<
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20210209/02071146211/snippet-taxes-not-only-violate-berne-convention-also-betray-deepest-roots-newspaper-culture.shtml>
"Last week Techdirt wrote about Australia's proposed News Media
Bargaining Code. This is much worse than the already awful Article 15 of
the EU Copyright Directive (formerly Article 11), which similarly
proposes to force Internet companies to pay for the privilege of sending
traffic to traditional news sites. A post on Infojustice has a good
summary of the ways in which the Australians aim to do more harm to the
online world than the Europeans:
1) The protection for press publications provided by [the EU's] DSM
Article 15 does not apply to linking or the use of "very short
extracts." The Code explicitly applies to linking and the use of
extracts of any length. Accordingly, the Code applies to search engines
and social media feeds, not just news aggregation services.
2) The Code forces Internet platforms to bargain collectively with news
publishers or to be forced into rate setting through binding
arbitration. DSM Article 15 does not require any similar rate-setting
mechanism.
3) The Code imposes burdensome obligations on the platforms, some of
which directly implicate free expression. For example, platforms would
need to provide news businesses with ability to "turn off" comments on
individual stories they post to digital platforms. DSM Article 15
imposes none of these obligations.
4) The Code prohibits the platforms from differentiating between an
Australian news business and a foreign news business. This provision
prevents platforms from exiting the market by taking care not to link to
Australian news content. If the platform links to international news
content, e.g., articles from the New York Times, it must also link to
(and therefor pay for) Australian news content. DSM Article 15 does not
contain a non-differentiation provision.
The same blog post points out that these elements are so bad they
probably violate the Berne Convention — the foundational text for
modern copyright law."
Via Glyn Moody, who wrote "wrong at every level: practical, legal and
cultural"
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
