EU censoring the internet banning memes and freedom of speech

mark085 · 22-06-2018 7:22pm #1

This is bananas there going to try tax links and only news channels can tell need this is the destruction of the internet simple as that

People me to speak out about this
What do you think

evolving_doors · 05-07-2018 1:38pm

Voss sent back to the drawing board so it could be back again

Here's how your MEP's voted

For 278

For.JPG

Against 318 Abstain/Absent 31

Against-Absent0.JPG

Ultimate Seduction · 05-07-2018 1:40pm

mark085 wrote: »

This is bananas there going to try tax links and only news channels can tell need this is the destruction of the internet simple as that

People me to speak out about this
What do you think

I haven't a clue what you are trying to say?

evolving_doors · 05-07-2018 1:43pm

Ultimate Seduction wrote: »

I haven't a clue what you are trying to say?

I think it would have worked better if he had posted the info through the medium of meme

https://whatthevoss.eu/

VinLieger · 05-07-2018 2:00pm

Just so people know who to be angry at come next European Elections, FG voted for it while everyone else so basically SF and the independents voted against it.

Brian Crowley as usual didn't show, he has a vote ranking of 751 out of 751, he is literally the worst attending MEP in europe, something the people of the South need to consider next time he tries to con them into voting for him. If he really was as sick as is claimed he would have done the right thing and resigned to allow a special election so his constituents could be represented properly.

L1011 · 05-07-2018 7:18pm

There's no special elections, you nominate replacements when (Actually before, to ensure someone doesn't nominate someone hated as first replacement them immediately resign) elected. Kieran Harley would get the seat as first on the list unless he refused; as he's intending to run next summer I'm sure he wouldn't.

You have to be able to refuse because for instance if either of the FGs in the area quit, Simon Harris is next and he sure as hell doesn't want to go now.

EdgeCase · 15-07-2018 11:40am

It shows a total cluelessness about how the internet works and would probably be utterly unenforceable, technically very difficult to achieve and result in huge extra costs for European internet services as well as effectively providing a vector for censorship.

Then they'd all be scratching their heads, wondering why there's no European companies being as successful as Facebook or Google and why all the serious IT talent emigrated to California.

If FG voted in line with this, they certainly will not be getting my vote in future. It's the kind of thing that could both cost me my job and undermine my freedom of speech!

rock22 · 18-07-2018 12:53pm

mark085 wrote: »

This is bananas there going to try tax links and only news channels can tell need this is the destruction of the internet simple as that

People me to speak out about this
What do you think

Surely the purpose is to protect and reward content creators. Google etc. are making money on other peoples creations, this will address that.

Personally I am concerned at how the big IT companies are trying to shut this down

VinLieger · 11-09-2018 10:30am

MEP's are voting on this tomorrow, Brian Hayes is expected to vote for it like last time but hopefully the independents and SF will vote against again but its still worth contacting them.

Simple contact form is available here

https://ie.saveyourinternet.eu/

Also anyone from the south remember to take crowleys piss poor attendance into account come the next european elections.

prawnsambo · 11-09-2018 10:37am

I'm no wiser after reading this thread than I was before I read it. Anyone got a coherent summary of what this is about?

VinLieger · 11-09-2018 10:47am

prawnsambo wrote: »

I'm no wiser after reading this thread than I was before I read it. Anyone got a coherent summary of what this is about?

Article 13 will make it mandatory for platforms to put in place something called content ID which automatically filters and removes content that may be copyrighted however its open to massive abuse.

For example someone uploaded some Bach to Facebook recently however it was automatically removed after Sony falsely claimed using these systems they owned 47 seconds of his composition that was written over 300 years ago. Youtube uses a similar system which is constantly abused with owners of original music or video having content claims falsely placed against them and these uploads being removed.

Especially consider this in the context of memes which are all created using content from someone else. Effectively they become impossible now.

Article 11 will make linking basically impossible as news media will be able to charge platforms when their content is linked to. This one I dont understand as it makes zero sense to how people will access or find this content if this is passed. So for example if you linked to an irish times article in this thread they could go to boards with a bill for it.

Basically it all smacks of industry lobbyists pushing for politicians to craft a massive hammer piece of legislation that none of them understand the potential consequences of.

lawred2 · 11-09-2018 10:52am

VinLieger wrote: »

Just so people know who to be angry at come next European Elections, FG voted for it while everyone else so basically SF and the independents voted against it.

Brian Crowley as usual didn't show, he has a vote ranking of 751 out of 751, he is literally the worst attending MEP in europe, something the people of the South need to consider next time he tries to con them into voting for him. If he really was as sick as is claimed he would have done the right thing and resigned to allow a special election so his constituents could be represented properly.

unreal

speaks volumes as to our levels of real engagement with the EU and its mechanisms that this is not more of an issue

speaks to my engagement too - I wasn't aware of his appalling voting record

EdgeCase · 11-09-2018 10:52am

It's also hugely impractical and gives massive advantages to incumbents like Google who've access to the infrastructure to do it.

It basically shoots EU startups in the both feet and gives US based startups massive advantages in Europe.

Moronic legislation!

VinLieger · 11-09-2018 10:59am

EdgeCase wrote: »

It's also hugely impractical and gives massive advantages to incumbents like Google who've access to the infrastructure to do it.

It basically shoots EU startups in the both feet and gives US based startups massive advantages in Europe.

Moronic legislation!

Indeed the logistics of such a system are mind boggling, tbh i don't believe one exists yet as would be required under what article 13 lays out

EdgeCase · 11-09-2018 11:19am

It's what happens when industry lobbyists representing one side of the argument talk to lawyers and politicians who've very little technical knowledge.

The proposal is utterly unworkable and shouldn't ever have got this far in the first place.

If FG vote for it, I assume they'll be explaining why to the people in Ireland whose jobs and livelihoods depend on the IT sector, not some 1950s copyright holders

VinLieger · 11-09-2018 11:21am

EdgeCase wrote: »

If FG vote for it, I assume they'll be explaining why to the people in Ireland whose jobs and livelihoods depend on the IT sector, not some 1950s copyright holders

They haven't a clue, none of them understand this could have massive repercussions for our tech/support sector which we have literally based our economy around

EdgeCase · 11-09-2018 12:14pm

There are also some very wildly different views of copyright around Europe. For example, in Belgium architects hold copyright to the images of buildings and you can only reproduce photographs of them with permission.

This is one or the main reasons why you hardly ever see images of the Atomium in Brussels for example. It makes using Brussels as the backdrop of anything on TV or film very problematic.

So for example, you could now have a Belgian architect pursuing some social media platform over someone's holiday snaps.

Recently relaxed (a bit)

https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/en/2016/05/11/selfies_with_theatomiumwithoutfearofprosecutionsoon-1-2652946/

But you can see how there's no single notion of what's subject to copyright and what isn't and how some continental countries have enormously burdensome protections on all sorts of things in a way we would probably find rather oppressive.

I just hope this piece of legislation is completely defeated as it's impossible to implement without seriously undermining online freedom of speech, open to abuse and very heavy handed.

As for EU engagement, I think we could do with paying a *lot* more attention to what's going through the European Parliament and getting more heavily involved. There are some very relevant votes that we should be aware of.

Sticking European parliamentary coverage onto RTE at about 2 in the morning is crazy. It should be getting covered in the news properly. There's more going on in Europe than just endless discussions of Brexit.

Gbear · 11-09-2018 1:43pm

Is there any statements from tech groups, universities or the likes that call this legislation out?

It might be worth linking to their statements in emails to MEPs - you'd never know how insulated a bubble they might stuff themselves into.

blanch152 · 11-09-2018 3:47pm

Ultimately, won't this need to go before the Council of Ministers?

BlitzKrieg · 11-09-2018 5:43pm

blanch152 wrote: »

Ultimately, won't this need to go before the Council of Ministers?

I believe it should

The intro document they've given every MEP today for the discussion covers where it has gone so far (that it started as a request from the European council in 2015 and again in 2016, so that means our elected national leaders proposed this law back then) but it looks like it's not gone to the Council of European Union yet so it will need to go to that next

link to document: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2016/593564/EPRS_BRI(2016)593564_EN.pdf

its actually surprisingly critical brief in some areas such as this:

The proposed directive clarifies that the protection of the new right does not extend to acts of
posting hyperlinks, which do not constitute communication to the public under current EU law
(see Recital 33). This is in line with the recent CJEU ruling in GS Media in which the Court held
that posting a hyperlink to copyrighted content published online without consent of the copyright
holder does not in principal constitute a 'communication to the public'.17 However, the exact
scope of the new publishers' right still raises some questions. Several clarifications are needed,
including whether or not the new right applies to publication on blogs, whether end-users will
still be free to use snippets (i.e. small fragment of a text) and what type of use is going to be
considered 'digital use' of a press publication.18

RandomName2 · 11-09-2018 5:51pm

VinLieger wrote: »

They haven't a clue, none of them understand this could have massive repercussions for our tech/support sector which we have literally based our economy around

Nobody likes people saying 'I told you so' so I'm going to stay quiet in this thread.

Only thing I'll say is that there's never been any point ever voting for Irish MEPs that are members of ALDE or EPP, they merely fall in line with whatever their masters are telling them. They don't represent Irish interests. Or as the pro-EU people like to say, 'representative-democracy'

blanch152 · 11-09-2018 6:06pm

RandomName2 wrote: »

Nobody likes people saying 'I told you so' so I'm going to stay quiet in this thread.

Only thing I'll say is that there's never been any point ever voting for Irish MEPs that are members of ALDE or EPP, they merely fall in line with whatever their masters are telling them. They don't represent Irish interests. Or as the pro-EU people like to say, 'representative-democracy'

Whatever about the merits of this proposal right or wrong, I don't agree with the second point.

We are electing people to the Parliament of Europe to decide what's best for Europe. In the same way we should elect TDs to decide what's best for Ireland, rather than what's best for our local town.

One of the worst features of Ireland's democracy is that we elect the local person to protect the local view of the world rather than the best person to decide on the overall view.

EdgeCase · 11-09-2018 6:09pm

The biggest issue is we need to be paying a hell of a lot more attention to what's going on in Brussels and Strasbourg. This notion that the EU is somewhere else or far away is nonsense. It's our other layer of government and our other parliament.

BlitzKrieg · 11-09-2018 6:15pm

EdgeCase wrote: »

The biggest issue is we need to be paying a hell of a lot more attention to what's going on in Brussels and Strasbourg. This notion that the EU is somewhere else or far away is nonsense. It's our other layer of government and our other parliament.

The important thing not to forget is that our national leaders start a lot of these legislation themselves at the Council years in advance.

This law started in the European Council back in 2015/2016, thats where it started so we need to hold our national governments accountable, if they know they are accountable for every EU law as much as national laws then they will be more careful not to casually let the Commission loose in some legal areas.

PopePalpatine · 12-09-2018 10:08pm

The new copyright measures were approved by 438-226.

VinLieger · 12-09-2018 11:18pm

PopePalpatine wrote: »

The new copyright measures were approved by 438-226.

Yup pretty depressing, FG voted with their leashes held tight, would love to confront brian hayes and ask him to explain exactly what was being voted on, im guessing it would amount to something similar to the internet being a system of tubes

ixoy · 12-09-2018 11:41pm

Ah but isn't it great news that billionaire Paul McCartney is happy that it's passed? Something for the little guy!

Franz Von Peppercorn · 12-09-2018 11:47pm

VinLieger wrote: »

Yup pretty depressing, FG voted with their leashes held tight, would love to confront brian hayes and ask him to explain exactly what was being voted on, im guessing it would amount to something similar to the internet being a system of tubes

Held together by whiffy tape.

Franz Von Peppercorn · 12-09-2018 11:48pm

So are links banned or not? I assume not.

What about summaries?

BlitzKrieg · 12-09-2018 11:53pm

Franz Von Peppercorn wrote: »

So are links banned or not? I assume not.

What about summaries?

not according to the brief I linked earlier.

The European Courts had already ruled that hyperlinks did not count as breach of copyright so people cant be charged for links.

Now it's going to fall to each national government to decide how much of an article you are allowed to quote before you have to pay in a link, I assume Google etc will just enforce to the level of whichever of the large EU countries is the strictest and any smaller countries that are stricter will just be stepped over (see Spain)

Also it's up to national governments to decide if this will even cover blogs or not so it could end up only applying to set number of news sources.

Infini · 13-09-2018 1:07am

Franz Von Peppercorn wrote: »

So are links banned or not? I assume not.

What about summaries?

It looks like theres more common sense being applied to make the proposals more reasonable. Memes wont be banned as theyre falling under the definition of a parody. Links wont be banned because it simply wont be workable and has already been ruled as not affected by this.

They ultimaely have to come up with something workable they cant approve something that goes against the very nature of something without breaking it there'd be war. The articles in this proposal that were causing concern were also watered down.

BlitzKrieg · 13-09-2018 10:52am

Yeah a lot of the articles are not linking to the version of the regulation with amendments which contain a lot of new protections for area of concern:

Here's a breakdown of the amendments: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=REPORT&reference=A8-2018-0245&language=EN

Amendments from the current version are at the start with the original on the left and changes on the right

some highlighted changes:

(21b) Despite some overlap with existing exceptions or limitations, such as the ones for quotation and parody, not all content that is uploaded or made available by a user that reasonably includes extracts of protected works or other subject-matter is covered by Article 5 of Directive 2001/29/EC. A situation of this type creates legal uncertainty for both users and rightholders. It is therefore necessary to provide a new specific exception to permit the legitimate uses of extracts of pre-existing protected works or other subject-matter in content that is uploaded or made available by users. Where content generated or made available by a user involves the short and proportionate use of a quotation or of an extract of a protected work or other subject-matter for a legitimate purpose, such use should be protected by the exception provided for in this Directive. This exception should only be applied in certain special cases which do not conflict with normal exploitation of the work or other subject-matter concerned and do not unreasonably prejudice the legitimate interests of the rightholder. For the purpose of assessing such prejudice, it is essential that the degree of originality of the content concerned, the length/extent of the quotation or extract used, the professional nature of the content concerned or the degree of economic harm be examined, where relevant, while not precluding the legitimate enjoyment of the exception. This exception should be without prejudice to the moral rights of the authors of the work or other subject-matter.

It's basically being left to individual member states to set the limit for memes etc.

(37a) Certain information society services, as part of their normal use, are designed to give access to the public to copyright protected content or other subject-matter uploaded by their users. The definition of an online content sharing service provider under this Directive shall cover information society service providers one of the main purposes of which is to store and give access to the public or to stream copyright protected content uploaded / made available by its users and that optimise content, including amongst others promoting displaying, tagging, curating, sequencing the uploaded works or other subject-matter, irrespective of the means used therefor, and therefore act in an active way. The definition of online content sharing service providers under this Directive does not cover service providers that act in a non-commercial purpose capacity such as online encyclopaedia, and providers of online services where the content is uploaded with the authorisation of all rightholders concerned, such as educational or scientific repositories. Providers of cloud services for individual use which do not provide direct access to the public, open source software developing platforms, and online market places whose main activity is online retail of physical goods, should not be considered online content sharing service providers within the meaning of this Directive.

Wikipedia etc are exempt from article 13.

39) Cooperation between online content sharing service providers and rightholders is essential for the functioning of the measures. In particular, rightholders should provide the relevant information to online content sharing service providers to allow them to identify their content when applying the measures. The service providers should be transparent towards rightholders with regard to the deployed measures, to allow the assessment of their appropriateness. When assessing the proportionality and effectiveness of the measures implemented, due consideration should be given to technological constraints and limitations as well as to the amount or the type of works or other subject matter uploaded by the users of the services. In accordance with Article 15 of Directive 2000/31/EC, where applicable, the implementation of measures by service providers should not consist in a general monitoring obligation and should be limited to ensuring the non-availability of unauthorised uses on their services of specific and duly notified copyright protected works or other subject-matter. When implementing such measures, the service providers should also strike a balance between the rights of users and those of the rightholders under the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. The measures applied should not require the identification of individual users that upload content and should not involve the processing of data relating to individual users, in accordance with Regulation (EU) 2016/6791a and Directive 2002/58/EC1b. Since the measures deployed by online content sharing service providers in application of this Directive could have a negative or disproportionate effect on legitimate content that is uploaded or displayed by users, in particular where the content concerned is covered by an exception or limitation, online content sharing service providers should be required to offer a complaints mechanism for the benefit of users whose content has been affected by the measures. Such a mechanism should enable the user to ascertain why the content concerned has been subject to measures and include basic information on the relevant exceptions and limitations applicable. It should prescribe minimum standards for complaints to ensure that rightholders are given sufficient information to assess and respond to complaints. Rightholders or a representative should reply to any complaints received within a reasonable amount of time. The platforms or a trusted third party responsible for the redress mechanism should take corrective action without undue delay where measures prove to be unjustified.

ohhhh.

This one is interesting

1) The EU says the service provider cannot hand your personal details over to someone claiming copyright against you

2) The EU is setting standards that need to be revealed to the end user if they complain about their content being taken down, requiring the rights holder to actually provide what exactly they are claiming ownership of and to show how much of the material can be used in the case of parody and other such uses.

That's actually somewhat a reversal on how this law was percieved.

FreudianSlippers · 13-09-2018 11:00am

BlitzKrieg wrote: »

1) The EU says the service provider cannot hand your personal details over to someone claiming copyright against you

The implementation of rules cannot require service providers to hand over personal details on complaint, however it does not prohibit such information being supplied by court order in the event of litigation (i.e. Norwich Pharmacal Orders).

Infini · 13-09-2018 6:32pm

BlitzKrieg wrote: »

This one is interesting

1) The EU says the service provider cannot hand your personal details over to someone claiming copyright against you

2) The EU is setting standards that need to be revealed to the end user if they complain about their content being taken down, requiring the rights holder to actually provide what exactly they are claiming ownership of and to show how much of the material can be used in the case of parody and other such uses.

That's actually somewhat a reversal on how this law was percieved.

This would also go towards the reasoning why it's gotten approval this time. It's updated to eliminate flaws with the old legislation which sunk it the first time.

What's also interesting about the 2nd one is that there has to be a reasoning, a proper one, behind the copyright holder. Parodies are mostly exempt and links are exempt so that alone goes to allay the concerns in those areas. It also look like an attempt for copyright holders to actually have legitimate complains and not allow "copyright trolls" to abuse this.

breatheme · 14-09-2018 3:40pm

This is depressing, but a reason to put pressure on MEPs seeking reelection next year.

BlitzKrieg · 14-09-2018 4:18pm

breatheme wrote: »

This is depressing, but a reason to put pressure on MEPs seeking reelection next year.

Considering the amendments added the pressure has worked part way the issue has shifted to a more nuance discussion as elements that concerned a lot of big groups were directly amended into the bill, it's actually the next stage with the back and forth with the european council that will be most important, since the national governments have to implement, if they come back firmly saying whats being asked cant actually be done with these amendments (which is the position of most tech groups) it could push the bill in any number of ways from the council trying to remove the amendments (where it will likely fail in parliament again) or removing the articles as a whole.

EU censoring the internet banning memes and freedom of speech

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