EU Gives Up On The Open Web Experiment, Decides It Will Be The Licensed Web Going Forward

from the this-is-bad dept

Well, this was not entirely unexpected at this point, but in the EU Parliament earlier today, they voted to end the open web and move to a future of a licensed-only web. It is not final yet, as the adopted version by the EU Parliament is different than the (even worse) version that was agreed to by the EU Council. The two will now need to iron out the differences and then there will be a final vote on whatever awful consolidated version they eventually come up with. There will be plenty to say on this in the coming weeks, months and years, but let’s just summarize what has happened.

For nearly two decades, the legacy entertainment industries have always hated the nature of the open web. Their entire business models were based on being gatekeepers, and a “broadcast” world in which everything was licensed and curated was perfect for that. It allowed the gatekeepers to have ultimate control — and with it the power to extract massive rents from actual creators (including taking control over their copyright). The open web changed much of that. By allowing anyone to publicize, distribute and sell works by themselves, directly to end users, the middlemen were no longer important.

The fundamental nature of the internet was that it was a communications medium rather than a broadcast medium, and as such it allowed for permissionless distribution of content and communication. This has always infuriated the legacy gatekeepers as it completely undermined the control and leverage they had over the market. If you look back at nearly every legal move by these gatekeepers over the last twenty five years concerning the internet, it has always been about trying to move the internet away from an open, permissionless system back towards one that was a closed, licensed, broadcast, curated one. There’s historical precedence for this as well. It’s the same thing that happened to radio a century ago.

For the most part, the old gatekeepers have not been able to succeed, but that changed today. The proposal adopted by the EU Parliament makes a major move towards ending the open web in the EU and moving to a licensed, curated one, which will limit innovation, harm creators, and only serve to empower the largest internet platforms and some legacy gatekeepers. As Julia Reda notes:

Today?s decision is a severe blow to the free and open internet. By endorsing new legal and technical limits on what we can post and share online, the European Parliament is putting corporate profits over freedom of speech and abandoning long-standing principles that made the internet what it is today.

The Parliament?s version of Article 13 (366 for, 297 against) seeks to make all but the smallest internet platforms liable for any copyright infringements committed by their users. This law leaves sites and apps no choice but to install error-prone upload filters. Anything we want to publish will need to first be approved by these filters, and perfectly legal content like parodies and memes will be caught in the crosshairs.

The adopted version of Article 11 (393 for, 279 against) allows only ?individual words? of news articles to be reproduced for free, including in hyperlinks ? closely following an existing German law. Five years after the ?link tax? came into force in Germany, no journalist or publisher has made an extra penny, startups in the news sector have had to shut down and courts have yet to clear up the legal uncertainty on exactly where to draw the line. The same quagmire will now repeat at the EU level ? no argument has been made why it wouldn?t, apart from wishful thinking.

This is a dark day for the open internet in the EU… and around the world. Expect the same gatekeepers to use this move by the EU to put pressure on the US and lots of other countries around the world to “harmonize” and adopt similar standards in trade agreements.

I know that many authors, musicians, journalists and other content creators cheered this on, incorrectly thinking that was a blow to Google and would magically benefit them. But they should recognize just what they’ve supported. It is not a bill designed to help creators. It is a bill designed to prevent innovation, lock up paths for content creators to have alternatives, and force them back into the greedy, open arms of giant gatekeepers.

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Comments on “EU Gives Up On The Open Web Experiment, Decides It Will Be The Licensed Web Going Forward”

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153 Comments
End Of The World, AGAIN! Into Your Bunker! says:

Oh, noes! Techdirt's greatest fear: creators getting paid!

Masnick never sees an up side where he can enjoy saying "I told you so" because he’s nearly always not just wrong but completely wrong. He shrieked for months in advance about the Gawker case, "net neutrality", and SESTA / FOSTA, during, and shortly after, but always falls silent since no bad effects are visible, let alone the disasters he predicted.

So too this. Of course, IF harms Google (which won’t measurably or even plausibly), he’ll shriek from now on. He’s been shrieking for 20 years now, and exactly no disaster has occurred. He’s been chanting "better business model" for 20 years now too, and exactly none have been found. He has the credibility of a cultist on day after predicted world would end.

End Of The World, AGAIN! Into Your Bunker! says:

Re: Re: Oh, Bunker?

Funny that the tinfoil wearing nutter is now accusing others of bunker mentality?

Thanks for proving you lack substance and have nothing but ad hom.

But you’re wrong as can be: it’s YOU pirates who are tiny nutty group. Here on Techdirt you’re in majority, and you haven’t the wit to see that I’m aligned with the EU, plus “Hollywood” and other creators, many in Congress, plus the entire body of Copyright law for couple hundred years.

Mike Masnick (profile) says:

Re: Oh, noes! Techdirt's greatest fear: creators getting paid!

Techdirt’s greatest fear: creators getting paid!

Nothing in this bill involves creators getting paid.

He shrieked for months in advance about the Gawker case, "net neutrality", and SESTA / FOSTA, during, and shortly after, but always falls silent since no bad effects are visible, let alone the disasters he predicted.

Hmm. We’ve shown the negative impacts of all of those things, repeatedly. I know you troll the site every damn day, but sometimes you should actually read the articles.

So too this. Of course, IF harms Google (which won’t measurably or even plausibly), he’ll shriek from now on.

It won’t harm Google. It will help them by clearing the field of any competitors. Odd that you support giving Google a monopoly.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Oh, noes! Techdirt's greatest fear: creators getting paid!

you should say nice things about him:
he’s probably a mental patient, not a troll.

(I mean isn’t it nicer to suggest that someone has an organ in their body that is experiencing catastrophic failure rather than they are a monster of a creature that’s only here to hurt people)

End Of The World, AGAIN! Into Your Bunker! says:

Re: Re: Oh, noes! Techdirt's greatest fear: creators getting paid!

Hmm. We’ve shown the negative impacts of all of those things, repeatedly.

SUUURE you have. Not in my opinion.

This is just more of your quote-and-contradict method of appearing to reply, but without substance.

It won’t harm Google.

So I’m right on that.

It will help them by clearing the field of any competitors.

NO, you’re premising all on Google NOT being broken up

Odd that you support giving Google a monopoly.

NO, Google HAS a monopoly, and I’ve been railing at it for years! Wishing for anti-trust action long long overdue. ALL that time Google "supports" YOU, and YOU support it. YOU again are the one with projection and displacement, trying to say that I’m for Google’s monopoly. SHEESH.

That all you’ve got, Google-boy?

End Of The World, AGAIN! Into Your Bunker! says:

Re: Re: Re: Oh, noes! Techdirt's greatest fear: creators getting paid!

PS to all: NO, I don’t need to show “substance” here. The EU has acted in line with my notions — just not far enough — and that IS the substance. When in effect, it’s MY notions that’ll be backed by the full force of law, NOT Masnick’s.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re: Oh, noes! Techdirt's greatest fear: creators getting paid!

Not in my opinion.

Then your opinion is wrong and easily disproven by a simple search of this site’s articles. It also proves that you either don’t actually read any articles on here or are deliberately ignoring them since then you would have to admit to being wrong.

So I’m right on that.

No one said you weren’t?

NO, Google HAS a monopoly

Bing, DuckDuckGo, Yahoo, Ask, I could go on and on. And that’s just for search engines. What was that about monopolies, projection, and displacement again?

That all you’ve got, blue boy?

End Of The World, AGAIN! Into Your Bunker! says:

Re: Re: Re:2 Oh, noes! Techdirt's greatest fear: creators getting paid!

That all you’ve got, blue boy?

No. Here’s some boiler-plate for you:
I see so much about this out_of_the_blue and how horrible he is that I just had to look up what wrote.

Here’s actual out_of_the_blue comments, not the wacky lies that “ACs” spread:

Fundamentals of Rational Copyright.
Somewhat redundant to clarify related aspects. Don’t worry if you can’t grasp these all at once: I’ll be using magic to post it often.

>>> Copyright is derived from the facts of existence; it is natural law and cannot be narrowly defined; it is self-evident like the US Constitution itself which is only valid UNDER common law; statute is at best tertiary.

) Creators inherently have SOLE RIGHT TO COPY their work.

) Creating is and has always been more difficult than copying.

) The special provisions in law for copyright stem from the above 2 facts. It’s specific setting out of “intellectual property” rights for creating works given the relative ease of copying.

) Copyright specifies WHO can gain money from the works, AND that no one else is to gain money from them. (For a limited time, but after in public domain, it’s still unethical to grift on the work of others; ONLY the cost of reproduction should be charged.)

) Copyright law is indeed exactly to prevent TWO types of THEFT (during the limited time): 1) by commercial scale copiers directly profiting 2) by the general public taking the work without rewarding creator. Only creators may make copies or attempt to gain from it during that (limited) period.

) There are NO rights whatsoever granted to or held by copiers. No one’s “right to copy” is at any time removed or diminished because it never exists prior to the creation of a work.

) Morally and practically, copyright is valid because exists independently of and without conflicting anyone else’s rights. — Pirates obviously want to deny the moral basis of “I made it, therefore I own it”, and for practical objection point to the increasing controls that they cause by stealing.

) Machines doing the labor of copying doesn’t confer any new right to do so.

) Copyright has a worthwhile societal purpose to encourage the creation of various works, even if only for trivial entertainment.

) Many like to jeer that copyright exists only until a creation is shared with others — after that you’ve no claim to it! Then anyone can take the work that you did and try to grift off its value for themselves. But that’s advocating law of the jungle apply to creators while enabling grifters and pirates to use the very tools of civilization to STEAL the creations. It’s just not FAIR. — No one will say that laborers don’t have right to the fruits of their labor (except so far as they advocate slavery, and some DO). Copyright is the SAME common law, fundamental recognition of who’s due the rewards for having produced, except applies to non-material products. The creator puts in work with hopes of profit, relying on the stated terms of civilized society that the public assure monopoly for a limited time so that the very potential for rewards isn’t stolen by either grifters or pirates.

) Even indirect income from in any way providing “for free” the protected work of others is clearly illegal, undeserved, immoral, and unethical.

) Putting entire digital movie / music files online for anyone to download is NOT sharing, not fair use, nor fair to its creators; it does remove some degree of potential profit and some degree of actual profit.

) Copying rights are granted by the public for the public good (or was until unilaterally changed by moneyed interests) and we all have a general duty to respect the special provisions made for creators of non-physical works.

) Possession of authorized physical media is license to access the content any number of times (which can be one-at-a-time library use, yet not “public” display). In the absence of physical media, there’s no clear right to access content, only perhaps an authorized temporary permission. But at no time does possession of digital data confer a right to reproduce it outside of the terms and conditions as for physical media, no matter how easy it is to do so.

) Emphasizing an aspect of the just above point: digital data is even less “owned” by the purchaser than with physical media, not more.

) When independently rendered, fashion “ideas”, “art” in general, “look and feel”, jokes, bits of wit, and musical “riffs” are not copyright-able because not significant effort. Don’t throw those in to confuse the topic. (Specific clarification for music: you may render “stolen” riffs to parody or add spice, but not use actual “sampled” audio as basis for your main theme.)

) Many persist in using the canard of “copyright can’t guarantee income”. — Misleading. From the US Constitution it’s been to assure creators a monopoly on the ATTEMPT at income from a given work for a limited time period. No one else has the right to even MAKE such attempt, nor to GRIFT off the content value either directly or indirectly (as a draw for eyes to advertisements).

) Nothing above is invalidated or weakened by results being imperfect, nor by attempts to indefinitely extend time and scope of copyright: the latter are driven by greed and should of course be resisted, but by more general means.

) If you advocate taking copyright away from Disney after its long abuse and extension, then FINE! — But don’t at same time empower mega-corporations to steal creative works from the poor. Those are not similar cases. Doing away with ALL copyright is even more criminal than the current mess. — Make a means test for copyright, prohibit it entirely to corporations, and prevent them from raiding the public domain.

[Last revised 17 January 2014]

Vel the Enigmatic says:

Re: Re: Re:3 Oh, noes! Techdirt's greatest fear: creators getting paid!

Wrong, copyright is not derived from the facts of existence. It is a completely man-made construct. It can, and should be narrowly defined, and should have short terms of as little as 28 years at most.

You will cry wolf about how the families of the copyright holders aren’t being compensated, but guess what? Those companies, who want to have something that’s popular? They want sole control and ownership over it, regardless of who makes it.

These companies are greed machines, and if they want to find a way to fuck a creator out of their rights, they will try, and they have done so, time and time again.

This current regime of “Life+70” will no longer be useful to the families of the creator when their names disappear and are replaced by whoever takes control of the company after they pass on, hell, if the family dies out, then that “Life+70” is worth jack shit.

Anonymous Anonymous Coward (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:4 Oh, noes! Techdirt's greatest fear: creators getting paid!

Further, if the artist or their families receive little or no royalties, then the +70 years does them no good at all. Not now, and not in the future.

Which means there are only the gatekeepers benefiting from the +70 years, and hoping, hoping, hoping they don’t go bankrupt in the meantime. Of course if they do go bankrupt, the new entity that obtains some copyrights will argue that they aren’t dead…yet.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:5 Oh, noes! Techdirt's greatest fear: creators getting paid!

The main reason the publishers want a long copyright, is so they can keep a work off the market until it is forgotten. That way they are optimizing the sales of the works they currently offer. The number of works that continue to make a reasonable revenue for more that a few years is a fairly short list.

Anonymous Anonymous Coward (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:6 Oh, noes! Techdirt's greatest fear: creators getting paid!

While I agree that the number of works that continue to make a reasonable revenue for more than a few years is a small number, it seems to many of us that they want to capitalize any use of a property they own. To them, why leave money on the table?

A question that I have proposed several times is, what does that cost them? If they were to take all of their expenses in ‘protecting their IP’ vs the income received from things, let’s say older than 10 years, would they actually have a profit? By all of their expenses I mean the lawyers, contributions to agencies like MPAA or RIAA, lobbyists, campaign contributions, so called researchers, etc..

I have a hard time thinking they would.

TrollicLobotomite says:

Re: Re: Re:2 Oh, noes! Techdirt's greatest fear: creators getting paid!

Google has NO monopoly, never has, never will.

WE control which search engine gets used the most.

WE control where most advertising dollars are spent by controlling which search engine gets used the most.

Google has no control over either of those 2 points.

So if you don’t like Google, stop using them.
If enough people agree with you, the dollars will shift to the new golden-search engine.

Scary Devil Monastery (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re: Oh, noes! Techdirt's greatest fear: creators getting paid!

“NO, Google HAS a monopoly, and I’ve been railing at it for years!”

And this new legislation actually demands that Google consolidate that monopoly and adds a few more areas to it.

Because now Google can calmly de-list EVERY competitor for eyeball time and make the claim that they obey the requirements of articles 11 and 13.

So look forward to a future where the only thing shown on Youtube or Google search will be artists and news outlets which have begged google for the permission to list their links.

Everyone else will just quietly lose 95% of their visibility.

And you actually show up here full of joy and good cheer over the fact that someone just shoved a rusty crowbar up your rear. Unbelievable.

I keep saying it; The greatest enemy of copyright are it’s staunchest adherents.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Oh, noes! Techdirt's greatest fear: creators getting paid!

Have you written your surrender note yet? It’s over. Hollywood controls all creative works soon and this will be celebrated when Avengers 4 and Star Wars IX makes billions proving that only the rich are capable of making anything worth caring about.

Scary Devil Monastery (profile) says:

Re: Re: Oh, noes! Techdirt's greatest fear: creators getting paid!

“It won’t harm Google. It will help them by clearing the field of any competitors. Odd that you support giving Google a monopoly.”

All too true. The “link tax” means every news outlet demanding that money will now lose 95% of it’s visibility as Google calmly de-lists them. A few years back in spain the same people who argued for the link tax legislation ended up begging the government NOT to implement it since they discovered what they’d end up loosing.

And artists will suffer the same fate, meaning that once again the ONLY venue of launching a career will be through an indentured serfdom sponsored by a Sony contract.

Once again “pro”-copyright legislation which does nothing to hinder pirates but significantly screws anyone actually relying on copyright for a living.

Meanwhile this means Google now has, as you say, a gold-plated opportunity to consolidate a few more monopolies, simply by launching their own services now that EU legislation actually REQUIRES them to not provide their competitors the venue they used to have…

End Of The World, AGAIN! Into Your Bunker! says:

Re: Oh, noes! Techdirt's greatest fear: creators getting paid!

This law leaves sites and apps no choice

Actually, there’s wide latitude of NOT hosting. Much about law becomes easy when your goal is to live peaceably, without using drugs and alcohol to literally go out of your mind, and without theft.

There’s NO right to run any host so as to allow copyright infringement. IF snippets are essential, then can easily keep safe by limiting size of files, for instance (and not trying other dodges like allowing a hundred of those that can be concatenated to full length). JUST DON’T premise your site on allowing unknown content. File hosts like the defunct Rapidshare and Megaupload are no more allowed to have infringed content than pawn shops are allowed to knowingly fence stolen items. PERIOD.

It’s just that the underlying premise of masnicks and other pirates is that sites MUST be allowed policies that allow and even promote piracy.

The end of that Wild West period is over: you pirates have PROVEN beyond all doubt that can’t and won’t limit yourself to putting out your own content, only want to steal.

End Of The World, AGAIN! Into Your Bunker! says:

Re: Re: Re: Oh, noes! Techdirt's greatest fear: creators getting paid!

They say that some dinosaurs had a brain the size of a walnut. I think you just managed to prove

That’s what a "person" such as you WOULD say. My opinion and bet is that "you" are actually the site, perhaps The Masnick itself astro-turfing.

In any case, your feeble gainsaying is futile. I’m right again, Masnick is wrong, and teh internets will survive only better.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:2 Oh, noes! Techdirt's greatest fear: creators getting paid!

In a world where there is no clear black and white morality, what is ‘right’ is subjective.

Ergo, depending on the perspective you are both simultaneously ‘right’ and ‘wrong’.

The ones who share Masnick’s perspective view you as ‘wrong’, as they believe facts are still important even in a era where facts are deemed optional.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:2 Oh, noes! Techdirt's greatest fear: creators getting paid!

I’m right again, Masnick is wrong, and teh internets will survive only better.

Um, this doesn’t prove you right.

This law? This is just people deciding what the rules are. Whether those rules actually work, is yet to be proven. But we’ll soon see. The proof of who is right and who is wrong will be how this plays out in the coming years.

Rocky says:

Re: Re: Re:2 Oh, noes! Techdirt's greatest fear: creators getting paid!

You don’t know me. I know you from the sheer stupidity you post.

You expend an inordinate amount of time so you can post here even though you get ip-banned and everyone thinks you are an excrement aperture of the first order.

If you get your jollies that way I can only come to the conclusion that your brain is the figurative size of a walnut. You must live a very sad and bland life.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Oh, noes! Techdirt's greatest fear: creators getting paid!

The end of that Wild West period is over: you pirates have PROVEN beyond all doubt that can’t and won’t limit yourself to putting out your own content, only want to steal.

And you corporate drones have have proven that you are not capable of good faith compromise or containing your behaviour to basic community standards of civility. That is why people pirate media – because it is an infinitely better user experience than the insulting malware that your owners are trying to sell.

Pirating isn’t going anywhere. Engineers build the internet. Not paid corporate shills. And we like it open.

Scary Devil Monastery (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:3 Oh, noes! Techdirt's greatest fear: creators getting paid!

“Please explain how this new legislation will magically bring about the end to all piracy.”

He can’t, because it won’t. It won’t do a damn thing to piracy.

What it WILL do is to make it far, far harder for artists and creators to find a venue to publish their works. From today on, Google is actually REQUIRED not to allow their competitors on their link lists.

Makes me wonder if Google actually lobbied FOR this law.

This is just another case where copyright adherents sail to war and view torching their own ship as a “significant success”.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:2 Oh, noes! Techdirt's greatest fear: creators getting paid!

May I correct that for you, this means that anointed creators, those accepted by a publisher, will get less than 10% of what their works sell for, the rest will find it increasingly difficult to publish their works, and therefore to make any money from their works.

Anonymous Coward says:

Question

So what are the chances of companies delisting things from the EU or something else more drastic? I mean sure they will take a wait and see approach at first but I really can’t see how they can stay like this overall where missing a WORD or anything will hold you liable for who knows how how much no matter dedicated they are.

That One Guy (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re: Question

That’ll make for some fun arguments.

‘Google linking to our stuff without paying for it is stealing! Them refusing to link to our stuff and therefore not pay for it is blackmail! They should be required to link to our stuff and pay for it, and any attempt to only provide links to those that aren’t demanding payment will obviously be unfair discrimination against us!’

I’m not saying they won’t do it(they did basically exactly that the last time they tried it), just that it’ll be all sorts of funny watching them make their greed blatantly obvious like that again.

ShadowNinja (profile) says:

Re: Question

That’s what I was wondering.

The problem is the GDP is EU is so high that simply not doing business with them will be giving up a lot of money. It’s a bigger sacrifice then just not doing business in Spain/Germany with their existing link taxes.

But of course, if EU makes it too expensive to do business there, then people will drop out of it anyway I imagine.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Question

I just don’t see how you can watch every word in the digital space and still have a euro dollar yen insert currency here left no matter how good your stuff is at finding things are with current tech without just going nuclear on anything not just movies or sites or anythig like from but personal avatars as well or other things. And I doubt it could just be contained to Europe by that stage.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:2 Question

Even with dmca it at least had safe harbor even though the industry has been trying to destroy that Becuase they are practically evil at this point from a lot of the things I have read “who sues people for having Mickey pictures in a hospital?” This does not even have that. I can’t see them staying beyond a massiveshift away from anythin having to deal with the things involved here.

End Of The World, AGAIN! Into Your Bunker! says:

Oh, noes! Techdirt's greatest fear: creators getting paid!

REPOST JUST FOR FUN, SINCE CENSORED SO QUICKLY.

Masnick never sees an up side where he can enjoy saying "I told you so" because he’s nearly always not just wrong but completely wrong. He shrieked for months in advance about the Gawker case, "net neutrality", and SESTA / FOSTA, during, and shortly after, but always falls silent since no bad effects are visible, let alone the disasters he predicted.

So too this. Of course, IF harms Google (which won’t measurably or even plausibly), he’ll shriek from now on. He’s been shrieking for 20 years now, and exactly no disaster has occurred. He’s been chanting "better business model" for 20 years now too, and exactly none have been found. He has the credibility of a cultist on day after predicted world would end.


*AND after Masnick says this will end the internet by suppressing free speech, what does HE do right here? CENSOR!

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Oh, noes! Techdirt's greatest fear: creators getting paid!

Mike’s a little boy with a little mind who calls names and writes slanted articles.

And this is different from what you do how?

Theft is wrong.

No one said otherwise. But so is trampling on the rights of everyone else to forcibly extract payment you don’t deserve.

Madd the Sane (profile) says:

Re: Re: The scariest thing

Meanwehile, back in reality, the thieves can’t steal work anymore.

Oh, they’ll still steal, or pirate. They’ll just use different, more sophisticated means. Maybe even walk out of their houses to meet a shady person that may or may not rob/kill them because that’s the only way they can get a copy of The Neverhood.

And what about the legacy companies that steal? Will they get punished just as severely?

Stephen T. Stone (profile) says:

Re: Re:

You mean “the pirates can’t infringe upon copyrights any more”, and you are still wrong. The copying and sharing of other people’s works without legal permission to do so has been going on for a long, long time. If you think Article 13 will stop such activity in any meaningful way, you need to remember that this does nothing to stop the offline sharing of content and adapt your worldview to include a reality you otherwise refuse to acknowledge.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: The scariest thing

Except they don’t benefit…

Those that have a middlemen will just have their revenue sucked into the middlemen like norm… not to mention they lose out on a lot of promotion, meaning they would have less sales.

Those that don’t have a middlemen will find it harder to post their own content. Even if they manage to do so, their revenue can still be taken from them by companies that don’t hold the copyright (much like how it already happens).

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: The scariest thing

the thieves can’t steal work anymore.

Ok, first, this is about copyright infringement, not theft.

Second, nothing in this law is going to prevent anyone from infringing or stealing anything. We have laws against murder and stealing already, has it stopped the people who really want to do it? Nope.

If all it took was a law to stop something, the world would have passed global happiness laws long ago and we’d be living in a utopia now.

You sir, disgust me. Take your racist, sexist, bigoted, selfish, moronic nonesense along with your entitled superiority complex and be gone. You are a disgrace to the human race.

Scary Devil Monastery (profile) says:

Re: Re: The scariest thing

“Meanwehile, back in reality, the thieves can’t steal work anymore.”

They never did, since copying isn’t theft.

Semantics (and your shit grasp of the common dictionary) aside, Pirates won’t be impacted by this at all.

The only ones to be impacted over this will be the artists who now end up losing 95% of their visibility when Google de-lists them and the news outlets who end up the same.

In fact this legislation is so favorable to Google – requiring they throw out everyone unwilling to sign away everything to Google from their index – that I, for one, am wondering whether google lobbied for or against this law.

Thad (profile) says:

Re: Re: The scariest thing

And Sledge said "apple and labels take 90+% of the revenue".

Eminem’s former producers alleged, in 2009, that the label was taking 88% of the 70% share from iTunes sales.

If those numbers are accurate, that would mean that Apple and the labels combined were taking a total of 91.6% of the revenue. Which is indeed more than 90%.

And that’s in a deal with Eminem, a highly successful artist with a lot of clout. Do you suppose the average musician gets a better record deal than Eminem’s, or a worse one?

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: The scariest thing

That sounds /really/ familiar. Create some sort of sweetheart deal for the top and convince them that they’ll benefit from it too! Any second now. Disregarding that said moves also tend to shield them from competition – that is themselves being successful since the type of people who go for that aren’t the kind who compete and come out on top but the ones who cheat.

John Smith says:

Poor LITTLE Mikey and his minions couldn’t tantrum the worldinto agreeing them so he loads up another article with slanted language and tries to pass it off as “journalism.”

Namecalling and biased language might be why LITTLE Mikey has to publish outside the people who get rich when copyright is enforced.

Poor LITTLE nobody.

The era of entitled losers stealing the work of creators is fast ending, and not a moment too soon.

Anonymous Anonymous Coward (profile) says:

Re: Re: Leave us alone...OK

My VPN leads me to servers, all over the world (including in the EU), but it does not block any IP addresses. Sure, I could use my VPN and get what I want from the EU (use a US server and not get blocked or use an EU server and get blocked), but they don’t seem to want anyone else’s business, otherwise they wouldn’t be doing things close their system.

Anonymous Coward says:

It will mean many eu websites will shut down,
or block all user uploads,
only big companys like google can afford to build a complex filter to scan videos,.audio files etc
Websites like metafilter or tumblr will have to be based in the us.
Say i quote a politician,s speech in my blog will i have to pay a link tax to newspapers that have the same speech in their articles .
Even google can,t build a filter to tell
parody or satire from real news ,
so this will block many legal forms of user content.
Memes use photos or gifs from random source,s
to make a joke eg a photo of a singer
with a comical phrase beside it.
This shows how the establishment or owners
or newspapers are willing to attack the open web
for a few dollars .
Facebook or google might choose to block
user content rather than give money to german or french newspapers .
Maybe some websites might block user uploads from eu ip
adress,s .

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: like I always say

Sometimes the worst thing the greedy can get is what they ask for.
I hope they leave. They won’t be able to monitor everything with people or machine Unless they just make a great copywall of europe and I doubt even that will work for long to keep the wolves satisfied if they are like the RIAA . No offense europe everyone is going to get it in this one way or another.

Anonymous Anonymous Coward (profile) says:

Creating markets by government fiat

I am thinking Google will find a new market for itself and rent or lease their filter to others. I don’t think they will be very afraid of a little competition so long as they continue to listen to the marketplace and respond to their needs.

How long will this new income source take to pay Google back for their investment in their own filter? A year or two?

Anonymous Anonymous Coward (profile) says:

Re: Re: Creating markets by government fiat

Well I think that might go two ways. One way is that they include some portion of the rent/lease price to cover such events. The other is that they suggest the plaintiffs to go sue the EU for making such a system required.

Of course, as some copyright trolls have found, they might need more evidence than an IP address, and that when a company pushes back they run away.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Creating markets by government fiat

It might be a good idea for Google to hire out a filter service, especially as the compute power and storage required for the filter has a large dependency on the number of works to be filtered against. A small sight probably could not afford to but or rent the hardware need to to filter one or two post a day or less, or even a few posts per hour, and yes some sites work at that scale.

yes the might just be able to filter at the rate that they receive posts, but who wants to force users to wait for hours before their post appears?

Peter (profile) says:

authors, musicians, journalists&content creators cheered this on

They may wake up with a had hangover after the party. When they realize that the bad guys are not the pirates. It is the publishers that rob them blind.

The very publishers that have expanded and cemented their position with the new law.

Case in point: The European court of justice recently declared it illegal to channel a (large) part of their revenue to publishers – it should belong to the creators. For books, that meant several hundred million extra Euros for authors in Germany.
Not much longer: the new law reversed the decision, that money will go to the publishers in the future.

Michelle Gibeault, MSLS (profile) says:

Its a Scholarly Communication Invention

I love you Mike Masnick so this is meant as gentle critique:

The web was built to enable scholarly communication. This distinction is important because the web is one of the most significant inventions in history, and leaving this fact out, we lose one of the best cases for publicly funded research: how it has produced otherwise impossible achievements. We need recognition of that history now more than ever.

Wendy Cockcroft (user link) says:

Re: Its a Scholarly Communication Invention

Agreed, but now that the kitteh is out of the bag it’s a different thing altogether. People are meeting, greeting, creating, and sharing on the internet.

This, along with all that scholarly communication, is now being handed over to gatekeepers who will then decide what gets communicated and what doesn’t. This is what we need recognition of, not just the stuff you mentioned.

That One Guy (profile) says:

Be careful what you wish for...

For those creators who cheered this on, it may burn some karma saying so, but I can’t help but wish I could see their faces when they realize that no, this is not suddenly going to cause money to start pouring in, and in fact it’s almost certain to decrease as those poor, put upon gatekeepers will now have even more leverage over them.

If they thought the fiends at Google and Facebook were powerful before they are in for a very rude awakening once they realize that they’ve been cheering on something that made them all the more powerful.

As for the politicians? I’m not sure which option is worse, that they’re so stupid they just screwed over the internet in the EU without realizing it, or so corrupt that they did so knowingly simply because it would benefit them. Either way they deserve nothing but scorn and derision for what they’ve done.

Anonymous Anonymous Coward (profile) says:

Re: Re: Be careful what you wish for...

I am not in the business, so I don’t have a clear picture of the rates various players pay, or receive. What makes you think Google has a different rate than others?

I have heard discussions about rights holders arguing with some streaming services demanding more, even though those services were very close to having no profit. That makes one wonder how they go about valuing their products.

Then I have to ask, which Google service are you referring to Google Play or YouTube, or something else? Then, why do you think they get some special rate? Or are you accusing them of keeping more? Apple gets 30% for their service, are you saying Google gets more?

Then I have to ask, seriously, what are you doing to move your fans to sites that make more for you? Denigrating one site or another probably wouldn’t be a good idea. But promoting those that you favor might work.

John Smith says:

Re: Re: Be careful what you wish for...

Oh no, you won’t make more money! they’ll all use stock, royalty-free junk instead of all that music made by “exploited” legacy artists who live in mansions and are worth millions!

The ZERO that most pirated artists make now is a lot more than what they’ll make when people lactually have to pqay for their work!

The tantrum from these entitled thieves is epic. The whole pro-piacy movement is electronic astroturfing. the audience for real-world rallies against Articles 11 and 13 were in the dozes at most.

Next up: Section 230 repeal.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Be careful what you wish for...

In theory:

  • What if the other streaming services somehow go under? Then google can pay you even less. That’s assuming you even get a better deal at all, who is to say that won’t just be reserved for the bigger gatekeepers.
  • Alternatively people could find out who you are and stop supporting/streaming your work since you apparently support laws that are hostile to them… meaning less money.
  • You also lose out on potential promotion, meaning less money.

Your not very good at PR, are you?

Scary Devil Monastery (profile) says:

Re: Re: Be careful what you wish for...

“I’m an independent artist; my music is distributed by Distrokid where I keep 100% of my royalties.
I guarantee you once Google is forced to pay a rate competitive with the other streaming services there will absolutely be more money in my bank account.”

That’s not what is going to happen.

Google will simply de-list you as this new law requires and you’ll end up losing 95% of your visibility.

Your only hope at that point will be to go on your knees before a large publishing company and hope they’ll allow you to be an indentured serf for them.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Be careful what you wish for...

“this is not suddenly going to cause money to start pouring in, and in fact it’s almost certain to decrease as those poor, put upon gatekeepers will now have even more leverage over them.”

And should that happen that they then see a dercrease in money they will somehow no doubt blame piracy in some way for it.

John Smith says:

Re: Re: Re:

The search engines used to argue that their web caches and indexing offered useful publicity and backup features for the internet.

If so, why not make it opt-in?

Same for file sharing. Why not have an opt-in service that all these artists who support having their stuff stol- erc, distributed, can use?

Interestingly enough, in the case of “spam,” even opt-in mailing lists were being nuked due to “spam” des-ite the audience explicitly desiring the contact.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re: Re:

Your ignorance and stupidity is showing.

Any website owner/operator/developer/coder can add tags to their website in a matter of seconds that will remove their site from a search engine’s indexing and web caching, as well as removing it from their search results. The fact that companies are not falling all over themselves to do this should tell you something about how much value they get from this free service from any search engine.

Same for file sharing. Why not have an opt-in service that all these artists who support having their stuff stol- erc, distributed, can use?

I’m confused, when did file sharing become something that I had to opt-out of? As far as I know, the only files I’ve shared are the ones that I’ve "opted-in" to sharing with people. File sharing has ALWAYS been opt-in. The only way it could ever be opt-out is if OS manufacturers re-coded their OSes to automatically upload all your files without your permission to a public share. I’m pretty sure that will never happen.

Interestingly enough, in the case of "spam," even opt-in mailing lists were being nuked due to "spam" des-ite the audience explicitly desiring the contact.

What does spam emails and mailing lists have to do with ANYTHING being discussed in this article or comment thread?

You sir, are an ignorant moron. Please educate yourself before you make a further fool out of yourself.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:3 Re:

Perhaps, sir, you should familiarize yourself with what file sharing is and is not to avoid looking foolish. Here is an excellent link to get you started: h**ps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_sharing

We are NOT discussing the system level data transmission that is needed for modern networks to operate. We are discussing the sharing of user generated documents and artistic content that ARE NOT shared automatically by any type of system level process.

I hope I have clarified this for you.

Anonymous Coward says:

“Expect the same gatekeepers to use this move by the EU to put pressure on the US and lots of other countries around the world to “harmonize” and adopt similar standards in trade agreements.”

Mike, thanks for recognising what the true problem with this law is.

Europe, thanks for making the world a worse place. Can’t you go back to regulating the acceptable length of a banana or something? At least the votes were somewhat close (~60%/40%), so there’s a significant number of Europeans that don’t want the law either. Perhaps it might yet be thrown out.

Ann Ty Trust says:

Re: Your notion, "harbinger" is that "some useful discourse"

is without ANY dissent! Only fanboys agreeing entirely with the one-sided premises that protecting creators means end of freedom on the Internet — because pirates will less easily steal content — and that large corporations will then take over, leaving out will be further anti-trust action.

See my prior comment for links to "some useful discourse" regarding latter in the works.

Ann Ty Trust says:

The Verge believes Google IS a monopoly. It's not just ME, kids

The monopoly-busting case against Google, Amazon, Uber, and Facebook

https://www.theverge.com/2018/9/5/17805162/monopoly-antitrust-regulation-google-amazon-uber-facebook


And THIS should (but won’t) truly stop Masnick’s ridiculous assertions that Google isn’t left / liberal / globalist and has no bias against Trump / Populists / Conservatives:

LEAKED VIDEO: Execs Dismayed At Trump Election…

https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/09/12/leaked-video-google-leaderships-dismayed-reaction-to-trump-election/


No new story since 3:40 Pacific! One of these days, without warning, Techdirt will be gone. I worry that every HOOT may be my last.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: The Verge believes Google IS a monopoly. It's not just ME, kids

That’s because you get paid to belive it is and it’s an election year now go do something useful with your life. Becuase we both know you would be ranting about being censored like Alex Jones the moment you got kicked off of Anything google amazon Facebook twitter or otherwise so stop wasting everyone’s time.

Bill Rosenblatt (user link) says:

Filtering

So maybe you can explain to me how Article 13 still mandates automated copyright filtering when it has been amended to say:

"… the Commission and the Member States shall organise dialogues between stakeholders to harmonise and to define best practices and issue guidance to ensure the functioning of licensing agreements and on cooperation between online content sharing service providers and right holders for the use of their works or other subject matter within the meaning of this Directive. When defining best practices, special account shall be taken of fundamental rights, … as well as ensuring that … automated blocking of content is avoided."

And that this language specifically replaces the "appropriate and proportionate content recognition technologies" language.

What am I missing here?

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Filtering

You’re missing three things:

  • "to ensure the functioning of licensing agreements" This would logicly mean not having a licensing agreement would mean it would not be functioning. It is unreasonable to have a license with every rights holders and arguably impossible as well.
  • "and on cooperation between online content sharing service providers and right holders" This is a rather high bar to meet, as the entertainment industries are known to be very hard to reach a compromise with. So forced cooperation essentially lets them steamroll over sites.
  • Due to the shear amount of content that can be submitted in a short amount of time, all but the smallest sites don’t have enough people or time to manually sort through all the content. The entertainment industries already think the process is too slow and would likely complain or sue for ‘non-cooperation’.
Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Filtering

The entertainment industries already think the process is too slow and would likely complain or sue for ‘non-cooperation’.

They will insist that submissions are checked before they are posted, knowing full well that this will erect a dam in the way of the existing flood of self published content. Their real desire is not to stop piracy, but rather to stop self publishing being an option.

Just in says:

Re: Filtering

Copyman thinks bill designed as broken and horrible will still work when own european rappatour MEP voss admitted when told he violated many of the copyright provisons on sports games and links of said articles 13 and 11 he just voted on and was unaware of those things!

Internet continue to suffer. Now the weather. Its wet out there!

John85851 (profile) says:

Why do people vote against their interests

“I know that many authors, musicians, journalists and other content creators cheered this on, incorrectly thinking that was a blow to Google and would magically benefit them.”

I’d like to see a separate article that digs into why so many people vote against their interests:
– Trump would make a better president than Hillary Clinton, Jeb Bush, and other Republican state governors.
– Brexit would usher in a new age of British independence from the EU.
– Let’s create a sales tax for every state, county, and town so every government gets their fair share without telling businesses how to collect the money or how to send payments to every tax agency.
– “If Google or Facebook is making money then I’m not, so I want to stop Google and Facebook but I don’t care about Bing or any other site.”

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