Three articles [excerpted] giving the gist of it, the basic - minimum need to know:
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Controversial European copyright laws passed in an EU vote today, could have major knock-on effects for the internet
[excerpted] Both Article 13 and Article 11 - which critics have said could be the ‘death of the internet’ - were passed by 348 votes to 274.
Julia Reda, an MEP from the Pirate Party, said: “Dark day for internet freedom: The @Europarl_EN has rubber-stamped copyright reform including #Article13 and #Article11.
“MEPs refused to even consider amendments.
In response...Google said there was “legal uncertainty” surrounding the latest version of the Copyright Directive but it had improved. The search engine giant said: “The details matter and we look forward to working with policy-makers, publishers, creators and rights holders, as EU member states move to implement these new rules.”
While campaign group Open Knowledge described the news as a “massive blow” to the internet.
Catherine Stihler, the group’s chief executive, said: “We now risk the creation of a more closed society at the very time we should be using digital advances to build a more open world where knowledge creates power for the many, not the few.”
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Europe passes controversial online copyright reforms
[excerpted] Article 11, which has been dubbed the “link tax,” stipulates that websites pay publishers a fee if they display excerpts of copyrighted content — or even link to it. This could obviously have major ramifications for services such as Google News. Then there is Article 13, dubbed the “upload filter,” which would effectively make digital platforms legally liable for any copyright infringements on their platform.
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EU’s Parliament Signs Off on Disastrous Internet Law: What Happens Next?
[Electronic Frontier Foundation EFF - excerpted] In a stunning rejection of the will of five million online petitioners, and over 100,000 protestors this weekend, the European Parliament has abandoned common-sense and the advice of academics, technologists, and UN human rights experts, and approved the Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive in its entirety.
Unlike EU Regulations like the GDPR, which become law on passage by the central EU institutions, EU Directives have to be transposed: written into each member country’s national law. Countries have until 2021 to transpose the Copyright Directive, but EU rarely keeps its members to that deadline, so it could take even longer.
We can expect media and rightsholders to lobby for the most draconian possible national laws, then promptly march to the courts to extract fines whenever anyone online wanders over its fuzzy lines. The Directive is written so that any owner of copyrighted material can demand satisfaction from an Internet service ... from dropping links to European news sites entirely, to upping their already over-sensitive filtering systems, or seeking to strike deals with key media conglomerates...
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Controversial European copyright laws passed in an EU vote today, could have major knock-on effects for the internet
[excerpted] Both Article 13 and Article 11 - which critics have said could be the ‘death of the internet’ - were passed by 348 votes to 274.
Julia Reda, an MEP from the Pirate Party, said: “Dark day for internet freedom: The @Europarl_EN has rubber-stamped copyright reform including #Article13 and #Article11.
“MEPs refused to even consider amendments.
In response...Google said there was “legal uncertainty” surrounding the latest version of the Copyright Directive but it had improved. The search engine giant said: “The details matter and we look forward to working with policy-makers, publishers, creators and rights holders, as EU member states move to implement these new rules.”
While campaign group Open Knowledge described the news as a “massive blow” to the internet.
Catherine Stihler, the group’s chief executive, said: “We now risk the creation of a more closed society at the very time we should be using digital advances to build a more open world where knowledge creates power for the many, not the few.”
________________________________
Europe passes controversial online copyright reforms
[excerpted] Article 11, which has been dubbed the “link tax,” stipulates that websites pay publishers a fee if they display excerpts of copyrighted content — or even link to it. This could obviously have major ramifications for services such as Google News. Then there is Article 13, dubbed the “upload filter,” which would effectively make digital platforms legally liable for any copyright infringements on their platform.
________________________________
EU’s Parliament Signs Off on Disastrous Internet Law: What Happens Next?
[Electronic Frontier Foundation EFF - excerpted] In a stunning rejection of the will of five million online petitioners, and over 100,000 protestors this weekend, the European Parliament has abandoned common-sense and the advice of academics, technologists, and UN human rights experts, and approved the Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive in its entirety.
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| EFF |
We can expect media and rightsholders to lobby for the most draconian possible national laws, then promptly march to the courts to extract fines whenever anyone online wanders over its fuzzy lines. The Directive is written so that any owner of copyrighted material can demand satisfaction from an Internet service ... from dropping links to European news sites entirely, to upping their already over-sensitive filtering systems, or seeking to strike deals with key media conglomerates...
