Yesterday, I wrote about how MEP Julia Reda resolved the thriller of the way the European Parliament got here to supply a batshit smear-marketing campaign video promoting the new Copyright Directive and smearing the competition to the Directive (including signatories to the biggest petition in human records): it grew to become out that the video has been produced with the aid of AFP. This massive media employer stands to make thousands and thousands if the Directive passes.

Now, this is sufficient, but reading Mike Masnick’s Techdirt insurance of this issue reminded me of something else about AFP, the one’s campaigners for the most potent feasible copyright regime: returned in 2010, AFP used a photographer’s pics of the Haiti quake without permission or compensation, and while the photographer complained, AFP sued the photographer, arguing that all images posted to Twitter are presumptively lawful to re-use and looking for a judgment declaring this view. (AFP lost and needed to pay the photog $1.2 million).

The factor is that the AFP has an exceedingly particular form of copyright fundamentalism. Regarding copyright rules that could pad its backside line by thousands and thousands, no fee is too excessive. But while it’s far playing fast-and-unfastened with others’ copyright, it will threaten and try to bankrupt the aggrieved birthday party.

Of direction, AFP is a giant publisher that stands to benefit from Article 11, especially probably. Reputedly, AFP has been one of the more aggressive lobbying groups in Brussels pushing for Article 11. Hell, all the way lower back in 2005, AFP sued Google for linking to its tales (spoiler alert: it no longer won). It appears particularly questionable for the EU Parliament to use the public budget to ask a genuinely involved birthday celebration to provide a propaganda video. This is akin to American Congress asking Pfizer to give a video to go out beneath “Congress” respectable imprimatur about prescription drug pricing. That could be a scandal. Inside the EU, not too many officers appear particularly afflicted by this.

Of course, it must be noted that the AFP does not have the best track record on copyright itself. In 2010, the corporation was caught using someone’s photo of Haiti’s earthquake aftermath without licensing. When referred to as it, AFP sued the photographer with a weird argument that anything that changed into published on Twitter was unfastened for all people to apply (no, without a doubt). Eventually, AFP was compelled to pay out $1.2 million for that debacle. You’d assume that experience would possibly make the enterprise a touch more magnificent and cautious, approximately helping extreme copyright positions. Still, for some causes within the copyright debates, the maximalists never think the law will critically follow them.