The EU's Controversial Copyright Law Has Been Rejected -- For Now (bbc.com) 70
Members of the European Parliament have voted to reject a controversial copyright law in its current form, deciding to return to the issue in September. From a report: The law would have put a greater responsibility on individual websites to check for copyright infringements. But the web's inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee and others had expressed concerns about the proposed rules, which they said threatened internet freedom. Opponents greeted the decision as a victory. Julia Reda, a Pirate Party MEP who had campaigned against the legislation tweeted: "Great success: Your protests have worked! The European Parliament has sent the copyright law back to the drawing board." BPI Music, which represents UK record labels, had supported the bill and tweeted: "We respect the decision... we will work with MEPs over the next weeks to explain how the proposed directive will benefit not just European creativity, but also internet users and the technology sector."
Bullshit ... (Score:5, Informative)
Lies, damned lies, and the public statements by the assholes in the copyright cartels.
This will benefit nobody but the copyright people, and greatly harm everyone else.
So much bullshit.
Re:Bullshit ... (Score:4, Informative)
Whilst I mostly agree with you, I believe it will also benefit the politicians as they will no doubt receive financial incentives to help change their votes when this is next debated.
Re: Bullshit ... (Score:1)
Paradoxically, this BPI media cartel is from the UK.
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You must be extremely gullible if you think that countries on their own can do better the EU as a whole when it comes to negotiating with the IP mafia...
Re:Bullshit ... (Score:5, Interesting)
The worst part about this bill is the (rather aptly numbered) 13th article and how it forces content platforms to automatically scan content for copyrighted works, but completely forgets about fair use for purposes like satire, criticism, education and how nobody's come up with an even remotely accurate automated way of telling those uses apart from copyright infringement. Not only does this significantly increase the cost of trying to create a social media service in Europe, it's also rife for abuse where people use copyright to stifle free speech.
The second really dumb part, the 11th article, is really just the publishing industry shooting itself in the foot. In Germany the publishing house Springer lobbied in a similar law and all it did was cause companies like Google and Facebook to just become careful and not display links to articles by Springer owned publications, which cause readership and advertisement revenue to drop for these publications.
Re: Bullshit ... (Score:1)
And in Spain, they just shut off the service, leaving the greedy media mobsters crying "but we wanted you to paaaaay!"
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It will be back under a different name, maybe under different pretence, terrorism and child protection are always a good disguise.
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Reasonal copyright (Score:1)
Itâ(TM)s amazing how backwards the copyright laws are and the push from the music, movie and tech industries to make them worse. Twenty years top on the copyright, vetted take down notices, fixed royalty prices at time of filing and there shoukd be a use it or lose it clause too.
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Why is your special apostrophe different to GP’s?
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BMI's explanation (Score:5, Funny)
How will it benefit internet users?
Well, it will make our executives a lot of money, and those executives use the Internet, so it benefits internet users.
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Optics (Score:2)
The law would have put a greater responsibility on individual websites to check for copyright infringements.
Rather a substantial understatement there...
Opponents greeted the decision as a victory. Julia Reda, a Pirate Party MEP who had campaigned against the legislation tweeted: "Great success: Your protests have worked!
You know calling yourself the "Pirate Party" doesn't really boost your credibility when it comes to issues like copyright infringement. I'm not saying they are wrong but the optics of it aren't super helpful to those who are less invested in the issue - namely most of the general public.
"We respect the decision... we will work with MEPs over the next weeks to explain how the proposed directive will benefit not just European creativity, but also internet users and the technology sector."
Translation: "If it wasn't for those meddling kids we would have gotten away with it too!"
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You know calling yourself the "Pirate Party" doesn't really boost your credibility when it comes to issues like copyright infringement.
Argh, matey! Especially when your party doesn't have any real pirates, pirate ships and pirate booty..
Sound bites (Score:2)
"Pirate party" definitely does make a stupid first impression.
In a sound bite obsessed media culture and a lazy electorate that's probably the only impression you are going to get to make. Sad but true. A complex nuanced argument like copyright is going to be won by the best soundbite with the biggest megaphone even if that argument is breathtakingly wrong.
Europe (Score:2)
In a sound bite obsessed media culture and a lazy electorate
Please notice the TFA is about the EU.
Although we're undeniably on a downward slope on our side of the Atlantic too,
things haven't devolved to the kind of shit show that they're having in the US.
Yet.
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French politics have been a shitshow for 70 years. Italian, even worse. Don't even look at Greece. They've been getting elected on 'larger handouts' for so long, they've broken their economies.
Germany can only carry Europe so far.
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I have dual German and American citizenship. The Germans are carrying Europe.
Fuckoff with your Nazi claims. These days anybody that doesn't want to destroy Israel is called a Nazi by pinheaded neo-stalinists. It's backward year.
There are FAR more Germans in America then vice versa, people continue to vote with their feet. Europe is nice to visit, but only a fool would want to live there.
Re:Europe (Score:4, Informative)
Please notice the TFA is about the EU.
Doesn't make a difference. The only thing that changes is which sound bites work. There is no evidence to suggest that EU voters are substantially let vulnerable to sound bites and lazy journalism than those in the US. Not as if Europe hasn't had their share of breathtakingly horrible leaders within the last century either. Personally I think England and the US voters keep trying to outdo each other in a contest to see who can do the dumbest thing possible.
GB: "Let's exit this EU thing at huge cost to our economy"
US: "Hold my beer..." *elects Donald Trump*
Clueless about politics (Score:2)
If you obsess over the word "pirate" Then your support was never available anyway and not needed.
It's that sort of idiotic and arrogant attitude that resulted folks like Trump getting elected despite spouting breathtakingly idiotic sound bites. Believe it or not, copyright is pretty far down the list of things most people obsess over so a well placed sound bit or two can make a LOT of difference. They don't give a shit about nuance or abstract concepts. In politics you have to play the game and sound bites are part of the game. Calling themselves "pirates" makes it REALLY easy for the opposition to
BMI's actual quote (Score:2)
Cry 'Havoc!', and let slip the lawyers of war!
It is much better in the original Klingon, but the BMI Ferengi won't stoop to speaking in Klingon.
Re: BMI's actual quote (Score:2)
The original Earth quote had "dogs" instead of "lawyers" but it's an easy mistake to make when translating.
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Havoc! jach, 'ej veS lawyers slip!
Bing translator does.
Comment removed (Score:3)
What makes you think Canada... (Score:2)
... wants any part of your failing, debt ridden dictatorship ? Canada is quite happy setting its own policies without being overridden by an unelected foreign political body it has no direct influence over.
Never forget (Score:5, Insightful)
The good guys need to be lucky every time. The bad guy only needs to be lucky once.
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The good guys need to be lucky every time. The bad guy only needs to be lucky once.
This is why we all need to make sure that our members of parliament (EU and national) are in no doubt about the opposition to this kind of law. Find out how your MEPs voted, and tell the ones who voted for these measures that they are losing your vote; they are up for reelection in 2019.
And as voting seems to have mainly run along party lines, if your MEP's party supports this then tell their colleagues in your national parliament that it's a vote loser for them too.
An alternate proposal is needed (Score:2)
Being on the defensive does NOT work for the long run. Ultimately those who oppose the unfettered expansion of copyright and suppression of rights and privileges we enjoy today need to come up with our own proposal to beat them back. An act that will greatly expand fair use and protect the rest of the world from having to enforce these companies' copyrights: while at the same time balancing the copyright so that they cannot reasonably scream "Unfair" ----- we need a proposal that most of the po
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We already had alternative proposals in order to mediate, but they were rejected in the JURI commission. They were probably pretty sure to be able to get the whole package with no compromise.
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The next version of the copyright filtering act will probably require VPN detection and blocking as well.
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The internet has to be controlled and filtered to prevent such uploads.
VPN detection could offer the account holder to turn off their VPN. Risk the EU social media account they logged into getting banned on detection of VPN use.
Want to use EU social media in the EU? Not if any VPN is detected.
It was a proposed law with two bad elements in. (Score:5, Informative)
It was always argued that the large U.S. based internet companies like Google and Facebook would profit from being able to list snippeds of online press articles in their search results, news aggregations and timelines, and thus they should pay the press publishers for the priviledge to get those snippets. As it turned out, the true priviledge was for the press publishers to be listed, because as soon as Google delisted press publishers demanding payments according to the Ancillary Copyright, their traffic numbers plummeted. So Belgium withdrew the law, and in Germany, all press publishers gave Google a free license (and with lawsuits managed to drive all competing news aggregators out of business).
Now they attempt the same in the whole EU, hoping to get a critical mass large enough to get Google to agree into payments for the little snippets.
Translation of "rejected": (Score:2)
"This got waaaay too much publicity, and was making us look bad, so we're going to try again later and be more sneaky about it."
EU parliament's power (Score:2)