🇬🇧 UK Will Not be Implementing the New EU Copyright Directive

Community Tech Policy & News
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Universities and Science Minister Chris Skidmore has said that the UK will not implement the EU Copyright Directive after the country leaves the EU.

Essentially it looks like we will not be implementing the EUs planned copyright reform which includes such things as article 13 enforcing companies to police all content and remove copyrighted material and hold them accountable for failing to adequate take copyrighted media offline; And article 11 which is essentially a link tax, or more accurately its a infobox tax, making people pay for showing snippets of information from a link. (an example of this, the quote i just made could possibly count under the link tax, or the link info box its self in this post could fall under that law)

A more direct quote from the minister is apparently

will not be required to implement the Directive, and the Government has no plans to do so

(Up until we leave we have been required to implement any EU law which falls within the membership date.)

The rest of the EU countries have until June 7th to implement the EU law.

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Very good. Too bad that there is always one or another technological-misuse-nightmare right around the corner.

By the way I don’t know what level1tech’s policy is on politics. Some forums coughoverclock.netcough tend to just avoid any and all topics that could be slightly controversial. I’m assuming Brexiteers and Bremainers around here will be able to agree to disagree ?

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To your other note, i figured it was OK since its around the digital copyright laws which are relevant here (we have a politics category too, you just need to add yourself to the group)

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God save our graaaacious Queen,
long live our nooooble Queen,
God save our Queen.

Send her victoooorious,
happy and glooorious,
long to reign over us,
God save the Queen.

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@far-bound you are Al Murray AKA the pub landlord and I claim my £5 :wink:

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Hmm i’m relieved to hear, that law seemed too crazy to be real

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I got the impression that it depends on who you are, as to whether it is good or bad?

As a normal user of the internet, and consumer of news/ copy written material it costs you less (as long as news places and copy written works are created)

As a web site owner / runner, it might (Maybe) reduce your burden, as long as you are not based in the afflicted countries.

The law might still be re-written and proposed for UK legislation later, depending on the availability of duffel bags and folding notes around Whitehall, now that we are going to be independent (after Brexit/grace period)

And the old boys network of old media of the Link Tax thing? (if I’m not tying the wrong two bits together)

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You were already dependant duh. And now you are in one year in following EU law and rules without having a say.

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freedom-next-exit

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To give another look. It depends on the wording and implementation. The idea on principle doesn’t necessarily sounds bad, use someones content, pay for it. However the wording and implementation of such a law I think is what most people are concerned about.

We have two examples of this already in the digital word of EU legislation.

  • the Cookie law
  • GDPR

The cookie legislation is what prompted the initial wave on nuisance popups asking you to accept cookies. Nuisance primarily because basically no one has implemented it in such a way that it doesn’t annoy everyone.

It was meant to be good for people giving them clear indication and ability to consent to cookies being used. In reality its an unenforceable mess that burdens the end user, developer, and website owner and no one reads it anyway.

The second is GDPR, another attempt at what on paper soudns like a good idea. There are good parts of GDPR and bad parts.

The most visible bad part of GDPR is the second layer of bricks on top of the original cookie legislation. Now you get banners, website overlays, and complex multi choice boxes of what cookies to accept. Its another disaster imo.

the second problem with GDPR is a big one. No one knows how to implement it, whats required under the law, and what isnt, so much so that some websites have simply opted to ban the entire EU from accessing their site for fear on landing on the wrong side of the law.

Ask two lawyers who deal with GDPR the same question on what data required consent, what can be used without, and what must be deleted on request, and you’ll get two different answers. And yes, lawyers, because even though they cant agree, you’ll do worse.

So you have two reasonable ideas on paper, which are OK at best in action and in legislation, and at worst impossible to follow and were all breaking the law. And you get an idea of why there is concern about the EU also making legislation on digital copyright reforms.

The idea sounds OK. But the wording of the legislation is pretty bad, impossible for anyone to implement, overly burdens smaller companies and people, and im not even sure the technology exists to implement it even if it could be implemented. The end result what some people fear is large copyright trolls (like patent trolls), going around scooping up all content and smacking everyone with fines and removing all content.

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Wounder if this has an affect on the Commonwealth as a whole