A Copyright Vote That Could Change the EU’s Internet

https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2017/09/11/copyright-vote-change-europes-internet/

by campuscodi • 9 years ago

176 41 9 years ago

blog.mozilla.org

danmaz74• 9 years ago

I'm sorry, but an article like this should contain quotes or at least links to the actual text under discussion. Like this, it's only an opinion piece.

naraniano2• 9 years ago

Mozilla is biased (towards open internet, liberalism, etc) so evidently this is an opinion piece--they are asking us to stop something they don't agree with!

dispo001• 9 years ago

what/where is the something?

r3bl• 9 years ago

I might be wrong, but I think that they haven't posted any actual text because the document(s) got leaked.

If you're looking for a proper discussion about this and the actual text, EDRi (something like EU's EFF) is probably what you're looking for. They did an extensive coverage of this in the last couple of days and have published the leaked documents.

Some links:

https://edri.org/leaked-document-eu-presidency-calls-for-mas...

https://edri.org/estonia-loves-digital-why-is-it-supporting-...

https://edri.org/six-states-raise-concerns-about-legality-of...

vanderZwan3• 9 years ago

I might be wrong, but I think that they haven't posted any actual text because the document(s) got leaked.

You're wrong, but it's an easy mistake to make: the leak concerns the ongoing diplomatic discussions between the nations voting on the proposal:

According to a new leak, a number of EU Member States share our serious concerns about the proposal for mass surveillance and censorship of uploads to the internet in Europe, included in the European Commission’s proposal for a new copyright Directive. Those Member States seem unwilling to build a censorship machine forcing EU countries to adopt Google’s current practices. They highlight that such practices should not be implemented without making sure of the consequences for fundamental rights and for the rule of law. The leaked document contains a list of questions posed to the internal legal service of the Council of the EU, signed by six EU Member States: Belgium, the Czech Republic, Finland, Hungary, Ireland and the Netherlands.

The proposed directive itself is, as with all such proposals, open and available for everyone in every official EU language:

http://ec.europa.eu/transparency/regdoc/rep/1/2016/EN/1-2016...

FuriouslyAdrift• 9 years ago

I think this is the directice in question: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELE...

Summary: https://iplens.org/tag/proposal-for-a-directive-on-copyright...

notspanishflu• 9 years ago

More info:

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/oeil/popups/ficheprocedure.do?...

asymmetric2• 9 years ago

I found this[0] (PDF) to be a good summarized critique of the proposal.

This one[1] as well, although it's a bit longer.

[0] https://www.communia-association.org/wp-content/uploads/2016...

[1] http://copyright4creativity.eu/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/DC...

mehh• 9 years ago

Yes, not the first time for this style from Mozilla regarding copyright.

Makes it hard to swallow their opinion as credible, when so obviously biased and non factual.

bigbugbag3• 9 years ago

I do not trust mozilla.

Try getting information from actual organization putting their money where their mouth is: European Copyright Reform: A New Directive Against Fundamental Freedoms[1].

[1] https://www.laquadrature.net/en/node/10289

pmontra2• 9 years ago

Very bad reform. Among the other things, it makes any site directly responsible for every copyright violation of its users.

For a change, this is as bad for big and small companies.

Not even Facebook can policy all the posts of their users for words, pictures, sounds and videos. FB won't get a takedown notice, it could be sued directly.

jjawssd2• 9 years ago

Facebook will have a lobby that carves out an exception for itself while simultaneously shutting down any threat to its monopoly through this legislation.

AJ007• 9 years ago

In the EU, maybe not.

This may be a signal that the internet has become way too centralized.

The irony of the centralization of a decentralized platform is suddenly enforcement of regulations like these become feasible. The nuclear-war proof internet is suddenly vulnerable to people sitting behind desks or whatever the hell they do in Europe.

dreamfactored2• 9 years ago

Governments could take down fb (and google) if they chose to. They'll fight back but the Chinese have demonstrated that it's possible given sufficient will. With fb having recently been targeting Kremlin propaganda at voting populations I wouldn't be entirely surprised if they didn't get canned in the name of national security.

timrichard• 9 years ago

Reminds me of what I've heard of German law, regarding third-party content like website comments :

http://germanitlaw.com/liability-for-third-party-internet-co...

dreamfactored2• 9 years ago

Why is this a bad thing?

alethiophile• 9 years ago

I'm as happy as anyone to screw over Facebook, but this is actually really bad.

I run a forum with ~1000 users. It costs us ~$60 a month and the corporate infrastructure is me and one other guy. If we were vulnerable to actually being sued for an infringement on a user's part, we would probably just have to shut down; neither of us is up for running a legal battle.

Luckily we're US, not EU, but presumably there are small forum/blog operators in the EU as well.

hasenj3• 9 years ago

Without links to the actual proposal this sounds like a propaganda piece.

bigbugbag3• 9 years ago

Are you only discovering now that mozilla is into propaganda ?

hasenj3• 9 years ago

More or less yea. I've been recently discovering that a lot of entities I had perviously thought of as trust-worthy are usually spreading propaganda and misinformation under the guise of "spreading awareness".

This particular blog fits into that pattern, which immediately triggered my skepticism.

blacksmith_tb• 9 years ago

It's an opinion piece, on their blog. Does it seem propagandistic because you have to accept their summary of the proposed legislation? (I see they have now added a link to the text of the proposal, so they heard you). Looking at some other sources[1][2], it does seem to be at odds with their manifesto[3], for example.

1: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/09/11/scientists_free_sof... 2: https://torrentfreak.com/mandatory-piracy-filters-could-brea... 3: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/manifesto/

baxuz• 9 years ago

Dunno what else is in the document, but the thing I'm looking forward to is the single digital market.

I'm frankly pissed that a ton of services are unavailable outside the few European posterboy countries.

Matt3o12_• 9 years ago

Could you electorate what services are missing? The only thing I noticed is that the catalogue of streaming services is smaller in some European countries but I don’t think a "single digital market" would help much. The single digital market is oriented towards lowering trade barriers and having unified regulations instead of splitting local monopolies such as media companies and phone companies (which would help Netflix and amazon)

vanderZwan3• 9 years ago

I haven't looked at the idea for the single digital market, but I can share some context about how the EU has traditionally worked regarding trade regulations.

In simplified terms, all member countries agree on a set a set of shared requirements for a type of product, and any product meeting those requirements is allowed to be sold in all EU countries.

So where you earlier had to meet certifications in each EU country, you now have only one standard to meet with your product. That's a big reduction in red tape, saving a lot of time and money for everyone! (contrary to popular opinion, the EU has reduced bureaucracy more than it increased it)

Individual countries can deviate by have more lax requirements (which is why you can still buy cazu marzu in Sardinia, despite it not meeting EU regulations), but not stronger.

Remember, all EU countries have to agree to sign up, and this is also why it can take many years and tweaks to come to such an agreement.

And the rabbit hole is deeper than you think. It isn't just fire safety regulations for flags, making idiots look like idiots[0], it goes all the way down to agreeing what kind of cardboard is acceptable for sending your mail (IIRC, there were different standards in what chemicals were considered toxic or not).

The thing is, I can't really imagine how one would apply the same kind of principles to the Internet. What is there to unify? The internet doesn't really have borders, does it? I mean I guess the underlying infrastructure could be unified, but that's not really the "market" part, is it?

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=px_M6weS8gY

k-mcgrady• 9 years ago

I don't know if it will work they way you want. I thought instead of making a service available to everyone in the EU it ensured that if you sign up in one EU country you get the same access in all others.

So - if I sign up for Netflix in the UK I can still access the same library in Poland. However this does not mean someone that signs up in Poland gets access to the same catalogue as me. It just means that if they come to the UK with their Polish account they can still access the Polish library (not the stuff only available in the UK one).

I could be wrong about this, I'm recalling something I read quite a while ago but I'm pretty sure people were disappointed because how I've stated is how it works and not how most people assume.

So while you may get a service some of the other countries have that you don't, you may not get the exact same service.

asymmetric2• 9 years ago

Another good summary[0], written by a member of the Pirate Party.

[0] https://juliareda.eu/eu-copyright-reform/

touristtam• 9 years ago

Available version of the propose directive: https://ec.europa.eu/transparency/regdoc/rep/1/2016/EN/1-201...

anentropic• 9 years ago

I would love to read an analysis or critique of these laws that doesn't come from the radical anti-copyright lobby

shmerl• 9 years ago

The critique comes from the proponents of normal approach. It's the proposal itself that comes from the radical copyright lobby.

RcouF1uZ4gsC2• 9 years ago

The tech world is going to have to decide pretty quickly what it wants to be:

1. A set of dumb pipes and a public square for information.

2. A curated community built for advertising where things that offend people are censored.

Right now tech has chosen option 2, but in answer to any regulation it doesn't like, it pretends it has chosen option 1 and loudly screams "free speech". Tech is trying to have its cake and eat it too. I think more and more people are becoming cynical that the tech companies really care about free speech as a principle, and so we will see more and more of these type of laws.

TheDong• 9 years ago

You can have both, and we largely already do.

Interconnects and ISPs are largely dumb pipes.

Individual websites can choose whether they're curated or shitshows. Sites like 4chan do exist, as well as other "wild wests" of freedom.

Sites like facebook where the actual user curates their own information (via following or not certain people) do exist and seem to do particularly well.

And on the final side, personal sites, like "Alice's Blog" do exis, where all content is curated by the central person running the site and all users get the same experience.

I don't get why you say "OR" or say that tech has chosen particular options. Each website gets to make its own choice and deal with various consequences.

The parts between a user and a given webpage -- the isp, interconnects, bgp routing, dns, and hosting/vps-providers/clouds -- have largely chosen to be dumb pipes offering services to anyone who pays.

RcouF1uZ4gsC2• 9 years ago

The parts between a user and a given webpage -- the isp, interconnects, bgp routing, dns, and hosting/vps-providers/clouds -- have largely chosen to be dumb pipes offering services to anyone who pays.

I say we have not seen this recently. DNS and hosting providers are deciding that some websites are too offensive for them to host. DDOS protection providers, for example Cloudflare also the same. Search engines also now downgrade content that they view as extremist. Large social networks will censor user produced content that they find offensive. All these examples could be considered as modern infrastructure between the user and content generated by another user.

With the ongoing centralization of the internet, what is considered as infrastructure is going to have be more than just ISP's and Interconnects. The internet is no longer spread out over a billion websites. Probably 95% of content that people access is probably a few dozen sites at most, and the long tail of other sites is found through a search engine like Google. In addition, the ability to monetize a site is controlled by just a few companies. This has profound implications for the social principle of free speech.

True, these companies are private companies and thus are not bound to the laws of free speech as they are not a government entity. They are fully within their rights to determine who they provide service to. However, in decrying this regulation, they are appealing not to the law, but to the social principle of free speech. If they plan to appeal to the social principle of free speech in decrying certain regulations, they should be adhering to the social principle of free speech, or the public is going to get cynical fast.

bigbugbag3• 9 years ago

I wonder what you conflate into a supposed "tech world". Much of the tech industry is unrelated to building the internet infrastructure.

Usually the industry defends regulation aligned with its own interests and has ties with governments.

Spivak• 9 years ago

Does this have to come up whenever someone uses the word 'tech'? Everything since coarsely chipped stone is tech, it doesn't mean that we don't know what the parent is referring to when they use the word.

We could call it Information Tech but that's already been claimed by people in corporate environments.

A Copyright Vote That Could Change the EU’s Internet

Related Stories