Technology

The Wikimedia Foundation has sounded a stark warning against a copyright reform proposal in Europe thatdue to be voted on by the European Parliament next week. (With the mild irony that itdone so with a blog post on the commercial Medium platform.)

In the post, also emailed to TechCrunch, María Sefidari Huici, chair of theWikimedia Foundation, writes: &Next week, the European Parliament will decide how information online is shared in a vote that will significantly affect how we interact in our increasingly connected, digital world. We are in the last few moments of what could be our last opportunity to define what the Internet looks like in the future.

&The next wave of proposed rules under consideration by the European Parliament will either permit more innovation and growth, or stifle the vibrant free web that has allowed creativity, innovation, and collaboration to thrive. This is significant because copyright does not only affect books and music, it profoundly shapes how people communicate and create on the internet for years to come.&

Backers of the reform proposals argue they will help European creatives be fairly recompensed for their work. But critics argue the proposals are not balanced and will chill the creative freedoms of web users to share and comment on content online.

The two articles attracting the most controversy in the reforms are:

• Article 11; which proposes a neighboring copyright for snippets of journalistic content — requiring news aggregators such as Google News to gain a license from the publisher to use this type of content (branded a ‘link tax& by critics);
• Article 13; which seeks to shift liability for platform users& copyright infringements onto the platforms themselves — and which critics contend will therefore push them towards creating upload filters to monitor all content before itposted, having a chilling effect on Internet expression. Critics sometimes dub this component ‘censorship machines&.

In July MEPs issued a smackdown to the Commission by refusing to back the reforms — and voting to reopen debate. Another vote is due next week, with amendments in the process of being tabled now, hence Wikimediaintervention.

In her blog post, Sefidari Huici urges MEPs to remember the original objective for the update: &To make copyright rules that work for better access to a quickly-evolving, diverse, and open internet.&

&The very context in which copyright operates has changed completely. Consider Wikipedia, a platform which like much of the internet today, is made possible by people who act as consumers and creators. People read Wikipedia, but they also write and edit articles, take photos for Wikimedia Commons, or contribute to other Wikimedia free knowledge projects. Content on Wikipedia is available under a free license for anyone to use, copy, or remix,& she writes.

&Every month, hundreds of thousands of volunteers make decisions about what content to include on Wikipedia, what constitutes a copyright violation, and when those decisions need to be revised. We like it this way — it allows people, not algorithms, to make decisions about what knowledge should be presented back to the rest of the world.&

She also warns that changes to EU copyright could have serious implications for Wikipedia and other collaborative non-profit websites, urging MEPs to &institute policies that promote the free exchange of information online for everyone&.

&We urge EU representatives to support reform that adds critical protections for public domain works of art, history, and culture, and to limit new exclusive rights to existing works that are already free of copyright,& she writes.

On Article 13 specifically she warns this would push platforms towards creating &costly, often biased systems to automatically review and filter out potential copyright violations on their sites&, warning: &We already know that these systems are historically faulty and often lead to false positives. For example, consider the experience of a German professor who repeatedly received copyright violation notices when using public domain music from Beethoven, Bartók, and Schubert in videos on YouTube.&

&The internet has already created alternative ways to manage these issues,& she adds. &For instance, Wikipedia contributors already work hard to catch and remove infringing content if it does appear. This system, which is largely driven by human efforts, is very effective at preventing copyright infringement.&

She also argues that the copyright reform debate has been dominated by market relationships between large rights holders and for-profit internet platforms — saying this too narrow slice &does not reflect the breadth of websites and users on the internet today&.

&Wikipedians are motivated by a passion for information and a sense of community. We are entirely nonprofit, independent, and volunteer-driven. We urge MEPs to consider the needs of this silent majority online when designing copyright policies that work for the entire internet,& she adds, calling for MEPs to create a copyright framework that reflects &the evolution of how people use the internet today&.

&We must remember the original problem policymakers set out to solve: to bring copyright rules in line with a dramatically larger, more complex digital world and to remove cross-border barriers. We should remain true to the original vision for the internet — to remain an open, accessible space for all.&

Asked for a response to Wikimediacriticisms, a spokeswoman for the European Commission pointed us to an FAQwhere it discusses what will happen to online encyclopaedias based on content uploaded by users — and claims these sites will not fall under the scope of the reform (because &the vast majority of the content on Wikipedia is uploaded with the consent of their rights holders& — something critics of the reform dispute).

She also sent us ageneral comment from Commission spokesperson, Nathalie Vandystadt, in which she states:

The new copyright rules are necessary in order to allow creators and the press to get a better deal when their works are made available online. At the same time, our proposal safeguards free speech and ensures that online platforms & including 7,000 European online platforms & can develop new and innovative offers and business models. It will not ban memes or hyperlinks, as has often been claimed in the public debate.

The Commission presented its balanced proposal two years ago, in September 2016. We have discussed the proposal with all relevant actors. We now expect the European Parliament to reach a position and stand ready to start negotiations on this important reform with the Parliament and the Council of the EU as soon as possible. The process has been long enough. Any further delay at this stage would put at risk adoption before the next European elections.

Itnot the first time Wikimedia has made a high profile intervention in the reform debate; Wikipedia founderJimmy Wales added his name to anopen letterin June warning that it &takes an unprecedented step towards the transformation of the Internet from an open platform for sharing and innovation, into a tool for the automated surveillance and control of its users&.

While, in July, several local language versions of the Wikipedia encyclopaedia voted to temporarily black out their content to protest the copyright proposals.

It remains to be seen whether MEPs will be swayed by all this public pressure — not least given all the counterlobbying they are getting behind the scenes.

Commenting on the state of play for the copyright reform ahead of the vote later this month,Marietje Schaake, a Dutch Member of the European Parliament, told us ittoo close to call right now.

&Right now it is impossible to say how the copyright vote will play out next week. I have been working hard on a sensible compromise that respects our fundamental rights, but we don&t know untiltomorrowwhich amendments will be voted on,& she told TechCrunch. &MEPs and political groups are still making up their minds, and the margins are very tight. The votes could swing either way.&

Schaake said itlikely more clarity will emerge tomorrow, once itclear who has tabled what (in terms of amendments) that will then get voted on by the whole parliament next week.

On the controversial article 13 portion of the reform, which would make platforms directly liable for copyright infringements by users, options likely to be on the table include some previous texts (such as the text produced the Commission, or the original Legal Affairs Committee (Juri) text), which are therefore unlikely to gain a majority.

An amendment suggesting full deletion of the article is also likely to be tabled — but also probably wouldn&t get majority backing given the level of backing the reform has behind it.

There may also be a version of the text produced by the Internal Market and Consumer Protection committee, which had joint competency on Article 13 of the proposal with the Juri committee but at the vote in July argued that its position had not been taken into account by the Juri text (which it criticized as not achieving &the needed balance&.

On top of that additional new compromise versions — which &aim to remove the worst parts of Article 13&, asSchaake puts it — are also likely to be tabled. But with votes predicted to be tight ithard to say which way MEPs will jump.

In July, the parliament voted by 318 votes to 278, with 31 abstentions, to reject the negotiating mandate that had been proposed by the Juri committee the month before.

As a result, the parliamentposition was reopened for debate, amendment and a vote — which will be held during an afternoon plenary session on September 12.

The ECVP and commissioner for the digital single market,Andrus Ansip, has described the scale of lobbying from &all sides& around the copyright reform proposals as &astonishing&.

&Everyone claims that their rivals will kill creativity, or kill innovation, or kill the internet — or kill all of it at the same time. This all has to stop. It is getting us nowhere,& he wrote in a blog post in late July. &It is good to have a lively debate about copyright & but not one which has descended into slogans and exaggeration.

&We need to go beyond that, to find an acceptable and workable compromise that gives Europeans the right kind of copyright laws for the digital age. They deserve nothing less. And itisachievable.&

&Today, the debate sounds as if we had to choose between protecting artists or the internet,& he added. &I do not agree with this. What we should be doing — together — is to protect both: to make sure artists are paid fairly for their work, and at the same time protect freedom of expression and creativity on the internet. So we should not accept anything that puts that freedom in danger.

&Neither should we accept leaving artists and quality media unprotected. Those were my starting points for the Commissionproposal. They have not changed.&

Ansip also wrote that he would like to see the parliament move closer to the Commissionoriginal proposals in its September vote, writing: &I genuinely believe that it was a good proposal, taking all opposing interests into account. That was not easy to achieve in itself.&

Chinese ride-hailing giant Didi has detailed further safety measures incoming to its platform following a second murder of a female passenger last month.

The20-year-old woman had been using DidiHitch carpooling service inZhejiang, a province in the east of China, during the day.

Another female user of the p2p service was murdered in May, after getting a late night ride back from her job as an air stewardess.The unverified driver had apparently been using an account belonging to his father (who had been verified by Didi).

The new safety features, which include a button to call the police, are set to be phased in over the coming days.

Didi says it will temporarily suspend late-nightTaxi, Express, Uber China, Didi Select, Didi Express Pool, Premier and Luxe services each day, between 23:00 until 5:00 — from September 8 to 15 — on the Chinese mainland while it does this. So ittemporarily shutting down a large swathe of its mainland China services overnight for a week on safety grounds.

During this time, it says its Bike, Designated Driving, Bus, overseas Car Rental and used-car services will remain operational, and it urges users to plan their travel accordingly.

After the first murder Didi made some changes to how the Hitch service operates, temporarily suspending late night rides before resuming them in June— but only allowing drivers to pick up passengers of the same sex.

The second murder in August triggered a nationwide service suspension, and a spokeswoman confirmed to TechCrunch today that the Hitch service remains indefinitely suspended (&until there is a safety protection mechanism that is accepted by our users&).

In the wake of the murders, Didihandling of passenger safety has come in for acute criticism.

In the second case, it emerged that the driver had been flagged to Didisafety team by another female passenger the day before the murder — yet the customer service representative had failed to follow the new companypolicy of initiating an investigation within two hours — a policy that had been instigated after the earlier murder in May.

Didi fired the general manager for the Hitch service and its vice president of customer services. But it also managed to sound horribly tone-deaf in its response last month when it shoehorned ride completion numbers into its apology statement as if any metric could justify its failure to ensure passenger safety.

While Hitch remains suspended the company offers a plethora of other ride-hailing services and the measures announced today look intended to reduce the risk for users across its service more broadly.

Among the new safety measures itannounced is a change to the operation of an SOS button — which it only launched in July. Instead of the one-click button alerting a userchosen emergency contacts it will directly dial the police in future.

Didi says it will also be added a Safety Center to its passenger app to offer quick access to various safety features, including thenew &call police& button, as well as itinerary sharing.

It also plans to run a nationwide awareness campaign to ensure users know about the new features and are encouraged to set up contacts for itinerary sharing.

Additionally, the company says it will start trialing an on-route audio recording function on its Express and Premier services. &This will help to protect drivers and passengers while ensuring the recordings are encrypted and stored according to rigorous data protection protocol,& it writes.

Other changes to its operations are an upgrade to itsdriver safety education program — with the company saying drivers must complete a safety knowledge test every day before they start service.

Didi also says it will step up its driver background checks and daily use of facial recognition tech as part of its inspection checks to pick updriver-vehicle mismatch, which was launched in May (after the system had failed to picked up the driver who was using his fatheraccount).

The company adds that it willcontinue to cooperate with the police to &crack down on criminal offenses at all costs&, adding: &We will adopt a zero-tolerance policy against lawless behavior.&

It also flags additional investments in customer service — saying it will beef up its in-house team to 8,000 staff by the end of the year up from 5,000 currently, although it has also leaned on 10,000 subcontracted customers service reps — so is evidently seeking to bring more of that operation in-house (presumably to shrink the risk of any similarly fatal complaint handling errors in future).

&Didi will make all-out efforts to build an extensive societal partnership to ensure our core safety standards and protect the interests and rights of our law-abiding driver-partners in accordance with the authorities& expectations,& it writes. &We will share progress and reviews of the rectification period with the public.&

Last month, after the second Didi murder, the Chinese government announced incoming reforms of the transportation industry to improve passenger safety. So the threat of tighter regulation is looming.

Auterion, a startup that offers a drone operating system built on top of the popular P4X open source software, has landed $10 million in seed funding. Backing the round is Lakestar, Mosaic Ventures, Costanoa Ventures, and Tectonic Ventures.

The young Swiss company says the injection of cash will be used to work closely with the wider PX4 community to further develop the open source code, and to bring the technology to more enterprise customers in the form of the Auterion platform.

Soft-launched earlier this year, Auterion has created a fully-managed operating system for commercial drones and in turn wants to help solve the interoperability problem between drones and services in which there is currently no unifying standard. Getting the industry to come together around a single standard would also help various companies in the drone ecosystem compete better with DJI, which leads the market by a long stretch.

&The commercial drone industry is fragmented,& Auterion co-founder and CEO Kevin Sartori tells me. &Satisfying these heterogeneous commercial applications will inevitably demand a broad portfolio of resources and talents to deliver complex vertical solutions. Such complex and complete solutions are difficult for a single vendor to successfully build and deliver. Auterion builds the open infrastructure (operating system) so that suppliers, manufacturers, and service companies can respond the demand in the market and build their product and services on top of global standards.&

A drone operating system runs on the embedded flight controller and on a Linux computer on board of the vehicle. The flight controller takes care of the flight performance and payloads (position, attitude, camera control) whereas the more performing Linux computer can run custom third-party apps like obstacle avoidance, flight performance analytics, and take care of data streaming over LTE. Auterionoperating system takes care of both and is able to remotely provide software updates to the embedded flight controller and Linux computer.

Meanwhile, to enable the highest possible levels of integration between products, Auterion says it works in close collaboration with other Dronecode members (the body maintaining open source drone software), including 3D Robotics, Airmap, ARM, Intel, NXP, Sony, STMicroelectronics, and Trimble. Auterion is also the largest contributor to the PX4 ecosystem.

Noteworthy is Auterionother co-founder, Lorenz Meier. He is the creator of the most widely used open source standards in the drone industry (PX4, Pixhawk, MavLink, and QGC) and was named an MIT Innovator in 2017.

&Open source software on its own is difficult to adopt and thereno guarantee of functionality,& explains Sartori, likening Auterionmission to that of Red Hat. &Auterion packages the open source code into a managed and long-time supported distribution that makes it easy to use for enterprises. We also offer all the supporting services (cloud analytics, predictive maintenance, unmanned traffic management) as a turnkey solution&.

To that end, Sartori says Auteriontypical customers are drone service providers that buy and maintain a drone fleet to offer services to large enterprises and Fortune 500 companies, along with large enterprises that want to offer that service internally within a business unit (e.g. utility companies, police etc). The company also targets drone OEMs that build drones for commercial applications.