The European Union is currently in a bit of a crisis, it’s not just Brexit, which is a whole steaming mess for those of us in the UK to endure, there’s a lot more cause for concern, as exemplified by French President Emmanuel Macron’s address to the citizens of the EU via a number of newspapers.
Liberal leader Guy Verhofstadt has warned of a nationalist nightmare, so there’s plenty to be concerned with, but this is not a political blog so I’m not going to explore those avenues here other than pointing out that all doesn’t seem well.
One thing politicians pretty much worldwide get accused of is not listening to people and we are seeing a glaring example of that when it comes to articles 11 and 13 of the EU copyright directive.
Mona Eberhardt and Odysseus Giacosa have jointly posted The EU Copyright Directive: the answer to many SL users’ prayers, but also a mortal risk for Second Life itself. I don’t agree with everything they say but they highlight some of the key concerns relating to articles 11 and 13 of the directive.
The article states; “The most controversial articles are #Article11 (linktax) and #Article13 (upload filters). In a nutshell, the linktax thing boils down to the following: If you link to a news site’s article and include even a small part of the title, or a caption consisting of part of the original text (the original ambition was “more than two consecutive words”, which is bloody insane), you’ll have to pay the news site. Never mind the fact you’re sending traffic, clicks, and possibly ad-generated revenue, or even subscribers their way!”
Under article 11, I may have used too many words from Mona and Odysseus’ article and could be breaching the copyright directive. Article 13 concerns placing far more responsibility on the company who you upload data to, which is why there are concerns regarding upload filters. Filters have long been problematic when it comes to the world wide web, I can still recall seeing Dick Van Dyke turned into **Beep** Van **Beep** on the Second Life forums because of a content filter.
Cory Doctorow over at boingboing has had a lot to say about these directives and recently posted an article in which he argued that the directive will require that all online communities, services and platforms will have to block copyright infringement, rather than dealing with it retrospectively. This is going to cause major headaches because it’s simply not possible to do this and have functioning communities, platforms and services based on user generate content.
As is often the case, the drivers for the legislation are quite noble. Content creators want to have their intellectual property rights respected and earn money from their creations. Newspapers and journalists want to earn money from their hard and sometimes dangerous work. Social media is doing well out of other people’s work but the newspaper industry is struggling. We need strong journalism to hold the powerful to account and current business models are simply not working for many newspapers who produce the original content.
Unfortunately, as is all too often the case, the proposals in the EU copyright directive create a whole raft of new problems. The EU should not carry on regardless with these proposals. Patronising people is not a healthy way forward, it’s time for the EU to hit the pause button on these proposals and show leadership by actively listening to people’s concerns.
Scunthorpe eh? Takes me back 🙂 I am generally in favour of the directives (having actually read them) but can see your point. They do not go far enough for me .. there other viewpoints which are a little more reasoned than mine.
Copyright needs to be dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st Century but I’m far from convinced that this is the way to do it.