Non-RPG General News - Article 13 Approved By EU

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A.List reports that article 13 has been approved by the EU today:

EU Approves Article 13: Controversial Copyright Law

On Tuesday, The European Parliament voted to pass Article 13, a controversial new law that will reform the ways in which copyrighted content posted online will be governed.

Why it matters: Under Article 13, all internet platforms will be liable for content uploaded by users. Some popular online services might suffer greatly from the new law. "YouTube, Facebook and Google News are some of the internet household names that will be most directly affected by this legislation," the European Parliament said in a statement. However, memes, gifs and snippets will be protected more than ever before.

The details: Here are some notable parts of Article 13:


  • Internet platforms are liable for content that users upload
  • Some uploaded material, such as memes or GIFs, now specifically excluded from directive
  • Hyperlinks to news articles, accompanied by "individual words or very short extracts", can be shared freely
  • Journalists must get a share of any copyright-related revenue obtained by their news publisher
  • Start-up platforms subject to lighter obligations
I hope that non-commercial news-sites like RPGWatch are not affected.

More information.
 
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Good luck trying to interpret that steaming pile of law. It's a lifetime employment act for a multitude of lawyers.
 
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Trouble is, the one with the most lawyers wins. Like with some of the modding projects that have been shut down, they might well have had a fair-use defence - but who's going to tangle with the big boys? Small players just have to comply out of fear.
 
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EU parliament did approve it, but it still needs to pass the council. Here's hope some countries will block it in the council because of that article 13 horror (actually everything got renumerated and it's now article 17).
But even if it pushes forward, it's application needs to be integrated in EU member countries' laws so we're clear from it's impact for at least next two years. Means, memes are still legal but in a couple of years might end up illegal in EU.

For those who live within EU and are eager to "reward" MEPs appropriately in upcoming elections (cca a month from today), here's vote from each MEP on this copyright directive, those under + voted for it, those under - were against:
https://juliareda.eu/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/copyrightvote.pdf

EDIT:
Erm, some parts are apparently softened in the final reading. Seems that memes, gifs and other stuff if used for criticism, reviewing, parody etc is not restricted.
Some clarifications are necessary, I mean a common user won't analyze 80 pages of it:
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meetd...9/02-26/Copyright-AnnextoCOREPERletter_EN.pdf
 
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I think the right thing to do is for sites like youtube, google, yahoo to just stop working in EU while this law exist. Then citizen of EU can decide on the right solution here. While I think things needed to change - this just sounds impossible for companies to police.
 
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Yeah, the fear is that this database filtering system will censor first, and ask questions later. And, if it applies to small but established sites like this, surely the upload filter would have to be implemented - because poor old Myrthos can't risk being sued to buggery, and would have to err on the side of caution.

I wonder if it might boost the drive towards distributed, decentralised web technology. If I were starting a site under those conditions, I'd be interested to look at the anonymous, resilient options.
 
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Maybe we should found a non-commercial White-Net, in which every member can quote each other freely.
 
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There already sort of is one - for political dissidents and that sort of thing. I'd be amused if this pushed the idea more mainstream.

I'm still somewhat hopeful that by the time it's implemented, it'll be watered down and given much more clarity. Not sure why I have that optimism though - things that I've thought were far too stupid to ever happen have a nasty habit of happening these days.
 
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What happens if you host rpgwatch outside EU ?

Hard to say. I think you could still be on the hook if it's available in the EU, and the site owner is within their jurisdiction. Potentially they could insist on ISP domain blocking orders if they see you as a persistent "infringer".

If it really does get like that, and we have a de facto corporate firewall defined by the media industry, it's definitely time for rebel measures, one way or the other.
 
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This is really scary. I know some of the streamers I watch (who are based in the EU) are very worried.
 
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13 people pressed the wrong button (interesting coincidence that it happened to be 13), so the outcome would have been different if they knew how to vote…

I'm not sure what to think of that, are these people corrupt or stupid?

Also, why can't they just vote again about it then.. that would be great way to make sure corrupt politicians can not get away with "sorry i pressed the wrong button!", but maybe EU are more interested in ways of paying people under the table than stopping it…

EU is becoming more and more scary.. i saw a video recently of a person in UK who had just stated on facebook that he was pro-Brexit, speaking positively about leaving EU... Police visits him (it's all on film) and they tell him he should be mindful of what he says.. They agreed he wasn't breaking the law though.. I'd say it's a foretaste of what to come and worse..
 
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EU is becoming more and more scary.. i saw a video recently of a person in UK who had just stated on facebook that he was pro-Brexit, speaking positively about leaving EU… Police visits him (it's all on film) and they tell him he should be mindful of what he says.. They agreed he wasn't breaking the law though.. I'd say it's a foretaste of what to come and worse..

LOL, miss no opportunity to squeeze in some more bullshit.

The case I suspect you are referring to was a guy that had posted that if Brexit doesn't happen, then he can no longer deal with it within the law, so would go down to the politician's place of work, and drag her out of her office - asking, "Who's with me?". This, bearing in mind, that we've already had one female MP murdered over Brexit.

The police, trying to be reasonable, send coppers round to have a chat with him, before taking any action, which is what good police tend to do - observe people's escalating behaviour, and try to de-escalate it. The young and inexperienced cop lets the smartarse with the camera steamroll him, with his laughable argument that it's not illegal because he's discussing a "hypothetical". A more experienced officer would have made it very clear that he's lucky it's a only a friendly chat, because incitement and menace are actionable.
 
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EU is becoming more and more scary.. i saw a video recently of a person in UK
UK is leaving EU. There is a difference between wife and soon to be ex-wife.

Apart from that, nowhere in EU happens you get killed because some bloodthirsty cop uses your phone as an excuse for nothches how many people he killed. I have no idea why in some countries courts believe someone can think a phone is a gun. Well, not in EU.
If lack of police's recklesness and no dead innocent civilians is scary to you, it's not to me.
 
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@Ripper; it wasn't illegal and the cops agreed it wasn't, they had absolutely zero arguments against him. wasting resources on that (something which is supported by their law and freedom of speech) says something..

we have many similar scenarios in Sweden (worse than this scenario even), elderly people getting harassed because they said something (legal) on Facebook but not to our governments liking, e.g that they don't like the Islamization.. Police are sent over, raids the apartment and makes a mess, takes the person in for interrogation several times.
Still, the Police here say they have no resources to solve either rapes or murders, but harassing people like that they have resources to do. I bet the UK police have better things to do as well.
 
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All I know is in the last twenty years the whole world has become bat-shit crazy. Also seems politicians have nothing in common with the average Joe voter anymore.

 
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yeah and everything is getting very politicized, though MSM has been like that since forever here (Sweden), but the Police more and more so as well. MSM has lost a lot of credibility though, many swedes (younger ones especially) has abandoned it completely because they see it for what it is - it's not actual news, it's mainly just propaganda.
 
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Erm, some parts are apparently softened in the final reading. Seems that memes, gifs and other stuff if used for criticism, reviewing, parody etc is not restricted.

Memes, reviews etc. are derivate works and thus have always been and should be fair use anyway, should they not? The resolution would be stating the obvious.

The issue is: How do you decide what is a fair use and what isn't BEFORE the material is published on your site? The system that has been established up to now - the site owner takes the material down if the rights owner complains and is found to have a legitimate basis for a complaint - has been working fairly well. Now that burden is shifted from the copyright owner to the platform owner.

That's a hassle for Google & Co., because they have to improve their detection algorithms even further and have to sign more licence agreements with the respective copyright holders. But such algorithms and licence agreements are technically already in place.

Hardest hit would probably be sites like RPGwatch, which have to assume the risk of liability if any user decides to upload copyrighted material, but do not have access to powerful detection algorithms. Who knows, a new type of copyright troll might rise that anonymously uploads protected contect specifically for the purpose of demanding licence fees from the platform afterwards. The choice of barring uploads completely would be tempting…

Second hardest hit, of course, would be the users of platforms like Youtube. Undoubtedly the detection algorithms will be overzealous. Just look at how frequently Youtube misidentifies one recording of classical music for another. "No, that ain't the 1987 Muti version, it's 1991 Maazel…!" If you want to upload your own recording, better make sure your piano playing doesn't sound too much like Vladimir Horowitz.

What this is NOT is censorship. If you are certain that your material is legitimate, even though Google refuses to let you upload it for some reason, you are perfectly free to publish it on your own basement server, like we all did in the 90s. Then you are the responsible, and potentially liable, party. The internet might even look a little saner if only inviduals who are capable of setting up Apache can post content… ;)

But one can still hope that lawmakers might find a way to mitigate the resolution as they process it into national law. Perhaps there is some legally viable way to shift the burden of responsibility to the uploader by having them electronically sign a declaration that the material is fair use if the algorithm detects anything suspicious… but that's probably highly optimistic on my part.
 
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This thread is not about what the police does or does not do, create your own thread in P&R, this one is about Article 13.
Anything else after this post of mine that is fit for P&R will be deleted. I am not going to deal with the hassle if you can do it yourself (i.e. moving, by creating a thread).
 
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