Are we too hot to be bothered? Or can’t we be bothered while the footie is on? Is Free Speech not something worth fighting for?
Once our Freedom of Speech is gone it is gone! Heatwaves come every few years, the next World Cup will take place in four years, Wimbledon is every year – but once we let them take away our Freedom of speech it will be gone, perhaps even irretrievably.
Perhaps we think that, with Brexit in one form or another coming closer, we don’t need to worry – surely this new, insane EU Directive about copyright which is called the Internet Killer won’t affect us? Not so!
Just as the GDPR Directive affected us all, and just as we learned in passing that our dear government has signed us up to keep this even after whichever Brexit (if it ever comes), so this new Directive will affect us equally, Brexit or not.
We’ve reported on it a week ago (see here) and as time runs out, we appeal again to all of you to send emails to your MEPs. The aim is to stop the juggernaut and enforce an open debate in the EU Parliament. If that doesn’t happen, the thing will simply be nodded through in good old EU fashion. No debate. Recall Juncker’s words:
“We decide on something, leave it lying around, and wait and see what happens. If no one kicks up a fuss, because most people don’t understand what has been decided, we continue step by step until there is no turning back.”
That’s where we are now. This Internet directive has been lying around (introduced by Germany, btw). for a bit. Unelected bureaucrats and Commissioners have been working on it. It was voted for in the ‘JURI’ committee. All perfectly reasonable, no-one was bothered (why should they!) – and now all it needs is for the EU Parliament to give it the nod and that’s that.
It will come as no surprise that the Media Big Businesses, from international print media to music industry giants, think this is a marvellous idea, and will ‘help’ pay their hordes of creative ants, word for word or note for note.
It will come as no surprise that our own media have been only lukewarm in reporting – after all, memes, youtube videos, music videos by independents, independent websites and blogs written, produced and published by irksome individuals not kow-towing to the governing opinions and even earning money from their works: that can’t be allowed! On top of which, they helped Trump to win and/or are in collusion with Putin, aren’t they … so: get rid!
But this concerns all of us, regardless of being politically of the ‘left’ or ‘right’. This quote says it all:
“You don’t have to be on the right or the left to decry this directive: the primary community it will affect doesn’t have lobbyists in Brussels. They’re just ordinary Internet and digital technology users and creators. Europe’s lawmakers need to understand that the details of digital copyright are more than just a deal to be brokered between commercial giants — they’re a matter of free expression, privacy, and human rights. That’s why the United Nation’s human rights experts oppose these articles; why Wikipedia and Creative Commons are fighting it; why the Internet’s pioneering technologists and creators told the EU to think again. And that’s why your MEP needs to hear from you.”
Read the whole thing here: “The Crucial Next Few Days In the EU’s Copyright Filter and Link Tax Battle”
While the EU juggernaut is moving forward, most people don’t even know what this is about or why they should be bothered. Cynics like myself point out that it surely cannot be a coincidence that this Directive is seeing the light of day during the footie World Cup. After all, the timetable for this event didn’t suddenly fall from the sky two weeks ago – and everybody knows that governments do like to press through legislation on the sly or hide ‘bad news’ while the nation or in this case the EU nations, are glued to their TVs or celebrate outdoors.
You recall that four famous ‘Internet Warriors’ joined UKIP last month, accompanied by the concerns and even resistance of some Kippers. Let’s remind them that UKIP stands for Free Speech. So this is our battle. Why this battle must be fought and how this can be done is shown perfectly by Carl Benjamin, i.e. ‘Sargon of Akkad’, in his video ofJune 29th:
Starting at about 8:15, Sargon explains forcefully why UKIP is vital and what Gerard asks us to do in this fight for Free Speech. This is precisely why so many of us were jubilant when he and Paul Joseph Watson joined. Here is the latest video from Paul Joseph Watson laying out why he joined UKIP – do watch if you still think this was a stunt, or if you need firing up!
This is how to reach those our Party website (no sniggering on the backbenches!) cannot reach. This is how to ‘do’ a campaign on the internet while we still have it. So get your email provider fired up and go for it!
We have until the 5th to put a spoke – a tiny one, but even so – into the EU juggernaut’s wheels. To email your MEP, Red, Green or Blue, go here:
You will find text proposals/sample emails on that site.
Do it!
To any who think this rejection means the battle is won, I quote to you that piece of work, the President of the European Commission – “If it’s a Yes, we will say ‘on we go’, and if it’s a No we will say ‘we continue’”. These madmen and criminals simply don’t do democracy. Votes, including referendums, are to be held again and again until the “correct” answer is produced – after which they’ll make sure that no chance to undo it is ever given again. Our EU Referendum was an enormous miscalculation by them; they thought the disgusting liars… Read more »
The EU is technically cretinous. It was bad enough them thinking that low wattage kettles and toasters are more efficient than high wattage ones. When anybody with O level physics should see that this is daft. A 1 watt kettle would never come to the boil, and would be zero percent efficient. They actually did go ahead and ban higher wattage vacuum cleaners. Probably the same economies of scale apply, other factors being equal. So if it takes more than twice as long to vacuum a given area of carpet with a vacuum of half the wattage, you are not… Read more »
1. While a 1W kettle is absurd, restricting the kettle’s power to a moderately high value is also unsound. A 1.5kW kettle will take much longer to boil a given amount of water than a 3kW one. This means there’ll be more time for heat to be dissipated to the surroundings, lowering efficiency. 2. As to the vacuum cleaner wattage-based ban, I have a theory. Boris Johnson, in September 2014 (i.e., long before his Damascene conversion to LEAVE, allegedly motivated by his desire to get into Number 10), said: “Tories who defect to UKIP are the kind of people who… Read more »
KipperCentral have reported that the European Parliament has rejected the Article 11 & 13 proposals:
http://kippercentral.com/2018/07/05/victory-blow-to-eu-censorship-machine-as-article-13-rejected/
“The proposals will now be sent back to the drawing board and return to the European Parliament in September.”
So its not over by a long shot, knowing how the EU works, they will still try and fudge it through.
Hers’s what the Italian Wikipedia did yesterday: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-44696302
Rob, thanks – and, “good grief”.
The provision of links in the world-wide web is analogous to recommending someone look at or read a particular (copyrighted) work.
The former is no more a breach of copyright than the latter.
This can’t be mere incompetence by the legislator-puppets who infest the European Parliament, can it? This is the European Commission’s war on the freedom of information and speech,
“Article 11 of the proposed law requires online platforms to pay publishers a fee if they link to their news content.” Unless I am misunderstanding this, it is bizarre. Surely it should be the other way round? The content providers should instead be paying for links to their content. If there are no links to their content, how is anybody going to find it? In fact there is already provision technically to prevent Google etc search engines robots from indexing particular web pages. So if the online newspapers etc really do not want the search engines to link to their… Read more »
Or add a sitewide “robots.txt” file…
Thanks Viv,
for highlighting this exceedingly important matter to the UKIPDaily readership. I fear the inherent authoritarian nature of MEPs of all colours will make the campaign of writing to them somewhat redundant. Neither Tories nor Labour have any interest in Freedom and most MEPs are looking for their next career move, so won’t be too interested in the authoritarian tools of tomorrow being assembled today.
Best Regards – James
It will be interesting to see how vigorously UKIP MEPs fight this. Don’t hold your breath, only two turned up to help in Lewisham, far to busy in Brussels…
Message from Margot Parker, MEP Thank you for your email. Article 13 of the Copyright Directive is a major concern as it will impose privatised censorship of all types of content and it is incompatible with fundamental rights and the E-commerce Directive. Additionally it will prevent the availability of content before it is uploaded; it could cost you money in a stealth tax and if this tax is not paid then your content probably will not be uploaded. There are further concerns in that it is technically infeasible as it covers all sorts of creations ranging from literary works, music,… Read more »
Just received a reply from Julie Girling (Con., one of six South West MEPs whom I contacted) and she intends to support the proposals. Here is the salient sentence:
“I have also received many emails from musicians, film producers and other sectors of the creative industries showing support for the proposal. After having researched the issue, I would like to take this opportunity to explain why I support the proposal and the creative industries that it will protect.”
Thanks.
This is the common argument to support this directive.
The point of the petition however is to get it debated in the EU Parliament, and not decided behind closed doors, with the MEPs just nodding their consent, having been fed the ‘reasons’ from Big Business (music, publishing).
She just doesn’t get it.
Spot on Viv, it is ‘catch all’ legislation, cleverly sold as protecting poor struggling artists (like Bono) but with a much more sinister purpose’.
If the UKIP ‘management’ cannot even get a report on the Brexit march in London on 23rd June onto our National website after MORE THAN A WEEK then it seems the Goon Show ‘Communications Team’ are already doing the EU’s dirty work without needing any new legislation. How truly comical (or tragic?) that yesterday there was a grandly trumpeted ‘UKIP Communications Seminar’ but not ONE person seems to have noticed that the national website hasn’t been updated for over a week, a week in which the Queen signed the EU Withdrawal Bill.
Russell, keep up the pressure, you have a lot of support.
I’m pleased to tell you Viv that the vile Eurocrats are simply not smart enough to win the technology battle.
Decentralised internet is imminent.
“Decentralized Internet Will Save Humanity!”
https://youtu.be/_TN1rxmxXk0
Suck it up Merkel!
That may well be the last resort – but meanwhile, fight we must!
Top comment flyer, but the general public has little idea, or it seems worries.
Here is another link which gives more detail on distributed web browsing systems for those that might want to explore this further. https://www.wired.com/story/the-decentralized-internet-is-here-with-some-glitches/ This has been around for quite some time. They mention DTube which I looked at a year or two ago. At the time there wasn’t much content available which tended to put me off. One of the things that I did see seemed to be about selling illegal drugs so I got out of it immediately. Perhaps we will find that the powers that be will simply make using the distributed internet illegal. The idea of internet… Read more »