After the passage of the EU Copyright Directive, Google nukes Google News France

The passage of the EU's Copyright Directive last March marked the most controversial rulemaking process in EU history, with lawmakers squeaking a narrow victory that relied on confused MEPs pushing the wrong button.

The main focus of the opposition was Article 13 (now Article 17), which will force tech companies to filter every video, audio clip, still image and word posted in the EU with a black box copyright filter that only the largest, US-based tech companies can afford.

But also important is Article 11, an idea so terrible that it would have been a source of massive controversy if it were not overshadowed by the world-beatingly stupid copyright filter rule. Under Article 13, linking to news articles with "snippets" (as few as two words from the article, including words from the headlines embedded in the article's URL) requires permission and a paid license from the news entity. The rule doesn't define who a news entity is, nor who needs to get permission prior to making these links, giving each EU member state broad latitude to create a patchwork of rules that, again, only the largest, US-based companies can afford to navigate.

But those companies aren't there yet: first, they're going to play hardball. France -- so desperate to get the Directive passed that they secretly dropped their opposition to a Russian Gasprom pipeline in order to get Germany on-side -- is the first country to implement the Directive, and has opted for a very restrictive "link tax" rule that gives news sites a veto over who may criticise their works and the right to charge for the privilege. Read the rest