back to article Scientists, free software bods still worried about EU copyright proposals

European digital rights groups and open science advocates are mobilising against proposed EU copyright changes they say would hamper information sharing. At issue is a proposal, which first landed last year, to stop people uploading copyrighted material by applying a YouTube-like filter against content fingerprints. That …

  1. MacroRodent
    Unhappy

    Oh not again

    As crazy as the idea of forcing A/D converters to block audio that has been watermarked, in order to close the "analog hole" of copy protection... pushed in the US a few years ago by some politicians firmly in the pay of entertainment industry (never mind the crippling effect this would have on the electronics industry). Fortunately that died. Some such interests are now hard at work, lobbying our dear neighbours south of the Gulf of Finland.

  2. Chris G

    The problem with many of these initiatives is that it is often being pushed by one individual or a small group who are often poorly informed by others with a vested interest.

    Once they are under way even if they find they are wrong they are reluctant to admit it so they push through.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    And it will work over HTTPS...

    ...how exactly?

    1. TRT Silver badge

      Re: And it will work over HTTPS...

      HTTPS? You still reckon that they'll have encryption by the time May et al. have had their way?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: And it will work over HTTPS...

        I mean, what exactly are the Estonians proposing?

        (1) Content filtering is done at ISPs - which means getting rid of HTTPS?

        (2) Content filtering is done at *every* individual content hosting website, i.e. a legal obligation that every site that receives a POST/PUT upload must check it against a database of known hashes?

        And if the latter, how are they going to enforce it?

        Furthermore, if it's done by hashes, what stops someone splitting a file into random-sized chunks and uploading them individually? Or just prepending some random bytes onto the front? Or decoding and re-encoding an MP3 stream?

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: And it will work over HTTPS...

        May's ambition is pie-high fantasy.... and we all know these never come true (still waiting for my wife to bring her "best friend" home)

        1. TRT Silver badge

          Re: And it will work over HTTPS...

          Mmmm.... Pie!

  4. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    undermine the presumption of innocence by treating “every user of the platform as a potential copyright infringer”

    Presumptions of innocence? Ah, yes. I remember it.

    Home Sec May will be in favour.

  5. Nick Kew

    Fingerprinting text?

    We're told it puts Github content at risk. Wouldn't that basically just mean Github having to locate infrastructure outside the jurisdiction of such nonsense? Or might it lead to Github admins being arrested - like security researchers in the US? Sounds mildly far-fetched.

    Github content (at least, content that matters) is source code, which is text. If that's affected, it would seem to imply some kind of fingerprinting on text. That really would lead to all kinds of nonsense, though it might be a Hollywood wet dream to make a film of a Shakespeare play and then catch copies of the original in its copyright net!

  6. el kabong

    Well, with this blunder Estonians provide us with definitive proof that they are not nearly half as tech savvy as they are purported to be. Estonia just disappointed me, I'm sad!

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      "with this blunder Estonians provide us with definitive proof that they are not nearly half as tech savvy as they are purported to be"

      And here's one they made earlier: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/09/05/estonia_identifies_security_risk_in_750000_id_cards/

      1. el kabong

        I'm well aware of it, but they were not at fault in that case, others were. Estonians managed to hold their own quite well in that particular case.

        It seems to me that Estonia is fairly strong and quite able on the technical side, as in almost other country it's the political side that causes them to faulter.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What ever happened to...

    Innocent until proven guilty?

  8. corestore

    An UPLOAD FILTER?!

    Is this fscking CHINA?!

  9. FuzzyWuzzys
    Facepalm

    What about other creatives content?

    What about photographers, artists and musicians? We all upload our creative output to dozens of websites for sharing, sometimes for profit as a business, someones simply for the fun of it. False positives would kill creative freedom.

    I can see where this is heading in the not too distant future...

    "Sorry the signature that music track/picture we monitored you working on for the last 2 weeks working is the same as "Track X" owned by Sony International. Please remain where you are and a lawyer from Sony will be with you shortly to discuss payments they will require made to them. Do not attempt to leave your current location or the law enforcement officers, now in the pay of the media corps, will be summoned."

  10. Version 1.0 Silver badge

    Does this even work?

    How many copies of Hamilton can you find on YouTube? The answer would be zero if this works instead of hundreds of copies, all carefully crafted to escape the filters.

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