In remembrance of the European Internet and Digital Future

ARES IV · Apr 15, 2020

Today we mourn the first anniversary of the EUs disastrous copyright reform. One year ago, it cleared the last obstacle to validity, crushing any and all hopes for a competive sensible european digital single market, opening the way for censorship capabilities and stiffling of free speech previously unheard of in democracies.

Nothing good will come out of it.... yet hardly suprising the main, if not the only perpetrator, the current French Goverment in office couldnt wait to implement it, starting with the neighbouring rights for press publishers. Or the ridiculous notion, that being listed in a search engine and getting free traffic from it should somehow make the search engine liable for payments. In a world, where companies and people try to be listed as high as possible in a search engine, it takes an unbelievable amount of stupidity to believe that anyone will pay your for the privilege of being listed there.

Personally, if I was a french citizen, I would reconsider the wisdom in supporting newspapers and publishers who so brutally trample upon your interests You might wish to consider writing an e-mail to them and their accomplices and maybe also might wish to encourage your favourite search engine to not under any circumstances pay for such a ridicolous thing.

The neighbouring rights have precisly two winners.... very large publishers and american tech giants... everyone else looses. Should what is basically a link tax become the norm in the european internet, only the largest tech companies can afford to pay what is basically a legal robbery. Smaller, newer european competitors would and are already driven out of the market as they simple cannot afford to waste money on something so stupid.

Largest publishers win.... already dominating tech companies like google win because this law makes certain that there NEVER will be a european competition worth the name.

I would also recommend you to think hard and long about if the political parties responsible for this disaster should ever be considered worthy of relection.

#NiewiederCDU

#NiewiederSPD

as we in Germany say.

Today the EU has adopted the reform of the EU copyright directive. Much has been said about how this directive will choke off any european competition to the dominating USA based technology giants and how it will hurt freedom of speech and expression.

Yet the most imminent danger for us website/forum/blog operators is the excessive liability risk that is now inescapable enshrined in the act.

In principle, ANY website that resides operationally in the EU and has ANY user generated content at all (for example comments, posts, text, pictures, audio and videos, basically EVERYTHING) now faces a severe liability risk for violations of copyright.

You literally cannot run a forum anywhere in the EU anymore because every single post - like this one - could in theory be in violation of somebody else copyright and you could be sued for copyright violation which easily can cost you thousands of euros. For something that a forum user did in your forum and you probably didnt even know about. Yes, the new law makes the street owner responsible for the speeding cars using that street. It is completly idiotic but that is the way this EU directive is.

There are also plently of opportunities to use a strawman to collect money: For example, this very post was created by myself. I have copyright on it. Now imagine that I tell a strawman to post a copy of this post in another forum. He does so. And then I sue this another internet forum for copyright violation and get a crap load of money - for nothing. That of course would be illegal... but good luck proving that in court.

It is impossible to verify if the average user generated content doesnt violate somebody elses copyright and as such the only way to avoid this liability risk is to not have user generated content in the first place. Or entrusting upload filters with it, which dont work in any reasonable way, neither for multimedia and certainly not for text. They would also almost certainly add to the operating cost of your site and degrade user experience. Since you have to prove "Best Efforts" even uploadfilters may not remove the liability risk for you.

And since the very same EU directive entails ancillary copyright for newspapers you literally have to forbid your users to post a link to ANY european news site. You again, risk being liable and getting sued by the newspaper for quick cash.

This example - nonexistant - link

www.europeannewspaperonline.eu/interesting_article_about_copyright.html

contains to much information and posting it (or having it posted by a user) anywhere public on your forum makes YOU liable for damage compensation which is just as ridicolous as it sounds. So, no links to any newspaper within the EU. Which will hurt those newspaper the most... but hey... they lobbied hard for it so I would call it a wonderful case of being hoisted by their own petard.

At the end.... there is ONLY ONE sensible solution: CEASE OPERATIONS IN THE EU ASAP. Shut down your site forever or better rehost it outside of the EU. You could for example host your site in the USA. EU law does not apply then and you can happily ignore this piece of crap of a law. No upload filters required, no impossible licencing required. You can continue to operate normally and since we speak about the internet here... for your users it makes little to zero difference where the server physically resides.

It is sad. This law will not only deny europe the chance to have an own internet industry, but it also will heavily damage what little we have. Without a doubt, thousands, possibly tenthousands of jobs will fall victim to this directive as countless websites have to move outside of the EU to maintain normal operations.

Quote
But what about the exception in the law? Please tell me that small sites/blogs and forums are not affected!

The exceptions in the law are worthless.

The exceptions are only granted if

1. The site has less than 5 million monthly visits
AND
2. has less than 10 million euro yearly turnover
AND
3. is younger then 3 years old - if you are older than 3 years you are at FULL RISK AND TREATED EXACTLY THE SAME AS MULTI BILLION DOLLAR COMPANIES!

Even if by some miracle you fall under the exception.... YOU STILL have to worry about licensing which is STILL impossible. You STILL can be sued into oblivion and are at the mercy of the judge in question about what constitutes "Best efforts".

At the end of day again, there is just so much risk involved for YOU, that pulling the plug remains the best option.

Quote
The law mentions only "commercial" websites and speaks about "proportionality". Does this save my small website/forum/blog?

The problem with both those definitions is that they are not really well defined. This means that in every singular case it will be a judges decision what is "commercial" and "proportional" in your specific case. It is entirely possible that having one single advertisement - helping with operating costs - on your website/forum/blog could be judged as a "commercial", making you face the full severity of the directive. Or what about a judge deciding - in technological illiteracy - that yes, your small forum about fishing absolutely can avoid any and all copyright infringements all the time, that you are fully liable?

The lack of proper definition means that YOU carry the burden of fighting your case in court, with an unknown outcome and a crap load of court related costs. It just isnt worth the risk to be wrong, so one should assume the worst case and act accordingly by removing oneselfs virtual presence from the shores of the EU.

It might save you.... but YOU have the risk that it will be YOUR website and YOUR money that is burned in the lawsuit clearing that up. I am sure most small website operators could do without that.

Quote
It is only a directive and national goverments have some freedom putting it in national law. Can my goverment save me from the worst effects?

It can alter some details but it cannot - and normally that is a good thing - the core of the directive. Conservative german commissar Oettinger went out of his way shooting down a suggestion by german conservatives to do without upload filters. There is no room in the directive for that and if your goverments make any claim about it, it is probably lying. Not to mention that this is the decision of the website in question.

Most ironic, if the national goverment would fail to honor its duty to implement the directive into national law, then it would break EU law and would pay hefty fines to the EU.

Finally, since the decision was made on the EU level, it also has to be killed at the EU level. National goverment of the member states at this time can offer little more than a poor attempt at damage mitigation.

Killing the directive at the EU level however requires parties in power in the EU parliament that in earnest oppose the directive. With the upcoming european elections, this is YOUR chance to rescue the european internet and digital economy from the gross incompetence of the incubent politicians.

In the meantime you should move your operations outside of the EU at full speed. An army of greedy copyright layers is already in hunting mood and they wont sue big corps like google who can seriously oppose them.... they will sue YOU because that is where the quick and dirty cash is.

This directive is an unmitigated disaster.

You may repost or copy this post anywhere you please. In fact, I encourage it. It is our future that burns here and we cant fight hard enough against it.
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G-Farce · Aug 4, 2020

The ones who have the option to change the face of the world are too tired to fight for it. The older you are the less you fight, the more you give into your peers

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