Board Thread:Game Updates/@comment-3502824-20181106011917/@comment-37387872-20190402031517

AnimeFreak40K wrote: It's an April Fool's gag that is poking fun at some of the absurdity of Article 13, but also the fact that this very site had to fight a (short, though very vocal) battle regarding a DCMA takedown. People capeable of critical thought would also note that Article 13 would hold little effect on sites hosted and managed outside of the EU...much like how US Net Neutrality laws (or the lack thereof) would not affect users or sites in other countries. This all being said, there *are* legitimate criticisms that have been brought up by these big tech firms, but these mostly relate to the small companies that would be affected and don't have the resources to fall into compliance. Sorry, only saw your reply now!

The unwarranted DCMA takedown this wiki was subjected to is actually something that, going by this Directive, should not be possible, as the hosting platform would bear greater responsibility to ensure that bullshit claims don't get rubberstamped just because it's a hassle to investigate more thoroughly. This is one of the reasons of why I think the Directive can have a positive impact: users are given more tools to ensure material exempted from copyright restrictions doesn't get blocked just because the hosting platform has a shitty policy that puts big corporations before the people.

And you're right, the Directive would of course apply only to companies operating in Europe -- but similar to how many tech companies have already adopted the improved data protection and user privacy regulations of the European GDPR for non-EU users, it is possible it'll have wider repercussions. I believe this is called the "California effect" or something? On the other hand, unlike with GDPR, YouTube etc directly benefit from hosting a degree of copyright-infringing content, so it's possible they will tweak their systems to have content availability differ depending on region. Think this is already the case for some videos right now.

As for small companies, Article 13 also contains provisions for startups or small and micro-businesses. Any for-profit sharing platform that sees more than 5 million unique users per month should probably be big enough to warrant demonstrating "best efforts" to comply with the Directive in full.

There were legit criticisms, but the current version of the Directive - after all these amendments - looks okay. It's a pity, though, that discussion in the media is so one-sided. More people should read the actual document itself, rather than just parroting what big tech says. Google is not our friend. :V