This Wednesday the European Parliament and European Council agreed on the final text of the EU Copyright Directive.

That, of course, includes the hugely controversial Article 13, which critics insist will lead to upload filtering, censorship, plus all kinds of unintended consequences that could change the shape of the Internet forever.

Urgent claims have been made on both sides, including that the music industry could be brought to its knees if Article 13 doesn’t pass, and the Internet will break if the worst fears of the legislation come true. In the end and as predicted by many, it appears that the EU Commission sided with those claiming the former.

A bigger surprise came from the EU Commission itself when it waded in Thursday with a stinging article of its own, one which implies that the millions who objected against Article 13 were misled and therefore misinformed. It was also a surprise to see the Commission itself suggest that “paid-for campaigns” were at least partly to blame.

It has to be stressed that the Commission piece seems intentionally loose at times, perhaps to avoid direct accusations towards any particular company. However, when it begins by stating that searches for the ‘EU Copyright Directive’ on YouTube renders results that are mostly “passionately against it”, the tone is well and truly set.

Pointing out headlines such as ‘Today Europe lost the Internet’, ‘How the new copyright laws will destroy the internet’, and ‘Censorship machines’, the Commission says that the campaign against Article 13 is being driven by “catchy slogans”, not the truth. It even manages to squeeze in what appears to be a reference to the UK’s decision to leave the EU.

“Of course, we know from recent elections and referendums that simple memorable slogans — however untrue or unobtainable — can go a long way to winning over hearts, minds and voters. And so it was, that the wholly inaccurate phrases ‘link taxes’ and ‘censorship machines’ started to be part of the campaign against the proposed Copyright Directive,” the Commission writes.

What follows is a familiar outline of why the Commission feels that Article 13 is needed, arguing that big tech companies such as Google/YouTube and Facebook shouldn’t be allowed to make money by placing ads against infringing content on their platforms. It then steps in to discredit the ‘meme ban’.

“Oh and by the way,” the Commission continues. “No matter what some people (and paid-for campaigns) may tell you, you will never be prevented from having a laugh online. WE ARE NOT BANNING MEMES. On the contrary, there will be a guarantee that platforms respect your right to self-expression. That includes pastiche, critique and parody.”

Then, however, things begin to get a little more gritty.

The Commission says that despite having overwhelming dominance online, the “largest search and video platforms” (fill in the blanks yourself) are “afraid of regulation”. Furthermore, these companies have skewed the campaign against Article 13 in their favor by “creating” (subtle sarcasm there, perhaps) “grassroots campaigns” to make it look and sound as if the EU is acting against “the will of the people.”

That, the Commission says, is nonsense, because “unlike Google and Facebook, the EU is answerable to the public and to democratically elected politicians.”

The underlying tone from the EU Commission is that meddling by tech giants led to members of the public being misled, stirred up, and forced into opposition over Article 13, but not based on the true facts.

“So next time, when you get a sponsored message on your timeline, which says something like ‘the EU will kill the world wide web as we know it’, stop, pause and consider for a moment. Ask yourself: Cui Bono? Who really benefits from this message or this wider negative campaign?” the Commission adds.

These comments are probably a little insulting to the people who have followed this from the beginning and have formed their own opinions based on solid research and facts as written in EU documentation. However, the EU Commission seems to believe that the majority have simply acted like sheep, herded up by US tech giants.

“Do Google, Facebook or others really need to pay to persuade? Are we in a world where ordinary people side with the fire breathing dragon against the knight with a blue and yellow shield?” it asks.

Some supporters of Article 13 are already celebrating the EU Commission’s piece as validation of their theories that this wasn’t a fair fight, that tech companies did indeed unfairly meddle in the process that led up to Wednesday’s agreement.

The problem, however, is that this isn’t over yet, and the suggestion that people who opposed Article 13 are poorly informed may only serve to pour yet more fuel on the fire by infuriating everyone, informed or otherwise.

Whether one agrees or disagrees with the Commission’s assertions, it might have been prudent to keep these opinions behind closed doors, at least until this is all over. The timing doesn’t seem great but pretty much nothing about this entire campaign has been.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.

When it comes to pirate site blocking, South Korea is one of the most active countries in the Asia-Pacific region. 

According to recent data from the Motion Picture Association, the country has blocked 456 sites to prevent the public from accessing pirated material.

These blocking orders are sanctioned by the Korean Communications Standards Commission (KCSC), which also oversees other blocking efforts, including those targeted at porn or illegal gambling sites. 

While the ISP blockades work well for regular HTTP sites, they are fairly easy to bypass on HTTPS connections, something most sites offer today. For this reason, the Korean authorities are now stepping up their blocking game. 

This week the Government announced that it will start eavesdropping on SNI fields, which identify the hostname of the target server. This allows ISPs to see which HTTPS sites users are trying to access, so these can be blocked if they’re on the Korean blocklist. 

The new measures will apply to 895 foreign websites that are linked to porn, gambling or copyright infringement.

“The SNI blocking is a method of checking and blocking the target server in the SNI field. It is not related to communication interception and data packet interception,” the Government writes.

“In particular, the new method plans to block illegal sites related to child pornography, video piracy, and illegal gambling,” the translated press release adds. 

The new blocking measures were already announced early last year as a new tool to deal with pirate sites, and are expected to take effect on February 22. From then on, users who access a blocked HTTPS site will be redirected to the following warning page. 

The new blocking policy is meeting quite a bit of resistance locally. A petition that was launched earlier this week has been signed by over 180,000 people already and this number is growing rapidly. 

The petition warns that this type of censorship is limiting freedom of expression. At the same time, however, it notes that people will find ways to bypass the blockades. 

“We will continue to bypass and evade Internet censorship. The new https blocking can also be bypassed through VPN programs or by activating ESNI. Do you really think limiting this way is effective?” it reads. 

Indeed, SNI eavesdropping and blocking is useless when people use a VPN. In addition, more modern browsers and companies such as Cloudflare increasingly support encrypted SNI (ESNI). This prevents ISPs from snooping on SNI handshakes.

The nightly build of Firefox added support for ESNI last October, for example. As Bleepingcomputer notes, this is a more pressing issue now for South Koreans, which is exemplified by a recent message on Firefox’s bug tracker.

While it is no surprise that many South Koreans are not happy with the changes, at least their Government and ISPs are transparent about the matter. In Europe and elsewhere, HTTPS blocking is also fairly common, but it’s not always clear what measures are used. 

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.

Downloading music and movies in Japan is prohibited under the country’s Copyright Act, meaning that anyone who does so is liable to prosecution or civil suits.

Unusually, however, current legislation doesn’t offer the same levels of protection for creators of other creative works, such as still images (including ever-popular manga publications), software, and games. This disparity has prompted complaints from rightsholders who have been pressurizing the government to close the gap.

Last year it was reported that an advisory panel for the Cultural Affairs Agency was considering the possibility of rendering the downloading of a broader range of content as a criminal offense, roughly in line with laws passed in 2012 outlawing various forms of file-sharing. This week, those plans took a significant step forward.

According to local sources, a government panel adopted the new policy on Wednesday, recommending to the Cultural Affairs Agency that current anti-downloading legislation should be expanded to cover all copyrighted content. The Agency is now expected to submit a bill to amend the Copyright Act.

What remains unclear are the punishments to be handed down and under what circumstances.

The original recommendation of up to two years in prison and fines of two million yen (US$18,052) appears to be still on the table but a Mainichi report states that might only apply to those committing serious offenses, such as repeatedly downloading pirate content.

Additionally, these sentences would only be handed down in the event that victims of infringement file criminal complaints. However, the threshold for a criminal complaint is unclear and could cause issues for the legal system if there are large numbers of referrals.

Also of interest is that the government appears ready to tackle the issue of ‘pirate’ indexing sites, known locally as “leech sites”.

In September 2018, an advisory panel recommended that these sites should be outlawed. Carrying no infringing content themselves, these services provide hyperlinks to content hosted elsewhere and currently sit in a legal gray area.

There are an estimated 200 ‘leech’ sites in Japan and both the government and rightsholders wish to close the legal loophole that currently protects them. The aim is to criminalize those who knowingly link to content when they should “reasonably be expected” to know that the content is infringing.

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Last September the European Parliament backed the controversial Article 13 plans, which are part of the EU’s broader copyright reform plans.

This was followed by several rounds of trilogue negotiations, during which the final text would be drawn up. This process was completed today.

The European Parliament and Council have finally agreed on a final text of the EU copyright reforms. This includes Article 13, which was highly debated and criticized over the past several months.

Despite the protests and objections, which also came from rightsholders in recent weeks, lawmakers didn’t slow down.

The final version of Article 13 is based on the compromise deal France and Germany struck last week.

In short, it requires for-profit Internet platforms to license content from copyright holders. If that is not possible, they should ensure that infringing content is taken down and not re-uploaded to their services.

This will essentially mandate “upload filters,” opponents have warned, but that wasn’t much of a stumbling block during the negotiations. The main point of contention was which services should adhere to the new rules.

Last September’s version of Article 13 excluded small businesses, but that’s no longer the case.

If a service is publicly available for less than three years, with fewer than five million unique visitors per month, and an annual turnover of less than €10 million, only then it is excluded.

This means that only small startups will not be bound by the new rules. These companies will still have to do their best to obtain licenses from rightsholders. However, they will not be forced to prevent infringing content from being re-uploaded.

According to Pirate Party MEP Julia Reda, who has been highly critical of the plans, the current version of Article 13 is even worse than before.

“This deal is a threat to small publishers, authors and internet users alike and risks putting the internet as we know it solely in the hands of the tech and media giants,” Reda comments.

“Even the most sophisticated upload filters routinely block perfectly legal content. Requiring platforms to use upload filters would not just lead to more frequent blocking of legal uploads, it would also make life difficult for smaller platforms that cannot afford filtering software,” she adds.

Today’s deal follows months of protests, mostly from people who fear that upload filters will decrease freedom of speech. This includes #SaveYourInternet, as well as a widely shared petition that was signed by more than 4.7 million people.

Various major copyright industry groups also voiced concerns, but not about filters. They feared that a watered down version of Article 13 would do more harm than good so suggested that it might be better to scrap it entirely.

Not all artists appreciated this stance, but it might very well have been a negotiating tactic.

EU copyright rapporteur Axel Voss, who’s one of the driving forces behind the plans, nonetheless found plenty of support in the creative community. He repeatedly argued that Article 13 and other proposals are needed to make sure that copyright holders get the money they deserve.

The deal that was just reached doesn’t come as a complete surprise and it’s not the end of the road just yet. The European Parliament still has the final vote, which is expected to take place in March or April, before the EU elections.

Julia Reda and other opponents hope that a final push can convince the various representatives to reject Article 13 and well as Article 11, which is known for the ‘link tax.’

“Today’s news is a backwards step for freedom of expression online, but it’s not the end of the road, we can still fight against damaging upload filters and a link tax. We need to send a clear message that we want to protect authors’ rights as well as users and small publishers,” Reda notes.

Those who support the proposals will continue their campaigns as well, so expect to see more new about it leading up to the final vote.

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Breaking news, more updates may follow. 

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Authorities in Russia maintain a huge database of banned sites, from platforms that promote terrorism to those that engage in unlicensed gambling and copyright infringement.

ISPs are required to prevent their users from accessing these sites by interfacing their systems with the so-called FGIS (Unified Register of Prohibited Information) database. More recently, however, legislation was tweaked so that search engines must also prevent banned sites from appearing in their search results.

Late 2018, this caused problems for Google. While local providers including Yandex and Mail.ru connected to the blacklist as required, Google did not. This prompted local telecoms watchdog Roscomnadzor into action.

In the first instance, the telecoms watchdog contacted Google with a demand that it should immediately connect to the FGIS blacklist. But, despite a meeting with the authorities, Google still refused to comply, something which placed the company in breach of federal law.

As a result, Google was hit with a fine of 500,000 rubles (US$7,595), the lowest amount that can be handed down under existing laws.

Ever since, Roscomnadzor has been encouraging Google to connect to the FGIS but the US-based company has declined. However, it now appears that Google is effectively carrying out the search result delistings the Russians have requested, even though the mechanics appear slightly different.

According to an Interfax source, Google has received a list containing 120,000 ‘banned’ URLs and has been removing them from its search results. Thus far, Google is reported to have deleted around 73% of the illegal content present in the FGIS database from its results using this method.

While checking all of the links is certainly beyond the scope of this article, TorrentFreak checked the results for RuTracker, Russia’s most popular torrent site and one that is permanently blocked in the country.

Last year, RuTracker.org and .net featured prominently in Google.ru’s results but when searched for using a Russian IP address, they are no longer present.

Interestingly, when searching for RuTracker.org using Google.ru but via a foreign (non-Russian IP address), the results are what one might expect, with RuTracker.org and RuTracker.net as the top results. Nevertheless, Roscomnadzor seem happy with Google’s efforts.

“Constructive dialogue and cooperation have been established between Roscomnadzor and Google. At the moment, we are satisfied with the results of this cooperation,” Roscomnadzor spokesperson Vadim Ampelonsky told Interfax.

The cooperation appears to have calmed relations between Google and Roscomnadzor on the issue of filtering. Less than a month ago, the telecoms watchdog threatened to fine Google again for non-compliance, warning that Google itself could find itself blocked in Russia.

That threat seems to have been headed off, at least for now.

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