Article 11 is not a link tax, because it, surprisingly, doesn't tax links. Julia Reda is opposed to the copyright legislation, and has chosen to re-define it as a "link tax" because it helps her push her agenda. She spends a LOT of time meeting with Google and organizations directly funded by Google, which she does, helpfully, disclose on her website.

Article 11 is a very clear attack on linking driven by legacy news and similar industries which are losing money in the Internet age and whining that everyone should pay them now, "just because" (read they can't properly compete).

If you want more in depth review of this, check Techdirt articles on the topic: https://www.techdirt.com/blog/?tag=article+11

But I doubt you would - since you simply will say "it's not that". I see no point in arguing then.

Article 11 is a protection against massive content theft by large companies against smaller ones. A great example is what happened here: https://theoutline.com/post/1399/how-google-ate-celebritynet...

Additionally, "legacy news" are losing money because tech companies are shifting profits from ads on those news sites to their own platforms. Here's a chart showing how Google has shifted the ad revenue balance since 2004: https://twitter.com/jason_kint/status/1055606344559063040

Essentially, it used to be that Google provided a real service to these news companies, by providing an ad network where both news organizations and Google could profit. But over time, they've shifted their ad revenue away from the model that requires they share it to ads that they alone profit from. This has slowly but surely bled journalism dry.

Essentially, these news companies can't figure out how to reach more people, and because of that, they decided that others have to pay them for what they don't do. I'd call that extortion. It's the same level of stupidity as "blank media tax" and other similar extortion ideas.

Linking is not infringing anything, and should not be taxable. All this "massive theft" whining is complete bunk.