Ending The Memes: EU Copyright Directive Is No Laughing Matter

from the it's-bad dept

Tue, Jun 12th 2018 9:29am — Mike Masnick

On Friday, I wrote about all of the many problems with the link tax part of the proposed EU copyright directive -- but that's only part of the problem. The other major concern is around mandatory upload filters. As we discussed with Julia Reda during last week's podcast, the upload filters may be even more nefarious. Even the BBC has stepped up with an article about how it could put an end to memes. While that might be a bit of an exaggeration, it's only just a bit exaggerated. Despite the fact that the E-Commerce Directive already makes it clear that platforms should not be liable for content placed on their platforms by users absent any notice and that there can be no "general monitoring" obligation, the proposal for Article 13 would require that all sites have a way to block copyright-covered content from being uploaded without permission of the copyright holder.

As per usual, this appears to have been written by those who have little understanding of how the internet itself works, or how this will impact a whole wide variety of services. Indeed, there's almost nothing that makes any sense about it at all. Even if you argue that it's designed to target the big platforms -- the Googles and Facebooks of the world -- it makes no sense. Both Google and Facebook already implement expensive filtering systems because they decided it was good for their business to do so at their scale. And even if you argue that it makes sense for platforms like YouTube to put in place filters, it doesn't take into account many factors about what copyright covers, and the sheer impossibility of making filters that work across everything.

How would a site like Instagram create a working filter? Could it catch direct 100% copies? Sure, probably. But what if you post a photo to Instagram of someone standing in a room that has a copyright-covered photograph or painting on the wall? Does that need to be blocked? What about a platform like Github where tons of code is posted? Is Github responsible for managing every bit of copyright-covered code and making sure no one copies any of it? What about sites that aren't directly about the content, but which involve copyright-covered content, such as Tinder. Many of the photos of people on Tinder are covered by copyright, often held by a photographer, rather than the uploader. Will Tinder need to put in place a filter that blocks all of those uploads? Who will that be helping exactly? How about a blog like ours? Are we going to be responsible to make sure no one posts a copyright-covered quote in the comments? How are we to design and build a database of all copyright-covered content to block such uploads (and won't such a database potentially create an even larger copyright question in the first place)? What about a site like Airbnb? What if a photo of a home on Airbnb includes copyright-covered content in the background? Kickstarter? Patreon? I'm not sure how either service (which, we should remind you, both help artists get paid) can really function if this becomes law. Would they need a filter to block creators from uploading their own works?

And that leaves out even more fundamental questions about how do filters handle things like fair use? Or parody? To date, they don't. Now making such filters mandatory even for smaller sites would be a complete and total disaster for how the internet works.

This is why it is not hyperbolic at all to suggest that this change to how the EU looks at copyright could have a massive consequence on how the internet functions. At the very least, it is likely to limit the places where users can participate, because that will price out tons of services. It takes the internet far, far away from its core as a communications platform and moves it more and more towards one that is broadcast only. Perhaps that's what the EU really wants, but at least the discussion should be honest on that point. So far, it is not. The debate goes over the usual grounds, claiming that copyright holders are somehow being ripped off by the internet -- though that is stated without evidence. If the EU wants to fundamentally change how the internet works, it should at least justify those changes with something real and be willing to explain why those changes are acceptable. To date, that has not happened.

Internet companies are trying to speak out about this, but many are so busy fighting other fires -- such as the net neutrality repeal here in the US -- that it's difficult to run over to Europe to point out just how moronic this is. Automattic (the people who do Wordpress) have put out a big statement about the problems of this plan that is well worth reading:

We’re against the proposed change to Article 13 because we have seen, first-hand, the dangers of relying on automated tools to police nuanced speech and copyright issues. Bots or algorithms simply cannot determine whether a blog post, photo in a news article, or video posted to a website is copyright infringement or legitimate use. This is especially true on a platform like wordpress.com, where copyrighted materials are legitimately posted in the context of news articles, commentary, criticism, remixing, memes — thousands of times per day.

We’ve also seen how copyright enforcement, without adequate procedures and safeguards to protect free expression, skews the system in favor of large, well-funded players, and against those who need protection the most: individual website owners, bloggers, and small publishers who don’t have the resources or legal wherewithal to defend their legitimate speech.

Based on our experience, the changes to Article 13, while well-intentioned will almost certainly lead to a flood of unintended, but very real, censorship and chilling of legitimate, important, online speech.

Reddit has also put out a statement:

Article 13 would force internet platforms to install automatic upload filters to scan (and potentially censor) every single piece of content for potential copyright-infringing material. This law does not anticipate the difficult practical questions of how companies can know what is an infringement of copyright. As a result of this big flaw, the law’s most likely result would be the effective shutdown of user-generated content platforms in Europe, since unless companies know what is infringing, we would need to review and remove all sorts of potentially legitimate content if we believe the company may have liability.

Finally, a bunch of internet luminaries, including Tim Berners-Lee, Vint Cerf, Brewster Kahle, Katherine Maher, Bruce Schneier, Dave Farber, Pam Samuelson, Mitch Kapor, Tim O'Reilly, Guido von Rossum, Mitchell Baker, Jimmy Wales and many, many more have put out quite a statement on how bad this is:

In particular, far from only affecting large American Internet platforms (who can well afford the costs of compliance), the burden of Article 13 will fall most heavily on their competitors, including European startups and SMEs. The cost of putting in place the necessary automatic filtering technologies will be expensive and burdensome, and yet those technologies have still not developed to a point where their reliability can be guaranteed.Indeed, if Article 13 had been in place when Internet’s core protocols and applications were developed, it is unlikely that it would exist today as we know it.

The impact of Article 13 would also fall heavily on ordinary users of Internet platforms—not only those who upload music or video (frequently in reliance upon copyright limitations and exceptions, that Article 13 ignores), but even those who contribute photos, text, or computer code to open collaboration platforms such as Wikipedia and GitHub.

Scholars also doubt the legality of Article 13; for example, the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition has written that “obliging certain platforms to apply technology that identifies and filters all the data of each of its users before the upload on the publicly available services is contrary to Article 15 of the InfoSoc Directive as well as the European Charter of Fundamental Rights.”

It doesn't have to be this way. There are campaign pages for those in Europe to contact their MEPs at SaveYourInternet.eu and ChangeCopyright.org. As it stands, the EU's Legal Affairs Committee will vote on this proposal next week. If it passes in tact, it's very likely that this will become official and all EU member countries will need to change their laws to enable this ridiculous and counterproductive plan.

There are, of course, all sorts of threats to the internet. In the past, SOPA/PIPA and ACTA would have changed fundamental concepts. Here in the US, we've just dumped net neutrality in the garbage. How the internet is shaped post-GDPR is still being figured out. But I can't think of a greater threat to the basic functioning of the internet than the current proposal in the EU right now. And, yet, it seems to not be getting nearly as much attention as those other things. Perhaps we're all fatigued from the other threats to the internet. But we need to wake up and speak out, because this one is worse. It will fundamentally change massive parts of how the internet works -- and almost all of it is designed to make it incredibly difficult to run an internet site that allows for any public participation at all.

If you're not in the EU, you can still speak up, and hopefully some Members of the European Parliament will pay attention. The world is watching what the EU Parliament does next week to the internet. If it goes along with the plan it will stamp out innovation and free speech, and basically hand over a huge gift to a small group of large media players who never liked the disruptive nature of the internet in the first place, and are now gleeful that EU regulators have more or less gone along with their plan to stamp out what makes the internet so wonderful. We've heard that some EU Parliament members are getting at least a little concerned because of the noise people are making about this, but it's time to make them very concerned. They are trying to fundamentally change the internet, and they don't seem to care about or understand what this actually means.

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Filed Under: article 13, censorship, censorship machines, copyright, eu, eu copyright directive, free speech, upload filters

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Anonymous Coward, 12 Jun 2018 @ 9:41am

Remove your assumption that teh internets works as should now.
That IS just your arbitrary assertion for premise -- because it empowers corporations as YOU wish, not that it serves The Public so much. CDA Section 230 made an EXCEPTION to prior law. Corporations of course monetized that "freedom" to gain money indirectly from the works of others. No one paid any heed to growing problems for too long. -- It's only been lately that FOSTA stopped blatant advertising for prostitution!

BUT OF COURSE you "libertarians" who believe that the norms against drug use, prostitution, and numerous scams enabled by anonymity, that all societies have found necessary for basically three thousand years, ALL THAT CAN JUST BE THROWN OUT, right?

Again, The Public does have to allow corporations to run totally wild in order to get most of the advantages! It's only masnicks and googles and pirates who skim off the margins without contributing who are worried by this.
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Jun 2018 @ 9:47am

and almost all of it is designed to make it incredibly difficult to run an internet site that allows for any public participation at all.

Which is what the legacy players, and even the politicians want. Those are groups that used to control the public conversations, and they want that control back.
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Jun 2018 @ 9:54am

Re: Remove your assumption that teh internets works as should now.
Explain to me how removing section 230, and making corporations responsible for what users posts enables any user freedom of speech at all? The entity that caries the legal responsibility is the entity that decides what is allowed.
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Mike Masnick (profile), 12 Jun 2018 @ 9:55am

Re: Remove your assumption that teh internets works as should now.
That IS just your arbitrary assertion for premise -- because it empowers corporations as YOU wish, not that it serves The Public so much.

I know that you're not arguing seriously, but let's take this argument and respond to it, just to be clear: my concern here is not at all about empowering corporations. It's the exact opposite. Intermediary liability protections empower THE PUBLIC by enabling them to speak out. The EU Copyright Directive above does the opposite -- empowering corporations to stomp out places on the internet where the public can speak, speak back, and speak out.

If you think that the EU Copyright Directive is being driven by the interests of the public, rather than the interests of big corporations, you are not paying attention.

It's only been lately that FOSTA stopped blatant advertising for prostitution!

It's almost as if you don't know that the SAVE Act existed long before FOSTA and already outlawed advertising for prostitution...

numerous scams enabled by anonymity

Says the guy who has posted anonymous bullshit on our site for years...

all societies have found necessary for basically three thousand years, ALL THAT CAN JUST BE THROWN OUT, right?

Who says we're supporting throwing out norms? We're supporting PROTECTING the norms that benefit the public and give them a voice. You're the one supporting a plan that turns the internet into a broadcast medium, run by giant corporations.
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any moose cow word, 12 Jun 2018 @ 10:03am

There's no centralized database of copyright licensees, only copyright holders have access to those records. Yet, not even the largest copyright holders are able to verify which users were granted permission with the accuracy they demand be enshrined in law. How do they expect anyone else to do something only they have the capacity to do, and even they are incapable of doing?
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Paul Brinker, 12 Jun 2018 @ 10:05am

Failure to define key terms
Anyone notice that there is a failure to define key items here, like how little / much of an existing work is a copyright violation?

How many words when copying a book / news article is a copyright violation? Would typing "It was a dark and stormy night" be a violation? (Correct response, no, it was first written in 1830). But a judge could say it is copyrighted because it appeared as a movie title, a Peanuts comic, and more fan-fic then I wanna shake a stick at.
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Jun 2018 @ 10:12am

But a judge could say it is copyrighted because it appeared as a movie title

Don't worry, a judge implies some kind of due process, which isn't going to happen here. Sometimes you'll get copyright claims, even takedowns, for no reason, as when people upload white noise to Youtube. Are you really going to pay a lawyer every time this happens? No, in the internet of the future, stuff just disappears over time.
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Jun 2018 @ 10:15am

Re: Failure to define key terms
There is a set of legacy industries that will tell you not to worry about details like, because if they accept your work, and you transfer your copyright to them, they will take care of any licensing required.
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ShadowNinja (profile), 12 Jun 2018 @ 10:24am
What about a platform like Github where tons of code is posted? Is Github responsible for managing every bit of copyright-covered code and making sure no one copies any of it?

How about if you want to make sure that no one copies anything you never post it to the Internet instead.
- Anything that can be viewed through a web browser can be copied via taking a screenshot of it.
- Anything you write on a website can be copied by highlighting the text and copy and pasting it.
- Any recordings or sound you put online can be copied by using a recorder.
And while we're at it, you aren't actually going to the website and seeing the original. You're downloading a copy of that part of the website. So even if you somehow disable all of the above things, you're still lost, because the computer has still made a copy of the content in their temporary folders.
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Jun 2018 @ 10:40am

This was done because the EU Commission is payed, under the table, by the copyright industries with the heads being paid bribes, in my opinion, rather than for being unbias and taking tge road that brnfits both copyright hokders and tge public. Its been the same for at least 10years and is always led by someone who is extremely pro copyright or st least extremely pro copyright provided he's paid enough!
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discordian_eris (profile), 12 Jun 2018 @ 10:46am

Infringement Sucks?
How about a blog like ours? Are we going to be responsible to make sure no one posts a copyright-covered quote in the comments?

All posts are automatically copyrighted. So did I just infringe your copyright by quoting it so I could reply to it? Talk about a great way by the EU to insure that civil discourse becomes night unto impossible. Well, any discourse really. At least we'll be able to reply to the government as they don't get a copyright on their statements. However could I reply to a post on Facebook, or Twitter if I have to quote from the original to make my reply coherent?

If this passes, I predict a great deal of foreseeable problems.
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Filipescu Mircea Alexandru, 12 Jun 2018 @ 10:57am

This will mark the death of the European Union
I've done my best to warn about this and will do so once more: If the European Union doesn't immediately stop its tyranny, there won't be an EU left in the near future! Their assault against the open internet is quickening the fall of this Union and pushing us toward a potential violent revolution. Those people are batshit insane if they imagine the people of Europe will tolerate such disgusting and unthinkable forms of censorship and tyranny, the likes of which only Communist China has even dared to imagine.

This is supposed to be a democracy, we are the free world! How can something like this even be discussed here? I am ashamed to be a citizen of the EU right now, and hope that my country is soon liberated from those psychopaths before they destroy anything else. Absolutely no excuse!
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Jun 2018 @ 10:58am

Re:

copy of the content in their temporary folders.

If only. What about a copy in the graphics card memory?
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ECA (profile), 12 Jun 2018 @ 10:58am

HOW good is it??
This ISNT HARD...
tAKE ALL THE data, Multiply by 1,000,000, which is Less the equal to all the posted sites on the internet..
Then every year Multiple Again the updated number of Copyrights and soforth...

Then look at Amazon, google, Youtube, and All the programming they have already done...and Multiply the size of their site, by the above number..

THATS HOW BIG of a program you will need.

Go ask Google/youtube how much fun they have Editing..
Then ask them what they would need to KEEP UP, with Censoring and DMC complaints..

DMC complaints that hit 10 times as many WRONG HITS as they HIT.
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Filipescu Mircea Alexandru, 12 Jun 2018 @ 11:03am

Fully agreed
I completely agree with this. The EU had a corruption problem for many years now, but it never led to anything even close to such a disaster before. Now it's reached the point where bribery threatens the lives of millions of citizens!

Our representatives have been literally turned against their own people. Overnight they want to take European digital rights below the levels of China, Egypt, Turkey, and other similar nations! This would be a joke if it wasn't just horrifying... we almost cannot believe this is actually real.
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Paul Brinker, 12 Jun 2018 @ 11:04am

Re: Re: Failure to define key terms
That's great if your mainstream. And of course then comes the editing when they tell you your D'va clone cant eat Doritos, your coke can has to say "Cola" and your dark and stormy night is to close to the opening of the movie by the same name that you need to change it to a dank and rainy night.

3 more rounds of editing and half your jokes are gone because they use a trademarked name that does not want to be part of your story.
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Paul Brinker, 12 Jun 2018 @ 11:12am

Re: Re:
In the US this one was cleared by the courts as "not a fixed medium" (Same with web temp files).

Of course this means its now illegal to get access to your web temp files. Good job breaking the Internet.
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Gwiz (profile), 12 Jun 2018 @ 11:40am

CDA Section 230 made an EXCEPTION to prior law.

How many times must this be explained to you? Maybe if spent as much time reading responses to the crap you spew as you do trying manufacture a "gotcha" moment against Techdirt, you might actually learn something.

Section 230 IS NOT an exception to prior law. As a matter of fact, it's inline with old English common law that you love to espouse so much. We didn't hold the blacksmith responsible when a sword he made was used to kill, we held the person who wielded the sword responsible. We didn't hold the owner of building responsible when someone wrote disparaging remarks about the king on it, we held the person who wrote the remarks responsible.

Why is placing blame where blame belongs such a hard concept for you to grasp? Is it simple jealousy? Are you angry that others where able to profit on the internet by giving people what they wanted while you are reduced to being just another anonymous commenter on someone else's website?
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Jun 2018 @ 12:03pm

Deodand

when a sword … used to kill

Deodand

The English common law of deodands traces back to the 11th century and was applied, on and off, until Parliament finally abolished it in 1846. Under this law, a chattel (i.e. some personal property, such as a horse or a hay stack) was considered a deodand whenever a coroner's jury decided that it had caused the death of a human being.

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Gwiz (profile), 12 Jun 2018 @ 12:30pm

Re: Deodand
Interesting stuff.

Apparently, that's the basis for modern civil forfeitures.

It seems to me (and I could be wrong) that banes were used where there really wasn't a responsible party (ie: horse bolts from a loud noise and runs someone over with the cart) as a way to compensate the victim's family. It looks like practice transitioned into deodands because the King (just like any government) wanted a piece of that action.
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Jun 2018 @ 12:42pm

PAYING for non-trivial content means losing on tet internets.
That's the ONE certain point backed by 20 years of YOUR everyday experience.

Madnick is oblivious to FACTS:

Pirates just plain steal $100 million movies, readily available.

Producers get not one cent, but Kim Dotcom and other pirate sites monetize it, Dotcom gaining at least $175 million while paying just for bandwidth (as in Manick's "can't compete" piece!).

Newspapers, even prestigious New York Times, ALL going broke.

It's estimated that HALF of all advertising costs wasted sheerly going to bot nets. -- Google of course still gets the money.

Spotify and other music sites are not yet profitable despite tens of millions people directly paying. -- Youtube is probably subsidized by other operations, but in any case, depends upon infringing content.

Madnick's only actually workable "business model" for teh internet is shown right here every day: re-write for free from those who DO pay to produce the content, while YELLING that they're stupid dinosaurs!
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Jun 2018 @ 12:44pm

Re: PAYING for non-trivial content means losing on tet internets.
OMG! Got the "Content Held For Moderation" lie again, soon found that leaving out the 'S' in Masnick is now apparently blocked! -- Changed to "Madnick", got in. -- There's LOTS of those if you want to play whack-a-mole "Madnick"!
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Jun 2018 @ 12:45pm

Re: Re: Deodand
A further source is Walter Woodburn Hyde's article, “The Prosecution and Punishment of Animals and Lifeless Things in the Middle Ages and Modern Times” (1916).

Also note Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England, vol. I, p.291

[T]herefore, in all indictments for homicide, the instrument of death and the value are presented and found by the grand jury (as, that the stroke was given with a certain penknife, value sixpence) that the king or his grantee may claim the deodand: for it is no deodand, unless it be presented as such by a jury of twelve men.

Enjoy reading.
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Jun 2018 @ 12:52pm

Only you could lose an argument with a spam filter.
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Ninja (profile), 12 Jun 2018 @ 1:03pm

Re:
Magic.
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Ninja (profile), 12 Jun 2018 @ 1:05pm

Re: Re: PAYING for non-trivial content means losing on tet internets.
Go clean yourself, it's gross man.
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Ninja (profile), 12 Jun 2018 @ 1:13pm

Re: Remove your assumption that teh internets works as should now.
"BUT OF COURSE you "libertarians" who believe that the norms against drug use, prostitution, and numerous scams enabled by anonymity, that all societies have found necessary for basically three thousand years, ALL THAT CAN JUST BE THROWN OUT, right?

Oh yes they should. ASAP. The war on drugs is a complete and utter failure that managed only to enrich drug lords and screw poorer places. The 'moral war' on prostitution has empowered pimps and put thousands of sex workers at risk while doing exactly nothing to stop the demand. Because you and your "moral police" friends don't like it it doesn't mean it's wrong and by trying to impose your 'morals' onto everybody else you have been doing much more harm than good. For many, many years now.

So do us a favor and go fuck yourself.
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Jun 2018 @ 1:17pm

Re: Re: PAYING for non-trivial content means losing on tet internets.
This, kids, is why you don't do drugs, especially in large quantities, while pregnant.
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That One Guy (profile), 12 Jun 2018 @ 1:22pm

Re:
How do they expect anyone else to do something only they have the capacity to do, and even they are incapable of doing?

Short answer: They don't. Rather I suspect the goal is to make it impossible for platforms to host user submitted content as it's far too risky to do so, eliminating competition and forcing people back to them if they want to be published.
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Rosie-Redstar (profile), 12 Jun 2018 @ 1:55pm
There is a couple questions I would like to know...
- What do they expect to happen to the reviewers/let's players? These people act as (for lack of a better term) a Colbert Bump for whatever they decide to a video/article on. Without them can you expect their respective industries to do nearly as well?
- How do they expect upload filters to work cross-medium? (i.e. trying to catch text content for a copyrighted video... Alternatively you could likely apply this question to something like fanfiction/fanart)
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Uriel-238 (profile), 12 Jun 2018 @ 2:06pm

"Norms all societies have found necessary three thousand years"
Um, drug use? Prostitution? Even consumer protections against scams have only been in place since the 20th century and they don't work all that well.

Prostitution was legal through most places into the 19th century, unless you're arguing church law, which often conflicted with state law in other areas.

Drug use wasn't even acknowledged, unless you're looking specifically at booze. Ale, Beer and Wine were the drinking stables of Europe before we had water processing.

So WTF?
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Uriel-238 (profile), 12 Jun 2018 @ 2:13pm

Criminality
Given the shortage of respect for norms and customs in the places from which most memes stem (e.g. 4chan/b) I wonder if the criminality of memes would jettison them into a prohibition-style gilded age, where they'd be twice as popular for being automatically against the law.

Also being automatically NSFW they don't have to be made for safe sharing at work.

Considering a search for angry hitler on YouTube still yields results, it seems Lionsgate's effort to quash the Angry Hitler memes ultimately failed.
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Jun 2018 @ 2:15pm

Re: Re: Remove your assumption that teh internets works as should now.
He can't, it's too short.
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Bergman (profile), 12 Jun 2018 @ 3:39pm

Re:
Especially since the creation of a database to compare uploads against for copyright purposes must contain a copy of every copyrighted work or it won't be capable of doing its job.

So in order to even attempt to make a flawless filter, you have to violate copyright. The entire thing is doomed to failure before you even begin.
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Bergman (profile), 12 Jun 2018 @ 3:41pm

Re: Failure to define key terms
One of the reasons why there is no such clear definition is because the official definition is "I knows it when I sees it."

In some cases, it's possible for 100% of a given document to be copied, even as fair use, without any copyright violation occurring at all. In other cases, even a single sentence might be a violation. The law is a MESS.
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Bergman (profile), 12 Jun 2018 @ 3:42pm

Between this and GDPR...
Is the EU in the process of opting itself out of the global internet?
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That One Guy (profile), 12 Jun 2018 @ 3:59pm

Re: Between this and GDPR...
If not(yet), it's certainly not for lack of trying.
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Anonymous Anonymous Coward (profile), 12 Jun 2018 @ 4:19pm

Re: Re: Between this and GDPR...
What do we expect when they succeed? The citizens will be incensed, but the government agencies will probably claim they are committing things considered issues of national or international security, and act accordingly. I foresee very full prisons in the EU. At least until the courts get involved, then the mess that is the EU government will become even more of a mess.
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Uriel-238 (profile), 12 Jun 2018 @ 5:25pm

When laws become really inconvenient to follow...
The people don't follow them. Look at speeding in the US. It's illegal and yet everyone does it. In fact, one can be more easily arrested for slow driving (obstructing traffic, reckless driving) than for speeding.

We're watching the same process of how (media) pirates become sympathetic: when it becomes too difficult to engage in culture without connection to media, and obtaining the media becomes too inconvenient (too expensive, or bundled with too much crap, or too limited in distribution) then the public is going to pirate.

And yes, some people will get thrown into jail and treated poorly and made examples of, but sooner or later the law is going to incarcerate or ruin the life of someone sympathetic. At that point law enforcement will realize it's a dumb law that makes law enforcement look bad and hated by the public.

We'll be where we are already regarding song-downloaders: everyone knows its illegal, but lots of people do it and no one enforces the law, because that only drives the public to disrespect the state even more. And the RIAA is still notorious for suing grandmothers and little girls.
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Jun 2018 @ 5:50pm

Re: Re: Re: Failure to define key terms

… you need to change it to a dank and rainy night.

It was night. Not so much damp outside as dank: with the occasional fat, wet drop falling down through the musty fog like a bullet landing in a coal cellar. The lamplighters were on strike that autumn week.

Muffled horse sounds off somewhere away down the cobblestones, dragging carriagewheels, with an axle begging for grease.

A pistol shot. . . .
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Jun 2018 @ 6:20pm

Re:
Why would I worry about producers when dumb fucks like ask the government to subsidize them instead?

Seriously, in the last twenty years you claimed this was happening, the industry, in your own terms, was being devastated. Raped. Hell, let's throw murdered into the mix since you idiots literally believe copyright infringement is tantamount to murder.

Yet every time the box office numbers are in, you boast records up the fucking roof. So which is it? Are you being raped or not?

I think I'll choose the option that costs me the least money: I'LL DO WITHOUT, JUST LIKE YOU ASKED ME TO, YOU FUCKING CUNT.
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Anonymous Anonymous Coward (profile), 12 Jun 2018 @ 6:23pm

Re: When laws become really inconvenient to follow...
I, in some ways, fear what is coming. Governments think they are in power. They have a lot to learn. I don't expect it soon, but I do expect it. I am probably too old to still be around when it happens, and when it happens it's gonna happen in a lot of places. Many places that think they have everything in hand. When they don't.
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any moose cow word, 12 Jun 2018 @ 6:59pm

Re: Re:
Though your answer is correct, one I've mentioned many times before, it was a rhetorical question addressing absurdity of the industry's BS.
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any moose cow word, 12 Jun 2018 @ 11:38pm

Re: Re:
There are ways to create "signatures" of content that don't require the originals to be copied, but they increase the chance of false-positives.
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eol, 12 Jun 2018 @ 11:50pm

Re: Re: Failure to define key terms
Guess who is lobbying for this law to happen...
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That Anonymous Coward (profile), 13 Jun 2018 @ 4:36am

So is it time to set the edges of the internet for the EU-net separate from the internet?

Trying to hold everyone to hopes, dreams, desires of a few.
Give them what they want, a world of their own to rule over while protecting the rest of us from the insanity.

Every time they try this, they get shown why its bad... yet think this time it is going to work. Let them have their own net cut off from everyone else to ruin with these idiotic laws & demands... when they grow up they can ask to move from the kids table.
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Actually:, 13 Jun 2018 @ 6:57am

Directive itself is already illegal in EU. There are words on that directive that more than one person on human-race can comprehehend before it was even written.

And humor helps, little...
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Uriel-238 (profile), 13 Jun 2018 @ 12:38pm

Good Omens chapter one...
It was a nice day. All the days had been nice. There had been rather more than seven of them so far, and rain hadn't been invented yet. But clouds massing east of Eden suggested that the first thunder storm was on its way, and it was going to be a big one.

Terry Pratchett. Possibly my favorite tribute to the Bulwer-Lytton opening.
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cpt kangarooski, 13 Jun 2018 @ 8:05pm

Re: Remove your assumption that teh internets works as should now.

CDA Section 230 made an EXCEPTION to prior law. Corporations of course monetized that "freedom" to gain money indirectly from the works of others.

Actually, 47 USC § 230 isn't a copyright exception; it deals with protections from other forms of third-party liability.

BUT OF COURSE you "libertarians" who believe that the norms against drug use, prostitution, and numerous scams enabled by anonymity, that all societies have found necessary for basically three thousand years, ALL THAT CAN JUST BE THROWN OUT, right?

What three thousand year-old norms?

Drugs generally haven't been illegal or even well-regulated at all until quite recently, except to varying extents in the Islamic world, and then only in the last 1400 years or so. A hundred years ago you could've gotten all kinds of stuff on the open market. A hundred and fifty years ago, virtually anything at all could easily be had in shops. And even more recently, plenty of hard drugs have been legal. In the US amphetamines didn't start to become controlled substances until the 60s and 70s -- before that they were legal, over the counter drugs, often used for dieting and recreation.

As for prostitution, it's generally been perfectly legal, or at least well-tolerated for virtually all of the last 3000 years. Reportedly, a number of religions even had temple prostitutes as part of their rituals.

For someone who hates the future, you sure are ignorant about the past.
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cpt kangarooski, 13 Jun 2018 @ 8:07pm

Re: Re: Re:
And false negatives.
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Wendy Cockcroft, 14 Jun 2018 @ 2:38am

Re: This will mark the death of the European Union
Settle down, it's not law yet.
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Wendy Cockcroft, 14 Jun 2018 @ 2:40am

Re:
It will fall on its face like ACTA did. July 04, 2012. That was a glorious day. Be part of history; contact your MEPs and tell them to put an end to this nonsense now.
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Jun 2018 @ 9:27pm

Response to: any moose cow word on Jun 12th, 2018 @ 10:03am
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