Article 13 is a European Copyright Directive that was passed recently. Ahead of it being implemented, lawmakers have sent out an EU piracy list of websites. Banning them could break the internet.
[Do You Indulge in Internet Piracy? Don’t Use AT&T]
Piracy
The list of websites that should be banned for copyright infringement is kind of funny. And also scary because politicians don’t understand technology. One of the services on the list is Cloudflare, which many websites use for DDoS protection.
Other websites on the list used to have copyright and piracy issues, but have since cleaned up their act. 1channel.ch is one such example, which hasn’t been a pirate site since 2017. Last January the EU noted:
The list will identify and describe the most problematic marketplaces – with special focus on online marketplaces – in order to encourage their operators and owners as well as the responsible local authorities and governments to take the necessary actions and measures to reduce the availability of IPR infringing goods or services.
The EU piracy list defines pirate websites as ones that “aggregate, categorize, organize and index links to media content that is stored on hosting websites, cyberlockers or other kinds of sites allegedly containing pirated content.”
The full list can be found here [PDF].
And techs don’t understand politics. That doesn’t make either condition okay, just saying.
Oh I agree. Both can benefit from greater understanding.
Remember when Steve Jobs stood at the intersection of Technology and Liberal Arts? I try to do that