Lobbyists for “creators” threw their lot in with the giant entertainment
companies and the newspaper proprietors and managed to pass the new EU
Copyright Directive by a hair’s-breadth this morning, in an act of
colossal malpractice to harm to working artists will only be exceeded by
the harm to everyone who uses the internet for everything else.
Here’s what the EU voted in favour of this morning:
* Upload filters: Everything you post, from short text snippets to
stills, audio, video, code, etc will be surveilled by copyright bots run
by the big platforms. They’ll compare your posts to databases of
“copyrighted works” that will be compiled by allowing anyone to claim
copyright on anything, uploading thousands of works at a time. Anything
that appears to match the “copyright database” is blocked on sight, and
you have to beg the platform’s human moderators to review your case to
get your work reinstated.
* Link taxes: You can’t link to a news story if your link text includes more than a single word
from the article’s headline. The platform you’re using has to buy a
license from the news site, and news sites can refuse licenses, giving
them the right to choose who can criticise and debate the news.
* Sports monopolies: You can’t post any photos or videos from sports
events – not a selfie, not a short snippet of a great goal. Only the
“organisers” of events have that right. Upload filters will block any
attempt to violate the rule.
Here’s what they voted against:
* “Right of panorama”: the right to post photos of public places despite
the presence of copyrighted works like stock arts in advertisements,
public statuary, or t-shirts bearing copyrighted images. Even the
facades of buildings need to be cleared with their architects (not with the owners of the buildings).
* User generated content exemption: the right to use small excerpt from
works to make memes and other
critical/transformative/parodical/satirical works.
Having passed the EU Parliament, this will now be revised in secret,
closed-door meetings with national governments (“the trilogues”) and
then voted again next spring, and then go to the national governments
for implementation in law before 2021. These all represent chances to
revise the law, but they will be much harder than this fight
was. We can also expect lawsuits in the European high courts over these
rules: spying on everyone just isn’t legal under European law, even if
you’re doing it to “defend copyright.”
In the meantime, what a disaster for creators. Not only will be we liable to having our independently produced materials arbitrarily censored by overactive filters,
but we won’t be able to get them unstuck without the help of big
entertainment companies. These companies will not be gentle in wielding
their new coercive power over us (entertainment revenues are up, but the share going to creators is down:
if you think this is unrelated to the fact that there are only four or
five major companies in each entertainment sector, you understand nothing about economics).
But of course, only an infinitesimal fraction of the material on the
platforms is entertainment related. Your birthday wishes and funeral
announcements, little league pictures and political arguments, wedding
videos and online educational materials are also going to be
filtered by these black-box algorithms, and you’re going to have to get
in line with all the other suckers for attention from a human moderator
at one of the platforms to plead your case.
The entertainment industry figures who said that universal surveillance
and algorithmic censorship were necessary for the continuation of
copyright have done more to discredit copyright than all the pirate
sites on the internet combined. People like their TV, but they use their
internet for so much more.
It’s like the right-wing politicians who spent 40 years describing
roads, firefighting, health care, education and Social Security as
“socialism,” and thereby created a generation of people who don’t
understand why they wouldn’t be socialists, then. The copyright
extremists have told us that internet freedom is the same thing as
piracy. A generation of proud, self-identified pirates can’t be far
behind. When you make copyright infringement into a political act, a
blow for freedom, you sign your own artistic death-warrant.
This idiocy was only possible because:
* No one involved understands the internet: they assume that because
their Facebook photos auto-tag with their friends’ names, that someone
can filter all the photos ever taken and determine which ones violate
copyright;
* They tied mass surveillance to transferring a few mil from Big Tech to
the newspaper shareholders, guaranteeing wall-to-wall positive coverage
(I’m especially ashamed that journalists supported this lunacy – we
know you love free expression, folks, we just wish you’d share);
What comes next? Well, the best hope is probably a combination of a
court challenge, along with making this an election issue for the 2019
EU elections. No MEP is going to campaign for re-election by saying “I
did this amazing copyright thing!” From experience, I can tell you that no one cares what their lawmakers are doing with copyright.
On the other hand, there are tens of millions of voters who will vote
against a candidate who “broke the internet.” Not breaking the internet
is very important to voters, and the wider populace has proven
itself to be very good at absorbing abstract technical concepts when
they’re tied to broken internets (87% of Americans have a) heard of Net
Neutrality and; b) support it).
I was once involved in a big policy fight where one of the stakes was
the possibility that broadcast TV watchers would have to buy a small
device to continue watching TV. Politicians were terrified of
this proposition: they knew that the same old people who vote like crazy
also watch a lot of TV and wouldn’t look favourably on anyone who
messed with it.
We’re approaching that point with the internet. The danger of internet
regulation is that every problem involves the internet and every poorly
thought-through “solution” ripples out through the internet, creating
mass collateral damage; the power of internet regulation is that every
day, more people are invested in not breaking the internet, for their
own concrete, personal, vital reasons.
This isn’t a fight we’ll ever win. The internet is the nervous system of
this century, tying together everything we do. It’s an irresistible
target for bullies, censors and well-intentioned fools. Even if the EU
had voted the other way this morning, we’d still be fighting tomorrow,
because there will never be a moment at which some half-bright, fully
dangerous policy entrepreneur isn’t proposing some absurd way of solving
their parochial problem with a solution that will adversely affect
billions of internet users around the world.
This is a fight we commit ourselves to. Today, we suffered a terrible,
crushing blow. Our next move is to explain to the people who suffer as a
result of the entertainment industry’s depraved indifference to the
consequences of their stupid ideas how they got into this situation, and
get them into the streets, into the polling booths, and into the fight.
Furious about this vote. I foresee a lot of leaning on my MEPs in the near future. And further.
Damn it all!
The upload filter thing is going to be DISASTROUS for classical musicians. We already get copyright claims on our content by major media distributors like Sony, because they own SOME recordings of certain works, even though the works themselves are public domain – bots don’t understand the difference.
Yeah, this is literally what the community is called in Sweden. We also use Queer a lot and teach about asexuality in high-school sex ed. Get the fuck over it.
other countries: have their own acronyms in their own languages based on what best suits their own hbtq+ communities
Did you know? It’s your RIGHT to access reproductive healthcare without being intimidated or terrorized.
People need to see this.
It is illegal to willingly harass and intimidate a person on purpose, even if you are doing it outside of an abortion clinic. Remember this, pro-lifers. You can and will be charged. ❤
i just got a super predatory debt collection letter. it was for a $113 debt from citizens bank, who i had an account with when i was 16 (20 years ago). the letter appeared to be an offer to cancel the debt if i paid them $22.75. HOWEVER, the actual wording is, “The amount of the debt is $113.77 and we will accept $22.75.” so, no MENTION of canceling the debt, but the implication is there because many collectors of current debt offer to settle for a percentage.
at the bottom of the letter, it says: “Because of the age of your debt, we cannot sue you for it and we cannot report to any credit reporting agency. In many circumstances, you can renew the debt and start the time period for the filing of a lawsuit against you if you take specific actions such as making payments on the debt or making a written promise to pay.”
basically… i don’t owe this money anymore, the debt is so old they can’t legally sue me for it OR put it on my credit report, BUT if i take their generous offer of paying them $22.75… they can sue me for the full amount because making a payment makes the debt current.
no thanks, jefferson capital systems llc.
always, always read the entire letter! it is so important because of semantic awfulness like this!
I think it’s a bit callous to say “evacuate! Don’t be stubborn and put yourself in danger!” As if there aren’t real barriers that make evactuaoon impossible and hard for people. Evacuate and go where? How will you live if you don’t own a car? What if you’re disabled or have someone in your house that is which makes it hard to execute and or find adequate shelter accommodations? What about pets like dogs and cats? You don’t have insurance for your home and if you stay you feel like you can at least do on the spot repairs.
Extreme weather crisis centers can be very overcrowded and aren’t always the best place for. Let’s provide some tangible information about how they can evacuate and find what they need safely instead of shaming people who were “too stupid and stubborn” to leave.
Lobbyists for “creators” threw their lot in with the giant entertainment
companies and the newspaper proprietors and managed to pass the new EU
Copyright Directive by a hair’s-breadth this morning, in an act of
colossal malpractice to harm to working artists will only be exceeded by
the harm to everyone who uses the internet for everything else.
Here’s what the EU voted in favour of this morning:
* Upload filters: Everything you post, from short text snippets to
stills, audio, video, code, etc will be surveilled by copyright bots run
by the big platforms. They’ll compare your posts to databases of
“copyrighted works” that will be compiled by allowing anyone to claim
copyright on anything, uploading thousands of works at a time. Anything
that appears to match the “copyright database” is blocked on sight, and
you have to beg the platform’s human moderators to review your case to
get your work reinstated.
* Link taxes: You can’t link to a news story if your link text includes more than a single word
from the article’s headline. The platform you’re using has to buy a
license from the news site, and news sites can refuse licenses, giving
them the right to choose who can criticise and debate the news.
* Sports monopolies: You can’t post any photos or videos from sports
events – not a selfie, not a short snippet of a great goal. Only the
“organisers” of events have that right. Upload filters will block any
attempt to violate the rule.
Here’s what they voted against:
* “Right of panorama”: the right to post photos of public places despite
the presence of copyrighted works like stock arts in advertisements,
public statuary, or t-shirts bearing copyrighted images. Even the
facades of buildings need to be cleared with their architects (not with the owners of the buildings).
* User generated content exemption: the right to use small excerpt from
works to make memes and other
critical/transformative/parodical/satirical works.
Having passed the EU Parliament, this will now be revised in secret,
closed-door meetings with national governments (“the trilogues”) and
then voted again next spring, and then go to the national governments
for implementation in law before 2021. These all represent chances to
revise the law, but they will be much harder than this fight
was. We can also expect lawsuits in the European high courts over these
rules: spying on everyone just isn’t legal under European law, even if
you’re doing it to “defend copyright.”
In the meantime, what a disaster for creators. Not only will be we liable to having our independently produced materials arbitrarily censored by overactive filters,
but we won’t be able to get them unstuck without the help of big
entertainment companies. These companies will not be gentle in wielding
their new coercive power over us (entertainment revenues are up, but the share going to creators is down:
if you think this is unrelated to the fact that there are only four or
five major companies in each entertainment sector, you understand nothing about economics).
But of course, only an infinitesimal fraction of the material on the
platforms is entertainment related. Your birthday wishes and funeral
announcements, little league pictures and political arguments, wedding
videos and online educational materials are also going to be
filtered by these black-box algorithms, and you’re going to have to get
in line with all the other suckers for attention from a human moderator
at one of the platforms to plead your case.
The entertainment industry figures who said that universal surveillance
and algorithmic censorship were necessary for the continuation of
copyright have done more to discredit copyright than all the pirate
sites on the internet combined. People like their TV, but they use their
internet for so much more.
It’s like the right-wing politicians who spent 40 years describing
roads, firefighting, health care, education and Social Security as
“socialism,” and thereby created a generation of people who don’t
understand why they wouldn’t be socialists, then. The copyright
extremists have told us that internet freedom is the same thing as
piracy. A generation of proud, self-identified pirates can’t be far
behind. When you make copyright infringement into a political act, a
blow for freedom, you sign your own artistic death-warrant.
This idiocy was only possible because:
* No one involved understands the internet: they assume that because
their Facebook photos auto-tag with their friends’ names, that someone
can filter all the photos ever taken and determine which ones violate
copyright;
* They tied mass surveillance to transferring a few mil from Big Tech to
the newspaper shareholders, guaranteeing wall-to-wall positive coverage
(I’m especially ashamed that journalists supported this lunacy – we
know you love free expression, folks, we just wish you’d share);
What comes next? Well, the best hope is probably a combination of a
court challenge, along with making this an election issue for the 2019
EU elections. No MEP is going to campaign for re-election by saying “I
did this amazing copyright thing!” From experience, I can tell you that no one cares what their lawmakers are doing with copyright.
On the other hand, there are tens of millions of voters who will vote
against a candidate who “broke the internet.” Not breaking the internet
is very important to voters, and the wider populace has proven
itself to be very good at absorbing abstract technical concepts when
they’re tied to broken internets (87% of Americans have a) heard of Net
Neutrality and; b) support it).
I was once involved in a big policy fight where one of the stakes was
the possibility that broadcast TV watchers would have to buy a small
device to continue watching TV. Politicians were terrified of
this proposition: they knew that the same old people who vote like crazy
also watch a lot of TV and wouldn’t look favourably on anyone who
messed with it.
We’re approaching that point with the internet. The danger of internet
regulation is that every problem involves the internet and every poorly
thought-through “solution” ripples out through the internet, creating
mass collateral damage; the power of internet regulation is that every
day, more people are invested in not breaking the internet, for their
own concrete, personal, vital reasons.
This isn’t a fight we’ll ever win. The internet is the nervous system of
this century, tying together everything we do. It’s an irresistible
target for bullies, censors and well-intentioned fools. Even if the EU
had voted the other way this morning, we’d still be fighting tomorrow,
because there will never be a moment at which some half-bright, fully
dangerous policy entrepreneur isn’t proposing some absurd way of solving
their parochial problem with a solution that will adversely affect
billions of internet users around the world.
This is a fight we commit ourselves to. Today, we suffered a terrible,
crushing blow. Our next move is to explain to the people who suffer as a
result of the entertainment industry’s depraved indifference to the
consequences of their stupid ideas how they got into this situation, and
get them into the streets, into the polling booths, and into the fight.
for my followers in the carolinas/virginia area that don’t have any experience with hurricanes, i’m making this post with some tips that my family/friends and i have used for hurricanes in the past. it looks like y’all are gonna get hit pretty hard with florence, so i hope this helps you guys out if you’re trying to figure out exactly what you need to do. this is gonna get lengthy so i apologize in advance. if you have tips as well, feel free to add them:
if you live along the shore or in a mobile home, LEAVE IF YOU CAN. if you have family/friends farther into the state or lives in a home, ask if you can stay with them! the shore is most likely going to get the worst of it all, and mobile homes are not suitable for hurricanes (note: this is not to say that only the shore will get hit hard, because storms don’t always die down when they get to land, but the shore will most likely get the very very worst of it) i don’t have experience myself in a mobile home situation for hurricanes, but i do know that in florida, basically every county told people living in them to evacuate to a hurricane shelter
with the last point, find a hurricane shelter! ask around on facebook, check your county’s site, etc. last year with irma, several high schools were getting designated as shelters, so if you’re close to a school, see if they have any information on shelters for the hurricane. if you have no one to go to, a shelter is your next best option for getting the heck out of dodge
regardless of if you’re staying in your home or not, charge your phones and keep them charged, charge any external chargers/battery packs you have, and gas up your car. you may lose electricity. it doesn’t always happen, but it can. again, with irma last year, my neighborhood lost power. i ended up staying with my parents for a week until we got our power back. if you do lose power, even if it’s just for a little bit, you will be thankful that you have at least a method to charge your phone so you can remain in contact with anyone so they know you’re safe. gassing up the cars also helps with this should your battery packs die so you can charge them/your phone back up, but try to reserve the gas for if you need to evacuate after the storm
freeze a cup/tupperware bowl of water and put a coin at the top. if you lose power, it will help you determine if anything in your freezer has gone bad. coin still at or near the top? everything is okay and your power kicked back on quickly. coin in the middle? err on the side of caution. if you think something has gone bad, don’t use it, but most everything should still be fine. coin at the bottom? everything is garbage, do not use.
WATER. water is your friend. freeze as much drinking water as you can, have some in the fridge, have additional water bottles just in case. water in the freezer will help keep freezer cold as backup ice (obviously not great but it will still help). water keeps, and trust me you will want water.
lower the temperature of your house and the fridge. again, in case the power goes out. it will keep you and your food cool until the storm passes
fill up the tubs, bathroom sink, and washing machine with water (leave the lid open so it will fill). use that water in case your toilet drains and you need to flush.
baby wipes are your friend
don’t do the X of duct tape on the window thing. it doesn’t do anything. get some plywood if you can and put it outside the window. a tarp over the window will also do, but not as good as plywood.
wash as much laundry as you can so all your clothes are clean. i recommend packing them in a suit case just in case you have to leave quickly. same with any medications or other things you need to take in case of evacuation
the safest place to be in the house is a windowless room, preferably that does not have any walls that go along the outside. several of us last year sat in the master bathroom closet during irma for this reason
if you have pets, make sure anything you need for them is ready to go (food, bowls, litter, carrier, etc.), again, just in case you need to get out
drag out a mattress or two into whatever area you will be primarily sitting in. not necessary, but adds comfortable seating or just helpful in case someone needs to sleep. i recommend keeping doors to rooms closed and everyone staying in the same place if possible. keep pets out of rooms so they will be in sight.
sandbags will help keep out water along the doors, but also set out some towels inside the house. i’ve had water shoot through the doorknobs more than one during hurricanes, and also still come in through the bottom of the door
buy canned goods. hit up the dollar store for those. everyone goes to the actual grocery store, but you’ll be surprised at the food you can find at the dollar store. canned ravioli is a godsend when you can’t heat up your food
also buy flashlights and batteries. again, you can find those at the dollar store
put as many cars into the garage (if you have one) as you can. that way in case any you have that are outside get damaged, you still will have a car ready to go. i recommend that whoever has the biggest car at least puts theirs in the garage, that way if all of you in your home need to leave, you can fit everyone in
keep the news on if you can, you don’t have to leave the volume up super loud or actively watch it, but it will keep you updated
find some board games to keep you entertained. we played a lot of head’s up (on our phones), cards against humanity, uno. you’re gonna get bored, so it’s just nice to have something to entertain and distract yourself with
i know that this is a lot but trust me when i say it’s better to be over prepared. lots of things can happen. floridians talk a lot of shit when it comes to not being scared of hurricanes, but it’s scary as hell, and last year was no joke. i’m fully expecting a lot to happen with these upcoming ones and i just want to make sure everyone stays safe. if you have any other specific questions, feel free to message me and i can help as best as i can
very good point! thank you! i dont have any info regarding what officials in the states are saying, so please stay safe everyone!
from what i can see coming from the nhc, florence is supposedly going to die down to a tropical storm/depression when it gets more inland, but those can definitely still cause flooding and everything, so if officials are saying to get out, please please please try to find a place to go!
you don’t know how long you’re going to be out of power so make sure your laptops are at full charge so you can charge your phones off them if/when your battery packs die. I had to do that last year at my shelter and it was a life saver for so many people. also, bring power strips so everyone can charge while there’s still power. not everyone will have thought of this and they will greatly appreciate it. you’re in this together. once the storm clears and it’s safe to use your car, charge through there and keep contact to everyone quick and at a minimum cos you don’t know how long you’ll have that signal.
all important papers- birth records, social security, insurance info, medical records, past two years of tax forms; take with you.
if you’re able to get a hotel, make sure it’s pet friendly by calling the hotel directly instead of going through a booking agent and even if they say they’re not, a majority of the time a lot of the other evacuees won’t listen and will have brought their pets too. bring a litter box and/or doggy bags, a small broom and dustpan, lint rollers and wet wipes to keep the hotel clean. I’ve had to do that in the past. if you have small fish that you bring, buy a small filtering bowl so that they’ll be comfortable too. hoard your toilet paper.
bring some bowls, cups, utensils, plates so that you can make some microwave dinners via canned food in the hotel room. also, salt and pepper. also, poptarts, goldfish snacks, snackbars, fruitstrips, powdered packet drinks. you don’t know how long you’re going to be eating on the bare minimum and having some variety will definitely help. yes, right now it may not seem like something you NEED but it will help keep the crankiness at bay later on, especially having a flavored water.
colouring books! if you get bored of games and reading and need some alone time, those help a lot. I was stuck in a 16×16 windowless room for three days last year with four other people and those kept me sane. (if you have a console and you’re in a hotel or at a friend’s/relative’s/work, hook that shit up and watch some movies and play some games until the power goes out. make it a sleepover.
if you’re not able to get plywood for your windows: bubblewrap > cardboard > duct tape around the edges. this has saved my pos windows many a times in the past. DO NOT CRISS CROSS THE GLASS WITH TAPE. any extra mattresses you’re not using or if you’re evacuating, prop up against the windows and move a dresser or something heavy in front of it. move all the expensive and heavy electronics/furniture away from the windows and cover them.
bring blankets, comforters, pillows.
before Florence makes official landfall, make sure to go outside the day before or of. get some fresh air before the wind and rain get really bad cos you’re going to be inside for what seems like a very long time and you’ll appreciate those few hours before it hits.
stay safe and dry xx
ONE MORE THING if you’re on medication, get that shit refilled ASAP. you’re allowed up to one to two weeks (depending) ahead of your regularly scheduled refill so get it cos you don’t know when or if you’re going to be able to get it next and it never hurts have it.
Also, Nino is such a ride or die person for his loved ones?
His girlfriend become a zombie? He stays behind with her, effectivelly dooming himself for her.
His best friend is not allowed to have a birthday? Turns into a supervillain and decides to fight every parent ever.
His girlfriend is kidnapped by a giant super-buff spider monster lesbian? Will fucking throw hands with her and beat her off with a stick untill she frees her.
His former crush and dear friend really wants to raw date his best friend but she can’t cause he’s never allowed to leave the house? He will fucking bring her on his date with Alya and have her be in a video call with him for the entire thing, who cares about third or fourth wheels?
(AND will also give her a sick mix tape for her birthday)
Mathee's Blog 