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Is bitcointalk server hosted in Europe? Can't it be hosted somewhere else?
Checking the Whois, it seems to be hosted in Panama...
If it's not hosted in Europe, why should we care about this regulation?
Well, that is what I tried to get rolling into discussion in a post a few days ago. I was curious as to whether the regulation could affect Bitcointalk somehow. My initial thought was a determined “no implications”, precisely because it the site is hosted in Panama. The thread is now lost on page a billionth on the Off-Topic section with no activity, so I basically forgot about it (not the subject itself though) until Paxmao brought in back to my mind with his OP based on the same fundamental root.
Personally, I do not think it will affect Bitcointalk directly, but sometimes laws and regulations have a copycat (¿plagiarized?) effect, and spread to some extent with ease to other countries.
This new European copyright law could (we have yet to see the fine print) however affect some habits in Europe noticeable, and it could have implications businesswise, which I’m not sure are calibrated enough yet. Who is going to create An information based business in Europe information as a first option, if stronger restrictions on content are to be enforced ? Might as well set the base elsewhere right?
Europe would block bitcointalk or Wikipedia from being accessed, just like China do to Google?
I think thats too authoritarian for such political correct continent.
I doubt it. They would have to block a ton of sites. I figure it would be more in the line of large economic fines, if those companies cannot prove they are fighting against plagiarism (those that they can act upon).
For example, local language Wikipedia sites in Europe are deeply worried as stated by the OP, and have gone on to protesting as can be seen here:
Wikipedia is blacked out across Europe in protest against laws that could change the internet forever. By the way, Reddit is also under the same umbrella, the same as Facebook, Google, etc. Many of these have European sites (I guess they have to by some sort of regulation and business targets).
The operational idea is to have information/forum related sites enforce the use of anti-plagiarism engines, similar to how Youtube was encouraged to do. Of course, Youtube seems to do a relatively good job on movies and TV shows, but not on personal content that can be plagiarized from the next with slight changes, and go undetected. The additional problem is that this kind of engine, being as effective as it may, is very expensive to implement, and could create a set of elite companies that can afford to implement and control their own engine, whilst other would have to hire a third-party service. That at least what is the talk right now.
What are the real implications of this regulation? How far can governments and states regulate the internet ?
That is the debate. There are bags of indetermination now as the fine print is not spelled out, so we do now know today what the full implications may be. Nevertheless, the stepping stones being laid out by Europe are not leading to a pleasant sunny side resort at the end of the path.
I figure they would try to pursue corporations rather than individual citizens, as the former is way easier than the latter.