Politics

[Tobbeh99]

It was kind of interesting today, as I participated in a panel discussion regarding the previously mentioned EU copyright reform. And the panel was made up of various people from different backgrounds related to questions about copyright.
The panel consisted of:
Mattias Bjärnemalm - Pirate party member, and specialist in digital questions in the EU green group
Sanna Wolk - Professor in law, especially intellectual property law
Emanuel Karlsten - Freelance journalist
Elisabet Widlund Fornelius - CEO for "Musikförläggarna" (the music publishers), umbrella organization for music publisher and it's rights holders 
Jan Fager - legal scholar at TU, the media houses branch organization
Annika Bevington - chief legal scholar at Google in the Northern Europe 

It was a really interesting discussion actually. The ones negative to the EU proposal mentioned problems regarding freedom on the internet with censorship filters, and problems with increased market position for bigger companies with the new regulations. Among those skeptic of this proposal was The pirate party member, the freelance journalist and the google legal scholar. They had issues regarding the freedom of information and problems with licences, that these regulations would create. The proponents of the articles was the CEO of the music industry rights holders organization and the legal scholar at the publishing house organization. They argued that these new laws would help media publishers and content producers. The media house guy was concerned that people might not go to news websites if they can see enough information in links (for example on facebook, or on google news), and that that could be bad for news publishers. And the woman from the music branch organization was concerned with websites like youtube earning money on other rightsholders (artists) work, and how the artists should make money (if youtube uses their work). And mentioned Spotify as an example of a company with a good business model for artists in comparison to youtube (which was worse). The legal scholar in intellectual property was a bit neutral, having seen this debate since the 90s, and having heard both sides, and highlighted the need for a good discussion in this topic, as she had experience of the debate polarizing with people taking either position and then arguing for that position to the teeth, and instead promoted a more sound discussion in order for better arguments and dissensions to be made.

All in all I think it was a really great discussion and really great talk. There was a lot that came out of the discussion. I agree that article 13 can be problematic as it forces all websites (which hosts user-generated content and target an EU audience (since it's an EU law)) to actively either sign deals with rights holders or to actively prevent copyrighted material from being uploaded by users. Which isn't that easy, and greatly restricts freedom on the internet. So I'm against this one. But I understand the general concerns from rightsholders, how they are able to make money, when everything can be shared online for free. Which isn't an easy question, and a pretty problematic one as well. I don't agree either with article 11, that news publishers should get extra rights for their material. And I don't see how links to their material is a problem, I think they are more good for news companies than bad. But, y really fun taking part of a political panel discussion, and this one I think was really great and kind of productive. And tomorrow I'll join a protest against the directive.

[mikey]

I actually read the whole post :V
A lot of the "in favor" seems to be leaning a lot on conjecture as in "this is what will happen when the article passes" so I'm curious if they had any examples or statistics to share supporting it at the panel

[Splatoon Inkling]

Sounds interesting. I've always been interested in polotics, more around the time of the 2016 us election, to this day. I have been before that, but it's gotten way more interesting recently.

[Tobbeh99]

Not article 13. Apart from youtube's own content ID.

Article 11, (the news one), actually was a law in Germany and Spain. And it failed miserably. In Germany, it made google news leave Germany. Which made the major news publisher be like "oh fuck. We lost a bunch of traffic due to this." and then handed out a free license to google (which increased google news already dominant market position in Germany, and giving no revenue to the news publishers as it was a free licences). But in Spain they thought that the problem was the free licenses, so they banned giving out free licenses. And then google just left. So in both instances, it just failed, and it didn't help the news publishers at all.

And well article 13 haven't really been tried. The best is youtube's content ID. At the moment the content ID scans the content and notifies the rights-holders, which then have 3 different choices (take down video, monetize or do nothing). But with the new regulations, the videos containing copyrighted material wouldn't even be uploaded at all, unless youtube has a license from that particular rights-holder. So it would be a filter that proactively filters out content, rather than after it's uploaded. And youtube and other platform owners would liable as well, not only the user who uploaded the material. And also, it's not only youtube that will be affected with the new law, it's all websites that hosts user generated content (and is targeted towards an EU audience (since it's an EU law)).

[Splatoon Inkling]

This has absolutely nothing to do with that, but on Tuesday I got to go to a women's republican meeting, and they were discussing some different recent bills presented in south Dakota.

[Tobbeh99]

Participated at a demonstration today against these articles (article 11 and 13). It was great, and it gathered kind of lot of people, around maybe 50 or so. And also from different backgrounds. But most of which seemed concerned with filters and freedom on internet. Various parties was supportive of the protests (and thereby against these EU proposals). Among them, obviously the Pirate party (who organize the demonstration), but also the center party's youth organization, the green party's youth organization, the new party "the shift" (a breakout group from the Swedish green party), and also the left party's youth organization (which did not participate at the demonstration, but wrote a supportive letter for this protest and against the EU copyright laws). So it was great that there existed a lot of political support against these laws. There was also a hip hop/rap artist who performed there, with songs which were against these kinds of internet regulations. So it was a pretty good event. Hopefully these laws will be voted down. They just seem bad, imo.

[The Deku Trombonist]

I'd be interested to know if these laws will affect us in any way. Possibly not since we're hosted in the USA, but who knows...

[Tobbeh99]

Y probably not. It's kind of complicated with these laws. I think that sites that "target an EU audience" are those who will be affected. And it's more a matter with big sites I think. And those sites will likely do the thing like with GDPR, aka. just block traffic from EU. It's kind of hard and airy to what the target an EU audience mean, I mean pretty much every website does that to some extent. So I guess technically this site would affected, since this website is available in the EU. Yet again I doubt it will be an issue. Even if these laws are implemented, I doubt every website will take action. Most website will probably only take action if they get complaints from rights holders. It seems more to be an issue with rights holders and like youtube (or "tech giants" which I've heard rights holders and music industry people complain about).

The thing is that even though this is an EU law, servers and sites outside of EU will also be affected if they "target an EU audience" (or something like that).  But y, those sites and servers could just block out EU traffic (like what happened with some sites after GDPR). So that's how sites outside of EU will be affected if implemented. But y, small sites and other non-commercial ones probably won't have that many issues, unless rights holders gets pissed of at them. However one hing which could be a concerned is that the EU usually tries to "sell" their rules and regulations when doing free trade agreement (to be on even foot with the trading partner), so if the EU would do some new trade agreement with the US, the EU will probably bake this law into that trade agreement, so these laws could spread to countries that the EU could do trade agreements. Which can be an issue for countries outside of EU.

[Tobbeh99]

So these bullshit articles apparently were voted yes on, today... ... Thanks EU for screwing over it's own citizen. ... ... So fucking pissed off. There is an EU-election soon, and I'm definitely going to vote for some ultraliberal (and maybe EU-skeptic) party. Because EU is so fucked up at this point. I used to think that the EU at least stod for some good things and European values like freedom, democracy etc. But nowadays it just seem like some big dumb weak superpower that only is full of power-hungry people and money. I'm sick and tired of it, at this point there seem to almost be more value leaving the EU than staying in the EU. Because who the hell wants to be in union that just pushes dumb and restricting laws. It makes you feel like the EU is more a prison than a union.

Really gonna push forward for new laws removing these insane ones, and for a more liberal EU, rather than a toxic superstate.

[mikey]

sure would be nice to have a presidential veto around now

[Tobbeh99]

Lol I doubt that that president would veto against it. It's the EU you're talking about, home to a "big number" of lobbyist and interest groups and carrier politicians. Those are probably the most common employment/occupation in Brussels xD. 

[mikey]

at the very least trump understands that his job is to veto anything that has "Dem" on it

[Splatoon Inkling]

ROTFL! The green new deal bill that Alexandria ocasio cortez created, was just so bad that not even a single senator voted for it! Not even the Democrats! https://video.foxnews.com/v/6018794682001/#sp=show-clips

[mikey]

*links fox news*

[FireArrow]

Unsurprisingly, a quick google search shows there are plenty of people that both do and don't support it.

Too extreme or not, at least she's trying to do something about emissions.