JLAmber wrote:Stop being such a drama queen.
Easy to say for someone who, from as early as next Friday, may not be affected by EU legislation anymore.
JLAmber wrote:Even if the EU Copyright Directive passes we would still receive a 'take down' or 'take down and stay down' notification from any party claiming copyright infringement before any action is taken. Though the German interpretation of this is somewhat ambiguous, almost all EU countries give 48 hours to take any such material down before there are any legal ramifications.
The German interpretation is highly ambiguous, indeed. The practice here is that a cease-and-desist lawyer (and that's a whole industry these days) will send you that take down notice, along with a ~€600 bill. And if you don't sign that c&d note *and* pay his bill, he can take you to court immediately.
And that's the big issue with the whole directive. It leaves a ton of practical questions open. Which means the cease-and-desist lawyers will have a field day.
JLAmber wrote:Article 11 is simply a piece of existing German law proposed to be woven into EU law as part of the new directives.
Not exactly. It is something certain German lobbyists tried to establish for years already, but never fully succeeded. Now they try to take the EU approach.
JLAmber wrote:Some of whom pay to use our site - they would have to be compensated. Then you have the issue of our EU uploaders who would forfeit control of their own copyright images, which in itself would be a breach of the directive. Of course there's also the issue of labour and services obtained under false pretenses from contributors who had no idea their time using the site was to be limited through no fault of their own...
Of course none of this will happen because there's a whiff of wannabe politician trying to get us to sign their petition about the whole thread. In reality we may have to change our T&Cs and tighten up moderation a little. The Daily might be an issue but I know three of our regular sources aren't averse to content sharing agreements, so even that would be little more than a small paperwork issue to resolve.
Again, not exactly. How do we ensure that nothing a user uploads violates any copyright? Because we will then be required by law to do so. No T&C will change that. An exception will be made for sites that are younger than 3 years, or operate on a fully non-commercial basis. None of which applies to us. We are older, and while the site doesn't make any money, we do sell memberships.
So yes, indeed, one other option to be on the safe side would be to give up selling memberships and remove the few remaining ads. Then we'd be non-commercial.
Either way, nothing will happen overnight. Even if the directive passes, it still needs to be transformed into national law, which will take a long time. So no, there won't be a block screen showing up from one day to the next.
But how many US sites were (and still are) geo-blocked in the EU after the GDPR passed? And that was a pretty mild regulation, and even made sense in large parts.
And finally, if all this is just a little local drama-queening, then why did the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights' office last week urge the EU to not pass this legislation as it is not in line with international standards on freedom of expression, and violates international human rights standards?
https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pag ... wsID=24298That's something I wouldn't dismiss so easily.
This new legislation does a lot more than requiring a few tweaks to a site's terms and conditions. It creates a lot of uncertainties for owners of websites that allow users to upload text, photos, audio or video material.
It doesn't solve one problem, but it creates a thousand new ones. That's why almost all experts on internet law strongly urge the EU parliament to not pass the directive.
Ideology: The mistaken belief that your beliefs are neither beliefs nor mistaken.