>However, those backing these provisions say the arguments above are the result of scaremongering by big US tech companies, eager to keep control of the web’s biggest platforms.<p>This is the most hilarious quote in the article. The <i>only</i> thing this will do is entrench massive players like Google and Facebook who already have these systems in place. I honestly cannot comprehend how anyone could support this law while having any understanding of how the internet works. Do these politicians really not understand the awful implications of these filtering systems for free speech and fair use? Just look at the abuses that already happen with the existing systems and now we have to spread this across the entire web, absolutely insane.<p>A truly sad day for the future of a free internet in Europe.
As terrible as this is, I am actually even more shocked by this proposal:<p><a href="https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/12/europe-to-push-for-one-hour-takedown-law-for-terrorist-content/" rel="nofollow">https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/12/europe-to-push-for-one-hou...</a><p>Having one hour to remove offending content, draconian fines and no, absolutely no exceptions for small content providers would, I think, end the internet as we know it in Europe. I see no way to host any kind of content under such jurisdiction and surely all non European content providers would just block the EU rather then take on a task that even giants like facebook and google can barely manage.
A comment from someone who has actually read the article: <a href="https://np.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/9ely8y/why_the_whole_world_should_be_up_in_arms_about/e5qndqn/" rel="nofollow">https://np.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/9ely8y/why_the_w...</a><p>For example:<p><i>...the EFF argue that the idea of what constitutes a link is not fully defined. I'm not sure what they're talking about. Recitals 31-36 set out the concepts in article 11, fairly clearly. They make it clear that what is being protected is substantial or harmful copying of significant portions of the text. They also make it clear what organisations this will affect - press organisations - with a fairly clear description of what a press organisation might constitute. (FWIW, memes are not covered, and anyone you hear talking about "banning memes" is getting their news from very poor sources.)</i>
This is such a great outcome for Google, they could not have gotten such a good outcome if they had bribed the legislators directly. They've essentially enshrined the infrastructure Google has already as a legal requirement for the bare minimum threshold to host a web site now. Google can sit back and stop worrying about there ever being competition from Europe now.
UKIP and the Green Party joined forces to prevent Article 13 from getting rammed through without a public discussion. It was a good first step, but here we are, 2 months hence, and it was passed with virtually no amendments to the original text.<p>This is an abhorrent decision by people who have no idea how the internet works. Markus Meechum (aka Count Dankula) was at the hearings, and reported that MEPs voting on the issue could not, or refused to, explain why they supported the bill. You can see him discussing the result in the immediate aftermath here: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISyiTcA6RIw" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISyiTcA6RIw</a><p>If you want a quick example of why this is bad take a look at fair use and YouTube. Article 13 would make YouTube liable for copyrighted content on its service.<p>Much of YouTube content is (perfectly legal) remixes, responses, or criticisms of other YouTube content that embeds part of the referenced video in their own video. There is more content uploaded to YouTube than can possibly all be manually reviewed. Aggressive automated content filtering to comply with Article 13 would mean that these videos would straight get filtered out.
As bonkers as this may seem, I suspect it will fall flat on it's face the second it's put before a court.<p>For example, someone defends their right to use the title or quote from an article from some other news gathering organisation. Someone will need to convince a judge that it's OK for The Sunday Times, or Der Spiegel to do that, but it's not OK for Reddit or Hacker News to do that.<p>And eventually, someone will need to convince a court that it's OK for Charlie Booker to broadcast a Cassetteboy video mash up on the UK's Channel 4, but it's not OK for Cassetteboy to upload that same video to youtube.<p>It is true that the CJEU doesn't hold case law and precedent in the same high regard as other courts, but neither does it ignore them. The ECJ and CJEU serves as a check on government in the same way the courts do in most other countries. I think it is unfortunate that the EU parliament has approved this law. But I struggle to see how it will stand up in court. That said, it will take a very brave person or organisation with deep pockets and a steel will to challenge this law.<p>However, if this law is upheld in court, then I think we can consider the EU a failed experiment. So abhorrent is this legislation that I, an ardent "Remaniac", would rather see the EU fail and take my chances with whatever comes next, than let the EU stifle free speech and the free flow of information and ideas in this way.
This decision is one of the many reasons why Europe will never reach the likes of Silicon Valley, no matter how much money will they sink down the "technology" hole (not that the US doesn't have its fair share of dumb legislators, because it has). This continent is a mess in terms of IT, with a few exceptions (London, Berlin, Dublin, some spots in Eastern Europe).
"Article 11 is intended to give publishers and newspapers a way to make money when companies like Google link to their stories…”<p>Is there anything stopping a search engine like Google choosing not to link to a newspaper? Surely they can’t be required to link to a newspaper AND then pay that newspaper to do so?<p>The trade-off if Google chose not to link to the newspaper would be a (slightly) less useful search engine, but the cost to the newspapers would surely be higher in the long term…or am I missing something?
This is wrong on more levels than it seems from the first glance:<p>1) I've witnessed creeping internet censorship starting just like this: first it's something as innocuous as "let's protect creators" or "let's protect children from harmful content", then 6 years later you can't criticize the government. They've just created a legal framework for massive automated censorship, and also Overton window was moved. I expect this to happen as soon as this law is backed up with the technical means.<p>2) People in power are uncomfortable with the current state of the internet, that is a true p2p platform for communication. Can't have that! We just got moved one step closer towards their vision of the Internet, that is nothing more than TV + storefront.
The whole thing really makes me furious beyond words. I shouldn't be that aggravated, but unfortunately I am. I feel like this is really the opposite of progressive and will leave the EU even further behind the US and China. Meanwhile, people who don't understand how the internet works are deliberately breaking it to save their out-dated business models instead of embracing the new.
So bad is this legislation that it's almost enough to make me change my views on Brexit.<p>It's ludicrous to me that the same body that approved something so user-centric as GDPR could come up with legislation so incredibly hostile to small players as to effectively abolish the open internet by financial attrition.<p>Once this comes in, we'll collectively need to finally start work on that peer-to-peer, onion-layered, encryption everywhere Internet we keep putting off building.<p>At least this is a lot more compelling in terms of a call to action. It's been a death of a thousand cuts for the last twenty years, so at least it'll help motivate us all to get a move on.
>The legislation approved today still faces a final vote in the European Parliament in January (where it’s possible, though very unlikely, it will be rejected). After that, individual EU member states will still get to choose how to put the directive in law. In other words, each country will be able to interpret the directive as they see fit.<p>It's not totally over yet, both the final vote and the implementation in member countries can disarm the worst parts of the directive.
For the anecdote, Nils Torvalds, the father of Linus, is one of the many authors of this text law.<p>I'm from EU, I had the time to look at the recent amendments about this law, in which they added precisions about the fair use of data, for non-profit and public research.<p>They also precised that this law and the technical implementations should not go against already in-place freedom of speech rights.<p>Hopefully, people will be able to easily defend themselves versus the big corporations in case of abusing take-down requests. The recent example of Twitch streamer Lirik being unrightfully suspended on a simple request from UEFA shows there will be an adjustment period for everyone involved. His case was quickly resolved and he was unsuspended in less than 24 hours after the take down request. However, he is one of the most famous streamer from the Twitch platform, he can easily use his social network to acquire visibility. For smaller and not well-known streamers, it may be more difficult to obtain justice...
This is a decision that will end up benefitting the big players on both sides, i.e. regulatory capture.<p>Google, Facebook and the like already employ filtering and copyright techniques and they can afford it. So, this law lifts the barrier to entry for smaller internet companies.<p>On the other side, it's also beneficial almost exclusively for the larger publications or copyright holders as the collected amount of license payments would end up there.<p>So, while I accept that the benevolent interpretation of this initiative is correct – big internet companies have an unhealthy market share and it's unfair to make money from other peoples' work – I suspect this might be another step towards more corporatism.
I'm worried not so much about the outcome of this decision (which indeed is bad), but more about the whole decision-making process and how often we'll see such uninformed decisionmaking in the future.
You see where this at national level, I have some access and ability to plead against it. But instead we've three MEPs serving a constituency of near 800,000 and they're never around.<p>I hate the removal of substantive access to local politicians that the EU has.
Can't say I didn't expect this, or the politicians' "I can't and don't have to tell you why I voted like that" attitude. (see ericdykstra's comment).<p>Maybe this is the one single solitary positive to Brexit...
From <a href="http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20180906IPR12103/parliament-adopts-its-position-on-digital-copyright-rules" rel="nofollow">http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20180906IPR...</a><p>> Any action taken by platforms to check that uploads do not breach copyright rules must be designed in such a way as to avoid catching “non-infringing works”.<p>Utterly hilarious and scary that they think that's possible.
Oh yeah good luck trying to stop library genesis/scihub/PirateBay with that. Meanwhile everyone else doing business legally will have to suffer while the perpetrators go free.<p>We already have lots of tools to block user access from the EU, time to upgrade them!<p>The EU fail to understand that the internet is inherently free and you can’t regulate it well (unless you’re a dictatorship in China, but you have bigger issues there).
Both copyrights and patents are stupid in a digital age. If you don't want people to make copies of bits and bytes (large numbers) you found to be interesting or even arranged to be interesting don't upload them to the internet.<p>Once those bits and bytes find their way into the digital world you might as well kiss them goodbye. When you try to control them it is like going to a public street and yelling "I am going to go get a burger from Bob's Burger" and then getting upset when a bunch of people also go to the same place and make it all crowded for you.<p>Simply put, nobody should own any arrangement of numbers, sorry if that fucks your lucrative monopoly up.
A bit less discussed aspect of the law is the recent addition that makes recording sport events illegal. While the intention looks clearly intended to be about large sport stadiums with explicit deals, the scope is not limited to those situations and simply cover any "sport event". It will be interesting to see what happens if they try to enforce it for marathons and bike races on public roads.
Copyright is a contract between two groups where a copyright holder dictates the terms under which their material may be used or duplicated. If the receiving party to that material violates those terms (say they've received a movie screener for an unreleased film and leaked it), they are in violation of that contract and should pay the fees dictated in their contract.<p>To argue that all parties everywhere should be forced subsidize the enforcement and policing of that contract is outrageous, economically unsound, and violates liberty.
So since the majority of the voices here on HN seem to be pretty negative towards this, I think it's worth noting there <i>are</i> some creative voices who are <i>in favor</i> of some copyright law. For example, here's one fellow on the twitter machine who's a composer and seems pleased: <a href="https://twitter.com/Howard_Goodall/status/1039833762262134784" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/Howard_Goodall/status/103983376226213478...</a><p>Simultaneously, I'm not campaigning in favor of the "link tax" component, here. I think it's widely agreed upon that that part of this proposal is pretty dire bunkum.<p>But let's not be eager to discard the baby and bathwater together. The idea of some EU copyright policy consensus is not inherently evil. If HN wants to rally about the "link tax" issue, do so. Don't jump directly to "boo, the EU is undemocratic because they didn't do what I want". That's just bizarre and we should be above that.
I find it interesting that the conversation is mainly about fair use and not about false positives.<p>I've been working with filtering and fingerprinting technology for some time, and while its "pretty good", false positives happen frequently. Its a case of continual disappointment, even from the largest tech companies with the "best" technology. I expect that widespread "filtering" will equate to widespread non-fair use related false positives.<p>This law is going to work like the DMCA for many providers, carpet bomb everything and worry about the cleanup later.
And this, together with the idiotic cookie and GDPR laws ensure the future Internet startups will have no home and no audience in Europe.<p>Like always here, death by regulation. The way governments grant monopolies to established players and kill competition.
So we now got our own SOPA to deal with. Important note: the bill now goes to trilogue before it's ready to face a plenary vote. Though I'm not holding my breath.
As far as I can tell, this is the actual text that was voted on (A8-0245/2018):<p><a href="http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-%2F%2FEP%2F%2FTEXT%2BREPORT%2BA8-2018-0245%2B0%2BDOC%2BXML%2BV0%2F%2FEN&language=EN" rel="nofollow">http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-%2F%2F...</a><p>EDIT: The final text will apparently be published here eventually: <a href="http://www.europarl.europa.eu/plenary/en/texts-adopted.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.europarl.europa.eu/plenary/en/texts-adopted.html</a>
Does anyone have any resources saying what all impacts this legislation would bring and how it would change current online applications?<p>How can anyone think that while uploading a new set of content on a website, it would be an instant job to compare against all other legal content already uploaded?
So no comments containing "decentralization" yet.
These days, I'm really not sure any longer if decentralizing all the web to the point where this kind of legislation becomes completetly futile is harder or easier than fixing the politics... :|
This sort of stuff is exactly what many GDPR opponents were warning about. Once the floodgate of aggressive regulating is open you don't get to pick the ones you like. At the end of the day there are going to be very few winners.
> but the shift in the balance of power is clear: the web’s biggest tech companies are losing their grip on the internet.<p>What? Where? How? Is the author of this article somehow confused? The article doesn't make clear in any way how the new law would threaten any tech giants' grips on anything. Tech giants are the first to jump regulatory bullets that would kill anything on a tighter budget in its way.
It's worth noting that this is not a law in the commonly understood sense. It's an EU directive, which requires member states to achieve a required outcome, but leaves the legal implementation up to the individual state. It'll be interesting to see how the member states interpret the language and what legal framework will be used to enforce it.
This is so sad but kind of expected. EU is run by politicians and the public has very little to no insight.<p>After this goes through I will become a single-issue voter, to leave the EU.
I don't think the link tax will have any real implications. Any individual party that starts charging for links will simply not be liked to. It would only work if an entire industry/sector would start charging for links to them, but then we are talking about collusion and price-fixing which is already illegal. It's hard to start demanding money for something that was free and costs you nothing.<p>And the link tax has excemptions for plain hyperlinks and the like, which prevents most distopian uses of such a provision.<p>If google acts on this it will be because they know this was written with them in mind and if nothing happens stricter laws will follow. But for everyone else it will be a non-issue.<p>Upload filters on the other hand are a much bigger problem, mostly because copyright law is way to strict to make them reasonable.
Youtube, Facebook, etc., should simply pull out of Europe and block all European users. I don't think it would take very long for this to sort itself out...
I overheard some discussion of the "upload filter" on the radio. It was very simplified, all about big rights-holders that have to ensure they get paid, and nothing about the power of consumers or even journalists or those acting like that (review/commentary).
Well this sucks a lot, but if I'm reading this right, they at least amended it to be _slightly_ less awful: <a href="https://juliareda.eu/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Copyright_Sept12_Voss.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://juliareda.eu/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Copyright_Se...</a><p>It seems to contain a bunch of amendments that seem to make at least Article 13 a bit less draconian. In particular, 13.2b seems to require a human-reviewed and appealable complaints mechanism.<p>All in all, it's still very shitty.<p>I intend to save the list of those who voted for and set a reminder to dig it out when the next EU elections come up. I hope people with more social media presence than I do the same.
> They say that the campaign against the directive has been funded by US tech giants eager to retain their control over the web’s platforms.<p>While I am not a particular fan of the dominance of Google and Facebook, I like it better how they handle the web than what we have seen from the 'creative' companies. It took years until they found a way to monetize their content properly (e.g. Spotify, Netflix) and even now after they pushed DRM down our throats, they kinda complicate things by not letting you watch the full HD version on certain platforms or restricting streaming rights on a per country basis.
This law is to prevent any non-mainstream news outlet to share content. From the UKIP site:<p>"The great danger is that it will destroy the capacity for free speech on the internet and social media, which has exploded in recent years and is an invaluable alternative to the so-called mainstream media."<p><a href="https://www.ukip.org/national-ukip-news-item.php?id=18" rel="nofollow">https://www.ukip.org/national-ukip-news-item.php?id=18</a><p>The law is about the so-called "fake news", now that we're close to the 2019 European parliament elections.
Hijacking the top comment: Can someone explain me why EU was considered knowledgable about the internet in case of GDPR, but isn't now? Have they lost their knowledge in the meantime?
I'm European but as many don't have a clear idea of how this will work.<p>At my understanding, there will be discussions about the amendments and another vote, like the one we had two months ago. Is it right? There is still time to act, right?<p>Also, is there a place to see who voted what? Elections are close and those choices could impact the vote of many. I knew Votewatch but I don't know if it still doing it, saw some excel file going around last time and wondering if they are being updated, to see who changed ideas.
The copyright laws are totally wrong. If you produce an opera and don't want it to be reproduced or used in other works, don't share it. Keep it for yourself, don't show it to anyone. If an author spontainously share an opera making it public available (for free or selling it is not important) must accept the fact that the opera can be used and elaborated by anyone. If I see something I must have all the right to try to reproduce it, rielaborate it, use it to create something new, resell it, givit it free to other. If author don't want this, must keep it for himself. Sharing something (free or by fee) and asking to not reshare, re-elaborate, copy ecc. is an act of intellectual violence. Author thinks that is this violionce is necessary to grant him the right return for the work he have done. But this is totally false. The copyright law is useful only to aliment of an ecosystem of leeches that prolifer around the artist limiting his and his audience liberty and freedom. "Only one thing is impossible for God: To find any sense in any copyright law on the planet. (Mark Twain)"
I emailed my 10 UK MEP "representatives" about this law, explaining why it was bad news and encouraging them to vote against it.<p>I received one "pre-canned" email acknowledgement from UKIP, attempting to make the bill into an "EU bullying us" issue, and nothing from anyone else. One politician I tried to call had a published phone number that connected to a commercial money lending service.<p>And mainstream political parties wonder why people feel disenfranchised. They have become a professional political class, completely disconnected from the people they purport to represent. The result is protest (Trump, Brexit et al).
It is an unpopular opinion, but they were given the mandate by all those cheering the internet restrictions in the GDPR. Whether you still like that law or not is unrelated to the mandate given. You should have drawn your battle lines there instead of being so dismissive of those warning about government intervention.
Perhaps the most disastrous side effects of articles 11 and 13:<p>1. Access for EU residents is shut down on many sites.
2. GDPR is not taken seriously, even if 11 and 13 get repealed.
3. We once again do not have a legal body to look to as privacy thought leaders.
3. People will stop taking the EU seriously as a
Let's take a look at some background here. Freedoms are in the eye of the beholder and what is considered a "right" by one can be and often is quite different to what is considered a "right" by another.<p>The changes going on at such governmental levels should not be unexpected. These kinds of changes have been happening over many decades. Very few, if any, governments (I am not talking about politicians here) want to give the citizens of itself the freedoms that could threaten the well-being and growing control of that government.<p>Politicians may have agendas (obviously they do) and can in some way direct how the relevant government will operate. They have less control than they think and they are there only fo relatively short periods of time. Most of the legislation that citizens end up suffering under is dictated not by the politicians but by other control structures.<p>Policy changes made by the various political representatives will be warped by those who are in charge of bringing these policies into reality.<p>The changes being discussed here for the EU are in line with the premise that government will gain more control over its citizens and the ones who have pushed for this will find out quickly enough that there are very large unintended side-effects that will come back and haunt them.<p>The fundamental concept driving all this movement towards control of what citizens can and can't do is to ensure that when needed those same citizens will follow whatever directives are given. This is just repeating what has happened in the past many times.<p>Does that mean we lie down and just take it or is there something that we can do?<p>If you are going to actively do something, you must start out first realising that there are going to be consequences. You have to make up your mind as to whether or not you are willing to face those consequences.<p>Then you need to look at what action you can take and take without the destruction of others. Peaceful civil disobedience can be a strong motivator of change in some cases.
Here's what I don't understand. How is Google/Facebook supposed to know which are news sites and which aren't? Apart from the known ones there are hundreds of thousands smaller ones which can start looking for royalties. How do you tell which is which?
What a catastrophe. Can't wait until the EU is disbanded and that dysfunctional union is laid to rest in the history books for good.<p>All I can say is I hope Europeans enjoy their new walled garden, because I sure as hell won't be complying with these rules.
Is there any reason now why Google shouldn't shutdown all their EU web services and remove its divisions like it did in China?<p>If they did so they can conveniently also ignore that $5B anti-trust fine.
Do you think that after GDPR and the fact that everyone actually took it seriously the EU is trying to see if they can keep pulling the same string and making the world dance?
As an American, I can gladly say fuck the EU. Their laws do not and never shall be imposed on me or the work I do ever. I'm glad not to do business within the EU.
Quick reminder of a common misconception: contrary to what you may believe, MEPs do not propose laws. The EU Commission (that you don't vote for) propose laws.
> Article 13 requires certain platforms like YouTube and Facebook stop users sharing unlicensed copyrighted material.<p>How is this different than making gunmakers responsible for shootings? Continuing with the analogy, the only option the gunmaker has is to essentially close up shop. Seems like an impossible law to follow. "Develop better algorithms for filtering inappropriate material or you're gonna be sorry" sounds like tyranny.
> "Exactly how the legislation will be interpreted will be up to individual nations, but the shift in the balance of power is clear: the web’s biggest tech companies are losing their grip on the internet."<p>I don't see it very clear that the biggest tech companies are losing their grip on the internet with these new laws. They will be able to weather this and even profit just fine.
In 2016 I stopped accepting freelance work with an internet explorer or edge requirement.<p>In 2018 I'm considering rejecting clients with an Eu requirement.
If this directive is voted, it will be interesting to watch the aftermath. Copyright is a legacy concept that is incompatible with digital media. This will make the absurdity of owning an idea and profiting from it virtually forever (at least as a ratio of human life) stand out. I hope it leads to a changes in the mindset/laws regarding IP.
Am I wrong in seeing merit in the argument for blocking people/entities from re-posting copyrighted content and simultaneously holding the platforms accountable? Of course, they should exempt businesses valued below a fair figure like $50M so as to not bother startups with compliance expenses.
"Exactly how the legislation will be interpreted will be up to individual nations, but the shift in the balance of power is clear: the web’s biggest tech companies are losing their grip on the internet."<p>I feel like this is actually forcing the biggest tech companies to increase their grip on the internet.
The only thing GDPR and this new law have in common is that both of them will make it very difficult for new internet companies to challenge incumbents (not that it was very easy currently). But if every video distributing company is going to need something like contentID, good luck to them.
I'm rather conflicted about this. Whenever big companies say a new regulation is going to be "disastrous" or use other similar hyperbole I'm immediately suspicious.<p>On the other hand when the government wants to regulate something I'm also immediately suspicious.
And the publishers are in nice conflict of interest with this piece. I saw one online medium that I follow(It is relatively balanced), to publish only one article saying that we shall support this law. For 5 million country pretty sad. But not really surprising.
The headline is rather misleading. The EU parliament has approved it, the EU as a whole has not. The parliament is one step on the legislative process. National governments carry much more weight. Time to lobby your local politicians.
I've seen many posts on HN questioning whether there is any value in a permissionless uncensorable internet of the type some cryptocurrency platforms are building toward.<p>Will the concept get less mockery now?
I'm not surprised that people that believed GDPR was good legislation would approve this law. The EU is simply not that important, internet businesses should simply not do business there.
Will this affect the global internet, or will big sites simply make a reduced "european version" where some filtered content isn't shown in the EU but is shown in North America?
Let's say I want to create a YouTube clone under these new laws, obviously I will need one of these upload filters.<p>Where can I get the collection of all copyrighted content so I can build this filter?
Can these laws be suspended or judicially reviewed if someone or government entity in the EU sues? I'm an American and unfamiliar with the lawmaking process in the EU.
What a sad development. The two major implications of this law I see are
- (even more) privatization of the jurisdiction and
- inverted presumption of innocence
So now all the content aggregators can link exclusively to non-EU web sites, further spreading a non-European point of view globally.<p>Problem solved.
Great, we are turning into the Banking industry: stupid regulation to make big actors bigger and make it almost impossible for newcomers with great ideas. These regulation always started with good intentions, but turned out to just add cost for... no value added to the final customer. I can imagine their will be many opportunities for "middleman" services to support these regulations. The days of many free services are numbered.
Everyone in this thread is asking the wrong question. It's not whether or not some rule the EU approves is good or bad, it's whether or not the EU is legitimate and has or should have the authority to dictate these types of things.
Business's who depend on the livelihood of free speech: Google, Facebook, Apple, Cloudflare, Netflix, Salesforce, et all need to get together and say "No, or we'll stop doing business in the EU".<p>This is beyond ridiculous.
I don't understand why any of this was necessary in the first place, the only reason I can think of is this being on the wishlist of a powerful lobbying bloc.<p>There is something suspect about the EU's cavalier attitude in churning out internet regulations, they generally favor old industries and incumbents.
This shows you the power of old money vs new money ( tech companies ). I laugh when people say tech companies are powerful when you see even small newspapers bully them into submission.<p>Of course what's best for the people and the internet is a non-consideration for these politicians who work for the moneyed-class rather than the people.<p>The news companies ( especially the big ones like BBC, NYTimes and CNN ) already bullied google and facebook to give them exceptional preferential treatment. Now they want a link tax? We already have news companies' social media team bombarding the internet with their spam, now they will go into overdrive mode if news links are monetized. That's so ridiculous. What's to stop anyone from creating a "news" company and them spamming their own links everywhere to profit from this tax?<p>As for the upload filter, all that's going to do is to impede or silence critics, artists, etc using materials protected as "fair use".<p>People talk about china or russia all the time, but the biggest enemy of a free internet so far has been the EU since their legislation can be global while china and russia are pretty much confined to their own borders. And of course with EU behaving so erratically, this will just embolden china, russia and the rest of the world to act in bad faith as well.
So now it's time, if you have news agregator or img/video upload site, to close it to Europe and if not, just ignore the new laws and see what happens next.
How long until the EU ruins the internet so much that the rest of the world just cuts off completely from it, and the EU is left with their own little hyper-legislated enclave net?