The EU’s censorious copyright directive will create two internets

26 March 2019

By Matthew Lesh

https://capx.co/the-eus-censorious-copyright-directive-will-create-two-internets/

Today's approval of the European Copyright Directive is the end of the internet as we know it

  The EU's copyright directive represents everything that’s wrong with its policymaking process

  YouTube have warned that they would have to block videos viewed 90 billion times a month in Europe because of uncertain copyright

The European Parliament’s approval of the Copyright Directive today is the end of the internet as we know it. This new regulation creates substantial new controls on what we can share online which threaten freedom of expression, undermine creativity, and cement the dominance of technology giants.

The Copyright Directive will create two internets. The first, a heavily censored version for European users, including filters to prevent you from uploading content. The second, a free internet where creativity is encouraged, for everyone else.

The directive represents everything that’s wrong with the EU’s policymaking process. It was written at a substantial distance from Europeans, heavily influenced by lobbyists and national compromises. There is a serious lack of accountability.

The opposition to the directive was substantial, but it didn’t seem to matter. Over 200 intellectual property academics have warned that the directive serves “narrow sectional interests”. Even substantial parts of the European music industry have raised concerns about the scheme. The Change.org petition opposing the directive has reached over 5.1 million signatories, the most in the website’s history. Last weekend – while some Brits were marching to stay in the EU – thousands of Europeans took to the street in Save the Internet marches.

There are two particularly concerning sections of the law.

Article 11 prevents news aggregators, such as search engines and social media companies, from linking and providing snippets of news articles without paying a “link tax”. This is clearly absurd. There is no reason why websites should have to pay for what is, in fact, doing news organisations a favour by linking people to their content. It is the responsibility of news organisations to monetise their content through advertisements or paywalls, not attempt to siphon revenues from more successful technology companies.

In practice, this will concentrate power in the hands of large news sites, who are most likely to reach deals to licence the right to link to each other and other sites. A German study found almost two-thirds of revenue will go to a single publisher, and just 1 per cent to smaller publishers. It’s therefore no surprise that the multinational publishing industry lobbyists pushed the directive.

The internet was supposed to democratise access to information. This article will decrease access to online news. It will be much simpler for most websites to block links than go through the effort and expense of reaching licence deals. In 2014, Google shut down Google News in Spain to avoid legal liability in response to a similar domestic law. It was not worth operating a free service that brings in little revenue at the cost of paying for links.

Article 13 makes platforms (like Google, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and web forums) proactively liable for breaking copyright. It reverses the onus, assuming user-generated content breaks copyright unless proven otherwise. This undermines the essential internet principle that platforms should not be legally responsible for the content produced by their users. Platforms are like libraries. When a book breaks copyright or is defamatory it is removed. But you do not sue a library for what authors write, you go straight to the source. While they must remove content on request if it breaks the law, internet platforms should not be liable for everything people say.

Copyright is often unclear and contested. Because they will be legally liable, Facebook, YouTube and other platforms will need to use automated systems to prevent users posting swaths of content from images, videos, and music through to humorous GIFs and memes. In practice, this means new, complex upload filters. This is a serious threat to freedom of expression and online creativity, which often involves mixing together various creative sources. It’ll also often result in false positives, and, to avoid paying fines, substantial limiting of content where copyright is uncertain.

YouTube have pointed to the example of Despacito by Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee, which has been viewed almost 6 billion times:

 “This video contains multiple copyrights, ranging from sound recording to publishing rights. Although YouTube has agreements with multiple entities to license and pay for the video, some of the rights holders remain unknown. That uncertainty means we might have to block videos like this to avoid liability under article 13. Multiply that risk with the scale of YouTube, where more than 400 hours of video are uploaded every minute, and the potential liabilities could be so large that no company could take on such a financial risk.”

YouTube have warned that they would block access to videos viewed 90 billion times a month in Europe because of uncertain copyright.

While this will all be an expensive pain, Article 13 is a gift to the largest platforms in some ways. Only the largest companies will be able to afford to comply with the legislation by creating automated copyright assessment and licencing with owners. Newer and smaller platforms will not be able to compete. This locks in place the largest companies.

The fight for internet freedom does not end here.

First, the directive must now be transposed into domestic laws. If Britain leaves the EU without a deal, there is no reason the controversial law should be adopted uncritically or without a proper domestic debate. If taking back control means anything, it must mean the ability to diverge from this sort of ridiculous EU overstep. (Though, notably, this will mean fighting back against British creative industry which supported the directive.)

Second, there are fights still to be won. It emerged last weekend that the Conservative Government is planning a new “Ofweb” regulator – an iPlod. The new regulator would have the power to enforce a strict online harm code of conduct, and levy huge fines on social media companies, web forums such as Mumsnet, and even media websites like The Times and Telegraph which have comments sections. This is press regulation by the back door. It would create extraordinary system of censorship by giving the state the power to decide what we can view online.

We may have lost this battle, but the war for a free internet must continue.

Trump Administration And Democrats Return Health Law To Political Center Stage

By Julie Rovner

MARCH 26, 2019

https://khn.org/news/trump-administration-changes-course-asks-court-to-strike-down-aca/

[UPDATED at 4:30 p.m. ET]

“The Mueller Report” is so last week’s news. Health care has returned in force as the dominant political issue in Washington, reflecting what voters have been telling pollsters for the past year.

The Trump administration moved Monday night to get more in line with President Donald Trump’s voter base by endorsing a Texas federal judge’s December opinion that the entire Affordable Care Act should be struck down as unconstitutional.

After he arrived at the Capitol for lunch with Republican senators Tuesday, Trump endorsed the change, suggesting it will usher in Republican priorities instead. “The Republican Party will soon be known as the ‘party of health care!’” he told reporters.

Less than two hours later, House Democrats unveiled their proposals to not only protect the health law, but also expand it — including extending help paying premiums and other costs to families higher up the income scale than those now eligible and reinstating cuts made by the administration for outreach to help people sign up for coverage.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that, since taking control of the House in January, Democrats have been fighting to preserve the health law and “voted on Day One” to file a motion in the Texas court case to support the ACA.

The arguments are a return to one of the key battles during the 2018 midterm elections. Democrats hammered their Republican opponents on the GOP’s two-year efforts to repeal the ACA — and especially its popular protections for people with preexisting medical problems and Medicaid expansion — and credited those attacks for big gains the party scored in the House and legislatures around the country.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said those Democrats were elected to “protect and expand” the health law. He warned Republicans not to undermine it, saying, “Americans don’t want to see the ACA protections undone.”

The new filing in the Texas case marks an about-face for the Justice Department. The Republican attorneys general and governors who brought the case argued that when Congress zeroed out the tax penalty for people who lacked health coverage as part of the 2017 tax bill, the entire Affordable Care Act was rendered unconstitutional. In December, U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor agreed with them, although he put his ruling on hold while the case is on appeal.

At that time, the Justice Department did not endorse the GOP plaintiffs’ argument. It suggested instead that the elimination of the tax penalty should invalidate only those parts of the health law most closely associated with it — notably, the provisions requiring insurance companies to sell to people with preexisting conditions and not charge them more.

The health law is being defended by a group of Democratic attorneys general, led by California’s Xavier Becerra. They filed their brief Monday night, just before the Justice Department issued its position change.

“The Affordable Care Act is landmark legislation that has transformed the nation’s healthcare system,” said the brief. Striking it down “would strip existing healthcare coverage from millions of Americans” and “it would make a mockery of the dramatic votes in which the same Congress rejected earlier efforts to repeal or substantially revise the ACA.”

The Department of Health and Human Services declined to comment on the change of position, which was filed as part of the appeal process. Kerri Kupec, a spokeswoman for the Justice Department, said the department “has determined that the district court’s comprehensive opinion came to the correct conclusion and will support it on appeal.”

Trump has repeatedly called for the law to be repealed and replaced, but when Republicans controlled Congress they could not muster the necessary votes. Just last week, the president lashed out Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who died in August, for failing to support that effort.

If the law is invalidated, it would not only directly affect the 11 million people who purchase insurance through the ACA marketplaces, but also millions of low-income people who gained coverage under the expansion of the federal-state Medicaid health program. The Urban Institute estimates full repeal would result in nearly 20 million more uninsured Americans.

The ACA also includes substantial changes to the Medicare program, extends protections to people with employer-provided insurance and includes such seemingly unrelated provisions as requiring calorie counts on restaurant menus and making it easier to make generic copies of expensive biologic drugs.

Health analysts warn that the law is so embedded into the fabric of the nation’s health system that eliminating it could have consequences well beyond the things it created.

“The act is now part of the plumbing of the health-care system,” wrote University of Michigan law professor Nicholas Bagley in a post for the Incidental Economist website. “Which means the Trump administration has now committed itself to a legal position that would inflict untold damage on the American public.”

Democrats, who already had their health event scheduled for Tuesday, were quick to pounce on what they see as a GOP weakness.

“In two short sentences, the Trump administration crystallized its position that the health care coverage enjoyed by nearly 20 million people, as well as the protections by tens of millions more with preexisting conditions, should be annihilated,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on the floor Tuesday morning.

Democratic presidential candidates also voiced their opposition.

“I’ll say it for the zillionth time: We will not let the Trump administration rip health care away from millions of Americans. Not now. Not ever,” tweeted Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) said in an interview on MSNBC that health care is “one of the biggest most critical issues facing American families. The existence of preexisting conditions and that being a barrier to people having access to health care. We decided as a nation” that it was wrong, she said, to deny someone with a preexisting condition access to health care, and that the Republicans’ latest move amounts to “playing politics with people’s public health.”

[NO SHIT!!?? Kamala Harris is NOT a progressive. Harris herself has endorsed some more incremental health care expansion plans that wouldn’t do away entirely with private coverage. Harris is pretending to be a progressive, just like Obama did. Our so-called ‘representatives are KILLING US! “For-profit health care” is a contradiction in terms. Americans are sheep being governed by wolves and foxes.  –vanishingmediator]

Senate Dems Vote ‘Present’ on Green New Deal to Foil McConnell’s Ploy

Olivia Rosane

Mar. 27, 2019 06:57AM ESTP

https://www.ecowatch.com/green-new-deal-senate-vote-2632922259.html?rebelltitem=3#rebelltitem3

The Green New Deal ― an ambitious 10-year plan to transition the U.S. away from fossil fuels while promoting green jobs and greater equality ― failed to advance in the Senate Tuesday after most Democrats voted "present" in an attempt to forestall a Republican ploy to exploit disagreements within the party.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had been clear about his intention to put the resolution to an up or down vote in an attempt to force Democrats to support or oppose the controversial measure ahead of the 2020 election, CNN reported. Climate activists and the proposal's House co-sponsor and leading champion Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had given Senate Democrats the greenlight to vote "present" in an attempt to slight McConnell, Vox reported. Ocasio-Cortez said McConnell's manipulations suggested Republicans were not taking climate change seriously.

"The Senate vote is a perfect example of that kind of superficial approach to government," Ocasio-Cortez said Tuesday, according to Vox. "What McConnell's doing is that he's trying to rush this bill to the floor without a hearing, without any markups, without working through committee — because he doesn't want to save our planet. Because he thinks we can drink oil in 30 years when all our water is poisoned."

The measure was defeated 57-0, The Guardian reported, meaning it failed to get the 60 votes necessary to advance to a final vote, the Huffington Post pointed out. Three Democrats and one Independent, Maine Senator Angus King, joined with all 53 Republicans in voting "no."

The Democrats who broke ranks to vote against the measure all come from conservative-leaning states. They were Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Doug Jones of Alabama.

Manchin said that he wanted to focus on "real solutions that recognized the role fossil fuels will continue to play," according to a statement reported by CNN.

"We cannot successfully address our climate challenge by eliminating sources of energy that countries are committed to using," he said.

Manchin is notoriously pro-coal and has received almost $1 million in campaign contributions from the fossil fuel industry over the course of his career. In total, the senators who voted "no" Tuesday have received more than $55,000,000 in contributions from fossil fuel companies, Oil Change United States reported.

While the Green New Deal isn't advancing right now, its first Senate sponsor Massachusetts Democrat Ed Markey said it had done a good job of sparking a national debate about climate change.

"This resolution has struck a powerful chord with the American people," Markey said at a Monday press conference reported by the Huffington Post. "The Green New Deal was always designed to be an opening of a national discussion. And it has worked. In just six short weeks, everyone is debating a Green New Deal. There's been more debate about climate change in the last six weeks than in the last six years."

Every senator running for president in the 2020 Democratic primary has co-sponsored the measure, among them California's Kamala Harris, Massachusetts' Elizabeth Warren, Vermont's Independent Bernie Sanders, New Jersey's Cory Booker, New York's Kirsten Gillibrand and Minnesota's Amy Klobuchar.

While the Sunrise Movement, the grassroots group that has worked to popularize the deal, endorsed the strategy of voting "present," they will now continue to pressure Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to co-sponsor the measure.

"We particularly want Sen. Schumer to continue to make climate change central to his agenda and come through and back the Green New Deal," Sunrise Movement spokesperson Stephen O'Hanlon said, as Vox reported.

Meanwhile, during a House financial services committee hearing, Ocasio-Cortez continued her outspoken advocacy for environmental action, reacting strongly against the idea that it was an elitist concern. A video of her speech had been shared thousands of times by Tuesday night, The Guardian reported.

"This is about our lives, and this should not be partisan," she said in the clip. "Science should not be partisan."

Why Norway plus gives Britain the time it needs to get out of its Brexit mess – op-ed in The Telegraph

Yanis Varoufakis

https://www.yanisvaroufakis.eu/2019/03/27/why-norway-plus-gives-britain-the-time-it-needs-to-get-out-of-its-brexit-mess-op-ed-in-the-telegraph/

Brexit is, undeniably, important. The Prime Minister’s faulty negotiations have now turned what the majority of the British people considered an opportunity into a national crisis. However, now is perhaps the moment to reflect that, in an era of trade wars, geopolitical realignment and existential threats to our nations’ democracies, Brexit is not as important as we have allowed ourselves to imagine.

Its mishandling has certainly whipped up damaging uncertainty – not helped by the events of the last week. Nevertheless, the decision of Japanese car makers to end production in the UK reflects a broader change in the global division of labour.

Similarly, the role of the City of London in Britain’s future deserves careful reconsideration independently of Brexit.

Turning to constitutional matters, the Irish backstop controversy is a reminder of the incomplete peace achieved in Northern Ireland because London and Dublin abandoned their strict sovereignty claims without completing their worthy efforts with a post-Westphalian joint sovereignty arrangement.

In short, never before have the people of the UK needed more a serious debate on their business model and constitutional arrangements. But never before has, courtesy of Brexit, such a debate been less possible.

Brexit has turned the majority of Britons into hostages of three extreme interest groups labouring under strong motives: hard Remainers hellbent on rescinding the June 2016 verdict; hard Brexiteers for whom a costly clean exit from the EU is a prerequisite for “making Britain great again”, and an EU establishment whose only priority is to demonstrate to Europeans that anyone challenging Brussels’ authority will be ritually humiliated.

Caught up in that three-way feud, Britain’s majority are being denied the opportunity to have a truly vital debate about the country’s future.

Democracies are good at engendering convergence in the face of polarisation. But that requires time. Three conditions are needed to give such a debate a chance in the foreseeable future.

First, the Prime Minister must present the EU with an offer that Brussels cannot refuse before April 12.

Second, this offer cannot be her previous deal, given Parliament’s intense and justifiable opposition to a treaty that only a nation defeated at war would accept.

Third, both the Hard Remainers and Hard Brexiteers must be denied what they seek, at least in the short term.

Either a no-deal Brexit before June or Britain’s participation in the European Parliament elections during a lengthy extension of Article 50 would poison the well of British democracy, by maximising the losing minority’s discontent while disempowering the middle ground who favour a soft Brexit.

Key to finding a way out of the current Brexit impasse is to focus on creating the space for a Great Debate on Britain’s business model and constitution, both of which are in a state of disrepair.

An ideal Brexit is out of reach but a decent medium-term settlement allowing Britons jointly to envision their future is not. And that settlement is none other than a Norway Plus, or a Common Market 2.0, solution for the medium term.

In practical terms, Norway Plus would involve Mrs May ditching her deal and mustering a majority in Parliament in favour of an amended Withdrawal Agreement specifying a short transition period after which Britain will remain indefinitely, but not necessarily forever, in the single market and customs union.

The DUP, Labour and Brussels would have no alternative but to agree to this amended agreement before the April 12 deadline.

Once the gun has been removed from the country’s head, another technical extension of Article 50 would be granted to complete the necessary legislative steps.

At the same time, the House of Commons, Britain’s civil society, chambers of commerce, trades unions, citizens assemblies etc can deliberate on how to bring up to date the UK’s business model and constitutional arrangements, including its long-term relationship with the EU.

The argument that Norway Plus is favoured only by a minority is correct but irrelevant. As no majority exists for any type of Brexit outcome, the aim must be to enable democratic dialogue by minimising the discontent of the most discontented and by satisfying the more numerous middle ground who hold the least intense preferences.

While the UK would have to implement EU rules for an indefinite period, Norway Plus respects the 2016 decision to leave the EU without committing the British government to the humiliation of any backstop.

Having left everyone slightly dissatisfied, but no one terribly incensed, Norway Plus would make possible the much needed Great British Debate that the country needs.

And if this debate leads the people of Britain to conclude that they wish to move toward a “cleaner” outcome, then a second referendum can be held, in the fullness of time, to decide either to re-join in the EU or to leave its single market and the customs union.

After all, no one stops Norway today from leaving the single market if its people so choose.

Chinese ex-Interpol president Meng Hongwei expelled from Communist Party

*Former Central Committee member stripped of all titles, party watchdog says.

*Official also accused of encouraging his wife to use his status to further her own interests.

William Zheng  

Published: 4:20pm, 27 Mar, 2019

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3003483/chinese-ex-interpol-president-meng-hongwei-expelled-communist

The former Chinese president of Interpol, Meng Hongwei, has been expelled from the Communist Party of China and stripped of all his positions for serious violation of the law and discipline, the party watchdog said on Wednesday.

The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) said the Central Committee of the Communist Party had also approved an investigation into Meng, 65, who was a member of the committee and vice-minister for public security.

The CCDI accused Meng of abusing his position and power for personal gain, squandering state funds to finance his family’s extravagant lifestyle, and disregarding the principles of being a party member.

In a rare gesture, the statement also accused Meng of encouraging his wife to use his status to further her own interests.

Any assets acquired as a result of Meng’s alleged illegal activities would be handed over to prosecutors in accordance with the law, the watchdog said.

Once a rising political star, Meng made his way up the ranks of China’s public security apparatus to become head of the Chinese branch of Interpol in 2004, and the nation’s first president of the global organisation in 2016.

His subsequent downfall was seen as the final stage of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s sweeping clean-up of the top leadership of the public security ministry, which controls the nation’s 2 million strong police force.

The dramatic events surrounding Meng’s disappearance in September also provided evidence of Beijing prioritising its domestic agenda over the need to present itself as a capable and appropriate leader of an international organisation like Interpol.

Deng Yuwen, an independent political analyst based in the United States, said the way in which the incident was handled could affect how China is perceived by the global policing body, but was unlikely to have a long-term impact in other areas.

“Meng’s case may affect other Chinese officials’ chances of leading Interpol for a while as it was really an embarrassment,” he said. “But the wider impact on China’s role in international organisations will be limited as there are only a few Chinese officials in senior positions, such as at the World Health Organisation.”

If they ever became embroiled in a corruption scandal Beijing would handle the cases very differently, Deng said.

Meng was last heard from on September 25 after leaving his home in the French city of Lyon bound for China. He sent his wife, Grace Meng, a message on social media telling her to “wait for my call”, along with a knife emoji suggesting he was in some kind of danger.

Grace Meng reported her husband missing to the French authorities on October 4 and was later put under police protection after receiving threatening messages over the telephone and online. Earlier this year she applied for asylum in France.

On October 6, Interpol issued a request to the Chinese government for information on Meng’s whereabouts and the CCDI replied the next day saying he had been detained in connection with an investigation into alleged corruption.

Agence France-Presse reported that Grace Meng, who has not spoken to her husband since he went missing, asked French President Emmanuel Macron  to discuss the matter with Chinese President Xi Jinping during his recent European tour.

In a letter to the Elysee Palace dated March 21, she “asks to know where and how he is”, the report said.

Despite her request, there have been no reports that Xi and Macron discussed the matter.

How The U.S. Secretly Cut Venezuela’s Power

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKGmz0iMVVM

New DCCC Rule Aims to Stop the Rise of Another Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

The UNDEMOCRATIC DCCC (Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee)



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxYJQETyOiE