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Hello, my name is Henrik Jönsson.
I am an independent libertarian entrepreneur and political commentator.
Today, I am in SPAIN.
Spain is a EU country which has suffered brutally under a law designed to regulate the internet.
A few days ago, the EU Legislative committee passed a bill to make a similar law EU-wide.
Sounds stupid? It is stupid! Stay tuned, and I’ll explain why.
Politicians will tell you they love the internet.
They just don’t like it in its present form, how its works and what people are doing on it.
On June 20th, the EU legislative committee gave its thumbs up to the new European Copyright Directive, the EUCD.
The EUCD is meant to protect copyright holders online, and old-style media and publishing houses specifically.
The problem is that the law does not do what it is intended to, but it has all sorts of bizarre consequences.
The two main articles of the EUCD which have been criticized, are:
Article 11, the so called “link-tax” or “the snippet tax”
Secondly: Article 13, or as I like to call it “the war on memes”
demands that large websites hence forward should use "content recognition technologies" to scan for
copyrighted videos, music, photos, text and code and block them from being uploaded within the EU.
Supporters of article 13, who often point to YouTube already using a similar kind of filter
fail to understand the economies of scale at work here:
YouTube is a global billion-dollar organisation, and it’s filters are backed up with an army of moderators manually checking flagged issues.
There are no filters capable of automatically understanding the difference between
a parody, a remix, a meme - and criminal copyright infringement.
The creative remixing of material is a core part of contemporary net culture
and falls under the benevolent general rule of “derivative content” and “fair use” which for instance, lets me do this:
"Only now, at the end do you understand..."
If a hard filter without moderation was put in place, you might not even be able to upload a photo from your smartphone
because a friend of yours was wearing a T-shirt with a corporate brand on it.
Let alone publish any memes.
Article 11 is designed to counteract the power over publishers that Google, Facebook and Twitter have gained in recent years.
It holds a new copyright rule for linking to news organizations and quoting text from their stories.
Online platforms will have to pay for a license to link out to news publishers
even a thumbnail preview or a short quote from a copyrighted news story will face licensing fees.
Traditional media has struggled to adapt to the digital age.
25 years ago, being a news paper meant being an information hub.
Everything from movie reviews and horoscopes to the latest news and analysis was aggregated under the umbrella of the publishers organisations.
This business model, like the phonebook, is not compatible with a society that runs on the internet.
Ad revenues have been falling for decades, as people turn away from newspapers and instead rely on specialized resources online.
The main problem with Article 11, aside from striking at the core of what the internet IS, is that
IT WON’T SAVE THE PUBLISHERS.
Laws similar to the one just passed by the legal committee have already been tried in both Germany and here in Spain
with disastrous, counterproductive results, simply down to the fact that nobody pays the tax
everyone just stops linking to news stories by publishers instead.
Think of it as a massive new paywall. It just filters out 98% of the traffic, and people turn to un-regulated news sources instead.
So why are they moving forward with Article 11 anyway?
It is a desperate measure to maintain the established power structures and privileges of mass-communication
that has underpinned european politics for a hundred years.
For all the talk of democracy and celebrating the usefulness of the internet, this is part of a bigger pattern
a desire to control information.
To the ruling classes, the capacity of the people to turn away from the establishment and its narrative is a huge problem.
In France, Deputies in the National Assembly are considering two new proposals put forward by Macron's party
La République En Marche, which will allow judges to close down or block websites that are ruled to be disseminating fake news.
For instance, under the new law, they will be able to pass judgments within 48 hours as to whether "false information" warrants a website closed down.
"These blocks are under arrest!"
In Sweden, parliament earlier this year tried to pass far reaching constitutional changes
designed to limit access to sensitive information only to journalists deemed “serious” by the government.
The constitutional changes were voted down at the last minute, due to an online uproar.
The changes had up until then scarcely been mentioned by established Swedish media.
As if this wasn’t enough, this spring saw a massive campaign from several major newspapers
asking for regulation of what kind of content Google should be allowed to refer to.
Eventually Google caved in, and they are now deploying a “Swedish Google”
which carries some of the filtering mechanisms used in other great democracies
like Saudi Arabia, Nepal and China.
The Publishing houses and state run media also recently formed a new tax financed organisation
aimed at counteracting what they label “alternative media”.
Taken together, it would appear obvious that we are witnessing a power struggle
between net culture and the traditional establishment, between new and old forms of media power.
Technological advancement tends to be unstoppable over time
but it is unwise to underestimate the delays and economic damage the defenders of the old might inflict the internet
during the final stages of their battle to maintain dominance.
"Shake with your right hand, but hold a rock with your left." during the final stages of their battle to maintain dominance.
"Shake with your right hand, but hold a rock with your left."
A case in point is the bizzarre implementation of the other major EU internet regulation
the General Data Protection Regulation - GDPR.
"GDPR"
"You must be careful to be GDPR compliant" "GDPR"
"You must be careful to be GDPR compliant"
Designed to protect the privacy of the user, many websites from outside the EU now look like this:
This ought to be considered throwing out the baby with the bathwater. “We’re protecting your data.
And limiting your access to data.”
An overbearing lesson I learned by doing research on the EUCD for this video, is the bureaucratic inaccessibility of conclusive information.
There is little information accessible to laymen on where proposals like these are designed, how they are reviewed and where they are voted upon.
There is even less information on how they can be stopped.
"Is there anything the voters can do to get rid of this treatise?"
"...in a democracy?"
"In a democracy, then you listen to the concerns, and you see: is there anything we can do?"
The net is rife with contradictory information, even from very reputable sources on when, where and even IF there will be another vote.
At the same time, politicians worry about the “democratic deficit” in EU institutions
and bemoan a lack of popular interest in EU proceedings.
To those worrying about a democratic deficit in the EU
it would seem appropriate to suggest beginning by not banning memes and links on the internet?
I would like to conclude this video by urging those of you living in Europe
to approach your local EU representative on how to best voice your concerns for the vote in the European Parliament this fall.
Article 11 and Article 13 make no sense, and should not be passed.
Do you think a free and unregulated internet is an important democratic institution worth protecting?
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and please leave your views on the matter in the comment section down below. I appreciate all respectful commentary.
If you appreciate my videos, please feel free to support me using Patreon.
There is a link for that purpose down in the description below.
I’m Henrik Jönsson. Thank you for watching this video.