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EU Copyright: Block Everything, Never Make Mistakes, but Don't Use Upload Filter
- baxter001 8y agoAs with most interesting problems, this legislation hasn't been written with a focus on what sort of end-results are easiest to arrive at a technical solution for. This article characterises that as 'magic wand regulating' -- I'd hate to see an alternative where EU directives contain explicit technical implementation guidance!
- czardoz 8y agoThis is not really about technical solutions. It's about an understanding of how computers work. The underlying assumption is that companies _will_ build technology that is as good as the law requires it to be. Large companies very well might, but this is a killer for small businesses.
- AnthonyMouse 8y ago> As with most interesting problems, this legislation hasn't been written with a focus on what sort of end-results are easiest to arrive at a technical solution for. This article characterises that as 'magic wand regulating' -- I'd hate to see an alternative where EU directives contain explicit technical implementation guidance! There are multiple ways to create bad legislation. One is to require a specific solution, but another is to require a result that no known solution can produce.
- iso1337 8y agoLet's legislate that all cars must attain 150 mpg and cost less than $10,000. The EU proposals are approaching that kind of absurdity.
- gmueckl 8y agoThe Renault Twizy falls into that category. You need to find a better absurd example in the future ;).
- ttoinou 8y agoIt's an electric car, so no oil consumption (parent talks bout mpg)
- IshKebab 8y agoThere is an mpg equivalent for electric cars based on the idea that 1 US gallon of petrol is 33.7 kWh.
- ttoinou 8y agoCool, didn't know that, thanks
- marcosdumay 8y agoThat's 70% of the entire energy contents of the gasoline. You don't get anywhere near that kind of efficiency even on large electrical generators. 16.2 kWh is way more realistic.
- iso1337 8y agoAh good to know :)
- scarejunba 8y agoLet's just use the standard HN response here: your business model is not my problem. If you can't make that car, maybe cars shouldn't be permitted to exist.
- kodablah 8y agoAlso: That all the cars are expensive and do X to limit MPG are because of lazy manufacturers, nothing in the law says they have to do it that way.
- sjroot 8y agoPolicies like this make it glaringly obvious how little our government representatives around the world understand technology. It almost seems malicious, or at the very least anticompetitive. Who has access to such filtering systems already, or the resources to create one? GRPR regulations, while I absolutely realize their necessity, have made it difficult for me to expand my side business into the EU. This would just be another road block for innovation.
- baroffoos 8y agoI think they do understand exactly what is going on but they know that upload filters are faulty almost always in favor of people with money. Upload filters like ones on youtube are super biased towards taking down anything that looks like copyrighted content but they also take out a load of legitimate content. Its now up to the content owner to prove that their content was fair use or that its not even the same thing as the copyrighted content. In the end the big companies win and the individuals lose.
- Zak 8y ago> Upload filters like ones on youtube are super biased towards taking down anything that looks like copyrighted content Youtube's filter removed the audio track from a video of mine that was essentially silent to start with. There was certainly no music, TV, movie, etc... in the background.
- baroffoos 8y agoAnd how many $ did that cause Disney to lose? The system fails almost entirely siding with the orgs with money and power.
- giancarlostoro 8y agoThat is outright ridiculous. There should be a level of human intervention to determine okay this cant be a damn copyright issue this AI is coocoo.
- munchbunny 8y agoI tend to put GDPR and this Copyright bill in different camps. The copyright bill is insane. GDPR is... also a bit insane, but the hard parts shine light on what we probably should have been doing which are now hard to do because we've spent so long ignoring the ethical elephant in the room. GDPR is very far from perfect, but I think it's still directionally good. The copyright bill is just bad.
- Scaevolus 8y agoAt least GDPR is intended to help actual people, instead of increasing media-holders' stranglehold over their content.
- raverbashing 8y agoThis In a way, GDPR goes in the way of common sense, despite the legalese and FUD Copyright filter is censorship.
- kodablah 8y agoWhy does it matter what it is intended to do?
- AsyncAwait 8y agoBecause intent matters?
- kodablah 8y agoBut why? People are affected by the practical application. Even if you argue that intent matters once it reaches a court or regulator, that is long past the effect.
- AsyncAwait 8y agoBecause when a law is pushed by corporations, aimed at individuals, you're not likely to have much recourse, as an individual targeted by such a law. The hammer is going to drop on you and that's that. A law such as the GDPR, which is targeted at corporations primarily, is worded in such a way that no company is going to get massive fines if they seriously tried to comply, but for whatever reason failed to do so. They're going to get a dozen written warnings, guidance on complying etc. before they have to pay anything. Small businesses don't even need a data protection officer. Why this discrepancy between laws targeting individuals vs corporations? Because corporations control the flow of capital, control a large part of our politicians, can blackmail with outsourcing etc. None of this power is usually available to an individual.
- gnarbarian 8y agoYou guys might be interested in my startup. We are going to provide a copyright content registration service as well as a vetting service for 3rd parties to upload user posts which are then scanned against the registered content.
- amreact 8y agoWhat's the pricing scheme?
- btown 8y agoIs anyone doing this already? Content FIlter as a service? Presumably, everyone's going to need it now, and it makes no sense for every social network permitting video/audio uploads to build their own.
- nine_k 8y agoI suspect an entity like Google could offer such a service, based on its enormous reach, compute resources, and a similar system already implemented for YouTube. Played right, this could offset some lost ad revenue.
- Zealotux 8y agoAnd then suddenly, Google gets the right of life and death on almost any content on the internet. This is dystopian enough to be believable.
- atomicUpdate 8y agoAre you going to assume all of the liability when you get it wrong as well? What I don't understand yet is why any of the content holds would help you by providing lots of useful metadata. It seems much more lucrative for them to find your violations and sue for more than they could have gotten from subscriptions and/or ads. Plus, if the site goes out of business fighting/paying, that's one less competitor for their own streaming service.
- madhadron 8y agoAnother possibility: the EU is serious and wants the content farm to show ads business model to die.
- mooman219 8y agoWhat's you definition of a content farm? This bill essentially targets online online medium you can upload and share content on. This should be reworded to the EU is serious and wants to go back to Web 1.0
- fyfy18 8y agoMaybe that's not a bad thing. Most of the policies that have emerged from the EU and US recently would mostly affect the users of large platforms like YouTube and Facebook. If content creators were to host content on a website they own, they would have complete control (well mostly, the web host would be responsible too, but that worked pretty well before) over their content and what they can and can't share.
- timmy-turner 8y agoI agree, kind of. My projection for a future with stricter copyright laws is a rise of or at least stronger development of subcultures that produce their own content which slips under the filter radar because of non-mainstream memes and references. Also more poeople will be attracted by subcultures because the mainstream becomes more regulated and boring as nobody will be able to freely mix and advertise it. Though what would really happen is that the media industry will be able to exert more control over influencers and we get sth. like a TV 2.0.
- apexalpha 8y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7tA3NNKF0Q&t=1s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7tA3NNKF0Q&t=1s This does a very good job of explaining how small content creators are practically powerless now on the web in terms of protecting their content being stolen.
- cageface 8y ago
- HumanDrivenDev 8y agoThankfully you can fly to Zurich without stepping foot in the EU. And soon - London.
- umichguy 8y agoYou will find that the Swiss comply with most EU laws, including GDPR in most instances. And so is/has/will the UK. You really can't sit next to one of the largest trading blocs in the world and ignore it, unless you don't intend to do deal with them/ conduct business with them in any shape or form. Good luck in your quest to find, freedom or whatever else you're trying to find.
- berkmayer 8y agoPeople underestimate what a big pain in the ass internet has been for the EU bureaucrats in the last 5 years. They can't just remove users freedom in one hit, they need to do it slowly: cookie laws, gdpr, copyright. And of course they always put a little bit of "sense" in every rule. This is a classic tactic that has been used by State organizations for maybe thousands of years. You can find examples in ancient Rome, medieval cities, nazi germany, post-1917 Russia. The problem is that while modern democracies had a way to get rid of laws made using this tactic, the nations under EU's rule don't. The reason is that while you only need one good cycle of elections in one nation to get rid of a malicious national law, when it comes to getting rid of EU's rules you need multiple good cycles of elections in numerous nations, then you also need to convince a good amount of bureaucrats, and then you also have to remove the local interpretation of the EU directive. When people say that the EU is bad, it's not just because they want the vote from the stupid poors or they don't understand democracy. There are good reasons derived from political science and in favor of democracy to not accept the current way the EU impose its will on european nations. I hope this post was easy to understand.
- yjftsjthsd-h 8y agoHow do cookie laws remove user freedom?
- ryandrake 8y agoHow does GDPR remove user freedom?
- orangecat 8y agoIt forbids letting users exchange their information for access to a service. (Because you can't disallow access if they don't agree to data collection). You can say any such deal is inherently bad and users shouldn't have that option, and you might even be correct, but it's still a restriction of freedom.
- hannasanarion 8y ago> Because you can't disallow access if they don't agree to data collection Yes you can, if the data is necessary to provide the service. If the data is just generic spying for profit, completely unrelated to the service provided, then you shouldn't be asking for it in the first place.
- sonnyblarney 8y agoIt would be prudent for Wikipedia at this time to shut down service in the EU, and simply put up a banner indicating that they can't comply with XYZ regulation. Regular folks in all walks of life, and also the bureaucracy would immediately be effected. It would be a 'shock' to Europe and a powerful signal of how vital these resources are, and the real extent they are messing with them. Basically, everyone would become aware of the issue, in a very material way, and get a taste for he chaos this law might imply. Kind of like internet 'gilet jaune' as a crude metaphor.
- boznz 8y agoIf someone adds a wordpress plug-in for this I will install it tomorrow for a laugh :-)
- TeMPOraL 8y agoThere were blackout plugins around since SOPA/ACTA times. I had one on my old Wordpress blog for SOPA.
- alexis_fr 8y agoRegular folks would learn to use a proxy, like any good Chinese or Vietnamese citizen. We’ve proven average people can get pretty technical when the interests are aligned (think P2P).
- sonnyblarney 8y agoNot quite. a) 'Regular folk' have never heard of the term 'proxy' and would struggle quite a lot with it. Though I agree, after some time, they'd figure it out. b) The point is not to 'block Wikipedia' - it's to inform Europeans of the consequences of their legislation. If they even had to think to use a proxy to use a common service, the point would be made.
- ru999gol 8y agoI'm kind of surprised there hasn't been action like this done already, now its probably too late anyhow, EU is fucked. SOPA and PIPA had massive protests like that. Maybe Google for example isn't protesting because they know it helps them a lot actually, since they can expect to see no competition from the EU ever again.
- nameisu 8y agojust like every TOS and privacy terms agreements users are made to sign
- czardoz 8y agoWith the Great Firewall in China and Regressive laws in the EU, the US feels like the only place where users have the freedom to choose what their internet should be. Unfortunately, they have to deal with clicking on cookie notices, GDPR and now this.
- Trombone12 8y agoSo how are the click troughs on the amp stories doing in the land of the free?
- czardoz 8y agoThe difference is choice. You can choose not to click. No one's deciding whether something should be clickable for you, which is the point.
- tzfld 8y agoI would say neither the Great Wall nor the European laws will threaten the freedom of internet as much as the large US internet monopolies enforcing their behavior on the whole network.
- q12we34rt5 8y ago>I would say neither the Great Wall nor the European laws will threaten the freedom of internet as much as the large US internet monopolies enforcing their behavior on the whole network. And thanks to this copyright law, these companies that affect both of us equally today will be much worse for your tomorrow. The upstarts to challenge these so-called monopolies won't be hamstrung by weird EU laws in the US but they won't be able to even try to challenge the incumbents on European soil lest they run afoul. So a problem that everybody had is now much worse for you. And you take time out of your day to be smug. Edit: @krageon, Facebook is having much difficulty with the younger demographics and other services not owned by them are siphoning off their users. And Google is mortally afraid of voice search and assistants eating their lunch. They are not unassailable. But we really don't need their positions further cemented with misguided laws.
- vixen99 8y agoI wonder if the ardent pro-EU supporters on HN believe that the incompetence and deadening hand of the EU bureaucrats only extends to GRPR regulations.
- netcan 8y ago"rather than taking in the criticism and warning from knowledgeable experts, they're just adding in duct-taped "but this won't do x" for every complaint where people warn what the actual impact of the rules" This is pretty typical of committee-planned anything, corporate or bureaucratic. They take concerns and "address" them. As long as everything has been addressed...
- mrmattyboy 8y agoFeels like a this would be appropriate analogy that they might be able to understand how rediculous it is: * Police may or may not put cameras everywhere * Police MUST catch criminals as soon as they break the law, otherwise the police would be as accountable as the criminal. * Policy CANNOT ever talk to, interact with or accuse non-law breaking citizens
- amelius 8y agoI'm okay with this if the government provides me with a black box that will tell me if content is legal or not.
- AsyncAwait 8y agoThat'll however require that all data uploaded with your service will have to go via such black box, so you'll essentially perform mass surveillance for them.
- amelius 8y agoThat's why I said box, and not service ;)
- AsyncAwait 8y agoWell, ok, the definition of a "black box" pretty much dictates what it does internally is not known to you, so you can never be sure what data it does/doesn't send out.
- rdxm 8y ago<rant> To be sure, we do some pretty stupid shit in the US, for example a senior Senator having no fucking clue how FB makes money. But of late the EU is looking like it's taking the lead in peak dumpster-fire status. I can't imagine anyone with an IQ above freezing temperature and a heart beat buying into the Article 13 stuff, it's simply mind-blowing. Of course the porn filter stuff in the UK is a close second in stupidity. And let's not forget our Five-Eyes friends in Australia with the fantasy land crypto backdoor legislation. All of this leads one to the conclusion that what's needed in representative government is not term-limits, but age limits. The Septa and Octogenarians running things are not mentally capable of comprehending the world as it actually exists. People need to know when it's "time to go fishing"....</rant>
- apexalpha 8y agoSo many people here compare this to GDPR... I can recommend everyone to just read the EU website on GDPR: https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/data-protection/reform/rules-business-and-organisations_en https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/data-protection/refo... they write the official website in understandable language, in plain and simple English, not in weird lawyer talk. They have examples for companies as well. What to do, how to act etc.. Forming your opinion about these laws based on what the big American data companies tell you about it is about the same as asking tobacco companies what they think about health laws. It really isn't that hard to just take 30 minutes and read the website from the EU. Literally every comment here talking about 'stupid old lawmakers that don't understand the internet' has not even read the bloody document. I've seen Youtube comment sectioned that were better informed than HN about this.
- ferongr 8y agoIs the text on that website the legally binding or not? If not then it has no real value.
- apexalpha 8y ago"Legally binding" is the wrong phrasing but this can be used to prove what they call Legislative Intent: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legislative_intent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legislative_intent
- avmich 8y agoI doubt that if HN website text isn't legally binding it doesn't have real value.
- kodablah 8y agoI think people compare it to the GDPR based on amount of internet big-brother it imposes and other prior-restraint requirements on internet businesses. Telling someone to compare the wording is unrelated to the general concerns of oversight. The unfortunate part is that these contrarian opinions are assumed to have been formed from big American companies and people who haven't read the documents. You shouldn't so quickly assume ignorance.
- anfogoat 8y agoA small, idiotic part of me wishes this actually passed. Let's just get this over with as quickly as possible. Let the EU purge their bottomless need to "save" the world and write as many regulations as they have in them, or can be influenced into, and maybe eventually the deluge will touch enough citizens so it becomes clear that this much concentrated power was a mistake. It's not like this not passing will matter anyways because there'd be another attempt, and then another, and another, ad infinitum. The EU would clearly have passed this thing thousand times over already if it wasn't for the pushback from its subjects, but you only get the pushback on the first couple of attempts. Eventually, people's interest fade. They've got shit to do, can't police their representatives each waking moment, and foolishly assume that a representative body will honor the will of their far away constituents, should the same matter ever again be decided on. So really, as long as there's the EU and special interests that want this, it's pretty much a sure thing this will eventually be passed. With the GDPR, it seemed like the EU turned into a PR firm that mounted a massive union wide marketing campaign but there's no such effort this time. Is this the difference between EU's own pet projects and directives where they're just a clueless underwriter?