding payments and taxes, you’d better live in a country with no extradition agreements.
  - AdrianB1 8y ago
    It is not about sovereignty, it is about jurisdiction. If a site on Internet in a different country is upsetting you, you cannot simply shut it down just because you can convince a judge to do it. The law in your country does not apply to the site in a different country. In the same way, you completely misunderstood how VAT works: when you sell something in EU you collect VAT, but only when the buyer is there and only if you have any presence as a seller in EU. If a EU citizen buys something in Wallmart in New York, Wallmart is paying no VAT.
    - bad_user 8y ago
      > you cannot simply shut it down Indeed, but you can block it. And speaking of big organizations like Mozilla or Google, they have to comply with the laws of the countries they operate in. Meaning that they need to block browser extensions in the countries in which they are unlawful and they received a take down request. So in this case Mozilla would need to block extensions based on jurisdiction. For which they'd need to track their user's location while they are using said extensions, like various websites or game platforms are doing, but which for Mozilla would be a privacy nightmare. What would you rather have? A browser that tracks extension usage in real time, or a browser that bans those extensions from their repository? At the very least the easier path is the later.

IAmEveryone 8y ago

“Just take down the website” is disingenuous. You, and I, and those idiot judges all know it’s often much harder, and sometimes impossible, to get to the website owners. “Abolish all copyright” is a legitimate opinion. It’s wrong,of course. But it’s possible to discuss it. Don’t demean yourself and others by starting discussions with disingenuous arguments.

betterunix2 8y ago
I am not sure abolishing copyright is "wrong," given that copyright developed as a response to a major shift in how written material was disseminated (the invention of the printing press), and that we are now seeing another major shift. A lot of the problems being argued about today, including the issue of paywall circumvention add-ons, have parallels to the historical arguments over printing. Given that copyright replaced a previous system of regulation in response to a new technology, why would we not want to replace copyright with something totally different that is better suited to a technology that has largely replaced printing?
- scarface74 8y ago
  So with copyright being removed, are you okay with companies using GPL code in their proprietary closed sourced software? The GPL is only protected by copyright laws.
  - betterunix2 8y ago
    Yes, I am fine with that tradeoff, because on net society would come out ahead.
    - scarface74 8y ago
      So if you are concerned with copyright being removed because you think it will increase the freedom of information, how will that not do just the opposite when companies can take open source code and lock it down? So in this hypothetical future world, not only will their not be a financial motive for people to create works since anything they create can be freely copied, there will also not be an altruistic motive for people to give back to the community through open source knowing that a for profit company can build on top of the work they did and not give back to the community. This seems like a lose lose.

realthing 8y ago

Yes, but you are missing my point. Link tax is not censorship in and of itself, but it does hinder the sharing of information, the cornerstone of the "information highway". Removing a plugin, or any tooling for that matter, is akin to censorship, in that it silences a computational action. Someones voice may not have been censored, but their tooling was removed by force by the powers that be.

IAmEveryone 8y ago
> it silences a computational action HN generally does not like comedy accounts...
- realthing 8y ago
  you sir, are a troglodyte.

AnaniasAnanas 8y ago

At least in USA software is considered free speech, as it should be. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/04/remembering-case-established-code-speech https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/04/remembering-case-estab...