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The text of Article 13 and the EU Copyright Directive has been finalised

354 points by TimWolla 8y ago

yummybear 8y ago
This is absolutely horrible and MEPs voting for this do not have EU citizens best interests in mind.
- beezischillin 8y ago
  Politicians rarely do.
tick_tock_tick 8y ago
The EFF released a short tweet with additional information https://twitter.com/EFF/status/1095775278683512832 https://twitter.com/EFF/status/1095775278683512832 If this really applies to everything it's going to drastically change the internet.
- DelightOne 8y ago
  Or split it.
  - anticensor 8y ago
    Russian internet has already split itself off global one.
    - cronix 8y ago
      Sure, it's a logical move, just like having their own GPS system. It's fairly established the NSA has everything tapped and collecting/storing all traffic. The majority of the internet traffic still flows through the US at some point as well. Why would any nation-state logically settle for that, especially adversarial ones?
      - wil421 8y ago
        Russia isn’t doing this just because they believe an agency is watching them. It’s more about censorship and controlling the Russian people than spying. Same with China.
      - AnabeeKnox 8y ago
        "It's fairly established the NSA has everything tapped and collecting/storing all traffic." That's nonsense though. Even a basic understanding of internet technology would show that such a thing is impossible.
        cronix 8y ago
        Hmm. People who built it, or in charge of building it, seem to disagree. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3owk7vEEOvs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3owk7vEEOvs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjwW1JlGG4o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjwW1JlGG4o And I'm sure you've read Snowdens revelations, and lack of denials from the intelligence community, and Binney and Drake, among others, confirming, and what the gov't did to try to silence them.
        strictnein 8y ago
        No NSA program has ever been "collecting/storing all traffic". Please, I understand you think there is one, but just start to think about the bandwidth and storage needed to do something like that. You're talking about Zettabytes worth of data each and every day. Just insane levels of data. Binney and Drake were upset because their Thinthread project was passed over and a much more advanced and expensive project was chosen (that later failed miserably). Hayden directly refutes them in his book "Playing to the Edge". I'm sure you won't take his statements as anything, but you said there was a "lack of denial" from the intelligence community, and his book is full of them.
        pmlnr 8y ago
        Do some math, nobody can build storage fast enough to storage everything flowing through the internet.
      - 8y ago
    - andrepd 8y ago
      Chinese internet would like a word with you.
- dingaling 8y ago
  And here's a simple workaround: only post content that you've created.
Someone1234 8y ago
Google should just cut off YouTube and other impacted platforms for 24 hours in the EU with a message telling them that the service is against Article 13. It might sound absurd but it would be effective, and this is the real danger with article 13.
- anticensor 8y ago
  Or replace all "infringing" videos by a public information clip on why lifelong copyright is harmful for the same period.
- skrause 8y ago
  Why? Google already fulfills Article 13 with Content ID and now every other company that doesn't have such a system will have to buy it from Google.
  - kevin_b_er 8y ago
    Except the notion of safe harbor will die in the EU. Google is then directly liable for any content it hosts all the time. User content is basically impossible in the EU after this.
    - elliekelly 8y ago
      There is still a safe harbor - but it's insanely onerous. From Article 13(4) > If no authorisation is granted, online content sharing service providers shall be liable for unauthorised acts of communication to the public of copyright protected works and other subject matter, unless the service providers demonstrate that they have: > (a) made best efforts to obtain an authorization, This would require YouTube to enter into license agreements with artists the same way Spotify does. > and (b) made, in accordance with high industry standards of professional diligence, best efforts to ensure the unavailability of specific works and other subject matter for which the rightholders have provided the service providers with the relevant and necessary information, This means that if Sony Pictures, for example, provided YouTube with digital copies of all of their TV shows & movies that they own YouTube would need to make their best effort to catch violations of Sony Pictures' copyrights via the "upload filter." > and in any event (c) acted expeditiously, upon receiving a sufficiently substantiated notice by the rightholders, to remove from their websites or to disable access to the notified works and subject matters, and made best efforts to prevent their future uploads in accordance with paragraph (b). That means once YouTube receives one takedown notice for content they're expected to include that content in their "upload filter" going forward.
rolph 8y ago
of course we are not in EU but how will this effect our ability to even use HN at all if this mentality spreads here. would it be an offence to post articles from EU resources? {adde} russia is apparently experimenting with some sort of xenophobia net, so if perfected could we even see internet partitioning based on nation of origin and destination, perhaps even internet passport and visa type of procedures complete with excise and inspection procedures to simply use the internet across international borders.
- anticensor 8y ago
  Largest segments expected: CERN-ARPA (Americas+Switzerland), BEREC-RIPE (most of Europe+most of Africa), RKnZ (EEU+OIC), OCCA (PRC). North Korea, South Korea and India will determine the future of internet by choosing which segment to join.
jupp0r 8y ago
Given the implications, wouldn't be a SOPA-like website blackout be in order?
- pmlnr 8y ago
  If only. So many things changed online since the SOPA times; people don't care. If they still have Instagram and Facebook, it's enough for them...
  - jupp0r 8y ago
    I’m pretty sure Favebook doesn’t like the new laws...
buboard 8y ago
I 'm curious to see the "industry" that will be set up to police this directive. The gdpr has already created an industry of 'experts', consultants and lawyers who all claim to know the One True Law (though they don't agree), a bunch of agencies etc.
- Matticus_Rex 8y ago
  I and most of the privacy professionals I know (with a couple of exceptions) are pretty open about the fact that we can't be sure what a lot of the GDPR means until there's more firm guidance.
pagutierrezn 8y ago
This Directive will make p2p greater than ever
- rolph 8y ago
  im thinking p2p will be the next major target as well.
  - feanaro 8y ago
    Then tor and i2p.
  - int_19h 8y ago
    P2P is a much more difficult target, though.
- pmlnr 8y ago
  "Napster is the future of the internet. It will come back." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19034200 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19034200
surak 8y ago
This is the best thing for innovation on the decentralized web, the focus on websites in the legal text will force platforms down on the protocol level.
- jopsen 8y ago
  You can be fairly sure it'll be interpreted to apply to apps as well.. Maybe if you make a non-networked service. Good luck with that :)
  - _up 8y ago
    What about open source chat apps if the developer can't enforce the use of copyright filters he would be liable too?
    - rolph 8y ago
      stretching out a bit here i think a chat app, that destroys "offending" content, such as [https://pastebin.com/ https://pastebin.com/] could be safe, but if that app allows copy pasta that might be a problem, lets say song lyrics, or movie subtitles, or leaked manuscript, or moviescripts.
    - jopsen 8y ago
      Well, FTA, you have to grow your service big first.. If you grow it big and make no money then you're likely have other problems :) If you grow it big and make money, then you can afford to do a little filtering. disclaimer: I'm in no way fan of this stuff.. just saying it might be as pointless as the cookie-law.
- rolph 8y ago
  there is enough FUD regarding "deep" and "dark" web and the contagious mentality that, decentralized networking cant possibly be any thing but criminal [if your hiding then you must be doing something wrong] I think it would only be a matter of time until peer to peer networking [read as deepnets and darknets] will be somehow subject to egregious legislation. Look at what has happened with torrent networks over the recent years. A lot of people think torrent is only for pirating and nothing else.
DuskStar 8y ago
I'm liking the "Ban them all and let God sort them out" approach more and more now. It looks like the service restrictions and potential penalties for serving EU customers are going to continue to increase, and we might as well get off at the beginning.
- rolph 8y ago
  im wondering how well that would demonstrate the point. It would definitely be noticed if EU was cut off from US based services before this directive even sees legislative review and voting.
ur-whale 8y ago
It's actually a very good thing. It will create a huge opportunity for new decentralized (IPFS-like) tech. that will run circles around this dumb regulation and force incumbent established players (YouTube and the like) to evolve or die.
- phoe-krk 8y ago
  Until the copyright people, after noticing that the profits they expected aren't up to their expectations, start digging deeper in search for gold that isn't there.
  - Asooka 8y ago
    From what I can see, piracy doesn't hurt profits and as long as it's available only to technologically literate people, it will pretty much fly under the radar.
    - phoe-krk 8y ago
      Of course it doesn't hurt profits. It doesn't prevent copyright lobbyists from saying that it does, though.
- buboard 8y ago
  and then a huge incentive to block ipfs, like they did with torrents... the decentralization should happen anyway, as soon as the creators realize that none of the content hosts have their interests in mind first
- pmlnr 8y ago
  I want to believe. I want to share this kind of optimism. The harsh reality is that people will f off and less content will be produced. That's it.
shmerl 8y ago
They should just drop this garbage for good already, instead of bringing this horrible zombie back.
- pojzon 8y ago
  There is enough interest to lobby it through. And politicians are braindead sellouts..
  - shmerl 8y ago
    There should be more protests like against ACTA then. I haven't seen such now.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
josteink 8y ago
I can spend days and days trying to find a legal copy of an album I can purchase in reasonable quality (read FLAC) so I don’t have to pirate (done in less than a minute). And I often fail, because the content is strictly geo-fenced and incredibly complexly licensed and as a EU-citizen I cannot have those ones and zeros. The system is madness and sometimes impossible to navigate, even for strongly dedicated humans. And here the EU expects that any website which has user uploads should make a “best effort” effort to try to automatically license all the copyright of anything ever. How the fuck can they claim to mean this seriously? No really. Just how do they plan for this to work?
- ApolloFortyNine 8y ago
  I feel with you on FLACS. Beatport makes you pay 75c extra for the FLAC (why???) and doesn't even let you download the song again after 24 hours. It's nice the FLAC is available, but seriously 24 hours availability in 2019? It's very hard to give them money for that.
  - FridgeSeal 8y ago
    Aahh, Beatport. I once lost my huge chunk of my music library due to a hard drive corruption (and not up to date backups, whoops). No big deal, I’ll just re-download all my purchases (in the order of hundreds of dollars): nope. Emailed them and asked, they said no, pleaded the case, mentioned how much I’d spent and they re-enabled them all with a snarky note about always keeping backups. I try to buy as much as I can from Bandcamp instead these days.
- sigfubar 8y ago
  I pay for Spotify. I pay for concert tickets. As far as I'm concerned, this fulfills my obligation to support my favorite artists. Digitally downloaded music is thus already inherently "paid for" and can be downloaded from any source, even if some random entity considers this source "against the rules". No moral hazard, no hassle. Just music.
  - josteink 8y ago
CamTin 8y ago
The possible upside of this may be the decentralization of massive content silos like youtube or facebook, toward federated or self-hosting platforms where the administrators of individual "sites" can better know their users. I can see the "fediverse" (the main public ActivityPub network, notably including most Mastodon users) benefiting from this, for example, since a club/gaming clan/media company could run their own Mastodon instance and be responsible for the things posted using it.
beezischillin 8y ago
> What’s important to note, though: It’s not “the EU” in general that is to blame – but those who put special interests above fundamental rights who currently hold considerable power. You can change that at the polls! The anti-EU far right is trying to seize this opportunity to promote their narrow-minded nationalist agenda The article describes how German and French financial interests pushed through the biggest BS of a law package to hit internet regulation this side of the Atlantic, despite every objection and protest, even against sensible opinions from their camp, behind closed doors, led mostly by representatives of German political power in the driving seat who were unclear on the details of what they're pushing, despite pushing it and defaming critics. After bungling so many things in relation to policy in the recent few years, I simply do not trust these countries to represent anything that's good for me or my own interests as an EU citizen. Call me crazy, but this does sound like what the "anti-EU far right" takes issue with, more specifically the French-German political control of Europe, beholden to their financial interests. Now I'm not advocating for joining their side, against the EU, by any measure, but it seems to me that people should heed this warning and draw some sensible conclusions in time --- before they find themselves between two terrible extremes and no reasonable way out.
- buboard 8y ago
  the problem is that the EU doesnt have any internet unicorns being affected by this. So they don't counter-lobby. So whatever small scale online business exists in eu, is screwed.
  - beezischillin 8y ago
    You're right. It was relatively easy for the US to create those companies as it in itself is a huge market with lots of people who, at least, theoretically share a large cultural identity. We don't really have it here so often Germans market to Germans, the people of the UK to the UK, etc. I'm very concerned, especially as the future is involved, that my personal freedoms necessitate billion dollar corporations to lobby in my (and their) best interests. I don't know why I get informed on the issues that I care about and affect me and then go and do my civic duty and vote according to my conscience, then. And that's scary. The US is incredibly lucky to have been founded on an idea that the government is for the people and not vice versa (even though, I will readily admit that the US itself is kind of an imperfect example at the moment, it's the best I see).
I_am_tiberius 8y ago
This is the destruction of the internet. I don't think there's anything other than lobbying from the European media industry behind this directive. At least we can assume decentralized systems will get more attention in the future.
kodablah 8y ago
> What’s important to note, though: It’s not “the EU” in general that is to blame – but those who put special interests above fundamental rights who currently hold considerable power. Who's to blame for the general environment of encroaching information "protections" and general government oversight of the internet? You can't out of one side of your mouth decry everyone warning about slippery slopes as though they are nonexistent and then on the other side blame others for taking advantage of said slope you pretended didn't exist. The slope never had to be there. When you can't take the bad with the good of an open internet, this is what you get. Sadly with slippery slopes in either direction (whether or not people acknowledge their existence), hovering in the middle becomes unsustainable. Freedom has consequences, regulations have consequences, many times they are mutually exclusive, so pick and accept said consequences. Only liking the good parts and not liking the bad parts, while convenient to shirk responsibility, ignores that they are often inseparable.
HyperTalk2 8y ago
I would happily assist in the destruction of any company that bends the knee to these unelected parasites by complying with their "laws." Helping to perpetuate the illusion that they deserve or possess any legitimate power makes you the enemy.
mehh 8y ago
The Hargreaves Report from the UK Gov seemed a more sensible approach to copyright. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/32563/ipreview-finalreport.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...
- Silhouette 8y ago
  And the UK government tried to introduce a more reasonable exception along those lines, allowing private copying activities such as format shifting... which was then sunk by a judicial review, based on limits imposed under EU law and the UK government's lack of willingness to fight that battle. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/quashing-of-private-copying-exception https://www.gov.uk/government/news/quashing-of-private-copyi...
blfr 8y ago
Do I understand correctly that leave.eu will be available shortly? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19099150 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19099150
xorand 8y ago
I think the discussion is a bit myopic. Yes, this is horrible news for the new aggregators of content. What about the creators of content? What if authors hodl their copyright (or else be filtered)[1] Who keeps google, facebook and others to share the original content instead of hiding it in favor of the same or worse content taken from big media or publishers? I don't stand by this extremely stupid legislation but before it the net turned into TV. [1] https://chorasimilarity.wordpress.com/2018/09/12/authors-hodl-your-copyright-or-be-filtered/ https://chorasimilarity.wordpress.com/2018/09/12/authors-hod...
amsvie 8y ago
Link to the video of the press conference after the bill passed the EU-parlament in July 2018: https://multimedia.europarl.europa.eu/en/press-conference-on-the-copyright-directive-by-axel-voss-epp-de-rapporteur-virginie-rozire-sd-fr-pervenche-bers-sd-fr-jean-marie-cavada-alde-fr-helga-trpel-greensefa-de_I158421_01-V_rv https://multimedia.europarl.europa.eu/en/press-conference-on... Somehow, this is doublespeak, somehow it make sense too..
- amsvie 8y ago
  Also, I wondered, maybe it could lead to an friendly facebook alternative from Europe.. That would be grand.
- animuj 8y ago
  Ok, watched it with open mind . My impressions: * Axel saying that Wikipedia shouldn't be against it because they added exception for them. He is missing the point so confidently... * Missing all points raised by people not connected with Google/Amazon/Facebook. Nobody said it will be copyright issue for uploader. Everybody is saying that service owners will be more prone to removing content, just to be safe, in effect limiting access to information sharing. They also don't address existing issues YouTube has with copyright management and how it's abused by other firms. * They are all talking about Monopolies and forgetting that such law will only strengthen them and minimize EU chance to create their own versions of google/facebook etc. * They are focusing on newspapers/text and aggregators. If you don't want to be on google. Use robot noindex metatag. If you want to ensure your content is not aggregated further... hide it behind paywall or any other UX wall. There are technical solutions to do it. And in the end, if nothing helps, I believe if someone just copies your content 1:1, you can sue him for it. Even if it's news article. * As for uploads and copyright detection. I hate myself for saying it... but leave it to copyright owners. Add legal tools for easier copyright challenges and arbitration. But at current state, our legal system is to slow to handle copyright management on such wide scope without hitting issues like Youtube has with many agents gaming the system. Let's maybe do some baby steps first by allowing for easier legal arbitration in general and then let's focus on also doing it for copyright issues. However... there is no money in it. TLDR: Yes, we need changes to handle copyright management on the internet. However their approach is premature, to generic and uninformed.
StavrosK 8y ago
So, if this passes, does it mean we can all go to the sites of the politicians who voted for it and post copyrighted content in their comments and then sue them?
cromwellian 8y ago
John Perry Barlow must be spinning in his grave.
koonsolo 8y ago
What kind of retarded fucks do we have in the EU? I'm building a platform to make your own games. I basically need to take this outside of EU if this passes. What a bunch of stupid morons. (Sorry for the swearing, I'm pissed)
stakhanov 8y ago
It seems to me like good news on the "Article 11" front, though. The way I'm reading this, "link tax" is pretty much off the table.
jillesvangurp 8y ago
IMHO it's not that strange of a proposition to regulate what has been a problem for copyright owners where big multi national companies monetize content that isn't theirs by looking the other way. E.g. I love watching bbc tv program uploads on Youtube but I do see that there may be a few issues with the status quo where apparently this is normal and just the way things work. Misguided or not, this law is trying to fix some things that are broken currently. I think content fingerprinting as a technology is something that could actually provide a way out. The key challenge is coming up with good enough registries for those finger prints and making sure that they are not being abused. My big fear with this law is that it codifies the existing practice of giving a monopoly on this to the defacto copyright monopolists that currently govern royalties in most countries. IMHO the key would be allowing others to run such registries and simply regulating the use of proof where a content owner has to prove that content with a finger print is 1) theirs and 2) their rights were violated. A registry solves that problem and as long as that registry has good processes for managing conflicts, there's nothing wrong with requiring media distributors to do reasonable due diligence in the form of checking some finger prints. What worries is the tone in this discussion and similar discussions regarding e.g. the GDPR last year. In retrospect, the GDPR did not end the internet, probably is an improvement for end users, and is now causing very reasonable politicians elsewhere to consider similar legislation. I'd say that probably they got that one mostly right. There are some cases in the courts currently but mostly that seems to be for the right reasons like e.g. Facebook or Google violating people's privacy on a large scale for profit. I'd say arguing how this law should be improved/fixed is the debate that needs to be happening. Instead we are getting nothing else than people trying to argue that this is some internet ending apocalyptic event based on some blog post they read. I'm seeing a lot of headless chickens and not a whole lot of good argumentation on how to fix this. That feels wrong to me. These things have a habit of coming back until some legislation is passed. Also, people from the US singling out the EU here; the US has quite a bit of history on this front. E.g. the DMCA, software patents, mickey mouse copyright extensions, the whole net neutrality fiasco, etc. Also, there's probably more than a little bit of lobbying going on by US owned media corporations in favor of this. In fact those are probably the same corporations that got us the before mentioned stuff as well.
GhostVII 8y ago
Hopefully this encourages the development of platform that can't be shut down by overreaching governments. There will always be new laws trying to restrict what you can and can't share online - the only true way to prevent this kind of censorship, in my opinion, is to develop platforms that are impossible (or very difficult) to censor. I've heard of lots of different decentralized social media platforms and video platforms being developed, maybe one day those will become mainstream rather than just being used mainly for extreme and illegal content.
kmlx 8y ago
putting it into perspective: the 27 markets are disjointed, GDPR is an unclear mess, the EU Parliament is chock-full of the worst possible people (in history some might say) and the lobbyists run amok. the only good part is the Euro, but even that has major flaws. to top it all off, one of its' most important members is leaving in a month (UK), while some of the other members (Italy, Austria, Poland etc) have combined forces in an "anti-EU league". what the hell is happening in Europe?
piokoch 8y ago
Is EU going to survive all this? Brexit. This absurd regulation. Eurozone debts problems (Italy situation is far from being stable). This could be a hot summer for EU, especially if Euro parliament will be full of EU-hostile MPs.

354 points by TimWolla 8y ago

yummybear 8y ago

This is absolutely horrible and MEPs voting for this do not have EU citizens best interests in mind.

beezischillin 8y ago
Politicians rarely do.

tick_tock_tick 8y ago

The EFF released a short tweet with additional information https://twitter.com/EFF/status/1095775278683512832 https://twitter.com/EFF/status/1095775278683512832 If this really applies to everything it's going to drastically change the internet.

DelightOne 8y ago
Or split it.
- anticensor 8y ago
  Russian internet has already split itself off global one.
  - cronix 8y ago
    Sure, it's a logical move, just like having their own GPS system. It's fairly established the NSA has everything tapped and collecting/storing all traffic. The majority of the internet traffic still flows through the US at some point as well. Why would any nation-state logically settle for that, especially adversarial ones?
    - wil421 8y ago
      Russia isn’t doing this just because they believe an agency is watching them. It’s more about censorship and controlling the Russian people than spying. Same with China.
    - AnabeeKnox 8y ago
      "It's fairly established the NSA has everything tapped and collecting/storing all traffic." That's nonsense though. Even a basic understanding of internet technology would show that such a thing is impossible.
      - cronix 8y ago
        Hmm. People who built it, or in charge of building it, seem to disagree. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3owk7vEEOvs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3owk7vEEOvs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjwW1JlGG4o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjwW1JlGG4o And I'm sure you've read Snowdens revelations, and lack of denials from the intelligence community, and Binney and Drake, among others, confirming, and what the gov't did to try to silence them.
        strictnein 8y ago
        No NSA program has ever been "collecting/storing all traffic". Please, I understand you think there is one, but just start to think about the bandwidth and storage needed to do something like that. You're talking about Zettabytes worth of data each and every day. Just insane levels of data. Binney and Drake were upset because their Thinthread project was passed over and a much more advanced and expensive project was chosen (that later failed miserably). Hayden directly refutes them in his book "Playing to the Edge". I'm sure you won't take his statements as anything, but you said there was a "lack of denial" from the intelligence community, and his book is full of them.
        pmlnr 8y ago
        Do some math, nobody can build storage fast enough to storage everything flowing through the internet.
    - 8y ago
  - andrepd 8y ago
    Chinese internet would like a word with you.
dingaling 8y ago
And here's a simple workaround: only post content that you've created.

Someone1234 8y ago

Google should just cut off YouTube and other impacted platforms for 24 hours in the EU with a message telling them that the service is against Article 13. It might sound absurd but it would be effective, and this is the real danger with article 13.

anticensor 8y ago
Or replace all "infringing" videos by a public information clip on why lifelong copyright is harmful for the same period.
skrause 8y ago
Why? Google already fulfills Article 13 with Content ID and now every other company that doesn't have such a system will have to buy it from Google.
- kevin_b_er 8y ago
  Except the notion of safe harbor will die in the EU. Google is then directly liable for any content it hosts all the time. User content is basically impossible in the EU after this.
  - elliekelly 8y ago
    There is still a safe harbor - but it's insanely onerous. From Article 13(4) > If no authorisation is granted, online content sharing service providers shall be liable for unauthorised acts of communication to the public of copyright protected works and other subject matter, unless the service providers demonstrate that they have: > (a) made best efforts to obtain an authorization, This would require YouTube to enter into license agreements with artists the same way Spotify does. > and (b) made, in accordance with high industry standards of professional diligence, best efforts to ensure the unavailability of specific works and other subject matter for which the rightholders have provided the service providers with the relevant and necessary information, This means that if Sony Pictures, for example, provided YouTube with digital copies of all of their TV shows & movies that they own YouTube would need to make their best effort to catch violations of Sony Pictures' copyrights via the "upload filter." > and in any event (c) acted expeditiously, upon receiving a sufficiently substantiated notice by the rightholders, to remove from their websites or to disable access to the notified works and subject matters, and made best efforts to prevent their future uploads in accordance with paragraph (b). That means once YouTube receives one takedown notice for content they're expected to include that content in their "upload filter" going forward.

rolph 8y ago

of course we are not in EU but how will this effect our ability to even use HN at all if this mentality spreads here. would it be an offence to post articles from EU resources? {adde} russia is apparently experimenting with some sort of xenophobia net, so if perfected could we even see internet partitioning based on nation of origin and destination, perhaps even internet passport and visa type of procedures complete with excise and inspection procedures to simply use the internet across international borders.

anticensor 8y ago
Largest segments expected: CERN-ARPA (Americas+Switzerland), BEREC-RIPE (most of Europe+most of Africa), RKnZ (EEU+OIC), OCCA (PRC). North Korea, South Korea and India will determine the future of internet by choosing which segment to join.

jupp0r 8y ago

Given the implications, wouldn't be a SOPA-like website blackout be in order?

pmlnr 8y ago
If only. So many things changed online since the SOPA times; people don't care. If they still have Instagram and Facebook, it's enough for them...
- jupp0r 8y ago
  I’m pretty sure Favebook doesn’t like the new laws...

buboard 8y ago

I 'm curious to see the "industry" that will be set up to police this directive. The gdpr has already created an industry of 'experts', consultants and lawyers who all claim to know the One True Law (though they don't agree), a bunch of agencies etc.

Matticus_Rex 8y ago
I and most of the privacy professionals I know (with a couple of exceptions) are pretty open about the fact that we can't be sure what a lot of the GDPR means until there's more firm guidance.

pagutierrezn 8y ago

This Directive will make p2p greater than ever

rolph 8y ago
im thinking p2p will be the next major target as well.
- feanaro 8y ago
  Then tor and i2p.
- int_19h 8y ago
  P2P is a much more difficult target, though.
pmlnr 8y ago
"Napster is the future of the internet. It will come back." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19034200 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19034200

surak 8y ago

This is the best thing for innovation on the decentralized web, the focus on websites in the legal text will force platforms down on the protocol level.

jopsen 8y ago
You can be fairly sure it'll be interpreted to apply to apps as well.. Maybe if you make a non-networked service. Good luck with that :)
- _up 8y ago
  What about open source chat apps if the developer can't enforce the use of copyright filters he would be liable too?
  - rolph 8y ago
    stretching out a bit here i think a chat app, that destroys "offending" content, such as [https://pastebin.com/ https://pastebin.com/] could be safe, but if that app allows copy pasta that might be a problem, lets say song lyrics, or movie subtitles, or leaked manuscript, or moviescripts.
  - jopsen 8y ago
    Well, FTA, you have to grow your service big first.. If you grow it big and make no money then you're likely have other problems :) If you grow it big and make money, then you can afford to do a little filtering. disclaimer: I'm in no way fan of this stuff.. just saying it might be as pointless as the cookie-law.
rolph 8y ago
there is enough FUD regarding "deep" and "dark" web and the contagious mentality that, decentralized networking cant possibly be any thing but criminal [if your hiding then you must be doing something wrong] I think it would only be a matter of time until peer to peer networking [read as deepnets and darknets] will be somehow subject to egregious legislation. Look at what has happened with torrent networks over the recent years. A lot of people think torrent is only for pirating and nothing else.

DuskStar 8y ago

I'm liking the "Ban them all and let God sort them out" approach more and more now. It looks like the service restrictions and potential penalties for serving EU customers are going to continue to increase, and we might as well get off at the beginning.

rolph 8y ago
im wondering how well that would demonstrate the point. It would definitely be noticed if EU was cut off from US based services before this directive even sees legislative review and voting.

ur-whale 8y ago

It's actually a very good thing. It will create a huge opportunity for new decentralized (IPFS-like) tech. that will run circles around this dumb regulation and force incumbent established players (YouTube and the like) to evolve or die.

phoe-krk 8y ago
Until the copyright people, after noticing that the profits they expected aren't up to their expectations, start digging deeper in search for gold that isn't there.
- Asooka 8y ago
  From what I can see, piracy doesn't hurt profits and as long as it's available only to technologically literate people, it will pretty much fly under the radar.
  - phoe-krk 8y ago
    Of course it doesn't hurt profits. It doesn't prevent copyright lobbyists from saying that it does, though.
buboard 8y ago
and then a huge incentive to block ipfs, like they did with torrents... the decentralization should happen anyway, as soon as the creators realize that none of the content hosts have their interests in mind first
pmlnr 8y ago
I want to believe. I want to share this kind of optimism. The harsh reality is that people will f off and less content will be produced. That's it.

shmerl 8y ago

They should just drop this garbage for good already, instead of bringing this horrible zombie back.

pojzon 8y ago
There is enough interest to lobby it through. And politicians are braindead sellouts..
- shmerl 8y ago
  There should be more protests like against ACTA then. I haven't seen such now.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]

josteink 8y ago

I can spend days and days trying to find a legal copy of an album I can purchase in reasonable quality (read FLAC) so I don’t have to pirate (done in less than a minute). And I often fail, because the content is strictly geo-fenced and incredibly complexly licensed and as a EU-citizen I cannot have those ones and zeros. The system is madness and sometimes impossible to navigate, even for strongly dedicated humans. And here the EU expects that any website which has user uploads should make a “best effort” effort to try to automatically license all the copyright of anything ever. How the fuck can they claim to mean this seriously? No really. Just how do they plan for this to work?

ApolloFortyNine 8y ago
I feel with you on FLACS. Beatport makes you pay 75c extra for the FLAC (why???) and doesn't even let you download the song again after 24 hours. It's nice the FLAC is available, but seriously 24 hours availability in 2019? It's very hard to give them money for that.
- FridgeSeal 8y ago
  Aahh, Beatport. I once lost my huge chunk of my music library due to a hard drive corruption (and not up to date backups, whoops). No big deal, I’ll just re-download all my purchases (in the order of hundreds of dollars): nope. Emailed them and asked, they said no, pleaded the case, mentioned how much I’d spent and they re-enabled them all with a snarky note about always keeping backups. I try to buy as much as I can from Bandcamp instead these days.
sigfubar 8y ago
I pay for Spotify. I pay for concert tickets. As far as I'm concerned, this fulfills my obligation to support my favorite artists. Digitally downloaded music is thus already inherently "paid for" and can be downloaded from any source, even if some random entity considers this source "against the rules". No moral hazard, no hassle. Just music.
- josteink 8y ago

CamTin 8y ago

The possible upside of this may be the decentralization of massive content silos like youtube or facebook, toward federated or self-hosting platforms where the administrators of individual "sites" can better know their users. I can see the "fediverse" (the main public ActivityPub network, notably including most Mastodon users) benefiting from this, for example, since a club/gaming clan/media company could run their own Mastodon instance and be responsible for the things posted using it.

beezischillin 8y ago

> What’s important to note, though: It’s not “the EU” in general that is to blame – but those who put special interests above fundamental rights who currently hold considerable power. You can change that at the polls! The anti-EU far right is trying to seize this opportunity to promote their narrow-minded nationalist agenda The article describes how German and French financial interests pushed through the biggest BS of a law package to hit internet regulation this side of the Atlantic, despite every objection and protest, even against sensible opinions from their camp, behind closed doors, led mostly by representatives of German political power in the driving seat who were unclear on the details of what they're pushing, despite pushing it and defaming critics. After bungling so many things in relation to policy in the recent few years, I simply do not trust these countries to represent anything that's good for me or my own interests as an EU citizen. Call me crazy, but this does sound like what the "anti-EU far right" takes issue with, more specifically the French-German political control of Europe, beholden to their financial interests. Now I'm not advocating for joining their side, against the EU, by any measure, but it seems to me that people should heed this warning and draw some sensible conclusions in time --- before they find themselves between two terrible extremes and no reasonable way out.

buboard 8y ago
the problem is that the EU doesnt have any internet unicorns being affected by this. So they don't counter-lobby. So whatever small scale online business exists in eu, is screwed.
- beezischillin 8y ago
  You're right. It was relatively easy for the US to create those companies as it in itself is a huge market with lots of people who, at least, theoretically share a large cultural identity. We don't really have it here so often Germans market to Germans, the people of the UK to the UK, etc. I'm very concerned, especially as the future is involved, that my personal freedoms necessitate billion dollar corporations to lobby in my (and their) best interests. I don't know why I get informed on the issues that I care about and affect me and then go and do my civic duty and vote according to my conscience, then. And that's scary. The US is incredibly lucky to have been founded on an idea that the government is for the people and not vice versa (even though, I will readily admit that the US itself is kind of an imperfect example at the moment, it's the best I see).

I_am_tiberius 8y ago

This is the destruction of the internet. I don't think there's anything other than lobbying from the European media industry behind this directive. At least we can assume decentralized systems will get more attention in the future.

kodablah 8y ago

> What’s important to note, though: It’s not “the EU” in general that is to blame – but those who put special interests above fundamental rights who currently hold considerable power. Who's to blame for the general environment of encroaching information "protections" and general government oversight of the internet? You can't out of one side of your mouth decry everyone warning about slippery slopes as though they are nonexistent and then on the other side blame others for taking advantage of said slope you pretended didn't exist. The slope never had to be there. When you can't take the bad with the good of an open internet, this is what you get. Sadly with slippery slopes in either direction (whether or not people acknowledge their existence), hovering in the middle becomes unsustainable. Freedom has consequences, regulations have consequences, many times they are mutually exclusive, so pick and accept said consequences. Only liking the good parts and not liking the bad parts, while convenient to shirk responsibility, ignores that they are often inseparable.

HyperTalk2 8y ago

I would happily assist in the destruction of any company that bends the knee to these unelected parasites by complying with their "laws." Helping to perpetuate the illusion that they deserve or possess any legitimate power makes you the enemy.

mehh 8y ago

The Hargreaves Report from the UK Gov seemed a more sensible approach to copyright. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/32563/ipreview-finalreport.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...

Silhouette 8y ago
And the UK government tried to introduce a more reasonable exception along those lines, allowing private copying activities such as format shifting... which was then sunk by a judicial review, based on limits imposed under EU law and the UK government's lack of willingness to fight that battle. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/quashing-of-private-copying-exception https://www.gov.uk/government/news/quashing-of-private-copyi...

blfr 8y ago

Do I understand correctly that leave.eu will be available shortly? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19099150 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19099150

xorand 8y ago

I think the discussion is a bit myopic. Yes, this is horrible news for the new aggregators of content. What about the creators of content? What if authors hodl their copyright (or else be filtered)[1] Who keeps google, facebook and others to share the original content instead of hiding it in favor of the same or worse content taken from big media or publishers? I don't stand by this extremely stupid legislation but before it the net turned into TV. [1] https://chorasimilarity.wordpress.com/2018/09/12/authors-hodl-your-copyright-or-be-filtered/ https://chorasimilarity.wordpress.com/2018/09/12/authors-hod...

amsvie 8y ago

Link to the video of the press conference after the bill passed the EU-parlament in July 2018: https://multimedia.europarl.europa.eu/en/press-conference-on-the-copyright-directive-by-axel-voss-epp-de-rapporteur-virginie-rozire-sd-fr-pervenche-bers-sd-fr-jean-marie-cavada-alde-fr-helga-trpel-greensefa-de_I158421_01-V_rv https://multimedia.europarl.europa.eu/en/press-conference-on... Somehow, this is doublespeak, somehow it make sense too..

amsvie 8y ago
Also, I wondered, maybe it could lead to an friendly facebook alternative from Europe.. That would be grand.
animuj 8y ago
Ok, watched it with open mind . My impressions: * Axel saying that Wikipedia shouldn't be against it because they added exception for them. He is missing the point so confidently... * Missing all points raised by people not connected with Google/Amazon/Facebook. Nobody said it will be copyright issue for uploader. Everybody is saying that service owners will be more prone to removing content, just to be safe, in effect limiting access to information sharing. They also don't address existing issues YouTube has with copyright management and how it's abused by other firms. * They are all talking about Monopolies and forgetting that such law will only strengthen them and minimize EU chance to create their own versions of google/facebook etc. * They are focusing on newspapers/text and aggregators. If you don't want to be on google. Use robot noindex metatag. If you want to ensure your content is not aggregated further... hide it behind paywall or any other UX wall. There are technical solutions to do it. And in the end, if nothing helps, I believe if someone just copies your content 1:1, you can sue him for it. Even if it's news article. * As for uploads and copyright detection. I hate myself for saying it... but leave it to copyright owners. Add legal tools for easier copyright challenges and arbitration. But at current state, our legal system is to slow to handle copyright management on such wide scope without hitting issues like Youtube has with many agents gaming the system. Let's maybe do some baby steps first by allowing for easier legal arbitration in general and then let's focus on also doing it for copyright issues. However... there is no money in it. TLDR: Yes, we need changes to handle copyright management on the internet. However their approach is premature, to generic and uninformed.

StavrosK 8y ago

So, if this passes, does it mean we can all go to the sites of the politicians who voted for it and post copyrighted content in their comments and then sue them?

cromwellian 8y ago

John Perry Barlow must be spinning in his grave.

koonsolo 8y ago

What kind of retarded fucks do we have in the EU? I'm building a platform to make your own games. I basically need to take this outside of EU if this passes. What a bunch of stupid morons. (Sorry for the swearing, I'm pissed)

stakhanov 8y ago

It seems to me like good news on the "Article 11" front, though. The way I'm reading this, "link tax" is pretty much off the table.

jillesvangurp 8y ago

IMHO it's not that strange of a proposition to regulate what has been a problem for copyright owners where big multi national companies monetize content that isn't theirs by looking the other way. E.g. I love watching bbc tv program uploads on Youtube but I do see that there may be a few issues with the status quo where apparently this is normal and just the way things work. Misguided or not, this law is trying to fix some things that are broken currently. I think content fingerprinting as a technology is something that could actually provide a way out. The key challenge is coming up with good enough registries for those finger prints and making sure that they are not being abused. My big fear with this law is that it codifies the existing practice of giving a monopoly on this to the defacto copyright monopolists that currently govern royalties in most countries. IMHO the key would be allowing others to run such registries and simply regulating the use of proof where a content owner has to prove that content with a finger print is 1) theirs and 2) their rights were violated. A registry solves that problem and as long as that registry has good processes for managing conflicts, there's nothing wrong with requiring media distributors to do reasonable due diligence in the form of checking some finger prints. What worries is the tone in this discussion and similar discussions regarding e.g. the GDPR last year. In retrospect, the GDPR did not end the internet, probably is an improvement for end users, and is now causing very reasonable politicians elsewhere to consider similar legislation. I'd say that probably they got that one mostly right. There are some cases in the courts currently but mostly that seems to be for the right reasons like e.g. Facebook or Google violating people's privacy on a large scale for profit. I'd say arguing how this law should be improved/fixed is the debate that needs to be happening. Instead we are getting nothing else than people trying to argue that this is some internet ending apocalyptic event based on some blog post they read. I'm seeing a lot of headless chickens and not a whole lot of good argumentation on how to fix this. That feels wrong to me. These things have a habit of coming back until some legislation is passed. Also, people from the US singling out the EU here; the US has quite a bit of history on this front. E.g. the DMCA, software patents, mickey mouse copyright extensions, the whole net neutrality fiasco, etc. Also, there's probably more than a little bit of lobbying going on by US owned media corporations in favor of this. In fact those are probably the same corporations that got us the before mentioned stuff as well.

GhostVII 8y ago

Hopefully this encourages the development of platform that can't be shut down by overreaching governments. There will always be new laws trying to restrict what you can and can't share online - the only true way to prevent this kind of censorship, in my opinion, is to develop platforms that are impossible (or very difficult) to censor. I've heard of lots of different decentralized social media platforms and video platforms being developed, maybe one day those will become mainstream rather than just being used mainly for extreme and illegal content.

kmlx 8y ago

putting it into perspective: the 27 markets are disjointed, GDPR is an unclear mess, the EU Parliament is chock-full of the worst possible people (in history some might say) and the lobbyists run amok. the only good part is the Euro, but even that has major flaws. to top it all off, one of its' most important members is leaving in a month (UK), while some of the other members (Italy, Austria, Poland etc) have combined forces in an "anti-EU league". what the hell is happening in Europe?

piokoch 8y ago

Is EU going to survive all this? Brexit. This absurd regulation. Eurozone debts problems (Italy situation is far from being stable). This could be a hot summer for EU, especially if Euro parliament will be full of EU-hostile MPs.