Tag: copyright

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Doing this online is a neighbouring right in the new EU Copyright Directive. Photo by Alper, license CC BY

A move that surprises absolutely no one: Google won’t pay French publishers for snippets. France is the first EU country to transcribe the new EU Copyright Directive into law. This directive contains a new neighbouring right that says if you link to something with a snippet of that link’s content (e.g. a news link, with the first paragraph of the news item), you need to seek permission to do so, and that permission may come with a charge. This in the run-up to the directive was dubbed the ‘link tax’, although that falsely suggests it concerns any type of hyperlinking.
Google, not wanting to pay publishers for the right to use snippets with their links, will stop using snippets with those links.

Photo by Nicolas Alejandro, license CC BY

Ironically the link at the top is to a publisher, Axel Springer, that lobbied intensively for the EU Copyright Directive to contain this neighbouring right. Axel Springer is also why we knew with certainty up front this part of the Copyright Directive would fail. Years ago (2013) Germany, after lobbying by the same Axel Springer publishing house, created this same neighbouring right in their copyright law. Google refused to buy a license and stopped using snippets. Axel Springer saw its traffic from search results drop by 40%, others by 80%. They soon caved and provided Google with a free of charge license, to recoup some of the traffic to their sites.

Photo by CiaoHo, license CC BY

This element of the law failed in Germany, it failed in Spain in 2015 as well. Axel Springer far from being discouraged however touted this as proof that Google needed to be regulated, and continued lobbying for the same provision to be included in the EU Copyright Directive. With success, despite everyone else explaining how it wouldn’t work there either. It really comes at no surprise therefore that now the Copyright Directive will come into force in French law, it has the exact same effect. Wait for French publishers to not exercise their new neighbouring rights in 3, 2, 1…

Photo by The JH Photography, license CC BY

News publishers have problems, I agree. Extorting anyone linking to them is no way to save their business model though (dropping toxic adtech however might actually help). It will simply mean less effective links to them, resulting in less traffic, in turn resulting in even less advert revenue for them (a loss exceeding any revenue they might hope to get from link snippet licenses). This does not demonstrate the monopoly of Google (though I don’t deny its real dominance), it demonstrates that you can’t have cake and eat it (determining how others link to you and get paid for it, but keep all your traffic as is), and it doesn’t change that news as a format is toast.

Photo by Willy Verhulst, license CC BY ND

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A project I’m involved has won funding from the SIDN Fund. SIDN is the Dutch domain name authority, and they run a fund to promote, innovate, and stimulate internet use, to build a ‘stronger internet for all’.
With the Open Nederland association, the collective of makers behind the Dutch Creative Commons Chapter, of which I’m a board member, we received funding for our new project “Filter me niet!” (Don’t filter me.)

With the new EU Copyright Directive, the position of copyrights holders is in flux the coming two years. Online platforms will be responsible for ensuring copyrights on content you upload. In practice this will mean that YouTube, Facebook, and all those other platforms will filter out content where they have doubts concerning origin, license or metadata. For makers this is a direct threat, as they run the risk of seeing their uploads blocked even while they clearly hold the needed copyright. False positives are already a very common phenomenon, and this will likely get worse.

With Filtermeniet.nl (Don’t filter me) we want to aid makers that want to upload their work, by inserting a bit of advice and assistance right when they want to hit that upload button. We’ll create a tool, guide and information source for Dutch media makers, through which they can declare the license that fits them best, as well as improve metadata. In order to lower the risk of being automatically filtered out for the wrong reasons.

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As of today it is final: the new EU copyright directive has been adopted (ht Julia Reda). I am pleased to see my government voted against, as it has in earlier stages, and as my MEPs did. Sadly it hasn’t been enough to cut Article 11 and 13, despite the mountain of evidence and protests against both articles. It is interesting and odd to see both Spain and Germany vote in favour, given the failure of their respective laws on which Article 11 is based, and the German government coalition parties stated position of being against content filters (i.e. Article 13).

Over the next two years it is important to track the legislative efforts in Member States implementing this Directive. Countries that voted against or abstained will try to find the most meaningless implementation of both Articles 11 and 13, and will be emphasising the useful bits in other parts of the Directive I suspect, while subjected to intense lobbying efforts both for and against. The resulting differences in interpretation across MS will be of interest. Also looking forward to following the court challenges that will undoubtedly result.

In the mean time, you as an internet-citizen have two more years to build and extend your path away from the silos where Article 11 and 13 will be an obstacle to you. Run your own stuff, decentralise and federate. Walkaway from the big platforms. But most of all, interact with creators and makers directly. Both when it comes to re-using or building on their creations, as when it comes to supporting them. Article 11 and 13 will not bring any creator any new revenue, dominant entertainment industry mediators are the ones set to profit from rent seeking. Vote with your feet and wallet.

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Sadly both the controversial Article 11 and 13 of the new EU Copyright Directive have been approved by the EU Parliament, despite strong criticism also from those content creators it is supposed to protect. Later this year a vote on the final proposal will take place, after the European parliament, the EU Commission and the Council (the national leaders) have worked out a common text. German MEP Julia Reda, like Dutch MEP Marietje Schaake, has stood against these proposals for a long time, and she blogs about the result.

I’ve mailed all Dutch MEPs ahead of the votes taking place last July, but only the ones that agree with my views ever write back. No argumentation of those in favour.

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This is a multi-part story about the themes I picked up at the Reboot 8 conference in Copenhagen, June 1st and 2nd.

Privacy and Ownership
Without wanting everything to be free (as in both beer and in speech), or everything to be protected under exclusive rights, it is still possible to think about whether the systems we use are really helping us in achieving what we need. And that we can do something to make those systems better tools for us.
Without wanting everybody to know everything, or wanting to hide everything from everybody it is still possible to discuss the nature of privacy.

That privacy is not the place where you can be on your own without anyone knowing what you are doing, that is merely solitude. That privacy is the gift you receive from others when you are in that grey zone where you are in the public space but somewhat withdrawn from it in your own space. When we visited the Illum department store on Saturday there was a couple kissing while riding down the escalators. People looked elsewhere, or merely smiled when they saw. We gave them their privacy.

Privacy is not a place seperate from the commons, it is something right inside the commons that I can give you and you can give me. We really know that already in our hearts, otherwise we wouldn’t say “can you give me some privacy?” on occasion. It’s not ours to take, it is ours to give, asked or unasked.

Privacy and copyright are in that sense also similar to me: copyright is not an exlusive right of me on my writings to keep it from you. It is a gift from the commons to the author so that he may have enough time to gain back the money and energy he spent on creating it. If you want to exclude others, keep it in your drawer; the copyright’s equivalent of solitude in the case of privacy.

All parts in this story:
I Renaissance
II Diversity
III Good Enough
IV Privacy and Ownership
V Relationships, Visualization, Contactivity

Photo’s: Privacy in Public by Susan NYC, license CC BY, Privacy Eroding by Fred Armitage, license CC BY NC SA.