5 ms·

What the hell, where's Sweden and Denmark? Or the much-hyped E-stonia? (Not that it would've made a difference.)

Strom 8y ago
The lack of Estonia seemed curious to me as well, given Estonia's voting history regarding Article 13. Then I looked up the voting history for all these countries. [1] The votes against Article 13 have been as follows: Poland 72% (36 vs 14) Netherlands 71% (17 vs 7) Finland 50% (6 vs 6) Italy 38% (25 vs 41) Luxembourg 33% (2 vs 4) Sweden 100% (18 vs 0) Estonia 83% (5 vs 1) Denmark 17% (2 vs 10) Looking at this frankly raises more questions than it answers. Has there been a big change of heart in say Italy suddenly? They've been voting in favor of article 13 thus far. -- [1] https://saveyourinternet.eu/act/ https://saveyourinternet.eu/act/
- Kurtz79 8y ago
  In Italy there has been a radical change in terms of governing parties/policy towards the EU over the last year. Right now the majority elected for the EU parliament does not really match the actual government's disposition.
- Tuna-Fish 8y ago
  What you are looking at are the views of the MEPs. MEPs represent specific people living in the country, not the country as whole. This statement was issued by the countries, meaning the representatives of the governments currently in power in those countries.
  - isostatic 8y ago
    Of the listed countries, 6 of the 8 - Netherlands, Finland, Luxembourg, Sweden, Estonia and Denmark - are all 1 constituency countries, so the MEPs represent the entire country MEPs may well decide different things to the government though, just as the U.S. House could have a different view to the Senate.
    - Tuna-Fish 8y ago
      Proportional representation. The MEPs don't represent the entire country, they represent the specific people who voted for them. The fundamental principle of who people represent under PR is very different from FPTP. Under FTPT, the people living in a certain area vote for a "winner", who then represents the entire area. If 51% of the people vote for candidate A, and 49% vote for candidate B, then the wishes of 49% of the constituency go unheard in the parliament. Under PR, the idea is not to pick a "winner" who takes all and then represents everyone in the parliament, the idea is to match everyone's vote to some candidate(s) according to their preferences, as best allowed by sizes of constituencies, so that as many people as possible have someone they voted for in the parliament. Then the people in the legislative body only represent the people who voted for them.
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
      - ameister14 8y ago
        So I vote for a party in the EU as a whole, and if enough people in my country or other countries do too, some candidate from some country gets elected?
        jbarberu 8y ago
        No. For the EU parliament you vote for a representative (from your country, that usually belongs to some political party).
        aukust 8y ago
        That is true, but in the EU parliament as in many other systems there is an incentive for representatives to vote in favor of the (EU) party they are in - as huge majority of representatives have on this case despite of their own governments showing displease to this particular ruling. I will not personally be voting for any of the representatives that voted for this particular ruling as none of them they gave no satisfactory explanation why they actually voted this way anything other than that their EU party wanted it to pass. My country being Finland, and we definitely have been opposed to this from the start.
- jaabe 8y ago
  Italy is currently run by populist who dislike the EU, so you can say there has been a rather big change.
KozmoNau7 8y ago
Unfortunately, the majority of parties in Denmark have a real hard-on for this copyright directive. Either from a belief that it will protect the artists, or from a "law and order" perspective that this will finally stick it those eeeeeevil pirates by giving even more power to the rights holders, in an attempt to completely abolish fair use doctrines. The ramifications if this directive passes are absolutely disastrous, potentially putting a gigantic legalistic roadblock in the way of any free sharing of information online. I've tried writing my representatives to explain just how extreme the consequences will be, but they just refuse to listen, and insist on sticking to the party line, most of the replies I got were just canned responses. Or I guess they prefer listening to the lobbyists instead of their constituents. As someone who became a huge music fan through file sharing with my friends and later through the internet via FTPs, IRC channels and DCC, Napster, Kazaa, torrents and shady Russian forums, I think this unprecedented tightening of the net will be a real detriment to culture and art.
- petre 8y ago
  Yup, it's the same in my country. I'm going to specifically vote for an independent MP who was against this directive. I won't try to contact the others and explain anything because it doesn't work. Some party MPs have a split view on the issue and it's risky to vote for a party because you never know who they send to the EP.
jaabe 8y ago
Why would we be against it? I know it’s an unpopular opinion on HN, but I don’t have a problem with Facebook and Google being made liable for the content on their platforms. Here is why: if you produce content, like music, you can put it on YouTube and YouTube will pay you for the views. They’ll only pay you for the content in your channels though, while themselves earning money from both the legal and illegal copies. I’m not personally too worried about the privacy, people will always find a way to share, but the fact that YouTube makes money of the illegal content legally, just doesn’t sit right with me. What’s even worse is that YouTube won’t tell us the profit ratios on our own content. Sure they’ll pay a record company to put music videos on an official channel, but they’ll never disclose how much money YouTube earns from it. Maybe it’s a fair split, maybe it’s not, but you have no way of knowing and you kind of have to be on YouTube. I mean, this last bit is where it becomes obvious that viewers are the product, because we only upload stuff to YouTube because they have all the damn users. I know the fear machine, wants us to believe that private citizens wouldn’t be able to upload a video we filmed with a song playing in the background. But that’s actually already illegal. Only in its current form, it’s the private citizen who is liable and not the platform. I have no problem with switching that around, and make the platform liable instead of the individual. Maybe that will lead to more closed platforms, but my pets bet is that someone out there is willing to build a platform that allows the content and simply pays the royalties, for the same reason we accept the godawful YouTube contract. The users are valuable. In Denmark, Sweden and Estonia we prefer the government to Google or Facebook, so naturally we support laws that moves power from the companies to the people.
- yeahforsureman 8y ago
  tl;dr Never let your pets bet!
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- icebraining 8y ago
  Thinking this law only affects Google and Facebook is the problem. Google and Facebook can afford to build those content recognition systems and pay those royalties. Can your local non-profit photo sharing community? Can a new video hosting service that makes less money because it doesn't surveil its users?

The lack of Estonia seemed curious to me as well, given Estonia's voting history regarding Article 13. Then I looked up the voting history for all these countries. [1] The votes against Article 13 have been as follows: Poland 72% (36 vs 14) Netherlands 71% (17 vs 7) Finland 50% (6 vs 6) Italy 38% (25 vs 41) Luxembourg 33% (2 vs 4) Sweden 100% (18 vs 0) Estonia 83% (5 vs 1) Denmark 17% (2 vs 10) Looking at this frankly raises more questions than it answers. Has there been a big change of heart in say Italy suddenly? They've been voting in favor of article 13 thus far. -- [1] https://saveyourinternet.eu/act/ https://saveyourinternet.eu/act/

Kurtz79 8y ago
In Italy there has been a radical change in terms of governing parties/policy towards the EU over the last year. Right now the majority elected for the EU parliament does not really match the actual government's disposition.
Tuna-Fish 8y ago
What you are looking at are the views of the MEPs. MEPs represent specific people living in the country, not the country as whole. This statement was issued by the countries, meaning the representatives of the governments currently in power in those countries.
- isostatic 8y ago
  Of the listed countries, 6 of the 8 - Netherlands, Finland, Luxembourg, Sweden, Estonia and Denmark - are all 1 constituency countries, so the MEPs represent the entire country MEPs may well decide different things to the government though, just as the U.S. House could have a different view to the Senate.
  - Tuna-Fish 8y ago
    Proportional representation. The MEPs don't represent the entire country, they represent the specific people who voted for them. The fundamental principle of who people represent under PR is very different from FPTP. Under FTPT, the people living in a certain area vote for a "winner", who then represents the entire area. If 51% of the people vote for candidate A, and 49% vote for candidate B, then the wishes of 49% of the constituency go unheard in the parliament. Under PR, the idea is not to pick a "winner" who takes all and then represents everyone in the parliament, the idea is to match everyone's vote to some candidate(s) according to their preferences, as best allowed by sizes of constituencies, so that as many people as possible have someone they voted for in the parliament. Then the people in the legislative body only represent the people who voted for them.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - ameister14 8y ago
      So I vote for a party in the EU as a whole, and if enough people in my country or other countries do too, some candidate from some country gets elected?
      - jbarberu 8y ago
        No. For the EU parliament you vote for a representative (from your country, that usually belongs to some political party).
        aukust 8y ago
        That is true, but in the EU parliament as in many other systems there is an incentive for representatives to vote in favor of the (EU) party they are in - as huge majority of representatives have on this case despite of their own governments showing displease to this particular ruling. I will not personally be voting for any of the representatives that voted for this particular ruling as none of them they gave no satisfactory explanation why they actually voted this way anything other than that their EU party wanted it to pass. My country being Finland, and we definitely have been opposed to this from the start.
jaabe 8y ago
Italy is currently run by populist who dislike the EU, so you can say there has been a rather big change.

KozmoNau7 8y ago

Unfortunately, the majority of parties in Denmark have a real hard-on for this copyright directive. Either from a belief that it will protect the artists, or from a "law and order" perspective that this will finally stick it those eeeeeevil pirates by giving even more power to the rights holders, in an attempt to completely abolish fair use doctrines. The ramifications if this directive passes are absolutely disastrous, potentially putting a gigantic legalistic roadblock in the way of any free sharing of information online. I've tried writing my representatives to explain just how extreme the consequences will be, but they just refuse to listen, and insist on sticking to the party line, most of the replies I got were just canned responses. Or I guess they prefer listening to the lobbyists instead of their constituents. As someone who became a huge music fan through file sharing with my friends and later through the internet via FTPs, IRC channels and DCC, Napster, Kazaa, torrents and shady Russian forums, I think this unprecedented tightening of the net will be a real detriment to culture and art.

petre 8y ago
Yup, it's the same in my country. I'm going to specifically vote for an independent MP who was against this directive. I won't try to contact the others and explain anything because it doesn't work. Some party MPs have a split view on the issue and it's risky to vote for a party because you never know who they send to the EP.

jaabe 8y ago

Why would we be against it? I know it’s an unpopular opinion on HN, but I don’t have a problem with Facebook and Google being made liable for the content on their platforms. Here is why: if you produce content, like music, you can put it on YouTube and YouTube will pay you for the views. They’ll only pay you for the content in your channels though, while themselves earning money from both the legal and illegal copies. I’m not personally too worried about the privacy, people will always find a way to share, but the fact that YouTube makes money of the illegal content legally, just doesn’t sit right with me. What’s even worse is that YouTube won’t tell us the profit ratios on our own content. Sure they’ll pay a record company to put music videos on an official channel, but they’ll never disclose how much money YouTube earns from it. Maybe it’s a fair split, maybe it’s not, but you have no way of knowing and you kind of have to be on YouTube. I mean, this last bit is where it becomes obvious that viewers are the product, because we only upload stuff to YouTube because they have all the damn users. I know the fear machine, wants us to believe that private citizens wouldn’t be able to upload a video we filmed with a song playing in the background. But that’s actually already illegal. Only in its current form, it’s the private citizen who is liable and not the platform. I have no problem with switching that around, and make the platform liable instead of the individual. Maybe that will lead to more closed platforms, but my pets bet is that someone out there is willing to build a platform that allows the content and simply pays the royalties, for the same reason we accept the godawful YouTube contract. The users are valuable. In Denmark, Sweden and Estonia we prefer the government to Google or Facebook, so naturally we support laws that moves power from the companies to the people.

yeahforsureman 8y ago
tl;dr Never let your pets bet!
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
icebraining 8y ago
Thinking this law only affects Google and Facebook is the problem. Google and Facebook can afford to build those content recognition systems and pay those royalties. Can your local non-profit photo sharing community? Can a new video hosting service that makes less money because it doesn't surveil its users?