EU sues Member States who refuse to bring in new copyright rules (opens in new tab)

Perhaps playing dumb is the favoured form of dissent.

You can’t be serious. After the clusterfuck of brexit other countries will be very, very careful even thinking about leaving. And if some country decides to leave the union it wont be over a inconsequential fine and lawsuit.

they're families, lineages, of people living off 'having power' (but really, authority and prestige)

the time has come for them to remember what power is (without authority)

> It seems to be a process designed and intended to cause conflict and euroscepticism.

Just like the EU itself, it's a compromise. Every member state wants to have its cake (economic benefits) and eat it, too (full sovereignty).

That can't work because a deep economic integration is... surprise, surprise, a deep political and social integration.

The EU Parliament is probably the only parliament in the world that I know of, that can't introduce new laws.

This went through the EU Parliament. It was not an instruction handed down as dictat by an unelected bureaucrat or executive.

The same process is how every other EU wide regulation goes into effect. EU passes it, the member states get their input during the EU process, and the member states are then obligated to abide by the rules.

An analogous process, which is not a perfect analog but is similar, is how US federal rules get passed down to the states. The states get their input on federal legislation at the federal level, but then must abide by the resulting federal law.

I'd also add that giving every country a veto on any legislation would basically guarantee nothing gets done.

Three groups passed this law

* The EU Commission (headed by commissioners appointed by the government of the members, 1 per member)

* The EU council (makde up of the heads of government of the members, 1 vote per member) - so sort of in line with US senate as originally enacted (where the state government chooses the senators)

* The EU parliament (voted directly by the population, broadly in line with the population, although smaller members get more MEPs per person) - so broadly in line with US congress

in the US, I believe states have to meet federal laws, they can't pass a law saying "murder is legal" or whatever. It's an imperfect system, but so is the US system.

> why not include the possibility of a national veto at implementation stage

In case of such a veto of a single member, the whole legislative process would in the general case be set back to were it started, because the other members had agreed under the condition that everyone implements the agreement and other countries might want to renegotiate.

The EU's ability to force a country to a certain legislation goes even further: In the early years of the EU every country had to consent to an EU legislation; today, under the Lisbon Treaty[1], EU countries must implement an EU regulation in certain areas even if they voted against it. This is based on the belief that a union of 27 states would otherwise hardly be able to act.

There had been cases were single members had been granted specific exceptions (most notably the UK, during its membership, and Denmark when it joined) or must meet certain conditions before they need to implement something (for example, in principle every EU country except Denmark must introduce the Euro when it meets certain criteria; but the EU tolerates that Sweden deliberately fails one criterium, since it has voted in a referendum to stay out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism II). But these exceptions had been agreed on beforehand and some date from a time when the sovereignty of the individual states was valued more highly. Today, the EU tends to avoid such special rules for general cases as far as possible, because legal fragmentation is seen as problematic.

[1] See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Lisbon

Going for a directive (as opposed to a regulation[0]) was probably a conscious decision. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directive_(European_Union) :

> There are justifications for using a directive rather than a regulation: (i) it complies with the EU's desire for "subsidiarity"; (ii) it acknowledges that different member States have different legal systems, legal traditions and legal processes; and (iii) each Member State has leeway to choose its own statutory wording, rather than accepting the Brussels' official "Eurospeak" terminology.

> For example, while EU Directive 2009/20/EC (which simply requires all vessels visiting EU ports to have P&I cover) could have been a regulation (without requiring member states to implement the directive), the desire for subsidiarity was paramount, so a directive was the chosen vehicle.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_Act_of_the_European_Unio...

The directive was approved by the European parliament and the Council of the EU. The Council of the EU is made up of the governments of the member states of the EU. Therefore, when one says "Portugal voted for the directive", one means "the government of Portugal voted for the directive in the Council of the EU". This was the wrong thing for Portugal (or indeed, any government) to do because no government can guarantee their parliament will change the law in a particular way, and the parliament might indeed prefer to eject the government rather than change the law. In this case, it has bitten Portugal and not Germany, but in principle it could bite any of them. It's a very strange process. It seems like provision should be made for a national veto at the implementation stage, or the entire process should be conducted at the EU stage and directly applicable. But the requirement for a translation into national law without the possibility of rejection at that point seems deeply problematic.

The Counsel vote was from the executive branch, the country vote is from the legislative branch.

When I download from zippyshare I always pick Denmark as the VPN country. Seems like they have good copyright laws.

Damn, you're right. Lost track after the EU elections, didn't know this happened. Well, my point still stands – damn fantastic MEP.

It's way worse than DMCA actually. With DMCA you can get takedown requests when one of your users uploads copyrighted works. Comply with the takedown requests in reasonable ways and you're fine.

The EU legislation means that platforms are liable beforehand.

No which? Not good, or not bad?

The quantity of people on either side is extremely unbalanced. A select few win, most of humanity loses.