Topic: Digital Economy Act 2017

[Skidder.]

 Looked around and couldn't find much on the subject, but it is the crux of the new laws coming into effect in April regarding smut sites and the likes.

 The rationale is all there I guess, and this has been brewing in Parliament for a good while now, but while I'm not a massive watcher of adult material, I don't think that this will stop here.

 I saw a post on Facebook the other day saying that people will need to buy an £8 top-up card that lasts for 24 hours; that can't be right can it?

 It is worth noting that this doesn't just affect adult sites, but there are a whole host of amendments to the act that on the surface, appear to help the consumer. But equally, there are a few strange ones.

 Ofcom now oversee the BBC as an external regulator and one of the amendments states that broadcasters can now charge (like Netflix) for re-runs. The Beeb have licence fees and the such, but the likes of C5, ITV probably could?

 The piracy thing, I think, is one which will really hit home - already ISP's are able to identify any kind of movie or film downloads and you get a strike system now, will fines come next?

 Anyhow, not sure what to make of this... But you knew something like this was coming and without doing the research, sounds like a reactionary measure with the whole net neutrality thing a few years ago (but this may have come in before, I'm not sure)

I can't quite tell if it is wanton Big Brotherism, or a rather daft way of trying to capitalise on people who can't find partners or a date to the pictures. 

 

[SamAteTheRedAcid]

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2017/30/contents

^act here

[Skidder.]

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2017/30/contents

^act here

I'm probably re-treading old ground here for some, but... This seems to pave the way,firstly, for identification of persons using adult sites; and secondly, it looks as if government bodies (or 'research groups') the power to share this information across a number of departments. Research groups... 

Still torn on this - on one hand, you can see how this could clamp down on some of the more, let's say, less conventional sites and could potentially do some good. The NSPCC seem to have weighed in and indeed, some of the adult material out there could definitely obscure or distort young adults' sexual tastes.

But by that same token, this could be wholly misused or even hacked (it has happened before).

Some of the amendments look good and solid, but some of them not so much. With the furore over the Cambridge Analytica scandal, I mean, would a bill like this protect users? Or would it mostly benefit the supplier? There seems to be a lot of swagger in some of that copy.

Dunno fellas... most folk know that certain corners of the internet do need regulation, but everyone also knows it'd be matter of time before the bigwigs try to make some cash from the internet.

I guess the clue is in the title... Digital Economy.

Weird how this is all panning out, it is kind of making me want to iron my tin foil hat.

[Graeme]

I saw a post on Facebook the other day saying that people will need to buy an £8 top-up card that lasts for 24 hours; that can't be right can it?

[Skidder.]

Sorry, no it wasn't just a Facebook post, it was from the Echo's Facebook I think.

[Ghost Town]

The bigger danger is the EU vote on March 26 on the EU Copyright Reform Act, of which Article 17 (ex 13), if adopted, will make site/platform owners responsible for everything uploaded, and will thus essentially mandate upload filters on all websites across the EU, as site owners try to prevent the upload of anything that might fall foul of copyright law.

I'm generally a fan of the EU and a Remainer but this is a fuckwitted law that will destroy creativity and quite possibly the internet as we know it.

https://saveyourinternet.eu/act/

sign the petition - nearly 6 million Europeans have done so, so far, to save the internet

https://www.change.org/p/european-parliament-stop-the-censorship-machinery-save-the-internet

[killer-heels]

The bigger danger is the EU vote on March 26 on the EU Copyright Reform Act, of which Article 17 (ex 13), if adopted, will make site/platform owners responsible for everything uploaded, and will thus essentially mandate upload filters on all websites across the EU, as site owners try to prevent the upload of anything that might fall foul of copyright law.

I'm generally a fan of the EU and a Remainer but this is a fuckwitted law that will destroy creativity and quite possibly the internet as we know it.

Why would it do that? Should sites not be responsible for what it uploads i.e. Facebook?

[Ghost Town]

Why would it do that? Should sites not be responsible for what it uploads i.e. Facebook?

Well I'm not an expert, but as I understand it, the concern is this: at the moment sites are reactively responsible. So if you upload something onto a platform which infringes copyright then they might take it down if someone complains or they discover it themselves. Fine. They'd be expected to remove it, but not responsible for it being there in the first place

Under the proposed new legislation, sites and playforms will be made responsible right off the bat for anything they allow to be uploaded. This means to stay on the right side of the law, sites would need to implement upload filters designed to stop you uploading anything that is not your own copyright; you'd need to be stopped before you even put it out there.

An analogy being used is phoning; phone companies like BT or vodaphone are not expected to be responsible for anything you say while using the phone. They are just the medium. That matches how websites/platforms are currently treated

But the proposed new law would be like making BT responsible for everything you say over the phone before it is allowed to pass over their network; so with an equivalent law they'd have to implement filters to check every word you say before it's relayed to the person your speaking to.

Madness, but if the anti-Article 17(13) campaigners are correct, that's the nature of the change being proposed for websites and platforms which allow user generated content. Everything we're used to now, from upoading to YouTube to posting memes and pics here that include potentially copyrighted content (Simpsons or whatever) will be affected.

That's why there's been such a backlash against it in Europe; lots of demos and millions signing petitions. In the UK it's gone mostly unnoticed because we're obsessed by Brexit and expected to have left the EU by now. But it will affect us as well.

That's as much as I know. Maybe the campaigners are overdramatising it? I don't know. The EU are voting on it possibly today or tomorrow. We'll know soon.

[CheshireDave]

Looked around and couldn't find much on the subject, but it is the crux of the new laws coming into effect in April regarding smut sites and the likes.

And with it signups to VPN services soar.

[Ghost Town]

In fact MEPs have just passed the legislation by 348 in favor, to 274 against. Campaigners are calling it a 'dark day for the Internet'.

Nothing will alter immediately as individual nations will now have to transpose the directive into their own laws, which could take years. BUt we may start seeing increased restrictions in net freedom over the next few years.

I do like the EU, generally, and am an ardent Remainer, but Christ, they don't half come out with some shite at times

Here's the EFF's response:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/03/eus-parliament-signs-disastrous-internet-law-what-happens-next

EU’s Parliament Signs Off on Disastrous Internet Law: What Happens Next?
By Danny O'Brien
March 26, 2019

In a stunning rejection of the will 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.

There’s now little that can stop these provisions from becoming the law of the land across Europe. It’s theoretically possible that the final text will fail to gain a majority of member states’ approval when the European Council meets later this month, but this would require at least one key country to change its mind. Toward that end, German and Polish activists are already re-doubling their efforts to shift their government’s key votes.

If that attempt fails, the results will be drawn-out, and chaotic. 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.

Unfortunately, it is likely that the first implementation of the Directive will come from the countries who have most enthusiastically supported its passage. France’s current batch of national politicians have consistently advocated for the worst parts of the Directive, and the Macron administration may seek to grab an early win for the country’s media establishment.

Countries whose polity were more divided will no doubt take longer. In Poland, politicians were besieged by angry voters wanting them to vote down the Directive, while simultaneously facing brazen denunciations from national and local newspaper owners warning that they would “not forget” any politician who voted against Article 11. The passing of the Directive will still leave that division between the Polish people and the media establishment, with politicians struggling to find a domestic solution that won’t damage their prospects with either group.

The rhetoric in Germany in the last few days was not much better. German politicians claimed with straight faces that the tech companies had paid this weekend’s protestors to march on the streets. Meanwhile, the Christian Democratic Union, Angela Merkel’s party, whose own Axel Voss as the ringleader for the Directive, put out a policy proposal that suggested it could implement Article 13 not with filters, but with a blanket licensing regime. Legal experts have already said that these licenses won’t comply with Article 13’s stringent requirements – but it’s going to be hard for the CDU to walk back from that commitment now.

Which brings us to the future prospect of legal challenges in Europe’s courts. Again, unlike the GDPR, which gave existing regulatory bodies the clear power to adjudicate and enforce that law and its ambiguities, it’s unclear who is supposed to impose consistency in the EU between, say, a harsh French regime and a potentially softer German solution, or interpret the Directive’s notoriously incoherent text.

That means it will fall by default to Europe’s judicial system, and the long, slow road to a final decision by the EU’s superior court, the European Court of Justice (ECJ).

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, and we’ve already seen that the rightsholders are by no means united on what Big Tech should be doing. Whatever Internet companies and organizations do to comply with twenty-seven or more national laws – 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 – will be challenged by one rightsholder faction or another.

But there’s also opportunities for the courts to rein in the Directive – or even throw out its worst articles entirely. One key paradox at the heart of the Directive will have to be resolved very soon. Article 13 is meant to be compatible with the older E-Commerce Directive, which explicitly forbids any requirement to proactively monitor for IP enforcement (a provision that was upheld and strengthened by the ECJ in 2011). Any law mandating filters could be challenged to settle this inconsistency.

But who will represent Internet users in court? Big Tech has some of the motive and the millions to do it, but after this heavy defeat, those increasingly defensive giants may well decide that it will be better to settle out of court, and strike a deal that pays a danegeld to the established media in Europe – at a price that will conveniently lock out any potential tech upstarts to their market dominance in that market.

That means Europe’s Internet users can’t depend on the tech companies to fight this. The battle will have to continue, as it has done in these last few weeks, with millions of everyday users uniting online and on the streets to demand their right to be free of censorship, and free to communicate without algorithmic censors or arbitrary licensing requirements.

EU netizens will need to organize and support independent European digital rights groups willing to challenge the Directive in court.

And outside Europe, friends of the Internet will have to brace themselves to push back against copyright maximalists attempting to export this terrible Directive to the rest of the world. We must, and we will, regroup and stand together to stop this Directive in Europe, and prevent it spreading further.

[killer-heels]

Well I'm not an expert, but as I understand it, the concern is this: at the moment sites are reactively responsible. So if you upload something onto a platform which infringes copyright then they might take it down if someone complains or they discover it themselves. Fine. They'd be expected to remove it, but not responsible for it being there in the first place

Under the proposed new legislation, sites and playforms will be made responsible right off the bat for anything they allow to be uploaded. This means to stay on the right side of the law, sites would need to implement upload filters designed to stop you uploading anything that is not your own copyright; you'd need to be stopped before you even put it out there.

An analogy being used is phoning; phone companies like BT or vodaphone are not expected to be responsible for anything you say while using the phone. They are just the medium. That matches how websites/platforms are currently treated

But the proposed new law would be like making BT responsible for everything you say over the phone before it is allowed to pass over their network; so with an equivalent law they'd have to implement filters to check every word you say before it's relayed to the person your speaking to.

Madness, but if the anti-Article 17(13) campaigners are correct, that's the nature of the change being proposed for websites and platforms which allow user generated content. Everything we're used to now, from upoading to YouTube to posting memes and pics here that include potentially copyrighted content (Simpsons or whatever) will be affected.

That's why there's been such a backlash against it in Europe; lots of demos and millions signing petitions. In the UK it's gone mostly unnoticed because we're obsessed by Brexit and expected to have left the EU by now. But it will affect us as well.

That's as much as I know. Maybe the campaigners are overdramatising it? I don't know. The EU are voting on it possibly today or tomorrow. We'll know soon.

But the BT example is a private exchange between two people. The Internet sites are publically accessible to everyone.

[Ghost Town]

But the BT example is a private exchange between two people. The Internet sites are publically accessible to everyone.

Maybe. But the analogy is about whether a medium (a phone company, an internet platform, a website) can be made liable for anything that appears or passes through before they even know about it; a pre-responsibility, for which they'd have to implement filters to prevent anything unacceptable ever being entered/uploaded in the first place.

If you can think of a better analogy by all means let's have it. I'm not wedded to the BT one.

Put it another way. If this new directive becomes law and is strictly enforced, the following semi-randomly chosen pic would be illegal and RAWK would have to implement upload filters to prevent me uploading it. In fact imgur, the hosting site, would also have to implement filters to prevent me uploading it.



Yet all I want to do with it is illustrate, in a throw-away fashion, what I hope will be the popular reaction to this directive. There's no substantive attempt to infringe Fox's or The Simpsons's copyright, it's just a shared, throwaway joke that people will get; it might raise a smile and make a point. No harm done at all. But soon it could well be illegal, and an onerous and costly responsibility may be put onto websites/platforms to prevent it being posted.

Worse still, if I took that image and did something creative and transformative with it then the resulting product would actually be legal, but the upload filters might block it anyway, because they won't have the sophistication required to be able to tell the difference. That's the other big fall-out that could come from this directive. A restriction on creativity.

[Antoine Lavoisier]

If you can think of a better analogy by all means let's have it. I'm not wedded to the BT one.

From what I have seen and heard so far I would use something along the line of imagine a stadium letting anyone in unchecked, no tickets, carrying weapons, gangs organising dealings or worse, all inside this stadium, come and go as they please. That stadium makes a lot of money from this open door policy and only reacts to something untoward after the fact.

But now there are security checks on the doors, people are checked before they come in, bags are checked etc. etc. and anyone looking to create trouble or harm are prevented from entering. Now inside the stadium things are safer. The stadium owner has to take responsibility for what goes on their patch. I think we'd all agree that is fair and sensible.

I "think" this new legislation is an attempt to regulate the virtual world in line with the world we live in. For perhaps too long, the virtual world has had a free ride? I'm cautious of course but I tentatively welcome it. 

[Waka]

Internet platforms are liable for content that users upload

Some uploaded material, such as memes or GIFs, now specifically excluded from directive

Hyperlinks to news articles, accompanied by “individual words or very short extracts”, can be shared freely

Journalists must get a share of any copyright-related revenue obtained by their news publisher

Start-up platforms subject to lighter obligations

This directive is an important step towards correcting a situation which has allowed a few companies to earn huge sums of money without properly remunerating the thousands of creatives and journalists whose work they depend on

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20190321IPR32110/european-parliament-approves-new-copyright-rules-for-the-internet

[Something Worse]

Hard to figure out what the actual falloit would be, but if I'm reading it right:

The Simpsons meme posted above would be safe due to parody/etc.

A PoP post showing tactics using images from a Liverpool game would not be safe and RAWK would potentially be on the hook for paying any fees claimed by the Premier League.

RAWK could, at their own expense, implement a filter to protect them from any of this, but would be better off just removing images from the forum.

Does that sound right?

[Ghost Town]

The problem is that while parody, memes and transformative work will still be legal, any upload filters would have to be incredibly sophisticated - as sophisticated as a human being almost - in order to separate the wheat from the chaff. As I understand it, there is not that level of sophistication available, and that means that 'legal' uses will probably be blocked along with 'illegal' uses on countless occasions.

The current state of affairs is that in most cases, a 'use' is flagged as infringing by a human, and checked by a human and deleted, if need be, by a human. Algorithms just aren't up to it.

There're are plenty of other issues, such as the role the massive tech giants like google might play in creating and licensing upload filters, (because smaller sites aren't going to be able afford to create bespoke filters for their own specific use) and the concomitant greater reach and influence and power that that would give them over the internet.

The EFF are a good resource, as are saveyourinternet searches.

[Ghost Town]

I "think" this new legislation is an attempt to regulate the virtual world in line with the world we live in. For perhaps too long, the virtual world has had a free ride? I'm cautious of course but I tentatively welcome it.

Have you every watched a video on YouTube of an old TV show or ad or music vid or anything else that has been uploaded by someone other than the copyright holder (bearing in mind that for some stuff the exact copyright holder can be hard to pin down)?

Yeh, I'll miss that when its gone

In other words, the virtual world we are used to is not anything like the real world, and can't be run like it. Content owners can't, and often won't, have the time or inclination to foster the rich variety and incredible resource of the internet. That almost HAS to rely on ordinary joes uploading stuff etc, and a blind eye being turned to it.

I doubt any of us would be able to afford the current internet in all its richness and variety if everything on it was monetised correctly on behalf of content/copyright owners.

At this point it might be judicious for me to add that I am a content creator and copyright owner myself, whose work is uploaded and used without 'permission' or financial reward to myself. I regard it as just part of the way the net works. Flagrant breaches I will contest; some guy uploading something on YouTube or some other platform without any real intention to defraud? I'm OK with that.

[WhereAngelsPlay]

It will only take one of the 27 to say no & it'll die.

[cdav]

I guess part of the issue is tech companies have become massively rich (and influential) from selling advertising to allow users to watch content that is copyrighted 'for free'. The power is now fully in the tech companies hands- they seem to take all the benefit of the content on their platform but wash their hands of the responsibility for what is on their platform (a slightly different example is Facebook's slow response to the New Zealand gun attack).

The laws as they stood probably had not changed from the days of VHS or DVDs whereas the world they govern has changed rapidly (as it probably will in the next few years in response to this law). I guess only time will tell if this is a good step forward or not

[Waka]

Hard to figure out what the actual falloit would be, but if I'm reading it right:

The Simpsons meme posted above would be safe due to parody/etc.

A PoP post showing tactics using images from a Liverpool game would not be safe and RAWK would potentially be on the hook for paying any fees claimed by the Premier League.

RAWK could, at their own expense, implement a filter to protect them from any of this, but would be better off just removing images from the forum.

Does that sound right?

I wouldn’t say using pictures from a football game for “illustrative” purposes would be wrong.

Having links to games which we so quite often see here on match days will go out the window and will probably be strictly enforced.

[Something Worse]

I wouldn’t say using pictures from a football game for “illustrative” purposes would be wrong.

Having links to games which we so quite often see here on match days will go out the window and will probably be strictly enforced.

But isn't it technically a copyrighted image? This is why gifs and videos of goals get hunted down on Twitter so aggressively, wouldn't it be the same for pictures under this new law?

[Waka]

But isn't it technically a copyrighted image? This is why gifs and videos of goals get hunted down on Twitter so aggressively, wouldn't it be the same for pictures under this new law?

The technology challenge for this is immense and I’m not just talking about a picture of vvd banging in a winner against spurs pictured here. What about the billions of photos already on Tumblr or Pinterest. I mean would them photos suddenly become obsolete! Maybe a license fee? Who would end up paying for that. I mean how can a forum monitor the difference between a professional picture and an amateur who just happens to be at a game? Boggles the mind really. There hasn’t been much clarity on it in truth, it may just come down to posting the source along with the picture.

[MBL?]

This is how the “dark net” will explode into life. We’ve all heard of it and a lot have used it but this is the sort of thing that could make it truly mainstream.

[Elmo!]

This is how the “dark net” will explode into life. We’ve all heard of it and a lot have used it but this is the sort of thing that could make it truly mainstream.

The darknet is far, far, far too slow for anyone to use it for anything apart from what is strictly necessary.

You can forget about watching Youtube, Netflix, or even loading GIFs in a reasonable amount of time on it.

[Elmo!]

Hard to figure out what the actual falloit would be, but if I'm reading it right:

The Simpsons meme posted above would be safe due to parody/etc.

A PoP post showing tactics using images from a Liverpool game would not be safe and RAWK would potentially be on the hook for paying any fees claimed by the Premier League.

RAWK could, at their own expense, implement a filter to protect them from any of this, but would be better off just removing images from the forum.

Does that sound right?

The vast majority of pictures on this site are not actually hosted on RAWK, they arejust embeeded hyperlinks to the likes of Imgur and GFYCAT. Do you know if that makes RAWK responsible for the content or is it just Imgur etc?

[WhereAngelsPlay]

The vast majority of pictures on this site are not actually hosted on RAWK, they arejust embeeded hyperlinks to the likes of Imgur and GFYCAT. Do you know if that makes RAWK responsible for the content or is it just Imgur etc?

Would be Imgur.I still doubt this will go through as (I could be wrong) it will only take 1 state to reject it and 274 MPs voted against it.

[Something Worse]

The vast majority of pictures on this site are not actually hosted on RAWK, they arejust embeeded hyperlinks to the likes of Imgur and GFYCAT. Do you know if that makes RAWK responsible for the content or is it just Imgur etc?

I don't know, sorry. I'm trying to figure it out, amongst all the hysteria. It seems like Imgur and the like are at the most risk, does that sound correct?

[Ghost Town]

Would be Imgur.I still doubt this will go through as (I could be wrong) it will only take 1 state to reject it and 274 MPs voted against it.

Poland are the best bet; plenty in that country really unhappy and they are strongly lobbying their government to kybosh it

[Ghost Town]

By the way, sorry to accidentally highjack this thread. For anyone unsure, the current discussion is NOT about the Digital Economy Act 2017, as per the title, but a separate EU directive about copyright in the single market