Re: [Fsuk-manchester] [ORG Manchester] New and emerging laws affecting computer freedom life - Post Brexit (RE: Reminder: MFS Meeting. (at PLANT NOMA) Tue, 19 June. "New and emerging laws affecting computer freedom")

[Rashid Mhar]

Link: http://archive.is/1jWyw

Dear Members of the European Parliament,

I write to urge your support for the mandate on Copyright in the upcoming plenary vote this week.

Music and culture matter. They are our heart and soul. But they don’t just happen: they demand the hard work of so many people. Importantly, music also creates jobs and economic growth and digital innovation across Europe.

Unfortunately, the value gap jeopardizes the music ecosystem. We need an Internet that is fair and sustainable for all. But today some User Upload Content platforms refuse to compensate artists and all music creators fairly for their work, while they exploit it for their own profit.

    “Please vote to uphold the mandate on Copyright and Article 13. You hold in your hands the future of music here in Europe.”

The value gap is that gulf between the value these platforms derive from music and the value they pay creators.

The proposed Copyright Directive and its Article 13 would address the value gap and help assure a sustainable future for the music ecosystem and its creators, fans and digital music services alike.

Please vote to uphold the mandate on Copyright and Article 13. You hold in your hands the future of music here in Europe.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Sir Paul McCartney

Paul has a dispute about his share of ad revenue, needs draconian copyright laws to help. I imagine Warner, Sony etc have prepped text for their stables of artists. 'Music creates digital innovation', so they need to completely control sampling, derivatives, independent reviews, cover versions, use as background music, having popular music used in music tutorials... and the multitude of other innovative and creative use users do and share for the sake of enjoyment, fandom, critique & review and learning.

There is no state of copyright that gives a free for all for pirating and profiting from someone else's creative work. Strong copyright protection has already been granted, there already exists a system which favours large creators over small. However this isn't about that, international corporations want EU on their side, over their spat with other international corporations over the rate of ad revenues they get paid. Giants fight and everyone else gets stepped on. EU (and all governments) need to think about who they represent.

Glad to see the fast track vote for Article 11 and 13 didn't go through. Time to take this forward, and aim to get open internet, no two tier internet, principles of participation as offered in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, placed front and centre for when the corporations get into fights over how they share the money paid by everyone else - who don't get to ask for bespoke laws to suit them.

On Tue, 3 Jul 2018 at 16:50, John <address@hidden> wrote:

Hi all,

On 30/06/18 11:01, Bob Mottram wrote:

On Fri, Jun 29, 2018 at 06:03:33PM +0100, Rashid Mhar wrote:

  These laws are demanding pro-active steps that aren't even technically
  feasible. Such as the scanning of every upload. This means that ISP's will
  react with terms and conditions which allow them to hair trigger ban
  potential violators, or anyone that falls foul of the recognition signals
  that get shared between them as DSM directive violators.

If this goes through I think what will happen is that the ISPs will
adopt whitelisting policies. They'll offer access to a limited range of
systems run by the big tech companies and drop any other unrecognised
packets. That will mean they can have full compliance while also being
able to monetise any other requirements with additional subscriptions
and separate terms deferring liability.

That would eliminate a lot of independent internet systems, and it would
probably be the end of the kind of stuff I'm doing.

One possible proactive response would be to find out what it takes to
run an ISP. Does it take massive amounts of capital investment? What if
there were lots of little ISPs?

  I'm reminded of the campaign against Poll Tax, that
  was soundly technically beaten at the time but fought back with low level
  resistance through insubordination, and complying as late as possible with
  as many complaints as possible.

I don't think the same would apply for internet regulations
though. Whereas taxation applies to everyone issues around who can run
internet systems only affect a small minority of the population who can
easily be ignored. Being in the Free Software realm it's easy to
underestimate just how hegemonic Facebook and Google have become for the
average user.

  If there are number of us, doing a good piece of work, analysis and
  _expression_ on this we can arrange meetings with MP's, council leaders,
  regional mayors, councillors, anchor institutions, VSCS etc to press these
  forward. The key and important step, is being able to clearly communicate
  strong principles where there is agreement supported by democratic
  evidence. It is eminently possible and necessarily doable.

One point here is that politicians aren't often persuaded by
evidence. They're much more likely to be persuaded by an imaginative
narrative with a moralistic component which doesn't challenge their
existing business interests.

I think Bob's email didn't show up on the ORG list, so I'm forwarding it in full.

I've been scrabbling to catch up on this issue.  Some useful links I've found are:

the Wikipedia overview

FSF's explanation of the threat to software freedom

and

an action page from which you can petition your MEP

Remember, you've got less than two days to do this!  Also, for those not on the ORG list,

there's a video conference at 6.00pm tonight (Tuesday 3rd)

Finally, I'm making a second attempt to attach my slides from the last meeting.

John

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