Article 13 of the EU Copyright Directive Threatens the Internet

[aristomatic]

Posts copied, split and moved from Aristocrat Sheerline badge - Site Admin.

...Have not posted image as don't want the site to have copyright issues but pmd mr pm.

[pennymachines]

Here's the image Aristo found:

Embed from Getty Images

Getty kindly provided it with an embed code. The copyright situation over embedded images remains muddy. To date, it has been found in law that, because these images reside on the claimant's server, no copying has occurred. Unfortunately, last month the European Parliament voted through a new directive making web links subject to copyright taxes. This will have a global impact and, depending upon how it's eventually interpreted and enforced, might spell the end for websites like ours.

[john t peterson]

Actually, Mr. PM, I think the decision may be a gold mine....for you! As owner/operator of Pennymachines, you have a photo inventory of British arcade within your domain that will be of great interest to the great unwashed public. Copyright your material and start charging the hoi-polli a prince's ransom. I see you soon on the French Rivera, Nursey on one arm and a Bryan's Bumper on the other.

J Peterson
Lawyer at large, USA

[coppinpr]

I think you're wrong Big J. The new laws are a disaster, small sites will be swamped with emails from copyright trolls trying to get you to pay for permissions they don't own. Also, in some cases, how do you even get permission? On the www.penny-arcade.info site I recently got an email from a German site complaining I had not asked permission to show one of their photos. I'd never even visited their site and got the photo from a different source that gave me permission to use it claiming it to be theirs! On looking at the German site I found that they had recently added photos from my site of a machine I own and photoed that they got from yet another source who claimed it was theirs, and round and round it would go I think.

[pennymachines]

I moved these posts over to the Tipple to avoid going off-topic and borrowed the title from a letter sent to the European Parliament by Tim Berners-Lee, 'Inventor of the World Wide Web' and other eminent signatories.

I'm afraid Coppin may be correct, at least in regard to sites which depend upon community input. I put the content under a copyleft license from the start, so I couldn't change that even if I wanted (which I don't). Currently, if a user of this site places material here which breaches another party's copyright, in the first instance they're considered to have committed the offense. If I'm notified of the infringement and don't remove the material in a timely fashion, I then become liable. The new directive seeks to turn this around, making the site owner solely and immediately responsible for content. Again, depending upon how it's interpreted and enforced, this could open the door to copyright trolling. What's to stop copyright holders from deliberately and anonymously posting material in order to charge for its use? There is debate as to whether community-fed sites may be forced to employ active auto content filtering.

If anyone's interested in a fair account of the issue, I would recommemd: EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT EUROPE’S NEW COPYRIGHT DIRECTIVE
The fight over the European internet is just getting started, The Verge
Hope I don't have to pay for that link.

[brigham]

Who will rid us of this wretched organization?

[badpenny]

I think it will all collapse as soon as the courts become stagnant with cases awaiting, however a new industry will spring up tracing who was the definitive original owner of a photo. Yet another opportunity for those bloody cold callers.
Would this be civil law or criminal?
I can't see John Law wanting to be involved either way.


It's all very well introducing new Directives, but if you can't enforce them or those that need to police them can't then it's all pointless.

In the 1980/90s it was announced that it would be illegal to live on a canal boat in Britain ..... it couldn't be your prime address ....... not only would British Waterways not issue you with a licence to do so but every parish in the UK could outlaw you as well as charge you for local council rates while awaiting for your court appearance. Here we are twenty/thirty years later and in theory it is still a No-No!
Except that currently we have 35000 boats being used as prime addresses and over 20000 people living in London on boats. All filed under "Too much trouble to deal with".


BP

[moonriver]

I nominate Diane Abbott to deal with it