
The EU's bizarre war on memes is totally unwinnable - jkaljundi
http://www.wired.co.uk/article/eu-meme-war-article-13-regulation
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DanBC
Because most people on HN have never read this, here is article 13:

Article 13

Use of protected content by information society service providers storing and
giving access to large amounts of works and other subject-matter uploaded by
their users

1.Information society service providers that store and provide to the public
access to large amounts of works or other subject-matter uploaded by their
users shall, in cooperation with rightholders, take measures to ensure the
functioning of agreements concluded with rightholders for the use of their
works or other subject-matter or to prevent the availability on their services
of works or other subject-matter identified by rightholders through the
cooperation with the service providers. Those measures, such as the use of
effective content recognition technologies, shall be appropriate and
proportionate. The service providers shall provide rightholders with adequate
information on the functioning and the deployment of the measures, as well as,
when relevant, adequate reporting on the recognition and use of the works and
other subject-matter.

2.Member States shall ensure that the service providers referred to in
paragraph 1 put in place complaints and redress mechanisms that are available
to users in case of disputes over the application of the measures referred to
in paragraph 1.

3.Member States shall facilitate, where appropriate, the cooperation between
the information society service providers and rightholders through stakeholder
dialogues to define best practices, such as appropriate and proportionate
content recognition technologies, taking into account, among others, the
nature of the services, the availability of the technologies and their
effectiveness in light of technological developments.

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wmf
Sorry to rain on the outrage parade, but I don't see any evidence of a "war on
memes". Sure, the EU might force Imgur to implement some kind of content ID
system and Hollywood _could_ register source images in that system to block
some memes, but the motivations for this new copyright law appear to have
nothing to do with memes.

~~~
probably_wrong
If I understand you correctly: it's not that this is a law against memes.
Rather, blocking memes is one of the unintended effects that the new law would
have, for the reason you said.

"War on memes" is a catchy nickname, the same way the Patriot act is not
really about patriotism.

~~~
Rjevski
Honestly, blocking memes would be the only good result of this law. I can’t
wait to see social networks cleaned of that crap.

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malmsteen
But who is at the source of such a law ? I mean who's interest does it serve ?
Who had the idea.

Because afaik movie and music creators are already winning the piracy war
right ?

~~~
raverbashing
Old legislators that have no idea on how the internet works heavily backed by
copyright heavyweights that think they can still win this fight

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goldenSilence
It's laughable to state that such a war is unwinnable.

Totalitarianism is a historic precedent which demonstrates the possibility of
propaganda supremacy.

It's only impossible to win a fight like this, if one refuses to do harm to
those who engage in the behavior being controlled. Make an example of a few
people, and wow, look at how quiet it gets.

    
    
      (HN Moderators, feel free to chime in, lol)

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mabynogy
It is. Make the EU collapse.

