well this doesn't sound great - web copyright BS

[ik9000]

MEPs getting it wrong? Not a brexiter, and I doubt as a standalone our bunch of chumps could do better but sounds like a classic example of lobbying by big firms ruining it for the rest of us:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-45495550

[scaryjim]

I think there's a lot of misunderstandings about how the laws are changing. The big web companies were actually lobbying against most of the changes.

I'm an occasional songwriter, and the rights to my work are controlled through PRS. I'm not a big firm, I'm an independent creator. The changes mean PRS will be able to more effectively ensure I get paid if someone else uses my work. Sure, I have a vested interest, but I don't see how people getting paid for working is meant to be bad...?!

[Corky34]

The problem for me is while the intentions are good, as you say creators should be paid for the content they create, it's how we know this will be implemented and i say know as we already have supposed filter systems that constantly get things wrong so i don't see how this will be any different.

There seems to have been a growing trend with politicians in the last 5-10 years or so to proclaim how technology can fix everything, that the technical issues they are told can't be solved would be once if the told people they had to be, if the nerds nerded harder that they'd solve the problem.

[scaryjim]

*shrug* I've not read the full details of what's been agreed yet - but then according to the BBC article linked above the full details haven't been finalised yet. This vote was to confirm the principles that will be included in the final draft, which is still open to some degree of negotiation.

I think the most important principle is the recognition under law that content hosts are actually responsible for the content they host. One of the big issues is that, as much as the TOS of the platforms say they shouldn't be used for illegal/immoral purposes, none of them have actually pro-actively sought to prevent those uses, particularly in relation to the upload and sharing of copyright work. Whatever systems they have introduced are half-arsed and fail at their basic task, and part of that is likely to be that the platforms didn't think it was their problem. Part of this directive will say it *is* their problem.

The other major thing is giving rights owners a stronger position to negotiate royalty payments, which are currently pitiful from online streaming services. I got ~ £9 for a 30-second excerpt of one of my songs being broadcast (as background music) once, in a daytime slot, on Channel 4. To get the same royalty from YouTube I'd need the song to be streamed 20,000 times. Hardly seems proportional, does it...

[Saracen]

I have no clear opinion in support or opposition to this, having not read the final draft, but I would make a point or two.

First, if it puts extra onus on hosts to be sure they're not illicitly hosting protected content, it's no bad thing

Second, and I say this as someone holding copyright to a couple of thousand pieces, it's not just about getting paid. Copyright is also about being identified as the creator, but more importantly, about the rights holder having the final decision over when, in what context and even if a given work can be used at all.

What i would not, personally, find acceptable, is for my work to be used without my permission, hosted by some corporate, and then be fobbed off with "here's a tenner (or £9) now go away and be happy.

Cae in point - if one of my works wzs used, without permission, by, oh, the National Front, or for that matter, a far left polutical group then a few quid is NOT an acceptable remedy. Wyat would be would be a large payment, donated to a charity, and a binding commitment (or injunction) preventing further misuse/abuse.

As I said, copyright is not just about money. It's also about giving creators (at least until they sell it) the right to control when, where, hiw and if their work is used.

[Corky34]

I think the most important principle is the recognition under law that content hosts are actually responsible for the content they host.

Again i agree in principal as I've never really understood how they've been able to claim that they're not, at least partially, responsible. Could that be something to do with how the tech community defines who hosts something and the common man in a legal sense?

I'm fairly sure the tech community still considers the host to be the company often renting out the hardware (colo) where as i would guess the common man would consider it to be the company who's running the site.

[Saracen]

Again i agree in principal as I've never really understood how they've been able to claim that they're not, at least partially, responsible. Could that be something to do with how the tech community defines who hosts something and the common man in a legal sense?

I'm fairly sure the tech community still considers the host to be the company often renting out the hardware (colo) where as i would guess the common man would consider it to be the company who's running the site.

There's a parallel there with an extremely contentious and ultra-topical issue there - are social media companies like Facebook "publishers", and jointly responsible for the content on their "platforms", just like a conventional publisher is .... or are they a "commpn carrier" and able to deny all liability for criminality using their services in the way a telephone company isn't responsible if someone uses the phone to commit fraud.

It seems to me that social media companies have thoroughly lost that argument, and implicitly by their actions accepted that, even though I'm not aware of any public overt admissions of it.


It's also, by the way, part of the reason why HEXUS has moderators, and in part why some of our rules are what they are - providjng a platform is one thing, but being jointly liable for legal contraventions of users is another, so we need to be able to show we took all reasonable and practical steps to avoid it. Hence, moderation. It's not the only reason, but certainly part of it.

[Output]

It's all well and good aiming a law at the web giants that have more of a chance of being able to comply (although even then I'd imagine it's still extremely difficult due to the volumes of content that get generated, and as stated by Corky34 above those filters already in place can still easily get things wrong), but it would surely have a much wider impact.

Not only for much smaller businesses running sites (including forums), but those running their sites (including forums) as a hobby.

It could mean that people would shut down their sites rather than risk it, losing what could have been homes for great user-generated content that couldn't be found elsewhere, out of fear of the potential actions of any future rogue users that they could be held jointly liable for.

[peterb]

It's also, by the way, part of the reason why HEXUS has moderators, and in part why some of our rules are what they are - providjng a platform is one thing, but being jointly liable for legal contraventions of users is another, so we need to be able to show we took all reasonable and practical steps to avoid it. Hence, moderation. It's not the only reason, but certainly part of it.

And just to add to that, it is why we are sometimes perceived as being ultra-cautious in not permitting things that may be seen on other sites. We are not lawyers and we can always re-instate something later if something later seems to be OK.

There have also been (rare) occasions where I have removed something as much for the protection of the poster as for the protection of HEXUS!

[Corky34]

<Snip>
It seems to me that social media companies have thoroughly lost that argument, and implicitly by their actions accepted that, even though I'm not aware of any public overt admissions of it......

Again not disagreeing and for a relatively small community like Hexus moderation by real people (you're are real right? ) works well, however when we scale that up to social media size it seems to become logistical problematic. Costs don't really enter into IMO as employing more people is just part of bigger business.

I'm not defending the social media companies BTW as if i was el presidente I'd ban the lot of em but unfortunately we're stuck with them, and by extension whatever controls, filters, rules, and regulations we apply to them are also going to apply to places like Hexus.

[Saracen]

Again not disagreeing and for a relatively small community like Hexus moderation by real people (you're are real right? ) works well, however when we scale that up to social media size it seems to become logistical problematic. Costs don't really enter into IMO as employing more people is just part of bigger business.

I'm not defending the social media companies BTW as if i was el presidente I'd ban the lot of em but unfortunately we're stuck with them, and by extension whatever controls, filters, rules, and regulations we apply to them are also going to apply to places like Hexus.

Well I rather see it the other way round.

Sites like FB are doing much that emulates, and competes with, large-scale traditional publishers .... like news feeds.

As soon as you do that, big or small, you accept the obligations that come with it. Yet these big-data companies are worth billions, while trying to maintain they aren't responsible. I don't buy it.

I also don't buy that they can't police users. All it needs is suitable time and effort with filters and procedures to pre-empt some issues, and respond to complaints about others and then employing sufficient people to deal with it.

If they cannot, then perhaps they don't have a viable business model and should close down.

After all we wouldn't allow an aircraft manufscturer to build aircraft that aren't standards-compliant, or a food product manufacturer to ignore food safety laws because they were logistically complex or because employing compliance and safety staff was too expensive.

They've got away with it to date because laws take time to catch up with technology but now at least on this front, they are. If they can't cope, shut up shop.

[scaryjim]

Not going to get into the whole content arguments here (Saracen has done a much better job than I would of putting the content creator's view across, anyway), but to add a little tidbit of info I stumbled across on twitter, at least one MEP has publicly stated that there won't be mandatory content filters as part of the directive.

How representative that is of the general feeling in the European parliament I don't know, but clearly there's some people in favour of the articles generally who also have their heads screwed on about the practicalities of the situation. Gives me some hope...

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...-copyright-law

The world is in the middle of a global debate on how to curb the power of the tech giants, prevent the exploitation of the world’s information ecosystem by Russia and other bad actors, and make the internet work for all of us.

Given that situation, it may seem that two motions passed by the European parliament this week are positive ones – at the last moment, they were inserted into legislation, having previously been rebuffed. Both motions are unwelcome to the tech giants, and will serve to regulate the internet – but both are wrongheaded and counterproductive, and will make the internet worse.

One is an extension of copyright law, which has been dubbed the “link tax”, a measure designed to allow publishers to require large sites to pay them a fee in order to link to them – essentially extending copyright to include the link text and snippet used by Google and similar sites that give searchers a preview of what they’re looking for.
How the EU can make the internet play fair with musicians
Read more

This can be as short as two words – although the details are not fleshed out particularly well in the text – but means it will become harder to navigate the internet, and harder to create rivals to existing search engines.

The rules have attempted to make exemptions for sites such as Wikipedia – following strong opposition from the site and its founder, Jimmy Wales – although activists have expressed concerns that these won’t work.

The second law is, if anything, worse. This one has been referred to as a “meme ban”, but is more accurately referred to as an upload filter – a requirement for major sites and social networks to create a database of copyrighted content, against which any new upload of text, images, audio or video would be checked.

EU copyright law already has weaker exemptions for fair use and parody than its US counterpart, and so the extension of these filters – simpler versions of which already exist on YouTube – will serve to restrict lots of content on the internet, potentially including gifs and memes.

The filter will also lead to many more invalid copyright claims succeeding – just this week, the noted British pianist James Rhodes battled a totally invalid automated copyright takedown from Sony Music Entertainment, which stated (falsely) that it owned copyright to a recording Rhodes uploaded of himself playing Bach, which is out of copyright.

Rhodes appealed against the ruling, only to be rejected, eventually securing a reversal only thanks to his considerable public profile. Such incorrect rulings could become an even more common occurrence – especially as the new system contains no penalties for making false or incorrect claims. This could allow for widespread exploitation of the system as a new strain of denial-of-service attacks by online mobs, to get content people dislike taken down with a barrage of fake claims.

Additionally, building these pre-filters will be time-consuming and expensive – meaning that they will serve to entrench existing social networks in their positions of power and make it harder for new competitors – perhaps with better business models not based on data harvesting – to appear.

The new rules will create many losers but few winners; there will be very little real benefit to most people working in creative industries. The drive to introduce them has come primarily from EU publishers – most notably Axel Springer – which have long been determined to get more money out of Google and other tech giants.

Publishers need to get over this fixation. Newspapers and news publishers have lost huge amounts of their revenue – but they need to accept that they’ve lost a lot of this fairly. Once, a newspaper was the best place to look for a new job, new properties in the area, or even a date. That’s no longer the case: bespoke job search, property search and online dating sites are quite simply better than what came before. It’s not unfair that people don’t place those adverts in papers any more.

We need a conversation about how we fund quality journalism, and how we make sure tech giants take proper responsibility for their actions, and pay the right contribution to the societies they function within. Tinkering with copyright law is not the way to get that done.

https://www.economist.com/business/2...er-to-approval

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN has been dead for nearly 200 years. The copyright on his music is long expired. But when Ulrich Kaiser, an academic at the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich, recently tried to upload a public-domain recording of his Fifth Symphony to YouTube, he was thwarted by Content ID, an automated copyright filter. Mr Kaiser tried again with recordings of music by Schubert, Puccini and Wagner. Despite being in the public domain, all were flagged for copyright violations by the algorithm.

YouTube built Content ID a decade ago, under pressure from copyright-holders worried that users were uploading commercial music and videos without permission. Ever since users have complained that the algorithm is too aggressive. Now YouTube and other big internet firms may be obliged by European law to employ similar methods there. On September 12th members of the European Parliament approved, by 438 votes to 226, a draft of a new copyright law designed to update the EU’s copyright legislation, which predates the rise of big internet gatekeepers such as Google and Facebook. The rules sparked death threats against MEPs and a million-signature petition against the proposals.

Two provisions are particularly contentious. The first is Article 13, which compels internet firms, whose users upload large quantities of video, music, text and the like, to work with copyright-holders to ensure that anything that breaches copyright can be detected as soon as it is posted. That probably means they will have to deploy many more content filters like Content ID, which are worryingly imp`recise.

Technology companies, and those who advocate an open internet, say the effect will be dire. In the quest to give more protection to copyrighted work, everything from political-protest videos to citizen journalism and viral memes, they argue, risks being squashed by overzealous enforcers. The freewheeling nature of the internet could change, they warn. That is a prospect often wheeled out by the internet lobby and is probably an exaggeration. But some collateral damage seems likely. The effects could reach into unexpected places. GitHub, for instance, is an online code repository. It worries that open-source computer code hosted on its site might fall foul of the new filters.

Whose internet is it anyway?

The second fight was over Article 11, which pits tech firms against publishers. It requires social networks and aggregators such as Google’s “News” search engine to obtain a licence from publishers before displaying snippets of news reports to their users. Firms such as Google and Twitter profit from the attention generated by news that is gathered by others, note Article 11’s advocates, and should therefore share the revenues that result. But critics decry it as a “link tax” that would also radically limit the freedom of internet users.

Article 11 is a Europe-wide version of similar rules introduced in Germany and Spain in 2013 and 2014 respectively. Google’s response in Spain was to pull the plug on its news service, to the detriment of publishers that relied on it for traffic. By making a similar law apply across the entire European market, the hope is that Google (and other companies) will be forced to keep services running and share some of their revenues.

Predicting the exact consequences of all these new rules is difficult, says Jim Killock of the Open Rights Group, a British organisation that opposed the changes. They must be approved by both the European Commission and the EU’s 28 member states before they can be finalised. But the planned legislation is another example of rising European assertiveness when it comes to regulating the internet—in May the EU brought into force the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), a far-reaching privacy law. One result could be yet more “geo-fencing”, whereby the internet becomes fragmented along geographical lines. After the GDPR came into force, some American websites decided to block Europe-based visitors rather than comply.

More regulation may be in the offing. The day before the parliamentary vote Google was at the European Court of Justice, in Luxembourg, to do legal battle with the CNIL, France’s data-protection authority. The dispute concerned the “right to be forgotten”, under which the EU requires search engines, in certain circumstances, to remove links to webpages with personal information about European citizens. Google’s approach has been to remove links to the offending pages only for EU users. The CNIL says that, because the tech used to determine where a user is based can be circumvented, links should be removed for all users, anywhere in the world. A ruling is expected next year. Europe may not have its own internet giants, but it is having plenty of impact on America’s.

All I can say LOLWTF - so basically just posting links on forums and quoting text,was meant to be illegal under the original proposal.

Also some insights from one of the MEPs who voted:

https://juliareda.eu/2018/09/ep-endo...pload-filters/

The European Parliament today finalised its position on copyright reform. It voted to make nothing but cosmetic changes to the controversial plans for upload filters and a “link tax”.
Final voting result: 438 in favour, 226 against, 39 abstentions

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.

The Parliament will now enter into final negotiations with the Council, representing the member state governments. Unfortunately, all the concerns by academics, experts and internet users that led to the text being rejected last July still stand. Unless filters are explicitly excluded in the negotiations, public protest will only increase and the entire Directive may well still be rejected when it comes up for a final vote right before next year’s European elections.

Stay tuned for a comparison between the Council and Parliament positions on the controversial articles.

[scaryjim]

... All I can say LOLWTF - so basically just posting links on forums and quoting text,was meant to be illegal under the original proposal. ...

Popular opinion, but ultimately untrue. All existing fair use provisions remain in force. So short quotes for the purposes of reporting, or using as descriptive link text, will still be fine, as will exceprts in reviews, and parody where it is currently exempt (although iirc the UK is one of the places where parody is not protected?*).

That said, block quoting most of a news article from a major publisher, like you just have above, would almost certainly be problematic...

The other big FUD target is the idea that upload filters will be mandatory and essentially prevent anyone from ever uploading anything. An earlier draft did include a requirement to use content recognition technology - that draft didn't get through the EP. The new one doesn't require that, and there's plenty of choices for Google/Facebook that don't include using utterly trash, overzealous, automated content recognition.

The problem is Google and Facebook don't want to take responsibility for copyright infringements on their platforms, so they're going to use the worst, most intrusive and obstructive methods for enforcing copyright - and they're good enough at hype to make all their users blame content rights holders. I mean, the fact that they've already got most of the internet arguing in favour of their position tells you everything...


*EDIT: OK, did a bit of research and it turns out that parody is now protected (with some caveats) .... thanks to the provision of the European Copyright Directive (oh, the irony ). An earlier directive was enacted into UK law in 2014 providing limited protection from copyright infringement for parodies.

[Galant]

European Parliament Press Release: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/e...opyright-rules

[Ice Tea]

Internet regulator considered for UK

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-45590297

Well that should be fun trying to discuss anything online without breaking some type of copyright or Internet regulator law.