MEPs pushed forward this week with legislation that would set a higher target for CO2 reductions for new cars and encourage member states to call for retrofits of old vehicles.

If passed by the European Council, the measures would aim to reduce emissions in new cars by 37.5% and vans by 31%, in time for a 2030 deadline. MEPs backed the proposal in a vote of 521 to 63 with 34 abstentions.

I'm With Stupid wrote:There's something about the words 'target' and 'encourage' that don't fill me with confidence.

ronmcd wrote:There's something about the word 'EU' that fills me with sadness, as we are dragged out because of internal Tory politics and bloodletting.

Article 13: A guide to the new EU copyright rules and the ban on memes

What is Article 13?

The European Union has passed a wide-reaching update to copyright laws, the first since 2001. Most of the changes in the EU Copyright Directive are uncontroversial, setting out how copyright contracts are managed and licensed, but Article 13 could have a huge impact on how material is shared online. Put simply, it makes websites responsible for ensuring that content uploaded to their platforms doesn’t breach copyright. The updates will become law once member states enshrine the rules in legislation in their own countries.

...bunch of other stuff...

Why is it controversial?

How long have you got? Users say the rules risk killing off vibrant internet culture, such as memes, which often repurpose unlicensed material. And the legal status of streamers, who post videos of themselves playing video games online, is in question.

Website owners aren’t required to install content monitoring software to detect copyright material, but practically it will be impossible to guarantee a site isn’t infringing the rules without this software.

“It’s very hard to make these tools identifying content, because they can’t identify context, and so they make decisions that are likely to be bad,” says Jim Killock at the Open Rights Group, a UK digital rights campaign group. Users would risk having their content removed by overzealous bots.

While Article 13 also requires site owners to implement a complaints process to deal with disputed decisions, Killock says this is unlikely to fix the problem. “Our experience pretty much everywhere is people generally don’t complain. They worry about the effects on their reputation, worry about the legal ramifications, so these tools would have a chilling effect.” Rather than risk further sanctions, users may simply stop making content for online publication.

Although websites less than three years old, or with less than €10 million annual turnover are exempt, the websites will still need to plan for when those caveats no longer apply to them.

I'm With Stupid wrote:There's something about the words 'target' and 'encourage' that don't fill me with confidence.

Animavore wrote:

Article 13: A guide to the new EU copyright rules and the ban on memes

What is Article 13?

[snip]

cont. https://www.newscientist.com/article/21 ... -on-memes/