8 ms·

EU countries agree on copyright reforms, deal in sight next week

65 points by thg 8y ago

de9xvnh7 8y ago
>Italy, Poland, the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Luxembourg, Malta and Slovakia did not agree to the draft, however. Can they veto it, or do they have to take it whether they like it or not?
- akerro 8y ago
  Every EEA country will have to implement this directive on their own.
- marlonbrandy 8y ago
  Veto is available in limited number of cases otherwise unelected body can force member states to implement law such as this provided this will be accepted in European Parliament. People elected to parliament are not the brightest so this is likely going to pass with a bit of lobbying. I am so happy UK leaves this circus.
- iknowstuff 8y ago
  The European Council needs the approval of 16 out of 28 member states, representing at least 65% of the total EU population, to pass the legislation to the directly elected European Parliament, which will vote on it by a simple majority.
raverbashing 8y ago
No, they didn't "agree" it. A majority passed this stage, but the divisiveness is showing There is still a trilogue next week plus the vote if I understand correctly Not to mention other institutions have come against it, like the International Federation of Journalists https://www.ifj.org/media-centre/news/detail/category/authors-rights/article/copyright-directive-ifjefj-reject-the-romanian-compromise.html https://www.ifj.org/media-centre/news/detail/category/author... who discovered they are going to get the short end of the deal and Bertelsmann (though probably for bad reasons) One good comment I read somewhere: at some point, politicians are thinking that a proposal being hated by all sides means it's "fair"
- cabalamat 8y ago
  What is a "trilogue"?
  - digianarchist 8y ago
    European Commission, European parliament, member states.
  - benj111 8y ago
    trialogue /ˈtrʌɪəlɒɡ/ noun a dialogue or meeting between three people or groups.
  - AnssiH 8y ago
    An informal meeting between negotiators from the European Commission (executive/cabinet), the Council of the European Union (representatives of member governments), and the European Parliament. The target as I understand it is to reach a preliminary agreement that is acceptable enough to be able to pass the following formal procedures. http://www.europarl.europa.eu/ordinary-legislative-procedure/en/interinstitutional-negotiations.html http://www.europarl.europa.eu/ordinary-legislative-procedure...
srkmno 8y ago
The EU has no internet "champions" so they have few reservations about burning the whole thing to the ground, and that is the lens through which all their internet regulations should be seen.
- polskibus 8y ago
  Spotify maybe?
  - mrweasel 8y ago
    Users don't directly upload content to Spotify, it all goes via the publishers and rights holders, so I wouldn't think the new rules would affect Spotify at all.
    - mimsee 8y ago
      It would somewhat apply. Profile pics of users and uploaded pictures for playlist coverart.
- mindslight 8y ago
  That is at least more straightforward than the US which has a similar lack of Internet champions, but plenty of Web champions. Silicon Valley essentially only cares about the Internet insofar as it's the communications conduit over which it delivers proprietary services. We're essentially arguing sides in a commercial dispute, because we've been led to think that using Google is akin to running software under our control.
  - asdfasgasdgasdg 8y ago
    > because we've been led to think that using Google is akin to running software under our control I would imagine most people arguing about this have no illusions about how under their control Google is. They're arguing the same reason people argue about other policy questions: because it will affect them, either positively or negatively, and because it's fun. > lack of Internet champions, but plenty of Web champions Pedantry. A web champion is a subtype of an internet champion. The US has plenty of both.
alkonaut 8y ago
Search engines could just wipe any publisher that insists on being paid from the results. When publishers realize people no longer find their physical newspaper subscription site, I think they would soon reconsider supporting this legislation. And if I was a search engine I’d remove the summary from the result but link the the title to a cached snapshot such as internet archive whenever possible. I doubt the reform will be a reality in its current form however.
- asdfasgasdgasdg 8y ago
  That is exactly what happened the last few times this was tried. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/link-tax-experiences-germany-spain-article-11-ec-proposal-tani/ https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/link-tax-experiences-germany-... Germany's experience: Google did not display news snippets from publishers unless they waived their right to be paid. They all eventually capitulated. Spain's experience: the Spanish version of this law did not have an opt out provision. Thus, Google News simply closed shop in Spain. For some reason, the regulators do not believe Google when Google says they do not make money on Google News. But it is true. Google News is a "halo" property. Like Google Keep, it isn't itself a money-making endeavor. Google pays for it on the theory that providing that service will make the overall suite of services more compelling to users. But it's not worth much to Google, and you can see this by the paucity of Google's investment in the property compared to almost anything else. Maybe the theory is that Google will stay in business and pay because they're worried about competitors filling the gap? But if this service is not economically viable for Google to run, how could it possibly be more viable for a competitor to step into this space? The outcome of a link tax will simply be that Google News ceases to operate in the EU, is my bet. That's a fine result for some people, although I doubt it's the intended one. But I guess that the EU politicians and bureaucrats will delude themselves into believing some other outcome is possible until the very moment it happens. Thing that really makes this puzzling is Google News barely shows snippets any more. At least when I load the page, it only shows article titles. The publishers and regulators are such fools on this topic. They think people need the news. The opposite is the truth. The news needs viewers. If it's harder to find interesting news, people spend their time on something else.
  - 8y ago
dmitriid 8y ago
Once again, a much better take on what's going on here: https://juliareda.eu/2019/02/council-worst-article-13/ https://juliareda.eu/2019/02/council-worst-article-13/ (And previously, https://juliareda.eu/2019/02/article-13-worse/ https://juliareda.eu/2019/02/article-13-worse/)
Mirioron 8y ago
This one "reform" made me go from being pro-EU to anti-EU. And if this passes then I don't think there's anything the EU could ever do that would change my mind on the EU project.
- wazoox 8y ago
  If only this was the worst problem with EU. The worst problem is the very existence of the Euro in the absence of a financial policy -- and Germany explicitly forbade this from happening. Therefore the Euro will explode sooner or later. For reminders, the situation is so bad that France recalled its ambassador in Italy friday. Something that AFAIK didn't happen since WWII. EU isn't peace; obviously, it's tearing countries apart. In a few years, Brexit will be seen as the most prescient, great political act of the decade.
  - riffraff 8y ago
    The italy-france kerfuffle can be explained by the current Italian government needing an enemy for electoral reasons and has nothing to do with any specific EU policy. The France government ran with the ball for the exact same reason.
  - Phil_Latio 8y ago
    Unfortunately the macroeconomic aspect is a total taboo in Germany. Even "solidary" leftists claim we profit so much from the Euro... The ones on the very left get it, but they barely talk about it. Germany will never give up on the cheated export surplus until the whole thing goes bust. Hell, barely anyone gets it anyway. Germany is certainly not alone to blame. How can the competitiveness of Germany increase for more than a decade without any other EU country caring? In the past they devalued their currencies, so why didn't they act now? Also Germany violates the 6% export surplus limit, no one cares!
    - repolfx 8y ago
      Germany (and France!) violating the same budget rules it insists everyone else follows is indeed a damning indictment of what the EU truly is. But Germany isn't a winner from the Eurozone. I don't understand why everyone keeps thinking that. Germans are suffering under it and allow themselves to suffer because they see unifying Europe as a form of penance for World War 2. Think about it - German "competitiveness" is just another way to say that they work harder than everyone else. They save money that the ECB then gives to foreign governments through QE. They make things and send them to other parts of Europe. In return they get what are effectively IOUs from the other countries - TARGET2 balances that are supposed to imply a transfer of "real" euros (i.e. paper money) one day, but which are so huge those transfers will never actually happen. There are no realistic scenarios in which an equally sized flow of goods or services ever comes back to the poor Germans in return for their efforts: the only plausible outcome is that either the internal imbalances are written off for good by the EU authorities, or that other countries exit the Eurozone and the imbalances are written off amidst acrimony and bitterness. I cannot see any realistic path to Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, eastern Europe etc ever becoming as productive as the Germans are, let alone more productive as would be required to restore balance to the system, if only because the Germans never seem to give themselves pay rises. In the end Germany will be the biggest loser of the EU project, simply because they put the most into it to start with.
thecleaner 8y ago
Well Donald Trump wants more immigrants from EU and most tech companies are always hiring. So I guess on to the US because no more internet companies will be created here for sure.
- skookumchuck 8y ago
  There's a good reason all the major internet companies were founded and grew in the US.
  - thecleaner 8y ago
    Yeah. The reason is that its a large country with a homogeneous population (language-wise). But as long as they have a EU leaning immigration policy I don't care what story of entrepreneurship people want to sell. Edit: In response to one of the comments, which points out that US is not homogeneous in the full sense of the word.
    - skookumchuck 8y ago
      > homogeneous population Note that more than half of American's top tech companies were founded by immigrants or the children of immigrants. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/30/us-tech-companies-founded-by-immigrants-or-the-children-of-immigrants.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/30/us-tech-companies-founded-by...
jotm 8y ago
> Article 11 of the proposal, which would force companies like Google and Microsoft Corp to pay publishers for displaying news snippets Who are these retards? Do they not realize that's a valid marketing strategy for online business? > Article 13, which requires online platforms such as YouTube and Instagram to install filters to prevent users from uploading copyrighted materials Burn in Hell, fucking cunts.
- thecleaner 8y ago
  Ah screw this. I think for the tech industry this tips the balance in favor of UK. I hope some Europeans come back so there's space for the tech people here.
  - peach 8y ago
    Far from it. UK politicians have an even more narrow and outdated view about the internet. With the difference that they have nobody arguing against it.
deogeo 8y ago
'Reform' always means expanding copyright restrictions even further...
skookumchuck 8y ago
> will protect Europe’s cultural heritage What does that mean? A free and open internet means history will be erased or something?
Isinlor 8y ago
I think they will just make Google into a true monopoly. By true monopoly I mean a monopoly where barrier to entry is so high that there is not only no competition, but it is impossible to enter the market. For example, I don't think anyone will care to sign contracts with DuckDuckGo or any other small competitor. This means that they will not be able to compete with Google in EU market. Currently we have also Bing. But Bing AFAIK is bleeding money from Microsoft already, so they may end up just cutting it off from the EU. So, Google will end with a total, true monopoly. Funny thing is that even now everyone want to be on Google. Literally all the money that Google is making is because people want to be visible on Google. Media companies will sign anything to get there. If Google offers them "we will pay you nothing", they will have to agree. If EU forces media to ask for payment (like Spain did) they will ask for 0.01 euro for a year of being indexed by Google. If EU forces media to ask for some "reasonable" price, then Google will refuse with knowledge that no one else will be able to afford that anyway. Similar process will happen with media. Google will not bother to sign deals with small media companies. The biggest media companies will benefit. Actually, this is may be the actual reason behind this whole shit show. Cutting of small media competition. But if I had to bet, I would bet on media ad politicians being just stupid.
IdontRememberIt 8y ago
It would be interesting to see a list of pro-lobbyist. Who is pushing for this to pass? (not speaking about a list industries, but actual company names, association names, etc.)
IdontRememberIt 8y ago
We are outside Europe. Actually, I see this as an opportunity to buy assets of countless condamned European small and medium companies/start ups. Sad day for the entrepreneurs in EU.

65 points by thg 8y ago

>Italy, Poland, the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Luxembourg, Malta and Slovakia did not agree to the draft, however. Can they veto it, or do they have to take it whether they like it or not?

akerro 8y ago
Every EEA country will have to implement this directive on their own.
marlonbrandy 8y ago
Veto is available in limited number of cases otherwise unelected body can force member states to implement law such as this provided this will be accepted in European Parliament. People elected to parliament are not the brightest so this is likely going to pass with a bit of lobbying. I am so happy UK leaves this circus.
iknowstuff 8y ago
The European Council needs the approval of 16 out of 28 member states, representing at least 65% of the total EU population, to pass the legislation to the directly elected European Parliament, which will vote on it by a simple majority.

raverbashing 8y ago

No, they didn't "agree" it. A majority passed this stage, but the divisiveness is showing There is still a trilogue next week plus the vote if I understand correctly Not to mention other institutions have come against it, like the International Federation of Journalists https://www.ifj.org/media-centre/news/detail/category/authors-rights/article/copyright-directive-ifjefj-reject-the-romanian-compromise.html https://www.ifj.org/media-centre/news/detail/category/author... who discovered they are going to get the short end of the deal and Bertelsmann (though probably for bad reasons) One good comment I read somewhere: at some point, politicians are thinking that a proposal being hated by all sides means it's "fair"

cabalamat 8y ago
What is a "trilogue"?
- digianarchist 8y ago
  European Commission, European parliament, member states.
- benj111 8y ago
  trialogue /ˈtrʌɪəlɒɡ/ noun a dialogue or meeting between three people or groups.
- AnssiH 8y ago
  An informal meeting between negotiators from the European Commission (executive/cabinet), the Council of the European Union (representatives of member governments), and the European Parliament. The target as I understand it is to reach a preliminary agreement that is acceptable enough to be able to pass the following formal procedures. http://www.europarl.europa.eu/ordinary-legislative-procedure/en/interinstitutional-negotiations.html http://www.europarl.europa.eu/ordinary-legislative-procedure...

srkmno 8y ago

The EU has no internet "champions" so they have few reservations about burning the whole thing to the ground, and that is the lens through which all their internet regulations should be seen.

polskibus 8y ago
Spotify maybe?
- mrweasel 8y ago
  Users don't directly upload content to Spotify, it all goes via the publishers and rights holders, so I wouldn't think the new rules would affect Spotify at all.
  - mimsee 8y ago
    It would somewhat apply. Profile pics of users and uploaded pictures for playlist coverart.
mindslight 8y ago
That is at least more straightforward than the US which has a similar lack of Internet champions, but plenty of Web champions. Silicon Valley essentially only cares about the Internet insofar as it's the communications conduit over which it delivers proprietary services. We're essentially arguing sides in a commercial dispute, because we've been led to think that using Google is akin to running software under our control.
- asdfasgasdgasdg 8y ago
  > because we've been led to think that using Google is akin to running software under our control I would imagine most people arguing about this have no illusions about how under their control Google is. They're arguing the same reason people argue about other policy questions: because it will affect them, either positively or negatively, and because it's fun. > lack of Internet champions, but plenty of Web champions Pedantry. A web champion is a subtype of an internet champion. The US has plenty of both.

alkonaut 8y ago

Search engines could just wipe any publisher that insists on being paid from the results. When publishers realize people no longer find their physical newspaper subscription site, I think they would soon reconsider supporting this legislation. And if I was a search engine I’d remove the summary from the result but link the the title to a cached snapshot such as internet archive whenever possible. I doubt the reform will be a reality in its current form however.

asdfasgasdgasdg 8y ago
That is exactly what happened the last few times this was tried. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/link-tax-experiences-germany-spain-article-11-ec-proposal-tani/ https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/link-tax-experiences-germany-... Germany's experience: Google did not display news snippets from publishers unless they waived their right to be paid. They all eventually capitulated. Spain's experience: the Spanish version of this law did not have an opt out provision. Thus, Google News simply closed shop in Spain. For some reason, the regulators do not believe Google when Google says they do not make money on Google News. But it is true. Google News is a "halo" property. Like Google Keep, it isn't itself a money-making endeavor. Google pays for it on the theory that providing that service will make the overall suite of services more compelling to users. But it's not worth much to Google, and you can see this by the paucity of Google's investment in the property compared to almost anything else. Maybe the theory is that Google will stay in business and pay because they're worried about competitors filling the gap? But if this service is not economically viable for Google to run, how could it possibly be more viable for a competitor to step into this space? The outcome of a link tax will simply be that Google News ceases to operate in the EU, is my bet. That's a fine result for some people, although I doubt it's the intended one. But I guess that the EU politicians and bureaucrats will delude themselves into believing some other outcome is possible until the very moment it happens. Thing that really makes this puzzling is Google News barely shows snippets any more. At least when I load the page, it only shows article titles. The publishers and regulators are such fools on this topic. They think people need the news. The opposite is the truth. The news needs viewers. If it's harder to find interesting news, people spend their time on something else.
- 8y ago

dmitriid 8y ago

Once again, a much better take on what's going on here: https://juliareda.eu/2019/02/council-worst-article-13/ https://juliareda.eu/2019/02/council-worst-article-13/ (And previously, https://juliareda.eu/2019/02/article-13-worse/ https://juliareda.eu/2019/02/article-13-worse/)

Mirioron 8y ago

This one "reform" made me go from being pro-EU to anti-EU. And if this passes then I don't think there's anything the EU could ever do that would change my mind on the EU project.

wazoox 8y ago
If only this was the worst problem with EU. The worst problem is the very existence of the Euro in the absence of a financial policy -- and Germany explicitly forbade this from happening. Therefore the Euro will explode sooner or later. For reminders, the situation is so bad that France recalled its ambassador in Italy friday. Something that AFAIK didn't happen since WWII. EU isn't peace; obviously, it's tearing countries apart. In a few years, Brexit will be seen as the most prescient, great political act of the decade.
- riffraff 8y ago
  The italy-france kerfuffle can be explained by the current Italian government needing an enemy for electoral reasons and has nothing to do with any specific EU policy. The France government ran with the ball for the exact same reason.
- Phil_Latio 8y ago
  Unfortunately the macroeconomic aspect is a total taboo in Germany. Even "solidary" leftists claim we profit so much from the Euro... The ones on the very left get it, but they barely talk about it. Germany will never give up on the cheated export surplus until the whole thing goes bust. Hell, barely anyone gets it anyway. Germany is certainly not alone to blame. How can the competitiveness of Germany increase for more than a decade without any other EU country caring? In the past they devalued their currencies, so why didn't they act now? Also Germany violates the 6% export surplus limit, no one cares!
  - repolfx 8y ago
    Germany (and France!) violating the same budget rules it insists everyone else follows is indeed a damning indictment of what the EU truly is. But Germany isn't a winner from the Eurozone. I don't understand why everyone keeps thinking that. Germans are suffering under it and allow themselves to suffer because they see unifying Europe as a form of penance for World War 2. Think about it - German "competitiveness" is just another way to say that they work harder than everyone else. They save money that the ECB then gives to foreign governments through QE. They make things and send them to other parts of Europe. In return they get what are effectively IOUs from the other countries - TARGET2 balances that are supposed to imply a transfer of "real" euros (i.e. paper money) one day, but which are so huge those transfers will never actually happen. There are no realistic scenarios in which an equally sized flow of goods or services ever comes back to the poor Germans in return for their efforts: the only plausible outcome is that either the internal imbalances are written off for good by the EU authorities, or that other countries exit the Eurozone and the imbalances are written off amidst acrimony and bitterness. I cannot see any realistic path to Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, eastern Europe etc ever becoming as productive as the Germans are, let alone more productive as would be required to restore balance to the system, if only because the Germans never seem to give themselves pay rises. In the end Germany will be the biggest loser of the EU project, simply because they put the most into it to start with.

thecleaner 8y ago

Well Donald Trump wants more immigrants from EU and most tech companies are always hiring. So I guess on to the US because no more internet companies will be created here for sure.

skookumchuck 8y ago
There's a good reason all the major internet companies were founded and grew in the US.
- thecleaner 8y ago
  Yeah. The reason is that its a large country with a homogeneous population (language-wise). But as long as they have a EU leaning immigration policy I don't care what story of entrepreneurship people want to sell. Edit: In response to one of the comments, which points out that US is not homogeneous in the full sense of the word.
  - skookumchuck 8y ago
    > homogeneous population Note that more than half of American's top tech companies were founded by immigrants or the children of immigrants. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/30/us-tech-companies-founded-by-immigrants-or-the-children-of-immigrants.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/30/us-tech-companies-founded-by...

jotm 8y ago

> Article 11 of the proposal, which would force companies like Google and Microsoft Corp to pay publishers for displaying news snippets Who are these retards? Do they not realize that's a valid marketing strategy for online business? > Article 13, which requires online platforms such as YouTube and Instagram to install filters to prevent users from uploading copyrighted materials Burn in Hell, fucking cunts.

thecleaner 8y ago
Ah screw this. I think for the tech industry this tips the balance in favor of UK. I hope some Europeans come back so there's space for the tech people here.
- peach 8y ago
  Far from it. UK politicians have an even more narrow and outdated view about the internet. With the difference that they have nobody arguing against it.

deogeo 8y ago

'Reform' always means expanding copyright restrictions even further...

skookumchuck 8y ago

> will protect Europe’s cultural heritage What does that mean? A free and open internet means history will be erased or something?

Isinlor 8y ago

I think they will just make Google into a true monopoly. By true monopoly I mean a monopoly where barrier to entry is so high that there is not only no competition, but it is impossible to enter the market. For example, I don't think anyone will care to sign contracts with DuckDuckGo or any other small competitor. This means that they will not be able to compete with Google in EU market. Currently we have also Bing. But Bing AFAIK is bleeding money from Microsoft already, so they may end up just cutting it off from the EU. So, Google will end with a total, true monopoly. Funny thing is that even now everyone want to be on Google. Literally all the money that Google is making is because people want to be visible on Google. Media companies will sign anything to get there. If Google offers them "we will pay you nothing", they will have to agree. If EU forces media to ask for payment (like Spain did) they will ask for 0.01 euro for a year of being indexed by Google. If EU forces media to ask for some "reasonable" price, then Google will refuse with knowledge that no one else will be able to afford that anyway. Similar process will happen with media. Google will not bother to sign deals with small media companies. The biggest media companies will benefit. Actually, this is may be the actual reason behind this whole shit show. Cutting of small media competition. But if I had to bet, I would bet on media ad politicians being just stupid.

IdontRememberIt 8y ago

It would be interesting to see a list of pro-lobbyist. Who is pushing for this to pass? (not speaking about a list industries, but actual company names, association names, etc.)

IdontRememberIt 8y ago

We are outside Europe. Actually, I see this as an opportunity to buy assets of countless condamned European small and medium companies/start ups. Sad day for the entrepreneurs in EU.