Sources Contact Advanced Search Tutorials

An Interest In:

Web News this Week

Search Archive

Some of Our Sources

View All Sources

Help Webnuz

Referal links:

September 12, 2018 10:10 pm

The EU Can Still Be Saved From Its Internet-Wrecking Copyright Plan

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: While the European Union voted this week to pass its widely-criticized new Copyright Directive, activists and members of European Parliament say there's still a chance of keeping the EU from fully implementing the worst parts of the troubling proposal. The most controversial aspects of the plan remain twofold: Article 11, which would require EU News outlets to pay a "link tax" just to share anything more than "insubstantial" snippets of published content, and Article 13, which would require that EU member countries implement the kind of automated copyright filters that have been a chaotic mess here in the States. Other problematic measures were passed as well, including Article 12a, which prohibits sports fans from posting their own photos or videos of sporting events online, while stating that only event "organizers" have the right to do so. That said, all hope is not lost. While some variant of Article 11 and Article 13 is likely be approved next spring, public pressure could force inclusion of additional safeguards for end users, Member of the European Parliament Julia Reda told me in an email. "While the overall bill was adopted with a comfortable majority, the outcome was more narrow for the two controversial articles (366:297 and 393:279)," Reda said. "Since the final vote will be close to the next European elections, that leaves open a small chance that massive public protest against these provisions may still convince MEPs to kill the entire bill." If passed, individual EU countries will be able to interpret the Directive as they see fit, though Reda believes they will likely steer toward stricter interpretation. "The real hope for repeal in my opinion is in the courts," author and activist Cory Doctorow said. "There's simply no way this passes EU Constitutional muster -- it's generalized filtering and mass surveillance by another name. The fact that they claim to be looking for 'infringement' doesn't change that." Longtime Slashdot reader Lauren Weinstein adds: [...] These articles now enter a period of negotiation with EU member states, and then are subject to final votes next year, probably in the spring. So now's the time for the rest of the world to show Europe some special "tough love" -- to help them understand what their Internet island universe will look like if these terrible articles are ever actually implemented. UPDATE: The Electronic Frontier Foundation issued a report slamming the proposal, offering a number of ways people can fight back.

Slashdot

Slashdot was originally created in September of 1997 by Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda. Today it is owned by Geeknet, Inc..

More About this Source Visit Slashdot