Politics Thread - Ka-tet of 19

[Elerond]

 

 

EU has approved regulation to end memes!

 

Bad article tbh. The real vote is taking place on July 5th. Doubtful it'll actually pass, but if there's anything you can count on with M(E)Ps is their uncanny ability to **** things up against all odds. Hopefully this is just another step in the path to Itexit, Spexit, etc. and eventual EU crash and burn.

 

So, anyone have a good "dark web (cue ominous music) for dummies" primer?

I find it funny that both members of ENF, in the comitee, supported it and both members of ECR, in the comitee, voted null. As it was aproved with 14-9 vote, if anti-EU pro nationalist people would have actually voted according to what they preach it would have been rejected with 13-12 vote.

 

 

I don't think there are any memes that are copyrighted, though I guess some people could try to copyright them. Only problem is that some memes are so old that nobody remembers who first created it and even now, once a meme appears, it mutates and spreads faster than lightning. Sounds like something that would be impossible to actually manage properly.

 

Photos that memes use are usually copyrighted, so with this very nice directive creators of memes should ask permision to use those photos before they do and web services need to ensure that people who upload meme pictures have done so. And I repeat it is responsibility of web services to ensure that copyrights are followed before they let users to publish their things.

Edited July 3, 2018 by Elerond

[majestic]

It's not about copyrighting memes. Most memes are actually violations of European copyright laws because many (if not all of them, but I don't really know for sure) of them lack a fair use clause. This is one area where the US copyright is superior.

 

So while you creating a meme from an image of a source that falls under copyright protection (say a shot of DiCaprio from the Great Gatsby) is fair game because of fair use it would violate our copyright laws and would have to be filtered out.

 

That's why people call it the meme-killer law. It's not actually about memes but it easily illustrates the downsides of the proposed legislation. In reality it's about large online services (e.g. YouTube) cutting into traditional content mafia revenue streams. It's not much of a surprise that this regulation was spearheaded by Germany - seat of some of the largest newspaper and book publishers on the planet.

Edited July 3, 2018 by majestic

[Volourn]

Hmm... Germany all about power and control. Interesting...

[Guard Dog]

To all my fellow Americans, Happy Birthday! If you's like a good laugh, why not re-read the Declaration of Independence today? Particularly the actual grievances against George III and read them keeping in mind our last two Presidents

 

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners

 

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

 

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world

 

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent

 

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury

 

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us

 

  I thought we won that war!

[Keyrock]

Happy Independence Day to my fellow Americans! 

 

[smjjames]

To all my fellow Americans, Happy Birthday! If you's like a good laugh, why not re-read the Declaration of Independence today? Particularly the actual grievances against George III and read them keeping in mind our last two Presidents

 

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners

 

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

 

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world

 

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent

 

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury

 

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us

 

  I thought we won that war!

 

 

By taxes, you mean the tariffs, right?

[Azdeus]

I don't think there are any memes that are copyrighted, though I guess some people could try to copyright them. Only problem is that some memes are so old that nobody remembers who first created it and even now, once a meme appears, it mutates and spreads faster than lightning. Sounds like something that would be impossible to actually manage properly.

https://juliareda.eu/2018/06/article-11-13-vote/

 

Read it.

 

It will even affect fellow Obsidianites here, based in the EU. They could get called to court for this. If I upload an image of, say, a guardsman from WH40k to this forum that is taken from one of Games Workshops rulebooks Obsidian would be the ones held responsible. They have to scan everything uploaded here for copyright.

Edited July 4, 2018 by Azdeus

[smjjames]

Only problem is that Obsidian is based in the US, does the law even apply to entities outside the US? The first excerpt says 'member states', which implies EU only. Sure, servers within the EU and international corporations that are in the EU could logically be held responsible, but how will they enforce it outside the EU?

 

This is part of the problem, the EU may think it only affects them, but it raises questions for literally everybody in the world. Also, if someone outside the EU posts an image of a WH40K guardsman in a EU based forum or a forum on that server, can the person be charged, will it actually work because sovereignity comes into play and you're going to clash with the US constitution as well.

 

Seriously, the whole thing sounds like it was made by politicians who don't understand how the internet works.

Edited July 4, 2018 by smjjames

[Bartimaeus]

I imagine that's because the whole thing was made by politicians who don't understand how the internet works.

[Azdeus]

Only problem is that Obsidian is based in the US, does the law even apply to entities outside the US? The first excerpt says 'member states', which implies EU only. Sure, servers within the EU and international corporations that are in the EU could logically be held responsible, but how will they enforce it outside the EU?

 

This is part of the problem, the EU may think it only affects them, but it raises questions for literally everybody in the world. Also, if someone outside the EU posts an image of a WH40K guardsman in a EU based forum or a forum on that server, can the person be charged, will it actually work because sovereignity comes into play and you're going to clash with the US constitution as well.

 

Seriously, the whole thing sounds like it was made by politicians who don't understand how the internet works.

I admit that I'm not a lawyer or expert on lawyerism, but I'd bet that if Obsidian wants to do buisiness in the EU they will have tocomply.

 

To answer your question there, it's not the person that will get charged, it's the person/corp hosting the server that it is posted on that is going to be charged. That person/corp has to either stop people from uploading images and such or they have to get themselves content recognition software that will sift through all © material that can match it so he can block it.

 

It's ****ing retarded. They are ****ing retarded aswell.

 

/Edit; Also, bit drunk. Spelling and such might be off.

 

I'm at the point that I hope the entire world ip-blocks the entirety of the EU for stupidity...

Edited July 4, 2018 by Azdeus

[213374U]

Only problem is that Obsidian is based in the US, does the law even apply to entities outside the US? The first excerpt says 'member states', which implies EU only. Sure, servers within the EU and international corporations that are in the EU could logically be held responsible, but how will they enforce it outside the EU?

 

This is part of the problem, the EU may think it only affects them, but it raises questions for literally everybody in the world. Also, if someone outside the EU posts an image of a WH40K guardsman in a EU based forum or a forum on that server, can the person be charged, will it actually work because sovereignity comes into play and you're going to clash with the US constitution as well.

 

Seriously, the whole thing sounds like it was made by politicians who don't understand how the internet works.

 

Politicians who don't understand %topic%? Surely you jest.

 

Obsidian is based in the US, but their website is available in the EU, which could make them liable under EU law, in that regard. So they either license the auto censor software from Google, Facebook or what have you (in which case it may be applied across the, erm, board, not just to Yuroppans because it's trivially easy to circumvent via proxy or VPN), or they start blocking connections from the EU to avoid trouble, or any other equally ham-fisted and ineffectual prevention scheme you can think of.

 

For instance, Valve isn't based in the EU either, but they had to comply with the Dutch gambling authority's ruling regarding lootboxes, and they did so by suspending trade for Dutch players. It may be possible to use an analogous selective system in a message board, but... it's probably just not worth the trouble for Obsidian.

 

If a US-based user posts a god emperor of catkind pic in a EU based website, it's the website operator's responsibility to filter out all content that can violate copyright, regardless of who posted it, because the website itself falls under EU jurisdiction.

 

edit: ninja'd.

Edited July 4, 2018 by 213374U

[Guard Dog]

 

To all my fellow Americans, Happy Birthday! If you's like a good laugh, why not re-read the Declaration of Independence today? Particularly the actual grievances against George III and read them keeping in mind our last two Presidents

 

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners

 

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

 

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world

 

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent

 

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury

 

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us

 

  I thought we won that war!

 

 

By taxes, you mean the tariffs, right?

 

Tariffs is one example. Fees, fines, regulatory costs are others. These are the dirty little ways the government gets to steal money from us without calling it a "tax". Because once it's called a tax it has to come from Congress. And since we send the Congressmen who f--k us over to DC in the first place it's technically by our consent that they do it. So to avoid that they just call it a "fee". It's all the same though.

[Elerond]

 

Only problem is that Obsidian is based in the US, does the law even apply to entities outside the US? The first excerpt says 'member states', which implies EU only. Sure, servers within the EU and international corporations that are in the EU could logically be held responsible, but how will they enforce it outside the EU?

 

This is part of the problem, the EU may think it only affects them, but it raises questions for literally everybody in the world. Also, if someone outside the EU posts an image of a WH40K guardsman in a EU based forum or a forum on that server, can the person be charged, will it actually work because sovereignity comes into play and you're going to clash with the US constitution as well.

 

Seriously, the whole thing sounds like it was made by politicians who don't understand how the internet works.

I admit that I'm not a lawyer or expert on lawyerism, but I'd bet that if Obsidian wants to do buisiness in the EU they will have tocomply.

 

To answer your question there, it's not the person that will get charged, it's the person/corp hosting the server that it is posted on that is going to be charged. That person/corp has to either stop people from uploading images and such or they have to get themselves content recognition software that will sift through all © material that can match it so he can block it.

 

It's ****ing retarded. They are ****ing retarded aswell.

 

/Edit; Also, bit drunk. Spelling and such might be off.

 

I'm at the point that I hope the entire world ip-blocks the entirety of the EU for stupidity...

 

 

You can look effects on GDPR on US based sites (lots of sites either have disclaimer prompt for EU users that tells how they use user data which they have collected and how user can remove it or they block EU users) to see how EU laws effect on US sites.

[majestic]

I imagine that's because the whole thing was made by politicians who don't understand how the internet works.

 

It's not only politicians. Not that long ago our content mafia sued local ISPs and demanded that they block the larger sites known for copyright infringement. The courts eventually ruled in favor of the copyright holders.

 

In a hilarious motion all of the ISPs agreed to implement the filtering on a DNS level which is really cheap to do, fulfills the terms set by the court and is utterly ineffective - because elderly judges in the high courts have no idea how the internet works either.

Edited July 4, 2018 by majestic

[smjjames]

Maybe those who complain about copyright misuse should resort to watermarks or something rather than trying to brute force it this way. I can see all kinds of unintended stuff happening with that.

 

Anways, there's a new twist in the whole Novichok agent on the Russian ex-spy back in March. A couple somehow came into contact with the agent, but authorities haven't figured out yet if it's the same batch. I've also heard something about the house that they were in, was newly rented or something, but that hasn't been confirmed yet seemingly. Not much information right now.

Edited July 4, 2018 by smjjames

[Azdeus]

Maybe those who complain about copyright misuse should resort to watermarks or something rather than trying to brute force it this way. I can see all kinds of unintended stuff happening with that.

 

Yeah, but the lobbyists doesn't get their cut from that..

[Blarghagh]

"Those who complain about copyright misuse" you really think this kind of legislation is driven by the occassional person who gets screwed when people sell T-shirts with their art without permission? I complain about art theft a lot, but none of that requires draconian and broad-strokes legislation bull**** like this. In fact, it'll probably harm those same people.

[213374U]

It didn't pass... this time. They'll give it another go in september.

[Azdeus]

It didn't pass... this time. They'll give it another go in september.

 

We'll have to pay attention for when it comes up.

[smjjames]

Scandal infused EPA director Pruitt resigns. About time!

[ShadySands]

Scandal infused EPA director Pruitt resigns. About time!

Drain the swamp

[Lexx]

Is the swamp drained yet?

[injurai]

Where does the drained swamp go? Another environment? Beyond the environment?

 

[Malcador]

Scandal infused EPA director Pruitt resigns. About time!

Maybe he'll become AG.

[213374U]

Tokyo subway nerve gas attack cult leader is hanged

 

I honestly had no idea Japan still executed perps. If there's a case to be made for the death penalty, mass-murdering cult leaders are certainly it. Death by hanging is a much better way to go than what his victims got, in any case.