EU Parliament's Committee on Legal Affairs approves Article 13 but it's not over yet!

[AlTech]

The EU Parliament's Committee on Legal Affairs has voted and approves of Article 13 of the new Copyright reform act in Europe.

 

The vote came out at 15 for and 10 against. But it's not over yet. 

 

This vote is not the final verdict and it is likely that the final vote will be carried out in the EU Full Parliament in July. 

 

The Link Tax was also approved by the Parliament's Committee. 

 

Again, this is not over and the Full Parliament will vote on this.

 

Quote

A European Parliament committee today approved a copyright law that could have wide-ranging effects on Internet platforms that host user-generated content.

The Parliament's Committee on Legal Affairs voted 15-10 "to approve the controversial Article 13,which critics warn could put an end to memes, remixes and other user-generated content," the BBC reported. The full parliament is expected to vote on the measure in July.

"The vote by the Legal Affairs Committee is likely to be the Parliament's official stance as it heads into negotiations with EU countries on a common position, unless dissenting lawmakers force a vote at the general assembly next month," Reuters wrote.

As we wrote last week, the proposal "seeks to make Internet services that host large amounts of user-uploaded material responsible for policing their holdings to prevent copyright infringement." Businesses would no longer benefit from safe harbor protection "for any service that 'optimizes' content, which includes things like promoting, tagging, curating, or sequencing a site's contents."

Quote

The Committee on Legal Affairs also approved a measure that would "requir[e] online platforms to pay publishers a fee if they link to their news content," the BBC wrote

 

Major internet figure heads such as Tim Berners Lee and several others have signed a letter opposing the new rules last week. The letter warns that it will drive online platforms out of the EU and I completely agree.

 

For a bunch of people who claim to have Europe's best interest at heart, the EU and their politicians have a funny way of showing it.

 

Source:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/06/europe-advances-copyright-law-that-could-filter-the-internet/

[Princess Luna]

Politicians only cares about 1 simple thing... Money.

[AskTJ]

On 21/06/2018 at 11:35 PM, Princess Cadence said:

Politicians only cares about 1 simple thing... Money.

Of course. Nothing but money.

[Senzelian]

I still don't understand why I should care as an average European pleb. 

[AlTech]

17 minutes ago, Senzelian said:

I still don't understand why I should care as an average European pleb. 

In really really simple terms it means that everything uploaded in the EU will be scanned for copyrighted material kind of like how YouTube's ContentID works and block anything which is deemed to be copyrighted.

[Princess Luna]

4 minutes ago, Senzelian said:

I still don't understand why I should care as an average European pleb. 

You don't have to concern yourself much truth be told, the result in a very simplistic way to put it is that it'll become impossible to maintain servers in the European Union due to excessive costs $$$ with copyright, meaning that every one will migrate their servers to countries outside the EU.

 

That means when you access a website instead of being served by a server located at your country, like Germany you'll be using a feed from I don't know say Russia for example, this could increase latency/ping to accessing such internet pages and could also increase risks involved with security since the serves will now be on less regulated countries.

[Lurick]

2 minutes ago, Senzelian said:

I still don't understand why I should care as an average European pleb. 

Because every website that operates in Europe, for Article 13, will have to verify EVERY thing you upload to any website to see if it's copywritten material and block it if it's found to violate copyright. Think of it like YouTube contentID applied to EVERY thing you do online to placate a bunch of people who don't understand tech. Most companies will probably pull out or significantly scale back operations in Europe.

[iRileyx]

15 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

 

For a bunch of people who claim to have Europe's best interest at heart, the EU and their politicians have a funny way of showing it.

 

That's why Brexit is somewhat a good thing  

[Mr.Meerkat]

The only upside to brexit, if the MPs in the UK aren't that dumb, things like this wouldn't even be considered, nevermind debated n voted on. 

 

1 minute ago, RKRiley said:

That's why Brexit is somewhat a good thing  

Damn, beat me to it...  

[AlTech]

I've added a call to action bit in the OP on how EU Citizens who care about this can try to fix it.

[AlTech]

Just now, Mr.Meerkat said:

The only upside to brexit, if the MPs in the UK aren't that dumb, things like this wouldn't even be considered, nevermind debated n voted on. 

How do we know that they won't consider this though?

[Bananasplit_00]

The article 11 I have in my copy has an edit that at least to me seems to rid of the link tax as I understand it, but article 13 is potentially pretty bad still. I have read most of it but legal speak is also not my thing so idk

[Mr.Meerkat]

3 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

How do we know that they won't consider this though?

Ummmm...considering Britain has some of the strictest internet laws in Europe, to be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if the laws ended up being even more pervasive so....welp? 

[AlTech]

1 minute ago, Mr.Meerkat said:

Ummmm...considering Britain has some of the strictest internet laws in Europe, to be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if the laws ended up being even more pervasive so....welp? 

Would calling the EU parliament still help if the final vote is in July?

[Senzelian]

12 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

In really really simple terms it means Memes are going to become illegal and news in the EU are not going to be able to afford to link to sources. Meaning that it'll be basically impossible to verify news.

 

I'm reading a German article about the issue right now.

Memes are not becoming "illegal" and linking to sources will still be possible for free.  Maybe I'm missing something, but I will continue my research. 

 

10 minutes ago, Princess Cadence said:

You don't have to concern yourself much truth be told, the result in a very simplistic way to put it is that it'll become impossible to maintain servers in the European Union due to excessive costs $$$ with copyright, meaning that every one will migrate their servers to countries outside the EU.

 

That means when you access a website instead of being served by a served located at your country, like Germany you'll be using a feed from I don't know say Russia for example, this could increase latency/ping to accessing such internet pages and could also increase risks involved with security since the serves will now be on less regulated countries.

 

Seems like a good point in combination with the next one. Thanks.  

 

9 minutes ago, Lurick said:

Because every website that operates in Europe, for Article 13, will have to verify EVERY thing you upload to any website to see if it's copywritten material and block it if it's found to violate copyright. Think of it like YouTube contentID applied to EVERY thing you do online to placate a bunch of people who don't understand tech. Most companies will probably pull out or significantly scale back operations in Europe.

 

Thanks!  

[Deus Voltage]

23 minutes ago, Princess Cadence said:

Politicians only cares about 1 simple thing... Money.

And votes. Oscar Ameringer once said the following:

 

"Politics is the gentle art of getting votes from the poor, and campaign funds from the rich by promising to protect each from the other". 

[matrix07012]

24 minutes ago, Princess Cadence said:

Politicians only cares about 1 simple thing... Money.

No, that's not true. They care about the citizens. We need to give them more power. /s

[Mr.Meerkat]

4 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

Would calling the EU parliament still help if the final vote is in July?

Dunno, never cared about politics to be honest. However, if its something regarding the economy, you would probably see me interested in it (to a point at least). 

[Master Disaster]

 

I suggest you guys get your memes in quick before we're not allowed to post them anymore.

 

I've said it before but to me this is just a lazy way of shifting responsibility to website owners. After this passes it's down to individual sites to monitor and remove "illegal content" (try and reach your bot about fair use) and when a fuss gets kicked up it gives the government someone to blame.

[thorhammerz]

3 hours ago, Princess Cadence said:

You don't have to concern yourself much truth be told, the result in a very simplistic way to put it is that it'll become impossible to maintain servers in the European Union due to excessive costs $$$ with copyright, meaning that every one will migrate their servers to countries outside the EU.

All roads cables lead to Rome London .
 

Spoiler

Your data will be perfectly safe, secure, and private in the loving arms of the MI5 .

 

[PlayStation 2]

Tyranny starts by eliminating a source of laughter.

This isn't about copyright infringement at all. This is about power.

[suicidalfranco]

tfw in this moment i'd rather have US's crappy net neutrality situation than this sad attempt at EU's "let's control everything!" game"

[Guest]

Who really cares like this isn’t going to stop anyone. It didn’t work for piracy and it won’t work for this. They can’t enforce it.

[captain_to_fire]

15 hours ago, AluminiumTech said:

"to approve the controversial Article 13,which critics warn could put an end to memes, remixes and other user-generated content," the BBC reported. The full parliament is expected to vote on the measure in July.

Is the EU trying to bring back a dead ringer of SOPA/PIPA?

 

[asus killer]

knowing now a bit more about this, the end result may be someone not being able to post a meme on a blog or a forum, but the main reason for this is EU wanting to "tax" Google, Facebook, Microsoft,... the big American companies, the idea is not to stop anyone from posting a link or a meme, but rather that this companies pay so their users are able to do so.

 

disclaimer: i'm not for it, just explaining what is the idea behind this.