After Insisting That EU Copyright Directive Didn't Require Filters, France Immediately Starts Promoting Filters
from the because-of-course dept
For months now we’ve all heard the refrain: Article 13 (now Article 17) of the EU Copyright Directive would not require filters. We all knew it was untrue. We pointed out many times that it was untrue, and that there was literally no way to comply unless you implemented filters (filters that wouldn’t work and would ban legitimate speech), and were yelled at for pointing this out. Here’s the MEP in charge of the Directive flat out insisting that it won’t require filters last year:
Over and over and over again, this is what they insisted. Of course, we all knew it wasn’t true, and the German government quietly admitted that filters were necessary a few weeks ago. That didn’t stop the vote from happening, of course, and the Parliament questionably moving forward with this plan. Still, it’s rather striking that just a day after the vote, as pointed out to us by Benjamin Henrion, France’s Minister for Culture gave a speech in which he admits that it requires filters and hopes that France will implement the law as quickly as possible in order to start locking down the internet. The quotes here are based on Google translate, so they may not be perfect, but you get the idea. Incredibly, in talking about the Directive, Riester starts off by saying that the passing of the Directive was “despite massive campaigns of misinformation” which seems rather ironic, since it’s now clear the misinformation came from those who insisted it didn’t require filters, because soon after that he says:
I also announce that the Higher Council of Literary and Artistic Property, the HADOPI and the CNC will jointly launch in the coming days a “Mission to promote and supervise content recognition technologies”.
In other words, now that the law is passed, it’s time for everyone to install filters.
Riester also suggests that France may be the first to transpose the Directive into French law, meaning that it may be implemented long before required under the Directive. As he said: “there is no time to lose on this subject.” If you’re a site that has any user-generated content in France, good luck. Your government just sold you out. Of course, if you’re a company selling filters, I guess send your lobbyists over to Paris quick and cash in.
Filed Under: article 13, copyright, eu copyright directive, filters, france, franck riester, minister of culture
Comments on “After Insisting That EU Copyright Directive Didn't Require Filters, France Immediately Starts Promoting Filters”
Filters are censorship
It’s a trainwreck but I can’t stop wondering how bad it will get before it is over.
What is left after linking, file transfers, and uploads are all banned?
Re: Filters are censorship
When alcohol was banned, it didn’t stop the consumption of alcohol. The consumers wanted their stuff, so they got it. Being labeled criminal didn’t matter much, it was obvious the law was insane.
The newest incarnation of insanity (EU copyright directive) will have similar effect. The pirate bays, getting ever emptier, will once again appear to be the great new heaven to escape from the insanity. I.e. one operator of the piracy function deterioated much, thus tipping the result in favor of piracy.
Re: Re: Filters are censorship
Agreed, this plan is how to cause more piracy, not less.
Re: Re: Filters are censorship
Except you can’t get around this law like you can others. If the thing that is impacted is publishing information on the public internet, then going underground with that to somewhere the public can’t see it defeats the purpose. Piracy was never going to be affected by this law and is a red herring.
Re: Re: Re: Filters are censorship
"If the thing that is impacted is publishing information on the public internet, then going underground with that to somewhere the public can’t see it defeats the purpose. Piracy was never going to be affected by this law and is a red herring."
Not according to the public portrayal of the legislation – from the lobbyists backing it.
The reality is what we just discussed – legitimate venues will become conspicuously inconvenient to use, rolling us right back to the 1990’s where piracy was the be-all, end-all of obtaining entertainment.
"Except you can’t get around this law like you can others."
The point is that you can – much as it was with prohibition there is a demand which will be met. The law will make so much of normal legitimate online interactions so odious the default will become circumvention from the consumer side.
Re: Re: Re:2 Filters are censorship
OK, let’s pretend we’re in Europe (maybe you are I have no idea) and TechDirt is a European web site. TD doesn’t have the money to implement filters or risk gigantic fines, so they close down the comments on their articles. How do we get around the law to continue publicly discussing TD’s content?
Re: Re: Re:3 Filters are censorship
Facebook, who will pay all the license fees for all content that has ever existed or will exist. You will find the correct FB page by searching using Google, who will pay all the license fees for all content that has ever existed or will exist.
Now everyone is happy, see! Win-win
Re: Re: Re:4 'Just a couple of licenses, what's the big deal?'
And the sad/messed up thing is, there exist people who would read what you wrote, take it as serious, and ask in turn, ‘Yeah, what’s the problem with that?’
Re: Re: Re:3 Filters are censorship
"How do we get around the law to continue publicly discussing TD’s content?"
We use a VPN and set the entrance node to the US or Canada. The burden will be on TD – which would take no legal risks being open to Canadian or US commenters as long as Mike geoblocks the hell out of any ip address currently registering as european.
That puts TD in the clear.
And we are in the clear since it would be a truly dreadful law which required individuals to not travel or communicate across national boundaries.
Re: Re: Re:4 Filters are censorship
The VPN idea sounds great, but would it really get around the law? Common sense says "of course a web site can’t be held liable for not knowing a VPN user is in Europe" but who wants to bet the future of their business on the intersection of European law and common sense? Does the article specify that the penalties don’t apply to VPN users? I don’t remember seeing anything about that, and I’ve read it. I can easily see a prosecutor setting up a demonstration for a judge involving unlicensed copyrighted material accessed from Europe via a VPN, followed by massive fines.
Re: Re: Re:5 Filters are censorship
"Common sense says "of course a web site can’t be held liable for not knowing a VPN user is in Europe" but who wants to bet the future of their business on the intersection of European law and common sense?"
Actually it’s pretty clear cut that a lawyer will say the same.
Because the terrible thing is that if that liability exists then american citizens and companies will similarly have to be held liable under the very european article 13.
"Does the article specify that the penalties don’t apply to VPN users?"
The law doesn’t specify the user at all. It targets the platform. It also only applies to the platform being forced by law to implement extremely stringent filtering under EU law.
So unless they radically rewrite and amend the entire directive to include user liability the user and VPN do not come into this equation. Should the directive be so amended it’s pretty clear that’s a violation of the EU charter and the directive will fall due to the ECJ, the same way the data retention directive did.
"I can easily see a prosecutor setting up a demonstration for a judge involving unlicensed copyrighted material accessed from Europe via a VPN, followed by massive fines."
At which point, if the platform is american, it asks why there were no takedown requests, gains safe harbor, and the case dies.
Or if it was a european platform, the platform dies because there is no excuse.
So the argument still stands; If a european citizen accesses a US-based platform from a US exit node then there is no issue. If the EU citizen uploads material to youtube(US) there is no issue, if the material in question survives takedown processes.
If the european tries to access youtube from the EU pot odds are he won’t be able to upload – or view – anything on it.
Re: Re: Re:6 Filters are censorship
So it sounds like we agree: non-massive EU platforms will not be able to afford hosting user content.
Re: Filters are censorship
Shopping and cable T.V. Meanwhile brush up your letter writing skills as letters may replace email and blogs, and grab any Roneo machines you see, as they are cheaper than Laser printers for pamphlet printing.
Re: Re: Filters are censorship
Is this directive specifically about the Internet? Because I can see Minitel making a comeback in France if that’s the case.
Re: Filters are censorship
VPNs 🙂
Re: Re: Filters are censorship
VPNs 🙂
Already criminal in two major kleptocracies. And anything Russia does, Trump wants to do as well. Ban VPNs, jail journalists, arrest dissidents.
Re: Re: Re: Filters are censorship
Iibtard conspiracy fa66ot detected
Re: Re: Filters are censorship
How long before using a VPN is illegal in the EU?
Re: Filters are censorship
"What is left after linking, file transfers, and uploads are all banned?"
Everything.
Just not legitimately.
There’s a massive motivation on all levels of society as a whole to utilize the internet to capacity and so it will be utilized. The same tools currently used by filesharers and the security-conscious will be used as the default by everyone since, at least as far as the EU is concerned, the open network will be a barren wasteland only populated by gatekeeper corporations.
We’ve seen this before, and it always ends up the same – as a damning reminder that no communications technology will ever be subject to meaningful and effective regulation.
Re: Filters are censorship
At least there will be a lot of spare bandwidth.
Re: Re: Filters are censorship
"At least there will be a lot of spare bandwidth."
Not really. The EU-zone will be a wasteland but the network backbone will be working overtime with all the citizenry running tunnels to their preferred choice of VPN node, multi-channel onion routing from Tor and Tribler…etc, etc.
When choosing filters
i recommend charcoal activated and/or hepa filters. They should work to remove all the nasty bits…right?
As usual...
[Insert France surrenders joke here]
Re: As usual...
Excuse me that’s a meme which are disallowed under the directive. I’m going to have ask you to remove it.
Re: Top of the hour
Thousands of French citizens crossed the channel into Britain today in an exodus not seen since the Second World War…
the whole aim has and always will be to enhance the control of everything and everyone, everywhere by the entertainment industries! when even the timing and order of the vote for this despicable law had to be suddenly changed, just so it would be voted in, it shows how bad it is and how desperate those who wanted it brought in were to get it so! it doesn’t excuse those MEPs who are now crying that they didn’t realise what they were voting on. they are supposed to be intelligent people, in charge of ensuring the public dont get screwed. when they cant be bothered to pay enough attention to what is happening and then vote ‘the wrong way on the wrong topic’, we know we’re in deep shit! i still cant help but wonder if these people are in fact just trying to cry wolf in a vain attempt to keep their jobs when the MEPs are voted into place in a few weeks time, and knew all along what they were voting for but now, as in the time honored fashion of the lying assholes who are politicians, cant even grow a pair and admit what they have done!!
Re: Re:
So when the order of the vote was changed, WHICH groups were notified of the change (to make them ‘not confused’ when they voted) and by WHOM? This is the real question that should be asked, not that there would be an actual answer, but I’m sure we know…
Those who wanted to lock down the internet were notified by their owners (aka lobbiests) as to the change in the vote order…
Litmus test..
If France is quick enough to enact the laws well get quite a good litmus test how much of train-wreck it’s going to be.
And for some reason I can only think of the old google-search meme for french military victories whereupon google responded Did you mean: french military defeats
Is...
…France geoblocked by google and facebook yet?
Re: Is...
Not yet, but the needed code is already written and set to be used as soon as it’s needed.
Re: Re: Is...
"but the needed code is already written and set to be used as soon as it’s needed."
You mean the one-line script which adds european domains to the dmca blacklist? Not much of a job to write. Google and YT can implement that one in five minutes, from the second they get the goahead to roll it into the production stack.
Or, you know, don’t. Because when your filters fail to prevent anything from being posted and the company who bought your filters gets a hefty fine guess who is going to get sued to cover the costs of that fine?
The EU has forced every company that hosts user-generated content to reinvent filtering on their own, go out of business or block the EU (until everywhere else adopts the EU’s idiocy).
Re: Re:
That’s what indemnification clauses are for.
Re: Re: Re:
"That’s what indemnification clauses are for."
I believe indemnification is not going to be a valid part of this. The platform trying to buy that expensive filter will remain liable since article 13 (17) does not care about the means, only the result.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
It’ll protect the filter company though.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
"It’ll protect the filter company though."
It certainly will. There’s at least one snake oil salesman waiting in the wings who was backing article 13(17) for all they were worth.
Snake oil is snake oil though. As the filter needs to be 100% correct in not allowing infringing material, and that’s very far from what content id (the best filter currently in existence) can provide, it’s pretty much a given that there will be numerous actors pushing relatively cheap and non-functional solutions onto platforms dumb enough to trust them.
After which one copyright troll will suffice to put that platform out of business.
This leaves any platform which wants to do business in the EU and has an accurate assessment of reality with one of two options; Spending 100 million USD on filter development, or buy a license to use contentid (arguably almost as expensive).
Pretty much given it takes exactly one five minute cost-benefit analysis to come up with the conclusion that doing business in the EU isn’t profitable at all.
Youtube, with a filter already paid for and developed, can risk it – but will have to tighten filtering paradigm by a lot, as the current operation still results in takedowns. Service will turn to shit in any nation to implement the directive, effective immediately.
France has historically led the march into incredibly bad decisions where immaterial rights are concerned and this time around promises to be no different. Vive la France
Re: Re: Re: Re:
I was replying to someone saying the buyer of the filter will sue the seller of the filter. The buyer will not be able to (successfully) sue the seller for any failures because the seller will require indemnification in the sale contract.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
"The buyer will not be able to (successfully) sue the seller for any failures because the seller will require indemnification in the sale contract."
Mea maxima culpa.
Possible. There are a few provisions under EU common consumer protection law which tend to override contracted indemnification. Some protections you can’t sign away.
Although I do believe you can do so with damage claims and 3rd party responsibility.
Yes France, please get your law passed soon, I wanna laugh at Masnick when the internet doesn’t break for anyone except Google’s accountants.
Re: Top of the hour
and the lord said unto John:
Ask and yes shall receive.
And then It became really hard for John to find anything After amazon left as well lol
Re: Re: Top of the hour
The Lord said to come forth and receive everlasting life.
John sadly came in fifth and just got a toaster.
Re: Re: Re: Top of the hour
And alas even the toaster was unable to be delivered.
For even the delivery company relied on the internet so much.
Re: Re: Re:2 Top of the hour
Google Maps no longer allows searching for addresses in France. 😛
Re: Re: Re:3 Top of the hour
And Jhon lamented and rent his little remaining hair and said unto the lord. “Why has thou forsaken me and rendered me as fertile as the desert. And why lord do the children of Israel flock upon my manicured garden. And I yell and yell, “You must leave children of Israel for this is my manicured garden.” And they remain as unmoving as Lots wife.”
Re: Re: Re:3 Top of the hour
and a plague of paper maps returned to the land…
And and the pharaohs of parliament wailed. For they had gotten so used to it….
Re: Re: Re:3 Top of the hour
"Google Maps no longer allows searching for addresses in France. :P"
And so it begins.
Of course, with a search requester outside of france, business currently continues as usual.
Re: Re: Re:4 Top of the hour
Torrentfreak with the scoop:
https://torrentfreak.com/france-plans-to-add-article-13-in-new-anti-piracy-law-this-summer-190329/
Re: Re:
Remember now, any ONE site or person negatively affected by this law OTHER than Google will prove you wrong. And when that happens, you can bet we’ll be laughing at you for quite some time.
Re: Re: Re:
FTFY
Re: Re:
Pratt.
I still don’t get why the rest of the world needs to worry about this. Unless you have a physical presence in France/EU, you’re not subject to this idiocy.
If, for example, I’m a dung beetle enthusiast living in Alabama and I create a website celebrating dung beetles in all their glory, with a discussion forum and a gallery where people can upload their favorite dung beetle photos and songs they’ve written praising the mighty poop bug, I don’t care if some of the fans who participate on my site are in France or not. I’m a U.S. citizen, in the U.S., with no physical presence in France, and therefore not subject to French (or EU) law. I sure as hell don’t have to pre-filter and/or license every comment and file that’s uploaded to my forum.
If France doesn’t like how I’m running my site, France can block access to my site from within France but that’s the sum total of their recourse against me.
Meanwhile, I’ll continue to run my dung beetle wiki the same as I always have. All hail the beetle!
Re: Re:
All well and good until you travel to a country willing to extradite you to France. You could ask Huewei about how that works.
Re: Re: Re:
Or your ISP has presence in France. And the French foreign army is quite famous. The terrain in Alabama isn’t that much more difficult than in Africa.
Re: Re: Re:
I may be mistaken, but these new rules only impose civil liability, not criminal liability.
You don’t get extradited for civil complaints and lawsuits.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
tell that to kim dotcom
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
Irrelevant. He was charged criminally, not civilly.
Re: Damn dung beetles
And then one day you travel to France and they decide to jail you because of something on your site.
Like that would never happen to anyone, ever.
Re: Re: Damn dung beetles
and that the bastards even admitted they wanted this to be a test run for other parts of the world by example, So you know the same ones that bribed them are already handing out silver to everyone else to get similar results.
Re: Re:
Until lobbyists start holding up the EU model as the end goal and request changes hamonising laws in other countries.
Re: Re:
"I’m a U.S. citizen, in the U.S., with no physical presence in France, and therefore not subject to French (or EU) law. I sure as hell don’t have to pre-filter and/or license every comment and file that’s uploaded to my forum."
Here’s the issue in a nutshell – no one from using a european ip address will be able to get your webpage through any search result. So unless all your fans come in from europe through word of mouth and manually sent-out URL’s, you won’t get european visitors oohing and aahing over your mighty celebrated low-grade scarabees.
And that’s how the EU’s hamfisted shit-show will impact your readership of poop bug enthusiasts.
Re: Re:
between China and the EU, they can already set a very censorious standard for the web that American lefty Big Tech will be rather happy to follow.
Not just the EU
What I don’t understand is how, legally and practically, this won’t also apply to users everywhere in the world. Sure the Facebooks of the world can implement geofencing. However, geo-fencing is not 100% accurate and do they want to take on the legal liability of that risk? What if an EU user posts to .com instead of .fr? Don’t you think that France would haul that company into court especially if they have a presence there? We all know filtering sucks so how many companies will just prohibit posting because it raises too much of a legal risk? Also, practically speaking, do they want to spend the money to have two development teams building two different products?
I’m a glass half-empty person but I think non-EU users should be worried about this.
Re: Not just the EU
I am sure they are, however, from the outside the issues are different than from the inside. The idea that sovereignty’s can enforce their rules anywhere that is not their sovereignty is something that will come under greater and greater scrutiny as more and more bully’s try to impose their will.
Unfortunately there will be some deep hurt to those that become the test cases, in the beginning. Also, unfortunately there will be no holding those bully’s accountable for their misbehavior prior to being told in no uncertain terms that they don’t have standing to enforce rules outside their jurisdiction.
Correct in the most grossly dishonest of ways
Incredibly, in talking about the Directive, Riester starts off by saying that the passing of the Directive was "despite massive campaigns of misinformation"
Why yes, those pushing for and supporting the articles did do nothing but lie the entire time, how nice of you to notice.
The real goal.
Very convenient. New censorship, just when the army is shooting at people in yellow vests. You’ll see they declare protests to be a sporting event covered by the new copyright declared in the same directive.
Re: The real goal.
But let’s be optimistic: if France introduces this law fast enough, it breaks down before it’s implemented in other countries.
If i was an artist i,d do a cartoon,
in the middle is a giant robot,
with dozens of arms,
crushing ants or small creatures .
The robot is the eu commission, the ants are small artists,
creators whose freedom is now almost gone.
They have the choice of signing up with old legacy companys or else face having most of their content blocked in the eu.
The eu web will be ruled by filters and bots which will likely
block most content uploaded by users
or mainly only allow content licensed by sony, fox, cbs etc
which is properly licensed .
Maybe the council for liberty can explain how this magic filter can work ,it ,ll block all illegal content,
while allowing uploads that are reviews, parodys, fair use ,
commentary .
And explain how small websites that do not have millions
to install filters will not shutdown,
eu countrys have 2 years to bring in laws to follow the
directive.
Each country could have slightly different laws ,
depending on how they choose to follow the directive
based on their constitution.
There should be a sign in front the eu commision.
Artists, creators, welcome your robotic overlords.
Content filters,algorithm,s ,bots .
Re: Re:
Please stop with the line breaks. Use the preview button, and consider if that looks like something you would like to read. Here is your comment formatted more reasonably:
If i was an artist i,d do a cartoon, in the middle is a giant robot, with dozens of arms, crushing ants or small creatures. The robot is the eu commission, the ants are small artists, creators whose freedom is now almost gone. They have the choice of signing up with old legacy companys or else face having most of their content blocked in the eu. The eu web will be ruled by filters and bots which will likely block most content uploaded by users
or mainly only allow content licensed by sony, fox, cbs etc which is properly licensed.
Maybe the council for liberty can explain how this magic filter can work ,it ,ll block all illegal content, while allowing uploads that are reviews, parodys, fair use, commentary. And explain how small websites that do not have millions to install filters will not shutdown, eu countrys have 2 years to bring in laws to follow the directive. Each country could have slightly different laws, depending on how they choose to follow the directive based on their constitution. There should be a sign in front the eu commision. Artists, creators, welcome your robotic overlords. Content filters,algorithm,s ,bots .
See how much more readable that is? I mean it still has many serious problems, but it’s much better, and actually easier to do that way.
Re: Re: Re:
Quoting my previous post about this anon:
Re: Re: Re: Re:
I believe the poster in question is trying to hack his poem out in some form of pentameter. Poetry wastes a lot of space in return for readability.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
Aside from the strange line-breaks and spacing it looks like he is using a keyboard that doesn’t have SHIFT + <key> letters or symbols. Notice the lack of any characters you can get by pressing SHIFT + 0-9.
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
True enough. That explains all the "," instead of " ‘ ".
Re: Re: Re:4 Re:
…I don’t claim to be knowledgeable about all the various international keyboard layouts, but on a standard US keyboard layout the apostrophe doesn’t require Shift.
What did the French said, actually? please ?
After being flabbergasted by this report of such brazen act of public promotion of the filters a.k.a algorithmic measures by French minister ->
-> I thought I will smack that text of the French over the head of our MEP who was trying to assure us, that filters are just fake news.
-> So I needed to find it in the actual text of the French… and I am flabbergasted again. Is it really there?
I did use machine translation into english though. It is rather good and intelligible – it might have shifted meaning somewhere though?
Where is it? What exactly was he trying to say in what contrxt? PLEASE!?
Re: What did the French said, actually? please ?
You mean Masnick lied… again?
I’m simply shocked!
Re: Re: What did the French said, actually? please ?
How’s that Paul Hansmeier defense fund coming along, broskis?
Re: Re: What did the French said, actually? please ?
Please provide a list of all instances of where Mike has lied with an explanation for each instance why it is a lie plus facts to back up that assertion.
Saying that someone is lying with backing it up is the stupid cowards approach to discourse.
Re: Re: What did the French said, actually? please ?
"You mean Masnick lied… again?"
False claim. And a straw man. Well done, Baghdad Bob, two falsehoods for the price of one line.
As you can see below Mike’s assertion remains correct.
Re: What the hay is this
Nice try.
https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/054/069/936.jpg
Re: What did the French said, actually? please ?
Here: ‘I also announce that the Higher Council of Literary and Artistic Property, the HADOPI and the CNC will jointly launch in the coming days a "Mission to promote and supervise content recognition technologies".’
"Content recognition technologies" means content filters.
Re: Re: What did the French said, actually? please ?
Well, if you want to play semantics, content identification is not the filter, as it only identifies content so that further action can be taken if needed by human or automatic means, the latter being a filter.
Re: Re: Re: What did the French said, actually? please ?
"Content recognition technology" is indeed a filter by every definition.
When it starts banning uploads it becomes an applied filter.
A wheel does not stop being a wheel just because it currently isn’t revolving.
The masks are coming off, and their face is as demonic and subhuman as imagined.
BANNING MEMES
"i somewhere hear that EU is banning MeMes?"
Not outright.
Article 13(17) just demands that any copyrighted work is automatically disallowed from being uploaded to online platforms.
The one and only way to do so is to use filtering technology.
And filtering technology will not see the difference between an infringing image or movie clip or one with a caption on it/otherwise in agreement with fair use, therefore quite a lot of memes will be banned in practice as the platforms won’t have a way to tell what is legal and what is not.
Re: BANNING MEMES
All works are copyrighted, unless in the public domain. Therefore no works under copyright can be uploaded, so here have another copy of Shakespear’s plays.
Re: Re: BANNING MEMES
"To be filtered, or not to be filtered… well, that’s a fucking dumb question."
Re: Re: BANNING MEMES
And you can’t wave copyright, so using copyleft stuff isn’t going to help.
Re: Re: BANNING MEMES
"All works are copyrighted, unless in the public domain. Therefore no works under copyright can be uploaded, so here have another copy of Shakespear’s plays."
The main difference bwteen pre-article 13(17) and post is this;
Today, before national implementation of the article, an uploader can post a derivative allowed under fair use legislation – memes, parodies, reviews, etc.
If a stakeholder finds there’s infringement they can demand a take-down. All the copyright trolls and automated takedown bots aside this does allow fair use to exist online.
Post national implementation of the article the platform can’t take the risk of allowing any possibly infringing upload. What used to be a takedown will be an immediate civil charge. So the upload of a captioned meme image or gif (humor/parody), or excerpt for review purposes, is hazardous and no one will risk it unless they have far greater faith in filtering tech than the actual filtering technology experts.
Also, Shakespeare’s works are public domain, but since books of those works have been published under copyright, the filter WILL trigger over shakespeare as well.
Killfile
Anything you all post already goes through a filter: my killfile.