EU Copyright Directive

I know it might be a moot point in a couple of weeks, although who can tell at this point, but can anyone with a bit more of a grasp on these things explain what this is all about? The limited understanding I have is that EU lawmakers have been lobbied into proposing this legislation, which has just passed, the end result of which is that most websites will simply cease to serve content to IPs located within the EU because of the impossible burden it puts on websites to adhere to copyright permissions. Easier to not serve the EU than it is to meet the requirements of the regulation.

And this isn’t an anti-EU themed post, more an anti-idiots-with-no-business-regulating-the-internet themed post.

Funnily enough, all my German friends on FB have been petitioning against this (Article 13) for months, with marches and demonstrations all over the country. Strange that it has not really featured in the UK news at all.

It sounds completely unworkable and surely the instant difference between the EU vision of the internet and other countries will be so continually apparent, that nobody will stand for it.
Absolutely gobsmacked that this went through

It’s about allowing copyright holders to protected their rights. Pulling a few lines from a book and using them in your book review is far game. Cut and pasting the whole first chapter without permission is not. The internet is often used to deliberately blur the law… scraping content and repurposing it without permission, and serving ads up with it to make money off the work of others. We might well be looking at a sledgehammer to crack a nut here… but certain web companies have had years to sort out their behaviour voluntarily, so something has to give.

At its basis, it seems rather sensible to me, the idea that the likes of facebook and google should just be allowed to freeload other peoples work for their own profit is crazy. while on other threads we bemoan the lack of quality journalism, we cannot then really complain when those creating content that costs money to produce want to protect their work

There may be consequences beyond that, but at its core, that situation must be resolved.

It’s about allowing copyright holders to protected their rights.

Not really, it’s putting the onus on server-owners to make sure no copyrighted material is put on their servers by users. Copyright holders are perfectly able to protect their rights in the current system, but they don’t want to be bothered with that – it’s too big a task for them, so they want users to pay for it.

while on other threads we bemoan the lack of quality journalism, we cannot then really complain when those creating content that costs money to produce want to protect their work

What individuals have expressed support for this law? i.e. Journalists in your example?

Not really, it’s putting the onus on server-owners to make sure no copyrighted material is put on their servers by users.

Seems sensible.

Not really, it’s putting the onus on server-owners to make sure no copyrighted material is put on their servers by users.

Is it not already that way though? Youtube, Facebook, Instagram, etc, all automatically scan uploaded content for copyrighted material and take action if found.

What specifically is changing under the new laws? Is it that an increased amount of responsibility is placed with host as opposed to the user?

And if so, how do smaller businesses manage when they can’t afford the cutting edge software used by Companies like Google and Facebook?

The articles I see online all seem relatively vague.

And if so, how do smaller businesses manage when they can’t afford the cutting edge software used by Companies like Google and Facebook?

How do smaller businesses manage, when google and facebook feed their work and steal their advertising revenues? The idea that google and facebook who have apposed this law representing themselves as champions of freedom just doesn’t ring true IMO.

What individuals have expressed support for this law? i.e. Journalists in your example?

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/sep/09/battle-over-eu-copyright-law-heads-for-showdown

Europe’s biggest news agencies have also urged MEPs to vote for the law, as they accused Google and Facebook of “plundering” the news and their ad revenues, resulting in a “threat to democracy”.

“For the sake of Europe’s free press and democratic values, EU lawmakers should press ahead with copyright reform,” said a statement signed by 20 agencies, including the Press Association and Agence France-Presse.

Well I still think it’ll be unworkable, but…

Let’s say you run a mountain bike forum. And someone links to a copyrighted image and it shows up on your forum. It lives on another server, but under Article 11 you aren’t allowed to show in your platform. You can never know what is on that link, so all images with an external link now have to be blocked.

Another example. There’s a sensitive political video uploaded. No copyright. An entity doesn’t want anyone to see it, so they add it to the upload filter. The uploader starts the legal process of proving they are allowed to upload it. It takes so long that the election/vote/etc has already taken place by the time the false-flag is removed.

I don’t think for one minute that creators are losing out due to copyright infringement or that this will protect anyone’s income. It will just put more power with the biggest players.

Remember, Facebook and YouTube don’t make money from you uploading stuff, they make money from selling your data – that’s where the laws should be put.

Let’s say you run a mountain bike forum. And someone links to a copyrighted image and it shows up on your forum…

Been doing a little more reading and it looks like these directives apply to the big hitters only, so won’t affect small to medium businesses?

I don’t think for one minute that creators are losing out due to copyright infringement or that this will protect anyone’s income. It will just put more power with the biggest players.

It is alleged that experiments have shown the creators have lost substantial amounts of traffic from social media platforms using reduced content and imagery, result in less click throughs. This I can believe.

It’s an interesting topic because it’s so complex. I suspect there are pros and cons on either side and they’re not fully understood by those deciding upon them.

And if so, how do smaller businesses manage when they can’t afford the cutting edge software used by Companies like Google and Facebook?

The directive has some special wording in it for services <3 yrs old & <EUR 10MM t/o; and different sanctions for <5m unique visitors per month. Contrary to some of the online hysteria it doesn’t apply to “every company on the web” or even “most websites” as per the OP. It applies to services that: Have a main purpose of sharing content with the general public, which is uploaded by users and is then organised and promoted for profit.

And then in deciding whether checks were adequate the test accounts for the availability, cost and effectiveness of checks, the audience of the service, the volume and type of work uploaded, etc.

It is alleged that experiments have shown the creators have lost substantial amounts of traffic from social media platforms using reduced content and imagery, result in less click throughs. This I can believe.

It seems to me that there is nothing to stop a creator from clearly agreeing a royalty free license to use the content (i.e. permission to scrape). It would be fairly trivial for say googlenews to provide a “permission” form for content providers to authorise the harvesting of links with the associated “preview” that seems to cause the concern. I’d be surprised if nobody has considered adding a new HTML tag to label specific paragraphs for exactly this purpose.