Here Comes The Splinternet: How The EU Is Helping Break Apart The Internet
from the this-is-not-great dept
In the wake of last week's unfortunate decision by the EU Parliament to vote for the terrible EU Copyright Directive, Casey Newton over at the Verge has a thoughtful piece about how this could lead to the internet splitting into three.
...this latest effort is hamfisted in the extreme, and may have the effect of splintering the internet beyond what seemed possible even a few years ago. In the wake of GDPR’s passage, Europeans couldn’t visit the websites of some US publishers for months as new privacy frameworks were put into place. That sort of thing may be about to become a lot more common. The time has now come to speak of the internets, plural. And to get around, you might just need a passport.
Basically, as Newton notes, it just might not be worth it for many sites to serve EU visitors:
Perhaps the big platforms will feel so motivated to preserve their European user bases that they will indeed negotiate the deals necessary to keep their existing services operating basically as is. But it’s just as easy to imagine them scaling back their services, as Google has already done, and further divide the internet into zones. If it goes far enough, the entire internet may begin to feel like Netflix, whose library of content varies dramatically depending on which country you log on from.
But that's just the big platforms. Smaller platforms aren't even going to be in a position or have the resources to negotiate those deals.
And, this is just one symptom of a broader trend. China practically has its own internet already. The EU's efforts here may create an EU-focused silo as well. India has been making noises about following China's lead, perhaps cleaving off its own internet in addition. And, of course, there's always Russia with its plan to unplug itself from the internet.
Perhaps this kind of splintering of the global internet was inevitable. Perhaps we, as a society, simply can't handle a global network for everyone. But, from my perspective, this is still incredibly disappointing. The grand experiment of a global open internet is on its way out. And it's especially depressing that the EU is the one who decided to lead the way on this.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: article 13, copyright, copyright directive, eu, europe
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Perhaps society can, but that does not suite the politicians, as it is harder to demonize those foreigners when citizens of different countries treat each other as friends.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing."
...maybe that was the plan all along
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
Politicians are an intrigal part of society. Their views and tolerances (or lack there of) contribute to those of society.
Unfortunate, but that's the way it is
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Twinternet and Chinternet
Now we really CAN talk about teh interwebZ, not just teh interweb.
Then the Suomalainen can escape from the other FEUgitives and go it alone on the Finnternet. Backpage and Craigslist can run the Sinternet. The Arctic regions can run the Winternet and the rest of us will be stuck with all the garbage on the Binternet.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
But Wait, There's More!!!!
European Union: "We just passed the worst law regarding online content!"
South Africa: "Hold my beer."
What happend is the films and publications amendment bill got passed by South African Parliament, it mearly awaits their President to sign the bill in to law.
Whats the Big Deal?
Any person who knowingly distributes or exhibits in public a film or game without first having been registered with the Film Board as a distributor or exhibitor of films or games shall be guilty of an offence and liable, upon conviction, to a fine not exceeding R150 000 or to imprisonment for a period not exceeding eight months or to both a fine and such imprisonment. It also requires all films to be uploaded to be classified by the film board, without classification, the film is illegal, and this applies to anything uploaded or streamed, including .gifs
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Could be good...
I've read your push for protocols. This could be the push towards P2P protocols. Or at least the end of world wide universal containers.
People volunteering in their communities in stead of fighting on Twitter. People making movies without their audiences being swept away by Hollywood marketing.
Anybody interested in P2P-social media to share some memes?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
I think it’s less this and more that society can’t handle Twitter-style social interaction networks. People were never (and arguably still aren’t) fully prepared for that level of instant, “interactive”, viewable-by-the-public communication.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Makes me wonder if the EU has really thought this through to it's logical conclusion. They seem to be basing their beliefs that Google and FB and such will continue a presence in the EU instead of packing up their ball and returning to this side of the ocean.
EU citizens are going to be pissed when they lose their access to these major platforms, and even more pissed when EU replacements arrive and don't live up to the expectations that have been firmly established by now.
That's not even taking into account the hit businesses are going to take in search engine driven business. After all, recreating a Google-esque search engine isn't exactly thr easiest thing in the world to do.
All it would take to get this repealed would be for the people in the EU to lose access to these platforms.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
E.U replacements for those services will miss one significant feature, presence of their friends and special interest groups from around the world.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
A debt of gratitude is in order for the first-class Article. It became rather treasured for me. Keep Such sharing thoughts inside the Future. Much obliged to you on your great information.
cheap law dissertation help
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
USENET worked fine.
I think it's more like when "rollerblading" (inline skating) became popular, and ER visits due to skating accidents soared. Skating hadn't become more dangerous, but rather the new skaters had far less skill and common sense.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
USENET has never been as widely used by (and known to) the general public as Twitter.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
This article is nothing but hyperbole and hearsay about a directive which is assumed to remain in place in the coming years.
Not going to happen.
As evidenced by multiple countries which tried the very same thing, every single instance of those laws were repealed within a year.
The same will be true of Brexit, er, sorry, Article 13.
The reality is the law was passed by idiots who don't understand business, technology, business and technology, and the constituents they're supposed to represent.
As I've been saying for years: [b]DON'T FIGHT AGAINST THE STUPID. LET IT PASS SO IT CAN FAIL.[/b]
This will fix itself.
I know my words may seem pointless or unbelievable, but do bear in mind I predicted the FCC outcome while stating the "fight" is a complete and utter waste of time.
But for some reason, you idiots refuse to listen to reason.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
The only things that will end are hate speech, cyberbullying, and piracy.
"Don't blame the platform" didn't work for care.com, a childcare portal who just nuked 47,000 providers due to "licensing issues," including several with criminal convictions.
I could see the internet evolving into something where sites have to "know their users" to meet that best-effort standard. For example, a YouTube content creator who has a contract with the service and makes money uploading should be presumed not to be infringing, or if they are, that they had a good-faith belief that they were not. The punishment for repeat, intentional infringement or outright piracy should be much more severe, just like the penalties for offline theft.
Not everyone cares about a global internet, either. Global internet companies and their "fans" might, but the general public probably does not.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
How does this solve hate speech, cyberbullying, and piracy? Please explain how, in detail.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
Article 13 (now 17) was passed by idiots who understand PIRACY.
The pirates can't stand this.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re:
Because it protects his mailing lists.
How it protects his mailing lists is another mystery Jhon Herrick Smith will never be capable of explaining.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
You blame EU, I blame copyright maximalists
C'mon dude. Yeah its depressing that the EU has gone this way, but blaming their stoopid politicians is misleading. Its the maximalist lobbyists.
And, the EU did not 'lead the way'. That would be China, North Korea, Iran, Russia and Facebook.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Could be good...
RetroShare and ZeroNet are pretty good P2P options. GnuNet too. I don't like the blockchain-based ones, but that's another possible route.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
This was not the case prior to the advent of the "gatekeepers."
That is because commercial interests would build an audience on USENET that they then monetized on their own websites, often using "moderation" as a selling point, at the expense of the true free speech everyone NOW complains they don't have. Those commercial websites were free of "trolls" or "SPAM" (i.e., advertisers not approved by the site owner), and the archiving that made USENET unique. History was literally whitewashed in more than one case and replaced by internet-marketing narratives that helped scam the masses.
Now people embrace "moderation" without realzing what a cancer it is on truth and free expression. USENET still exists, but no one has a financial interest in promoting it, so it is less popular than ever, leading to even fewer people caring about its good features (like total free speech).
If free speech were important to most internet users, USENET would be thriving better than ever now.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re:
Anyone so disrespectful as the previous poster doesn't deserve a response, and most of the time I ignore it. They are bullies, and conflict-driven until they are on the losing side. Safely tucked behind a monitor, they pick fights they wouldn't dare in the offline world.
With that said, Article 13 is not about MY distribution list. I made an offhand remark about how mailing lists have value (ask Frank Kern how much he made from them online), and how piracy is the theft of something that has monetary value, namely the name of the downloader.
If anyone in the MSM asked this question, the answer wouldn't be ad-hominem or snarky, since the previous poster's other face would be the one moving its ever-so-cowardly mouth.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re:
"...contribute to those of society"
Sort of like how dogs "contribute" to fire hydrants.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re:
Yes, how dare people want to use their favorite social interaction network without having racists and homophobes and actual goddamn Nazis show up in their mentions~.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
They could have said this law does not apply to non profit websites, personal blogs, websites that have less
than 1 million visitors or users .
its obvious many small websites will close down or
block all users uploads .i think many american websites
may block eu visitors as its not worth changing content
for the eu .
This law breaks the internet and is in conflict with fair use,
the whole point of fair use is anyone can use clips or content
for the purpose of commentary or reviews .
Without seeking permission from the ip holder .
Article 13 says you must get permission from the content
owner to use any of their content, ip.
Some european countrys have laws on fair use ,
at some point someone could take a case to the Eu court of justice,
saying using automatic filters to block content is in conflict with fair use and free speech.
Right now if i go to some american tv websites ,i,ll be blocked , eg fox, cbs, nbc,TV eg
you cannot view this content, its only licensed for viewers in the usa .
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
[citation very much needed]
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
I was under the impression that lists weren't copyrightable.
Also for the EU at least it's now not legal to sell mailing lists unless you jump through loads of hoops.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re:
Moderation? The unmoderated USENET died the day the Greencard Lottery adverts hit every single board and spammers realized it was ripe for their use.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Yeah, Herrick. Remind the class of how much you couldn't care any less if Article 13 was approved. Soooo much not caring.
Have you considered how much copyright enforcement you'll get done now that your hero Paul Hansmeier is looking at 12 years?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
There are provisions in these new laws for use of content for review, parody, etc. The problem is that these laws also require filters to enforce them and filters can't tell the difference between a plain old copy+paste and a parody or review.
Any court would just say "nerd harder" if you complained that filters filter too much. They have zero grasp of technology.
Also, there is plenty of content, even American-made content, on Netflix that is viewable only outside the US. Contracts prohibit Netflix from making that content available in the US but allow it everywhere else. It goes both (all?) ways. These kinds of contracts do and will continue to exist with or without Articles 11 & 13 and whatever else the world poops out.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
Not everyone cares about a global internet, either. Global internet companies and their "fans" might, but the general public probably does not.
This may be true, since you seem to be that case, but sweeping generalizations are terrible for making policy. You don't need the global internet because you don't use it that way, but I don't think you realize how much good is done around you due to the current global connectedness.
Ability for scientists to collaborate and share ideas from one end of the globe to another, check. This not only makes findings able to be built on faster, but allows for collaborations that never would have happened. The pace of scientific discovery is expected to slow dramatically if we go back to 1980s style communication.
Ability for people to telecommute, teleconference, telemedicine, and a host of other things that allow people to not have to travel to be there, check. Lets see, reduced carbon emissions, reduced traffic, increased access for those that live far from the major urban hubs.
Ability to find others with common interests not in your country. There is a unifying trend that crosses borders when people can see others as people, not as Them and They. Both of you like beekeeping? Awesome. Its hard to get on board with politicians stirring up xenophobia and/or nationalism when you know people from those "shithole countries" because they are more than stereotypes.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re:
Time to Godwin: 22 comments. Not the fastest I've seen on here, but still pretty impressive...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
You talk like as if this isn't the point of the legislation and that the European Union is a true democratic institution not run by people who are only different from Republicans because they're not racist, homophobic or misogynistic, but are similar in every other corporate and authoritarian way imaginable just short of outright fascism.
Get real, wake up, and take the black pill that reality is rigged because the world is runed by people dragging us into 1984.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
the aim being to ensure that the lying, cheating fuckers who are in charge of, basically, everything can continue to do and say exactly as they want, exactly as they always have and the restrictions now in force prevent their 'escapades' being known worldwide. think back to when the ridiculous 'right to be forgotten' law came in and where and the reason why, then think of this as a knock on effect from that. the EU has a lot of blame to take for what it has done. all in the name of protecting, for a price, those who are the biggest rogues on the Planet! then think of what France did so Germany accepted Articles 11 and 13 (which suddenly became 17, just to confuse people and make sure it was passed) and how France has now shown EXACTLY what the whole aim of these articles was!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
You can't really still can't have any replacements as they would run into and have the same issues as those company's that fleed. If anything an even harder time. The so-called Internet will have to turn into a passive, TV-like, one-way service. That way everything can be better controlled. You sure don't want to be fined.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re:
This won't affect pirates at all. If you think it will, you're foolish.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re:
I know the global Internet helps me fix problems in many area's. With more people, you have a greater knowledge base. Some people like to live in their own little world and not go out. See the world. How sad is that?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: You blame EU, I blame copyright maximalists
The politicians are stupid. Doesn't matter who is misleading them. They fell for it. It's not like they were not warned.
Now, they didn't lead the way, but just look at the list of who they are following. If that's not a huge clue of, Oh wait,. China, North Koria, IRAN, Russia, are doing these things? Maybe we shouldn't!!!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re:
And that is exactly what the Powers that be, the Ruling Class, the Elite, the aristocracy, whatever you call them, want from this Directive. Most people I talk to talk as if the EU actually has no real clue about what Article 13 would do, as if this isn't a well orientated hostile coup to consolidate even more power from the us peasants into the hands of the already rich and powerful fucks! They are deluded as foolish as FUCK thinking we have any real say over this, or any real power to stop this, without an actual straight up repeat of the bloodbath that was the French Revolution.
We are fucked, regardless of what what we do, short of violence, and that is the end of it...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
How to build a distribution list? A CONTEST. Even a $50 prize can attract thousands of people.
Large corporations do this all the time, giving away $500, $1,000, or even $10,000 or more!
Opt-in marketing will become very strong.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
Those things won't end until the human race does. As long as there are humans, those things will continue to exist.
Congratulations, you just described the current state of Youtube, with the exception that said creator's content still gets run through the ContentID system and flagged incorrectly because automated systems are bad at nuance and context.
Copyright infringement isn't the same as theft. Nothing gets stolen in infringement, so why should the punishment be the same?
So far I count one. You.
Thanks for insulting the entire general public. They absolutely do. They may not understand all the nuances, but the general public does NOT want a segmented and fragmented internet. They want to get where they want, when they want, however they want, and not have to jump internets to do it.
That's why the internet exploded, because it was global, free, and open.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re:
"Politicians are an intrigal part of society. Their views and tolerances (or lack there of) contribute to those of society."
Contribute in a negative way, I suppose.
It is interesting to note the increasingly huge canyon between the GOP and mainstream voters.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
There are many levels of control beyond the on/off button.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re:
Politicians aren't exactly an unbiased sample though. The job attracts the power hungry. The meek may inherit the earth, but not any positions in politics.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
With respect, you have yet to state how they have value in today's world. Perhaps in times past they did, but mostly they get caught up in people's spam filters and are never seen.
Also with respect, pirates do not maintain lists of who has downloaded pirated content. That would defeat the purpose of piracy, which is to remain as anonymous as possible.
Methylsulfonylmethane?
I believe the reason they are answering like this is because they have pointed to facts and data, as well as holes in your logic that prove your view to be incorrect. Yet when confronted with said facts and data, you continue to double down on false information and engage in disingenuous debating. Or they view you as a troll.
You accuse them of ad-hom attacks and bullying, and yet you do the exact same thing here. How can you expect someone to treat you with respect when you do not offer the same to them?
Regardless of that, I'm pretty that these same posters would say the exact same things to you in person were you to state the same arguments.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re:
Sorry, AC, but the reason Usenet is not more popular is not due to a lack of "features (multimedia, etc.)", but due to a non-free entrance fee.
I remember having a shell account in 1988 to a fairly popular BBS, and watching over the next several years as more and more BBS's joined together to become an "uber-bbs", which became known as Usenet. It took awhile, but it wasn't too long after Tim Berners-Lee gave the world "The Internet" that Usenet became an "also-ran".
Remember, BBS's needed to support banks of physical telephone lines and modems for their computers, so users were used to the subscription model of business (meaning, paying for access to all that data available out there). Do recall, too, that this was well before Mike's time, and his theory (since proven correct) that if you can't compete with Free, your business model needs more than a minor adjustment. In short, Usenet has yet to learn that if you're gonna charge people for something, you have to give them more than they can get elsewhere for free.
Personally, where I once found BBs's and the Usenet to be exciting and a great advancement in sharing data, I now find Usenet to be even more curmudgeonly than even my own self - not an easy task, I assure you!
sumgai
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
"treat each other as friends"
Great point! It does not fit in with fear mongoling
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
Why would you want to build a distribution list? No one reads them, partially due to the fact that they pretty much get caught in people's spam filters and never seen.
This is what is called promotion marketing and generally does not result in the creation of distribution lists. The point is instead to get them to buy their products to be a part of the contest.
This has nothing to do with distribution lists, which are almost always opt-out based.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re:
He's quoting one of Herbert's Bene Gesserit maxims from Dune.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re:
Usenet has its heyday when access to the Internet was a job perk for a limited number of people who had ab account on a connected multi-user system. If you University or place of work was not connected, then no Usenet for you.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
I Don,t think google or facebook will leave the eu,
they can afford to build new filters and license content
from the old media companys .
The problem is its not a good result for eu users or startups
if only billion dollar tech companys can afford to build filters
needed to comply with article 13.
The range of eu websites that can post video and audio content
will be reduced .
It will take 2 years for the laws to come into force,
no one knows how the law will work in practise ,
Will the 1000,s of people who make their living
streaming video,s on twitch and youtube be able to
continue to work in the eu.
How will sites like soundcloud and bandcamp work
if every song and podcast has to be checked for infringing
content.
this law will place more legal restrictions
on small creators, artists,s ,singers who at the moment
simply upload their content to various websites .
The worse that can happen at the moment is they might
get a dmca strike from some company to take down
a video or audio clip.
Theres no chance of the big tech companys leaving the eu.
Even google or youtube cannot afford to lose millions of users .
It looks like france and germany will bring in laws
that are more strict than other eu countrys to follow article 13,
Each eu country have different levels of support for article
13, depending on which political party is in power at the moment .
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re:
USENET did NOT start from BBS's that joined together. The first experiments happened around 1979 using the original ARPANet.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet#History
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re:
Well cyberbullying would come to a screeching halt if the interwebs went dark.
Pretty sure hate speech, bullying and piracy would go on.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
This is precisely why filters will be set to maximum. Trying to keep up with variations in every EU nation and for every political leaning would cost far too much. It doesn't matter if Spain's rules are more relaxed than France's. Spain will get the same treatment as everyone else.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re:
Why not Geoblock the most draconian countries and only give services to the most internet friendly countries?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re:
Those few corporation that can afford to build the filters at all won't geoblock anyone and cut off part of their market. They'll create filters for the smallest number of categories to ease maintenance costs, e.g. EU market, Chinese market, Everyone else.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: remember last week
When you didn’t care about article 13 bro.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Still a failure after all these years
No one is gonna buy into your scam bro.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Sauce and ganders once more
So, let's imagine the situation in six months. Most of the countries will have some attempt at the law. So, the effects will be dripping in.
First let's enable a condition: All companies less than Google drop out of the EU. Even EU companies cannot afford to make a mistake, not when the legal fees alone, much less the fines, will crush their companies.
However, the best part, IMHO, is once Google decides to block EU completely, EU companies will no longer be able to access YT to test their content.
No new content from EU. Better yet, no new ContentID flags.
The EU just disappears up its own asshole. Perfect.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
All the sudden Googles Drangonfly filter project for China morphs into the thing they need for the world. Very sad.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Sauce and ganders once more
While I don't disagree with your closing statement, Google isn't going to geoblock any part of the EU. At least not yet. Once the costs of developing and improving their filters adds up and you toss in the fines levied against them for failures in their filters (thus provoking more costly improvements) they will likely give up and block the EU entirely.
Perfect filtering is an impossible task. It simply cannot be done, not even by humans. Any imperfection will cost tons of money in fines and further work on the filters. Sooner or later those costs will exceed the profits and cutting their losses will become the smart move.
Ask me and I'd say the really smart move is to just block them right now and be done with it. Save all that money.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
Those filters are super simplistic compared to what the EU now requires.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Capitalism at its finest..
I love the concept of a world government..
But thats not the idea...But there PROBABLY is a group trying to create it..
But the opposite is also a great idea..Separate Everyone..Take advantage of Price differences and Gold prices back and forth between all the countries. The only competition, is OUTSIDE each nation. inside each nation there IS NONE...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Citizens of different countries...
Two moments in history come to mind
The Ferguson unrest: Palestinian revolutionaries were sending tips to protesters in Ferguson such as how to treat tear gas burns with milk.
Benjamin Netanyahu saber rattling (circa 2014-2015) threatening to attack Iran directly at which point the people of Israel started a massive social media (Twitterbombing) campaign stating they love the people of Iran and would never bomb them, no matter what their idiot officials say.
The internet is the means by which the interests and opinions of the people can be reflected without the cooperation of media agencies and government spokespersons. It's hard for a nation's leader to threaten his enemies or hold firm to a trade agenda or even suppress dissenters and unrest if social media on the internet is trending contradictory beliefs and opinions.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Come at me bro
“they pick fights they wouldn't dare in the offline world.”
Bring it on you fat, old, impotent, fuckwit.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Alzheimers is a real bitch.
“For example, a YouTube content creator who has a contract with the service and makes money uploading should be presumed not to be infringing, or if they are, that they had a good-faith belief that they were not”
Broseph that’s the exact opposite of the horseshit you were peddling last week about manuel content moderation. At least keep your lies consistent for fucks sake.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
Neither one of those companies will be leaving the EU. Do you know how much revenue they would lose? These are publicly held companies, there is no chance in hell they will allow their stock price to take that kind of hit.
This is all just noise.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re:
Potentially not as much as if they stayed. Especially if you're talking services like Google News. Google News doesn't make much, if any money, it's just a convenience service that costs very little to operate. Ask Germany and Spain how that worked out for them.
Bigger services like Facebook and Youtube might lose more, but honestly, I still think it would be cheaper in the long run than trying to license every piece of content in existence that may ever be linked to or uploaded.
This assumes their stock price would take a hit to begin with, or that it wouldn't take a hit from staying in that market. See above.
Germany and Spain would once again like to say hi.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Why not both?
C'mon dude. Yeah its depressing that the EU has gone this way, but blaming their stoopid politicians is misleading. Its the maximalist lobbyists.
Third option: Blame both. The parasites for pushing the idea, the politicians for supporting it and turning it into a law.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re:
...YouTube already has the upload filters that Article 13 requires.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
But they aren't 100% effective and Youtube doesn't have a license for all the content that is uploaded to it that doesn't get caught in the filter. Therefore, they would still be fined.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
"Godwin" doesn't apply if we're already talking about neo-nazis, which is what moderation on major social platforms comes down to.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Probably not, because they are meant to prevent upload of all copyrighted material, including text,video and sound, and ContentID deals with sound only.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Splinternet
So when do I get to meet Leo, Mikey, Don, and Raphael?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
I'm not sure what "Moderation" is any more.
Currently the spectrum between the DNC and GOP is between neoconservativism and ultraconservativism (reinforced recently when the DCCC passed new policies in order to prevent future AOCs from pushing the party left)
So moderatism in the US has been grotesquely skewed right. It's somewhere between using drone strike programs that kill innocents at an alarming rate and ruthless, unrestricted drone strike programs to kill innocents at an alarming rate.
Regarding those of us who think the CIA drone strike program is an abomination of US policy, where do we fit? Do only the way-far super radical left (on the spectrum defined above) have any sense of decency or of preservation of human life?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Could be good...
"People making movies without their audiences being swept away by Hollywood marketing."
Erm, I'm not sure what your point is here. Reducing the reach a filmmaker has to find their audience will not make them less susceptible to Hollywood competition - quite the opposite, in fact since the major studios will be able to set up local presence not available to the independent filmmaker. Bonus - a less open internet will make everything along the way more difficult for them, from reducing their options to locate funding, while making them more susceptible to censorship.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Why not both?
They're not stupid; they're bedfellows.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
"Time to Godwin: 22 comments. Not the fastest I've seen on here, but still pretty impressive."
Godwin no longer applies when the last time we saw an anonymous commenter offer his views on "ze jews" and their worldwide control conspiracy was...yesterday.
Fact of the matter is that all we need to do is look at Techdirt and consider that without community moderation every topic discussed would consist of fifteen of Baghdad bob's textwalls on burning pirates to every post actually contributing to the debate.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: I'm not sure what "Moderation" is any more.
"Regarding those of us who think the CIA drone strike program is an abomination of US policy, where do we fit? Do only the way-far super radical left (on the spectrum defined above) have any sense of decency or of preservation of human life?"
When the citizenry is kept in a palpable state of fear and uncertainty, anyone advocating humanitarianism will be considered a bleeding-heart liberal traitor. Hoover and MccArthy were the first one to truly throw that monkeywrench into modern US politics bit it's pretty telling that to this day all too many americans have the fuzzy impression that a "liberal" is some form of baby-eating abomination right out of a hollywood monster movie.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
"USENET did NOT start from BBS's that joined together. The first experiments happened around 1979 using the original ARPANet."
Yes, the chicken did indeed hatch from an egg.
USENET's origin can be described in many ways, including as an expansion on early email projects collecting multiple newsgroups under single headers.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re:
"If you follow the theory "copyright is brain damage" https://youtu.be/XO9FKQAxWZc you could say that Twitter is a cancer that pulls in all discussion into non relevant topics. Maybe that is something society can do without."
Yes and no.
The "right of attribution" is a part of copyright which can be considered sane while most of the rest is toxic garbage.
Twitter is in a similar position. The main issue with it is that people as a whole are too used to building a worldview they consider factual out of random lines they heard at a bar, and then choose to apply that mode of thought to random twitter feeds they stumble across.
"Society" could do with a whole lot more of teaching children the merits of criticism and doubt rather than having them growing up believing that words on a screen must hold truth without verification.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re:
"either one of those companies will be leaving the EU. Do you know how much revenue they would lose?"
The answer is likely to be "Less than if they decide to stay".
Article 13 means that Youtube will have to increase it's content id stringency to the point where it can identify and block anything which MIGHT be copyrighted - and that's a complete show-stopper since it will no longer be enough to rely on reactive methods. If you need a full copyright investigation for every upload - and no interpretation of article 13 demands less than that - then youtube is gone simply because the cost will massively outweigh the possible revenue.
And if Google allows EU citizens access to any platform not running the same stringency, google may be hit with contribution.
So the geoblocks will happen.
And neither Google nor Youtube will lose out that much by geoblocking all of europe because as soon as an EU citizen hooks their VPN up to a US-based exit node they'll still have the same amount of consumers...completely outside of EU control.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
"Regardless of that, I'm pretty that these same posters would say the exact same things to you in person were you to state the same arguments."
Not quite true. If anyone were to put forth the type of arguments old Baghdad Bob/Bobmail/Blue likes to run with here, in public then i would look for where he put his hat out so i could toss suitable remuneration in it. I would assume it was some sort of performance art.
I certainly wouldn't engage what I'd assume to be a street clown in a debate.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
"Not everyone cares about a global internet, either. Global internet companies and their "fans" might, but the general public probably does not."
Yeah...the banks, online vendors, every research institute in the world, every person with family or friends abroad...those fans?
I'm pretty sure the "general public" will have a bit more of a reaction than you predict once most of societal infrastructure is suddenly rolled back to 1960.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re:
"Why not Geoblock the most draconian countries and only give services to the most internet friendly countries?"
Because moving the stringency setting on a filter from "Laissez-faire" to "Achtung!" is cheap and easy, whereas tailoring the stringency of the filter to respond to the legislation of a few dozen countries with different exception rules will be expensive.
Cheaper to just geoblock the eurozone completely and rely on europeans developing the wit to use VPN's with exit nodes in some country outside of the EU.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Sauce and ganders once more
"The EU just disappears up its own asshole. Perfect."
Truer and more hopeful words were never spoken.
And I say this as a european citizen.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
I don't think there will be any EU-focused silo. The law is so bad there is basically no chance anyone ever again building a UGC service in the EU if it isn't repealed.
We will be left with the old American giants like Google and Facebook that have the resources to work with this. If they think it's worth the expense.
And piracy, of course.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Why not both?
Oh I'm well past the point of giving them the 'well meaning idiots' benefit of the doubt, and at this point assume malicious intent unless mere stupidity is made very clear.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re:
If you want a completely unmoderated free-for-all, check out 4chan. I think most people have good reasons not to want their discussion areas to be like that.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re:
Even 4chan have their limits. Which is why 8chan exists...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re:
"...and that the European Union is a true democratic institution not run by people who are only different from Republicans because they're not racist, homophobic or misogynistic..."
All too many EU commissioners, council members, and MEP's have been "exiled" to the EU by their parties since they were impossible to have around at the national level.
Most US republicans would shy away from standing up and holding a speech about why women should not have the same salaries as men, leading with the argument that "...because women are not as capable as men are...".
And yet that's exactly the sort of thing you can expect to hear when you're listening in on the european commission and parliament sessions.
The EU isn't just run by anachronistic bigots, all too many of them are there because they are too damaging to have around in their home nations. Imagine what that says about the openly racist conglomerations in the EU MEP section.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
"...YouTube already has the upload filters that Article 13 requires."
Not really, no. Youtube has a filter. But contentid currently isn't stringent enough to block, by far, all the uploads later found to be copyrighted.
Worse still, Youtube's database of copyrighted works is not and never can be complete.
They'll have to tighten contentid and have it block on a far stricter basis, allowing it to act on heuristic logic. At that point it'll be like when contentid was first introduced - almost everything risks getting blocked, irrespective of whether copyright exists for the work or not.
And bear in mind - youtube CAN, in theory, produce a "best effort" far better than that. It's just that they'll take fairly enormous losses if they do, since it involves having an accredited law/art expert going over each and every upload. There's a real danger that's going to be the bar which is set here. At that point youtube leaves europe.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re:
"Because it protects his mailing lists."
It won't even do that.
Article 13 won't affect any venue a pirate uses so how Baghdad Bob keeps believing it will magically stop pirates is beyond me. At this point his argument has devolved to that of a child holding a fistful of gunk into the air and screaming that his magical mudball will protect him from the evil faeries eager to steal him away at night.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Sauce and ganders once more
"Once the costs of developing and improving their filters adds up and you toss in the fines levied against them for failures in their filters (thus provoking more costly improvements) they will likely give up and block the EU entirely. "
Google and Youtube are pretty smart. They know exactly what this means. Which is why they didn't hesitate a single second to cut Spain out of Google news completely. They knew there was no salvaging that shit-show.
And the same will happen with the EU as a whole, once nations start implementing the copyright directive. Depending on how that rollout is staggered it could be an amusing show to watch as youtube and googles geoblocks start making one headline after the other and the national politicians start sweating around the time when it becomes their turn to finalize the directive in national law.
At this point the only tragedy is if you happen to be an independent artist or a consumer still operating without a VPN. Anyone else will make do - just with less content online. From anyone.
And the pirates, as usual when a new draconian copyright law is implemented, won't even notice, except for the sudden crowding they'll start seeing around those venerable old torrent index pages.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
"We will be left with...piracy, of course."
FTFY.
The "old" american giants are still young enough to run a decent cost-benefit analysis. They'll geoblock the lot and that'll be the end of it.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
4chan
4chan is moderated...with minimal rules, which is to say the moderators are free to ignore a thread, ban people with bias and prejudice or whatever. Not a free-for-all. Maybe worse.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Article 13 affecting Pirates
Well, it will drive more people to infringe on copyright, legitimizing piracy and the sharing community.
Driving Under the Influence was not taken seriously in legislature or the courts when everyone was doing it. It was only after a long cultural responsibility campaign that it became the iniquity it is considered today.
And DUIs kill people. I don't think copyright violations have ever caused death.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
This is the EU we're talking about remember.. Those who DON'T take a clear NO from the people as anything more than background noise to be ignored.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: You blame EU, I blame copyright maximalists
It's both clearly.. The EU is very least at fault if for no other reason than they were able to do this.. and the way they were able to do this. The rating of a good governmental system isn't in how sweeping or quick it's abilities to get stuff done are, but in how consistent, fair, smart and well thought/planned out its actions, as well as the nature/layout and administration of its power structure, authority and limitations. (checks and balances)
The EU seems to be the worst of everything.. Nearly unlimited power, vague accountability, little to no transparency and worst of all.. A pretty big disconnect between it and the general will/minds of the people. (i.e. The EU does what the EU wants and everything else is of little consequence)
[ link to this | view in thread ]