EU's war against the Internet and free discourse. Copyright directives 11 and 13 were passed today.
Photo: Night sky in September 2017
Hello!
It is stark news for freedom of expression and free speech as the EU mandates that every file uploaded must be cataloged, scanned and filtered against already existing copyrighted works, and that websites will have to start paying a link tax for links directed to news sites, or else face fines for illicit linking by their users.
This is the imperative we need to create a completely decentralized Internet, unimpeded by draconian laws like these.
Watch this video by Computing forever as it explains what's to come.
So it's not really about Copyrights, it is about our ability to communicate online, that's under threat.
Because I suspect that websites foreign to the EU will stop serving EU citizens in fear of fines, I implore everyone to start using the Tor browser or some other VPN to bypass such restrictions. I also suggest everyone move away from sites like Twitter, YouTube, Facebook en mass, and start looking into distributed and decentralized social networks like Steem for publishing. Maybe even host a witness node if you can.
One thing that would be beneficial is for all the Steem services to provide a tor hidden node for browsing through them completely anonymously. Hell, even Facebook has one.
The problem with Steem though, is that it is mainly available as web services. And those are vulnerable to the new EU copyright law. How many of these sites can afford to pay for filtering or fines for linking to news sites? I suspect that if we are not getting a standalone Steem client soon, we are going to lose access to Steem, at least here in Europe, just like the people in China did a while ago.
Thus. I'll list some other interesting decentralization projects here just in case anyone wants to take a look and try them out. Most of them are actually apps that you can install and then use to connect to others. That way you don't have to rely on the Web that's actively been censored, and thus you'll be less likely to get detected and punished for "not following the rules".
- Zeronet – a peer-to-peer distributed Web 2.0 basically.
- RetroShare – A secure social communication and filesharing peer-to-peer app.
- Tribler – A filesharing app based on bittorrent, working on top of Tor.
- Freenet – An encrypted, distributed content storage. (The predecessor of IPFS)
- IPFS – An encrypted, distributed content storage.
- Tor - The Onion Router – Browse the net anonymously, and publish hidden websites.
- Tox – A p2p instant messaging and video conferencing protocol with many application implementations.
- Ricochet – Anonymous instant messaging.
- Salut à Toi – A social networking app based on XMPP (not encrypted, afaik)
And there are many more. I recall there are some that are based on cryptocurrencies even, but I haven't looked into those yet. I've also left out web service based social networks like Diaspora, because the EU law will eventually have an impact on those as well.
Let me know how you think about this. Also, have you ever tried these apps? I think they, coupled with cryptocurrencies will have to trend now, that the legacy Internet is going the way of dinosaurs.
Be safe! See you all later!!
Thank you for sharing this info. I was not that up on it. You are right that essentially all of these laws are about control. Governments love control!
@gamer00,
I also believe the world should move into the blockchains and DAPPS as fast as they can! Coz crazy laws and regulations are cooking at this moment too to bring us down! In here (Sri Lanka) it also happens and I think DAPPs is the only way to save us from upcoming chaos!
Cheers~
Hi gamer. Good to see you. I haven't tried any of those as I haven't had to yet. I am sure Steem will receive a few new members because of this new ruling.
First of all I need to say that I'm not taking any sides here - I just want to understand the situation.
If I understood correctly and I can trust the info on these EU's pages,
http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-19-1849_en.htm
https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/faq/frequently-asked-questions-copyright-reform
it means that:
So, the EU is directly debunking most of the concerns: memes, upload filters, link tax and troubles for startups. I really hope this is true also in wider sense than what is presented on their websites and their main goal is to have fairer deals for copyright holders, big and small, while keeping the internet free.
Politicians never lie, right?
The problem arises from the fact that the EU lawmakers don't understand how these changes will affect online social media businesses and coincidentally, their users.
Directive #11
This exact thing happened in Spain, and Google News simply stopped providing their service to Spain.
Directive #13
Now, as the responsibility has been shifted from the one responsible (the producer), to the party that only delivers the content it is in the best interest of the parties who deliver the content to either filter it, or stop providing the service to EU citizens altogether.
I'm just saying that as there is no protection from liability whatsoever (not withstanding having to prove in court that the operation is small, new, and "doing their best" in removing objectionable content) in this new directive, the logical choice is to cease operations with a country or countries that deem the messenger is liable for the message.
It may not be the intent of EU to turn these services into censorship machines, au contraire, but it will inevitably end up in having that effect. "The road to hell is paved with good intentions."
I wonder how the myriad of Steem sites will manage to "seek rights from rightsholders" for all the content on the blockchain they can not even remove, or will they just end up closing their services for the EU citizens.
I'd be hard pressed to find a politician that didn't. Although... I am voting the Pirate party so maybe I do have some trust in some of them.
The worst part of it is I just don't (and maybe never will) really know the truth of it. It might be they just didn't understand what they were doing. Stupidity can often be mixed up with malicious intent.
I don't know the terms in the Spain's case, but if it is the same as in this directive then Google's response seems a bit overboard. The directive does allow "very short extracts":
If the "very short extracts" contain the headline, two rows of text (about 40 characters or 25 words) and one picture, then Google News would not look any different than now. Although some RSS reader sites do offer full article views, which would be banned by this directive.
One thing EU tries to make clear is the EU citizens' right to create dank memes:
People seem to be jumping to the conclusion that tech companies will implement overzealous upload filters, which will ban fair use as well. Sounds like that would violate the freedom of speech which is explicitly allowed by the directive. I hope the "best effort" to block unauthorised content does mean something reasonable and practical.
Member States seem to be prohibited from imposing an automatic upload filter. It is up to the tech company to use what they like to fulfill the "best effort"... whatever that means:
There sure is a lot of ambiguities in the directives eg. what counts as commercial use, "best effort", "very short extract", would a social media site or a blog become a news aggregator, if the users link a lot to other news sites. But this might also leave enough room to be fair and reasonable towards the tech companies so they can continue to deliver the services users expect from them. I can only hope.
The more laws you make, the more ways people will find to circumvent them and the more crime you end up creating. Laws make crime lucrative and only control the vulnerable. Certain people are guaranteed to benefit from these laws, but it's not going to be the general populous.
Posted using Partiko Android
Excellent review @gamer00 and it will be very bad if such times come in Europe, but maybe this will not happen!
The EU Parliament has approved a bill into a directive mandating member states to implement it by enacting national laws within the next two years.
I don't think any EU member state has any jurisdiction over any website operating outside its borders. But what a member state can do is order ISPs operating within its borders to block access to a list of overseas websites serving up content that is verboten. Again, VPN to the rescue and the problem is solved. But the problem is that the same parties with vested interests are busy trying to bribe legislative bodies all over the world to approve similar draconian laws.
I think the general chaos ensuing national laws becoming in force in 2021 may work in favour of the likes of Steem at least in the short term.
Believe it or not, but I don't personally actually mind not having the opportunity to create memes or to link to news articles too much. I can always create my own original works. And if I want to comment on news reports on events in the world, I can do so without quoting snippets of text or even posting links to mainstream news outlets. Fuck them.
But what I will not take lying down is ISPs being forced to block any IP address that is used by a website delivering content that is not filtered through some fucking official list of copyrighted works.
Efforts to create a completely decentralized internet exist. What that would mean is decentralizing Internet Service Providers. That would mean decentralizing the physical layer of the internet, which would be an impossible thing to do at least if we were to retain the kind of bandwidth we are used to. Another option would be to utilize a dark web on top of the existing physical infrastructure. That would mean encrypting everything and sharing everything in a peer-to-peer. That's all fine but what about performance and bandwidth issues? Would that lead to the copyright Nazis going after the use of those protocols themselves?
Thanks for sharing! There is no news report on this issue in my country.
I must find time to do more research on this!
Yes! Decentralization and freedom!
Posted using Partiko iOS
Hi, @gamer00!
You just got a 10.92% upvote from SteemPlus!
To get higher upvotes, earn more SteemPlus Points (SPP). On your Steemit wallet, check your SPP balance and click on "How to earn SPP?" to find out all the ways to earn.
If you're not using SteemPlus yet, please check our last posts in here to see the many ways in which SteemPlus can improve your Steem experience on Steemit and Busy.