EU passes the "link tax"

Watching this play out is going to require some more popcorn. Since the UK hasn't formally done brexit yet, wonder how they will vote?
 
The EU is no more dictatorial, unelected, or unresponsive to the people than in the U.S. One could even make the argument that due to gross problems in our own electoral system their system is MORE free, MORE democratic and MORE representative of the people than ours. I include such things as:
  • Partisan Gerrymandering
  • The impact of money in politics
  • The outsized influence of small states in the senate due to an equal number of senators regardless of the size of the state
  • The outsized influence of small states in presidential elections due to the electoral college
  • Racial/political/wealth based voter disenfranchisement efforts
  • etc.
Spoken like someone who's fully aware that 18 of the EU countries have so little representation that they're effectively vassal states, and really likes the idea of using large cities with bad ideas to rule over everyone else. Your assertion the EU is more representative is laughable, 4 countries effectively own the rest of them.

There's a reason the founders avoided the stupidity you suggest, and it's working precisely as intended.
 
First you give them the money, then they have the money.

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What are they presenting to others as the benefit of this? Even the bad business people can make it look like the guy getting crapped on is getting a good deal.

I just can't see any benefit to it. Even as the guy getting the money from the links. Seems like it's dwindle down more and more as people didn't want to pay to link to your site anymore as it wasn't bringing in enough revenue to cover those costs.
 
Spoken like someone who's fully aware that 18 of the EU countries have so little representation that they're effectively vassal states, and really likes the idea of using large cities with bad ideas to rule over everyone else. Your assertion the EU is more representative is laughable, 4 countries effectively own the rest of them.

There's a reason the founders avoided the stupidity you suggest, and it's working precisely as intended.

I don't think they intended the dictatorship of the minority we have today, where the vote of a person in a rural small state like Wyoming is worth 20x that of someone in California or Texas.

One person one vote, right?

It is appropriate for the majority to get their way. Not all the time on every subject, that's why we have protected constitutional rights that the electoral process cannot easily override, but why should the 12 people who live in flyover country dictate to the rest of us how to live our lives?
 
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For a long time there have been much controversy surrounding Article 11 & Article 13 of the EU Copyright Directive. The final vote is complete. It passed by 5 votes

A 'Dark Day': Copyright Law That Threatens the Internet as We Know It Passes Final EU Vote

In the EU today, because of Article 11, it now requires a licensing fee to link to news sites. The link in the very line above this one, now costs a fee. In 2015, Spain passed a new copyright law which put a tax on linking to news sites The main target was Google's news aggregation service. Instead of fighting it, Google simply pulled out of Spain. And the aftermath was a disaster.
Article 13 is well summarized by Mike Masnick of Techdirt.com:

"Sites that previously allowed content creators to freely publish content will now be forced to make impossible choices: license all content (which is literally impossible), filter all content (expensive and failure-prone), or shut down."
(This is a copy of the OP of a thread I opened then closed when I spotted this one)
 
For a long time there have been much controversy surrounding Article 11 & Article 13 of the EU Copyright Directive. The final vote is complete. It passed by 5 votes

A 'Dark Day': Copyright Law That Threatens the Internet as We Know It Passes Final EU Vote

In the EU today, because of Article 11, it now requires a licensing fee to link to news sites. The link in the very line above this one, now costs a fee. In 2015, Spain passed a new copyright law which put a tax on linking to news sites The main target was Google's news aggregation service. Instead of fighting it, Google simply pulled out of Spain. And the aftermath was a disaster.
Article 13 is well summarized by Mike Masnick of Techdirt.com:

"Sites that previously allowed content creators to freely publish content will now be forced to make impossible choices: license all content (which is literally impossible), filter all content (expensive and failure-prone), or shut down."
(This is a copy of the OP of a thread I opened then closed when I spotted this one)

This is clearly a mistake.

Lawmakers are constantly surrounded by lobbyists selling them spin. Unless they are experts on the subject matter at hand (and lets face it, they can't be experts on every subject) it's tough to know whose story to buy sometimes. I'm pretty sure this will be reversed or tweaked once the consequences are apparent.


The link in the very line above this one, now costs a fee.


Only if you are in Europe ;)

I suspect a lot of forums and aggregation sites will simply move to jurisdictions outside the EU, and not do any business in the EU so they don't fall under its jurisdiction, and be just fine.
 
Article 13 creates just as bad of a predicament. Can you imagine what would happen to Youtube, plus many other sites, if we had such a law as article 13? There was an article I read a few years ago titled "Welcome to the Splinternet". As major regions and countries start making their own laws regulating the internet, global outreach of them could create conflicting cyber-laws. And a possible outcome of this is for the internet to become a bunch of isolated WANs. The US internet, the EU internet, Australia, Japan, etc. China and N. Korea are basically their own private WAN right now.
 
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I'm not sure about that. I think what matters is if the site you link to is under EU jurisdiction, not where you yourself are located.

I think they might get laughed at if they try to extradite someone in the U.S. for something like this :p
 
Love this guy.


The €10 million euro limitation means this will not affect upstarts, only the giants.

I don't believe this is a censorship attempt by the EU, the ideas they don't like aren't spread by way of copyrighted material. And I don't see anything that would affect anything but that here. But hey, he's a known brexiter, so I'm not surprised he tries to imagine political motivation.
 
I see this as a way for Governments to limit the impact of news on social media.
To keep damaging stories from circulating or just to limit the reach of social media.

Outlets like CNN or ABC will now need to pay for the news they link to, which is a lot.

The EU has a hard on for Facebook. Youtube will take a big hit.
 
I guess I was not clear enough in the sentence before it.

Anyway, Article 13 creates just as bad of a predicament. Can you imagine what would happen to Youtube, plus many other sites, if we had such a law as article 13? There was an article I read a few years ago titled "Welcome to the Splinternet". As major regions and countries start making their own laws regulating the internet, global outreach of them could create conflicting cyber-laws. And a possible outcome of this is for the internet to become a bunch of isolated WANs. The US internet, the EU internet, Australia, Japan, etc. China and N. Korea are basically their own private WAN right now.


I'm not arguing that. This is a terrible law. We will see what happens. I just wouldn't exaggerate the impact an EU law has on non-EU jurisdictions.
 
The UK Magazine lobby is very, very powerful....they know how to take the power back......
 
I think they might get laughed at if they try to extradite someone in the U.S. for something like this :p
They'll just send an invoice for linking costs. You don't extradite your foreign business partner when they owe you money.
 
If Google, FB and the other big boys decide to discontinue the news services instead of deal with it, I bet the EU's major news sites will suffer the same fate as Spain's did in 2014-2015. Traffic to them plummeted.
 
They'll just send an invoice for linking costs. You don't extradite your foreign business partner when they owe you money.

Yeah, but accounts payable doesn't just pay every invoice they receive.

So, when it never gets paid, then what? File a legal complaint?
 
You could argue the exact opposite, actually - that being in the EU provides benefits (especially economic ones), and leaving the EU will therefore leave the UK at a considerable disadvantage. But I'm not looking to change your mind on this, and frankly the entire argument is so toxic that I simply can't be fucked with it.
Can't be bothered with making an argument but are quick to call somebody who thinks differently than yourself a 'fucking idiot'.
You should be embarrassed you exist.
If I was a UKer, this would definitely push me towards the Brexit camp. Horrid law.
Honestly, if this was enough to make you vote for Brexit then you'd be a fucking idiot.
 
Can't be bothered with making an argument but are quick to call somebody who thinks differently than yourself a 'fucking idiot'.
You should be embarrassed you exist.

I quite clearly did make an argument, in response to a specific point.

That leaving the EU may be painful for the UK in itself reflects poorly on the EU project.

You could argue the exact opposite, actually - that being in the EU provides benefits (especially economic ones), and leaving the EU will therefore leave the UK at a considerable disadvantage.

And when I said
Honestly, if this was enough to make you vote for Brexit then you'd be a fucking idiot. Brexit is going to be fucking dreadful for the UK.
I meant that if this on its own was enough to make you vote for Brexit (which I know that the guy I was responding to did not do, because he's not in the UK), then that would indeed make you an idiot.

What was it I said about this argument? Something about it being toxic? "You should be embarrassed that you exist" proves my point nicely, thanks.
 
The big companies will just not link and hire writers in the regions to read news and publish their own articles on it. For links to sources they will simply link the sources of the news sites. Boom done. Sure it's a slight bit more expensive than aggregating news sites, but at least this way you can do your work.

Another loop hole is the word 'Link'. Simple disable hyperlinks to other sites. You can reference an article on BBC.uk or whatever just fine. No need to make it a clickable link. Someone wants to go read the article they have to copy and paste. (This also removes the cookie tracking.)

Otherwise they have to prove that User A copied the link from Site B. And didn't just type it in on their own. And trust me trying to bring user A to court for reading a news article on line isn't going to fly.

Just because they read A then went to B does not make it a linked article. And Without those links being enabled you're not going to be able to trace where the referencing site was.

THEN if you get into activity tracking Cookies you're talking HUGE invasion of privacy and I bet a real uproar.

This is really in essence a NON starter and unenforceable with a modicum of effort.
 

DMCA defines - to a certain extent - what is and isn't copyright infringement. I very much doubt any U.S. court would side with enforcing EU law in the US.

Essentially what will happen I'm this case is that they will be told to go pound sand. Now the multinational giants can't do this, because they do business in the EU and thus are subject to the courts thereut everyone else, like for instance the HardForums? Yeah, tell them to go pound sand.
 
DMCA defines - to a certain extent - what is and isn't copyright infringement. I very much doubt any U.S. court would side with enforcing EU law in the US.

Essentially what will happen I'm this case is that they will be told to go pound sand. Now the multinational giants can't do this, because they do business in the EU and thus are subject to the courts thereut everyone else, like for instance the HardForums? Yeah, tell them to go pound sand.
I doubt hardforum has €10 million turnover anyway.
 
With cooperation everyone gets something out of it...

...with competition someone wins, and the rest hates them for it...

Or maybe learn to stop being so petty. Giving everyone a participation cookie does nothing but lower the quality of life to give largely stupid people something more for simply existing.

It's inevitable that if you have something that you don't want to share, others will try to take it away from you. That is why the only way to be civilized is trough globalization. As long as nationalism exists in the world people will kill other people over arbitrary "my country your country" shit.

If you're in a primitive, miserable county I suppose that holds true. There is no reason to cater to people with such a belief system. The good news is smart populations are successful and can afford and develop the means to protect themselves. No reason to dilute your country and qualify of life to the whims of the idiotic "that isn't fair, gimmie!" countries of the world. If you want to correct these behaviors you don't give in to their demands, you let them die off. They'll be replaced by better, smarter people who are ready to join the civilized world.

I don't think they intended the dictatorship of the minority we have today...

That is the stupidest thing I've read in a long time. Of course they intended it to be like this. The entire government is designed around protecting the minority. And it is about as far from a "dictatorship" as you can get. The entire system of checks & balances prevents massive knee jerk reactions from occurring, which slows the process down. That is the exact opposite of how dictatorships function.

where the vote of a person in a rural small state like Wyoming is worth 20x that of someone in California or Texas.

What? Lower house caters more to high density populations. Upper more to smaller populations. It balances out. Otherwise the concerns and issues faced in certain parts of the country will get swept under the rug. Their votes would be practically meaningless.

One person one vote, right?

No. For obvious reasons.

It is appropriate for the majority to get their way.

No. That is how you create a under class of 2nd class citizens.

Not all the time on every subject, that's why we have protected constitutional rights that the electoral process cannot easily override...

And these constitutional rights are meaningless if one section of a country can vote to change and amend them at their will. All you would need is a few highly influential people in one area of the country (a few cities) and they would essentially control the fate of the country. Large groups are easily bought via group think. If you successfully tap into one area you will have substantially more power than someone who has to gather support and cater to the needs of various small groups across the country.

One person = one vote sounds great on paper, but that isn't reality. It turns into one person = 500,000 votes and shifts power substantially to a few individuals.

It would turn into nothing more than smoke and mirrors with little real checks and balances in place.

Whatever minority you don't care about today is irrelevant. Because there will always be minorities and giving them practically zero say is shameful. Jumping off topic into party politics here but ironically, the Democrat party used to be in favor of minorities. Now days they're just interested in grabbing as much power as possible hence the push to get rid of the constitutional republic with an elaborate system of checks & balances.
 
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In a not so unexpected, but controversial move the EU has voted in favor of copyright reform directive article 13, with 348 for and 274 against votes.

This means that link aggregate sites and basically any social media that allows its users to post external links will have to pay a fee to the original hoster of the linked articles. At least companies with an annual revenue bellow €10 million, and non-profits like wikipedia would be exempt.

How would this be enforced and what will the reaction of social media giants be, remains to be seen.
Some fear this could lead to the banning of links to sites from the EU.

I see this being said in a number of places, but I couldn't actually find the language which states that. I tried to read a bit through the actual document, but got a bit tired. I still didn't see anywhere where it expressly said that link aggregate sites would have to pay to host links.
 
I don't think they intended the dictatorship of the minority we have today, where the vote of a person in a rural small state like Wyoming is worth 20x that of someone in California or Texas.

One person one vote, right?


It is appropriate for the majority to get their way. Not all the time on every subject, that's why we have protected constitutional rights that the electoral process cannot easily override, but why should the 12 people who live in flyover country dictate to the rest of us how to live our lives?

and if it goes wrong they'll fucking vote and vote and vote and vote until you make the right choice.
 
Or maybe learn to stop being so petty. Giving everyone a participation cookie does nothing but lower the quality of life to give largely stupid people something more for simply existing.
So you say stupid people have no right to exist? I'm sorry, but they do, and it's easier to give them basic life needs, than to try to prevent them from committing crime, and after that fails, pay for legal proceedings to convict them, then pay for their stay in prison, then let them out, and start the whole thing all over again. It's an exercise in futility. It's much cheaper to provide them the cost of basing living.
Is it fair? No. But it is a hell of a more efficient which means you can pay less taxes too, even if they get something for nothing. No, I'm not saying don't send criminals to prison. I'm saying prevent stupid people from becoming criminals in the first place by providing basic living.


If you're in a primitive, miserable county I suppose that holds true. There is no reason to cater to people with such a belief system. The good news is smart populations are successful and can afford and develop the means to protect themselves. No reason to dilute your country and qualify of life to the whims of the idiotic "that isn't fair, gimmie!" countries of the world. If you want to correct these behaviors you don't give in to their demands, you let them die off. They'll be replaced by better, smarter people who are ready to join the civilized world.
There is no such thing as a smart population. There are always stupid individuals in every population, no matter how much superior you think your country is to anyone else. Or do you presume to say that yours has absolutely no crime? Every society has low-iq individuals, who didn't win at the job lottery either, so they have no income. Some become bums, others criminals. Crime is a symptom, and policing a band aid, not a fix. You need fix the cause of crime (and mass migration).

As I wasn't referring to people anyway, but to countries. Countries that have something, that don't want to share it with others. What do you think the immigration crisis is? People from poor countries trying to take what rich countries have. Wouldn't it be better to uplift these countries with aid and resources to make them good enough so that the people there stop walking out en-masse?
You can't have peace by locking yourself in an ivory tower and hire armed guards to protect you from the poor ones outside. The desperate will go to any length, just look at Calais. The EU has nothing to do with the illegal immigration into the UK.
 
..............................
  • The outsized influence of small states in the senate due to an equal number of senators regardless of the size of the state
  • The outsized influence of small states in presidential elections due to the electoral college

.......................................

I don't get these two at all.

The entire purpose of the House of Representatives being filled by population based numbers is to counter the Senate's even apportionment. While every State get's 2 senators, the States with more people get more seats in the House. Actions passed by one must be affirmed by the other. This was expressly designed so that States with large populations don't run amok over the rest.

And with the Electoral College, they are supposed to act as a sounding board if a State looks like it's off the rails. The Electoral college in no way changes how much influence any single State has on an election. Rhode Island doesn't gain influence in any election because of the Electoral College. The College can only effect which direction that State's influence is thrown.

Your assertion in this, or maybe I should say the assertion of the author of the book you noted, is only valid if taken from the point of view that the States possess no autonomy from the whole of the Federation. But the States do posses a level of autonomy in that the Federal Government is limited in the scope of it's powers by the 10th Amendment.

For instance, this is why universal background check legislation at the Federal Level fails to pass. The issue revolves around the sale of private property between individuals who reside in the same State. In such a case there is no instance of interstate commerce, nothing is crossing State Lines, the Federal Government has no power to regulate such transactions in any way. And so it fails because it is simply unconstitutional. At the same time, several States have passed such requirements and they have not been successfully contested once enacted. This represents a power reserved to the States that can not be usurped by the Federal Government. It is this power and the autonomy that it represents, that was secured by the creation of the House and the Senate, and when needed, the electoral college.

A States' Rights guy will get this, others not so much.
 
I don't think they intended the dictatorship of the minority we have today, where the vote of a person in a rural small state like Wyoming is worth 20x that of someone in California or Texas.

One person one vote, right?

It is appropriate for the majority to get their way. Not all the time on every subject, that's why we have protected constitutional rights that the electoral process cannot easily override, but why should the 12 people who live in flyover country dictate to the rest of us how to live our lives?

That is not the way we do things in the USA, because we have these things called States, which, contrary to popular belief wield great power over the lives of their citizens. In many ways, more than the Federal Government itself.

I want to give you the benefit of the doubt with your "Wyoming is worth 20x that of someone in California" comment. That you are only exaggerating for effect because it's certainly not even remotely accurate.
 
England =/= The UK. Really fucks me off when people conflate the two.

I know. Like how outside of the USA, all Americans are a Yank(ee) and/or a redneck yokel colonial. Should I have been offended when an Irish woman going by her accent thought I was English while waiting for a bus in Paris?
 
Can we put the political BS to one side for the time being...

I wonder a few things about this Law,

How does it affect Adverts for one? An Advert is a link to a site that the maker of said site is paying for, does this mean that it is exempt? Or does the site have to pay the advertiser as well as receive pay?

What is stopping all of us posting HardForum links to youtube/facebook/reddit etc and having them fund HardForum?

How long does the site have to pay for the link? Indefinitely? What if its on a post from X years ago.

Does it need to be a clickable link to count? Or does plain text also count... in which case sites could just turn off the ability to create clickable links.

So many questions around how it'll actually work.
 
The EU commission understands it, they just want to be paid their dues for leading the charge in the New World Order.
No, I really think they don't understand it or the consequences that will come from it. Wanting to get paid is not mutually exclusive to not comprehending something.

The EU is no more dictatorial, unelected, or unresponsive to the people than in the U.S.
Is that really the comparison you want to be making?
 
I'm a nationalist who believes the smaller and closer the central government is to its citizens, the better. It's easier to lobby your government to oppose/change terrible laws such as this one.

That leaving the EU may be painful for the UK in itself reflects poorly on the EU project.

Do you know of a state inside USA that would be pained from leaving the union?
"it reflects poorly on the USA if you can think of any one state that would have a hard time after leaving the common market of the union"
 
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Do you know of a state inside USA that would be pained from leaving the union?
"it reflects poorly on the USA if you can think of any one state that would have a hard time after leaving the common market of the union"

That is not an analogous example. At all. You should be ashamed for even thinking that.

For those of you having a hard time figuring out how it will be enforced. Let me tell you. It will be enforced selectively.
 
That is not an analogous example. At all. You should be ashamed for even thinking that.

For those of you having a hard time figuring out how it will be enforced. Let me tell you. It will be enforced selectively.

Actually it totally is.
 
The UK's biggest market was the rest of the European union, any state of the United States has most likely the other states as their biggest market, and I bet that any of them, including California, would take a massive hit if the tried to secede and leave the union because they don't want to comply with any federal laws at all.

It would be a bone headed self defeating move born out of believing themselves individually more important than the union.

Read who I was quoting, someone who did a pretty stupid remark and what I was doing was mocking said remark.
 
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