317
Belgium Targets Internet Archive's 'Open Library' in Sweeping Site Blocking Order
(torrentfreak.com)
this post was submitted on 03 Aug 2025
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Technology
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Wow Belgium, I thought you were a bit cooler than that
People, including many Europeans, make a lot of assumptions about Europe.
Americans in particular seem to assume that issues fall along the same political Dem/Rep divide as in the US. That gives them bad ideas. European countries have more solid social safety nets, more accessible and cheaper health care and education, more developed and usable public transport systems, ...
On other issues like immigration or racism, they are on a MAGA-level. There is no big controversy because it is widely taken for granted that European nations are ethno-states. This is less so in the former colonial powers Britain and France. But they have their own baggage that gnaws at them from within, just like the history of racial segregation undermines the USA.
Another area where Europe is just different from the US is freedom of information. It's just not respected in the same way. Intellectual property, on the other hand, is held in much higher regard. That's how it has been for a long time.
Now that the copyright industry is waging an all-out lobby battle against citizens, you can expect much more like this.
Yes. As someone who grew in Russia, if I'd talk freely and casually about politics in the way we do here, with Americans IRL nearby, I'd probably be literally lynched regardless of those being majority Democrat or majority Republican minded, and if those Americans were sufficiently inattentive, even by a mixed crowd. Things associated with freedom and dignity and just human treatment of each other here are associated with fascism there, and the other way around. And it's very counterintuitive. And also honestly Americans and continental Europeans (but not Brits) generally feel more like peasants with pitchforks than like Russians, in every political-minded discussion. It really feels that they'd be perfectly fine with everyone disagreeing being relocated six feet under, and the purpose of the discussion is usually to let you atone and ask for mercy. Despite all the stereotypes about Russians, this is not the case here, you might get insults, but not that heavy unwillingness to accept your side's existence.
Though that was 10 years ago, now in the Russian-language space there's much wariness of propaganda and legal problems for speech and so on, so people speak less freely, while a loud minority of bootlickers likely outside Russia repeat some combination of American points, more similar to a Republican set, but at the same time certain they'd be loved by Democrats. It's weird.
The billionaires are the real enemy, regardless of what flag flies over your land, and they're trying like hell to make sure no one realizes it is the billionaires everywhere that are not only happy to see, but in many cases actually behind all of this chaos and strife. War is good for business, we are cannon fodder for their ambitions. The story hasn't changed in centuries, only the dollar figures involved have.
What about Spain and Portugal?
My passing understanding is that they'd really prefer if the people from their former colonies remained an ocean or two away. Portugal recently passed a new law that made it harder for immigrants (the vast majority are Brazilians) to get a worker visa and full citizenship
In short: IDK.
I don't think anyone has ever thought Belgium was cool. Been to Brussels plenty of times and I think it might be the least cool city in all of Europe. Except for FOSDEM of course. That is pretty damn cool.
Oh really? I always liked Brussels as a typically modern European city: a nice combo of old and new, friendly locals plus it's nice and walkable and has a decent variety of food options, though Bruges has them beat on walkability.
Plus they have a lot of great beer and the mitreillette, what's not to like?
I've definitely been a few places I'd rank lower anyway
Imo cities like Bruges or Antwerp are much nicer.
Bruges is a museum.
That does it, I'm not having waffles anymore
FREE THE WAFFLES!
Waffles did nothing wrong :( no collateral victims pls.
This is because of one thing and one thing only: the right wingers.
I'll still eat as many Freedom Waffles as I please.
Classic waffles are way better than those belgium giant ass ridges cant even hold the melted butter and high fructose corn syrup aunt jemima in one bite .
Barbarian
Why?
That be the country where the king records a "happy psychopath"-style videos where he talks with his subjects over video calls on a smartphone. Everything clean, bright smiles, the subjects' selection is properly racially diverse. And you can just feel how with everything so perfect something is wrong, like - why that session of short video calls of the monarch with random (but very proportionally selected and similarly clothed in style) people even happens? What is it intended to show, that the king has empathy for every person? Were I a citizen of Belgium, I'd prefer the king to not care and tend to his garden instead. This feels so glowing and fake that one can't help thoughts like "what if the king actually eats children for breakfast".
Also he killed someone while drunk driving in the ardennes.
Things like that have never disqualified kings, though
The german king? He have nothing to do with us. We're a monarchy because the brits wanted the germans to stop invading the french or something so she picked one of her cousin
To show the Netherlands their place and to not have Wallonia part of France at the same time, rather. And the Catholic-Protestant problem was real.
Well yeah these idiots refused to buy indulgences. You can't have a country with heretics
You say this as if the problem isn't American corporations and pooled special interests bribing, blackmail and rig elections in every country they can until they get what they want.
No.
The copyright lobby in the EU is homegrown. For example, the football league in Italy has achieved sweeping laws that can be used to block pirated live streams without much ado. Expect that to be rolled out across the EU.
It's true that these EU corporations are in league with the US copyright lobby. After all, Europeans read American books, watch American movies, listen to American music. The books are usually badly translated and published by a European corporation, which gives Europeans a cut. European agencies, often government-sponsored monopolies, collect money and send much of it to the US. But a lot is doled out to European corporations. And the collecting agencies have a good thing going, as well.
It's the dutchies from the north. They invented capitalism. Us latinos belgians are cool.
Yeah, it was Europe's fault for getting the US to replace its utilitarian "to promote the progress of science and the useful arts" basis for copyright with 'droite d'arteur' moral rights (via the Berne Convention treaty) in the first place.
It's bizzare, you started off by saying "No" in a willful display of poor social skills but then went on to say very little that I've disagreed with.
I mean, I didn't say that each country didn't have their own lobby, now did I?
The pressure and the money to actually change things and control your country's entire online media narrative is controlled by a very small number of US companies. They use this power to rig elections and force law like the above through. I understand that wi be difficult reading for some Americans who don't like that they're now the colonising Empire but, that doesn't change that the main problem with sorting our own digital data laws hasn't been meddling by American business interests.
Have you got anything more than "I don't like this. So, it isn't true?"
I appreciate the “fuck America swinging their dicks around in other’s business” sentiment, but let’s not entertain conspiracy where there isn’t any. America doesn’t need to push its preferences in places where the sentiment already aligns.
My post is that you you blame this on America you won’t think clearly about the actual issue, which is the sentiment of EU politicians and businesses and how they skew unduly in favor of harsh intellectual property restrictions.