It seems like the EU has struck the first blow on fair use / fair dealing laws with this controversial move changing the EU copyright legislation. For those who are unaware, Article 11's major...
It seems like the EU has struck the first blow on fair use / fair dealing laws with this controversial move changing the EU copyright legislation.
For those who are unaware, Article 11's major concern is around linking to other works. Often called the "Link Tax", it seeks to require a license to quote / link to content on another website. If I recall correctly, this section was mostly aimed at Google News which lobbyists argued that people reading news on google news very rarely clicked through, and google was profiting of the work of others.
This has similar potential impact to other link aggregation services.
Article 13 strips away the "mere conduit" defense for any site accepting user generated content. This means that instead of the current system where sites are okay if they respond to lawful orders or scan through content retroactively and remove infringing content, they now are required to have an up-front content filter for ALL content types. This is a major problem for start-up companies, because sophisticated filters like this have a large up-front cost. Google spent $60mill on Content ID and it's incredibly despised by content creators and consumers because it's regularly outright WRONG, and cannot discern what fair use is.
The fight isn't over yet, but this is a major blow to consumers & businesses at large, and only benefits a few companies.
I find it particularly strange that the EU on one hand can be extremely pro-consumer with the GDPR and then turn a 180 and enact profit protectionist laws at the expense of almost everyone.
Edit: Because I'm a bit unfamiliar with the EU legislative process, there is a final vote scheduled for January 2019, but according to the part of the article I missed it's unlikely to change. If any EU members would like to share their thoughts on why this conclusion is drawn I'd love to know.
posted already here, consider deleting this and adding your comment there
... hrm, I searched a bit before posting and didn't see it. I will do that though.
It seems like the EU has struck the first blow on fair use / fair dealing laws with this controversial move changing the EU copyright legislation.
For those who are unaware, Article 11's major concern is around linking to other works. Often called the "Link Tax", it seeks to require a license to quote / link to content on another website. If I recall correctly, this section was mostly aimed at Google News which lobbyists argued that people reading news on google news very rarely clicked through, and google was profiting of the work of others.
This has similar potential impact to other link aggregation services.
Article 13 strips away the "mere conduit" defense for any site accepting user generated content. This means that instead of the current system where sites are okay if they respond to lawful orders or scan through content retroactively and remove infringing content, they now are required to have an up-front content filter for ALL content types. This is a major problem for start-up companies, because sophisticated filters like this have a large up-front cost. Google spent $60mill on Content ID and it's incredibly despised by content creators and consumers because it's regularly outright WRONG, and cannot discern what fair use is.
The fight isn't over yet, but this is a major blow to consumers & businesses at large, and only benefits a few companies.
I find it particularly strange that the EU on one hand can be extremely pro-consumer with the GDPR and then turn a 180 and enact profit protectionist laws at the expense of almost everyone.
Edit: Because I'm a bit unfamiliar with the EU legislative process, there is a final vote scheduled for January 2019, but according to the part of the article I missed it's unlikely to change. If any EU members would like to share their thoughts on why this conclusion is drawn I'd love to know.
Wishing I could update that title a bit.