E-MAIL THIS LINK
To: 

How the copyright directive changed my view of the EU: Confessions of a hurt ‐ but not defeated ‐ Europeanist
[Medium] Long read, but here's the short version:

The events that led to the approval of the copyright directive highlight some big issues in how the EU currently works.

* Credibility. The European Commission commissioned a report and kept it secret because it concluded that "the results do not show robust statistical evidence of displacement of sales by online copyright infringements".

* Evidence-based policy. The Commission ignored another report commissioned by the Parliament that found "nearly universal criticism" by European academics against the introduction of extra copyright for news sites.

* Technical expertise. The rapporteur of the directive for the European Parliament said that "a Google image search for "memes" displays a bunch of memes, so [parody] can be recognized [by AI-based upload filters]".

* No consideration for experts and activists. Criticism and massive protests were dismissed as manipulated by tech giants such as Google and Facebook. This attitude was not limited to representatives in EU institutions, but also journalists.

* France and Germany misused their influence to push for an ideological, non evidence-based, freedom-threatening reform.

* Conclusion. As a convinced Europeanist, the writer felt betrayed. In his opinion, this means we need to vote for radical pan-European parties that want to change Europe with radical and ambitious proposals based both on the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and on scientific evidence.

Posted by: Herb McCoy 2019-05-24
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=541631