EU Parliament's Legislative Affairs Committee Is Now Misleading Members Of Parliament In Effort To Fundamentally Alter The Internet

from the misinformation-at-work dept

We’ve had a bunch of posts today alone (and in the past few weeks) about the absolutely terrible EU Copyright Directive that the wider EU Parliament will vote on this Thursday. The version that will receive a vote on Thursday was only just released and it shows that the legislative affairs committee, JURI, that voted for it a few weeks ago actually took a really bad proposal and made it significantly worse. As more and more people have woken up to this fact and started calling it out, it appears that JURI is going on the offensive. And I mean “offensive” in both definitions of the word.

JURI sent sent the attached document to Members of Parliament, trying to defend its position on Articles 11 and 13. The email it sent reads as follows:

Dear Colleagues,

Before Thursday’s vote on the mandate of the copyright file, you will find attached an update on the content of the text adopted in JURI, accompanied, with regard to explanations, by the text passages of the corresponding compromises. This to try to answer, once again, the massive disinformation campaign that we are experiencing.

Thank you for taking note.

Kind regards,

There is only one “massive disinformation” campaign going on, and it’s by those in favor of Articles 11 and 13, and JURI is a key player in it, judging from this complete nonsense document. Let’s dig in:

ON THE ARTICLE 11

The paragraph 1 of the article makes it clear that the remuneration of press publishers is only an option:

?1.Member states shall provide publishers of press publications with the rights provided for in article 2 and article 3(2) of directive 2001/29/ec so that they may obtain fair and proportionate remuneration for the digital use of their press publications by information society service providers.?

This gives a lot of flexibility to the application of this provision.

Actually, it does not. Remember the original point of the EU Copyright Directive was to “harmonize” copyright laws across the EU, because trying to comply with many different copyright laws was harming the ability to produce and release content in the EU. Under the terms of Article 11, all member states now need (“shall provide”) to create a brand new right for publishers. And while the directive gives “a lot of flexibility,” that’s because (despite requests from many!), the drafters decided to ignore pleas to give some direction on what this right would apply to. It could have only applied to works covered by copyright — which would require more than a minimal snippet and also would require an element of creativity. But the EU Commission and JURI, bizarrely, refused to include that. Instead, they leave it up to the member states to implement as they want. That “flexibility” means that any member state can put a snippet tax on the use of a single word.

And, then, because the whole point of the freaking directive was to allow a harmonization so that works could be published across the EU, whichever EU country comes up with the most ridiculous, and most limiting publishers’ rights will “win” and everyone will have to live down to that standard in order to avoid infringing on this new right. So that “flexibility” actually argues against JURI here, because it’s a large part of what makes the snippet/link tax so incredibly dangerous. Without putting any real effort towards protecting the rights of users, but allowing the flexibility for states to create rights that harm the public, it pretty much guarantees that result.

Moreover, it is important to note that Member States shall ensure that authors receive an appropriate share of the additional revenues that press publishers receive for the use of a press publication by information society service providers.

I’m curious if JURI has done any research on how corrupt Collection Societies have been over time. The idea that the money will flow from publishers to authors is laughable. For years we’ve been collecting stories of how collection societies — often “controlled” by large legacy industry players — collect lots of money for copyright licenses, but magically seem to have trouble doling it out to actual creators. Creating a new such collection society and a new right on top of existing rights doesn’t change any of that.

In order to answer those who are worried about consequences on social networks:

NO, hyperlinks are not included in this article, and it is very clear in the text:

?2a. The rights referred to in paragraph 1 shall not extend to acts of hyperlinking.?

We already discussed the whole addition of the “shall not extend to acts of hyperlinking” text this morning. It’s meaningless. The rest of the Article makes it clear that states can implement this in a way that will clearly impact hyperlinks, in part because most hyperlinks contain a snippet. And, again, JURI disregarded requests by many to make it clear that snippets should have to be more than just a single word or phrase — thus leaving that open.

NO, there will be no impact on individual users since private and non – commercial uses of press publications are not covered by the article.

?1a. The rights referred to in paragraph 1 shall not prevent legitimate private and non-commercial use of press publications by individual users.?

This is the most ridiculous part. Most “legitimate private and non-commercial” users of press publications are using platforms to share links. So, of course it will impact them. Even beyond that, it will clearly limit what news and information people are able to find online. Remember, Spain implemented this kind of snippet tax, and a comprehensive study showed that it significantly harmed small publishers. So, uh, does JURI think it can just ignore the evidence? It certainly appears to be the case.

In addition, the right established by paragraph 1 of Article 11 only applies to press publications used by ?information society service providers, which are defined in the text, and not to individual users that are excluded in the paragraph 1 (a) of Article 11.

?1.Member states shall provide publishers of press publications with the rights provided for in article 2 and article 3(2) of directive 2001/29/ec so that they may obtain fair and proportionate remuneration for the digital use of their press publications by information society service providers.?

?1a. The rights referred to in paragraph 1 shall not prevent legitimate private and non-commercial use of press publications by individual users.?

Same exact point I made above. The fact that it doesn’t apply directly to end users is meaningless, since those end users pretty much all rely on the platforms — the “information society service providers” under the directive — that the law will impact. Who actually takes JURI seriously here?

ON THE ARTICLE 13 AND ARTICLE 2 (DEFINITIONS)

It aims to make platforms accountable, but not all platforms. Article 13 needs to be seen in conjunction with article 2 of the draft directive.

?Article 2 (4a) ?online content sharing service provider? means a provider of an information society service one of the main purposes of which is to store and give access to the public to copyright protected works or other protected subject-matter uploaded by its users, which the service optimises. ?

?Services acting in a non-commercial purpose capacity such as online encyclopaedia, and providers of online services where the content is uploaded with the authorisation of all concerned rightholders, such as educational or scientific repositories, should not be considered online content sharing service providers within the meaning of this directive. Providers of cloud services for individual use which do not provide direct access to the public, open source software developing platforms, and online market places whose main activity is online retail of physical goods, should not be considered online content sharing service providers within the meaning of this directive.?

Only those that are active, so that optimize the content posted online.

I’ve seen a few people — including MEP Axel Voss, who is responsible for this monstrosity — keep making this point, and it’s so ridiculous as to make me question if any of these people have ever actually used the internet. This definition will absolutely apply to a ton of online platforms. That they carved out a few, very narrow and very specific exceptions, after a few organizations complained, does not mean that Article 13 is not a bulldozer coming for a large part of the open internet.

Part of what makes the internet valuable is that it’s a communications medium, by which anyone can communicate with anyone. That’s the wonder of user-generated content platforms — and all of those will pretty much qualify under Article 13, because if they accept input from users, that input is going to be covered by copyright. Even the idea that “cloud services” are carved out is laughable, because note the caveat on those: it only applies if they “do not provide direct access to the public.” Can you name a cloud service provider that does not include a “share” button? That’s what makes the cloud valuable. If it’s just to store my personal stuff, why not just park a drive in my closet?

Also, no general filtering measures are included in Article 13. The text even emphasizes that this practice is prohibited:

1.b members states shall ensure that the implementation of such measures shall be proportionate and strike a balance between the fundamental rights of users and rightholders and shall in accordance with article 15 of directive 2000/31/ec, where applicable not impose a general obligation on online content sharing service providers to monitor the information which they transmit or store.?

This is the “plausible deniability” clause similar to Article 11’s “but this doesn’t apply to hyperlinks” nonsense. You can say that article 13 doesn’t create a requirement for upload filters all you want, but when there’s literally no conceivable way to suggest you’re complying without installing an upload filter, it’s a meaningless assertion. Besides, the very next claim completely debunks this one:

However, active platforms need to put in place measures in cooperation with rightholders when they alert platforms about the public availability of infringing content.

1a. Member states shall ensure that the online content sharing service providers referred to in the previous sub-paragraphs shall apply the above mentioned measures based on the relevant information provided by rightholders.?

So… there are no mandatory upload filters… but “active platforms need to put in place measures for dealing with rightsholders. That… certainly sounds like a requirement for upload filters.

Finally, Article 13 will not lead to censorship of the entire internet.

It does not threaten freedom of expression or fundamental rights.

Who are you going to believe on this one? An EU Parliamentary committee that has already shown a fundamental inability to understand how the internet works… or David Kaye, the UN’s special rapporteur for freedom of expression, who wrote JURI a long and detailed report explaining exactly how Article 13 threatens freedom of expression and fundamental rights? I’m going to have to side with the UN’s free speech expert on that one.

The meme, mash-up, the gifs are already allowed and included in an existing exception and will still be after the adoption of this directive (article 5, directive 2001/29/EC

3. Member States may provide for exceptions or limitations to the rights provided for in Articles 2 and 3 in the following cases: (k) use for the purpose of caricature, parody or pastiche

I’d like to highlight an important sneaky bit here. Note how earlier, all of the stuff about online platforms used the word “shall” for implementing these upload filters? Now look at the text JURI highlights here claiming that there are “existing exceptions.” See the different word? It’s not “shall,” it’s “may provide.” May is different than shall. And not every EU state has provided for such user rights.

But there’s a larger point here. We all know that determining what is considered non-infringing as “caricature, parody or pastiche” is not something that is done easily. It’s certainly not something done by an algorithm. In many cases it takes years long trials and appeals, with lots of disagreement. Yet, the text of Article 13, and apparently the geniuses on JURI seem to think that online platforms can put in place effective measures to make those determinations (1) in a split second and (2) without any chance of getting it wrong and (3) without a likelihood of taking down protected, non-infringing speech.

If whoever wrote up this nonsense for JURI actually believes that, then let them create such a filter, because it doesn’t — and cannot — exist.

A provision was even added to ensure a complete protection of users? data, even though GDPR naturally applies to all legislation:

2.2 Moreover, in accordance with Directive 95/46/EC, Directive 2002/58/EC and the General Data Protection Regulation, the measures referred to in paragraph 1 should not require the identification of individual users and the processing of their personal data.

Again, this shows a rather stunning level of technical ignorance. First they demand that all content be tracked to make sure it’s not infringing… and then at the same time, they insist that such a system can’t make use of individual data. This is, effectively, JURI telling internet platforms “you are required to base your servers on the sun and… you’re not allowed to transmit data through space.” These requirements are written by people who have no idea what they’re talking about.

Small and medium-sized enterprises

Any platform is covered by Article 13 if one of their main purposes is to give access to copyright protected content to the public.

It cannot make any difference if it is a ?small thief? or a ?big thief? as it should be illegal in the first place.

Small platforms, even a one-person business, can cause as much damage to right holders as big companies, if their content is spread (first on this platform and possibly within seconds throughout the whole internet) without their consent.

This may be my favorite part of this nonsense. Remember how just a few paragraphs above this JURI was insisting that it wouldn’t impact individuals and that everyone was ignoring that Article 13 only applied to a tiny subset of internet sites? Now, here, it’s arguing the exact opposite, saying straight up that it must apply to basically all internet sites, even ones that are run by a single person. And they use “one-person business” ignoring the fact that tons of individuals will, say, post ads or donation links on their personal websites, just to pay for the hosting. But that will suddenly turn them into being “commercial” businesses under the umbrella of the censorship requirements of Article 13.

So, which is it JURI? Does Article 13 apply to these platforms or not? Ah, it totally does:

In view of such a small business potentially causing such a tremendous damage to right holders, the compromise text does not foresee any exemption for SMESs.

Seriously, it feels like whoever wrote this portion of the document apparently has never met whoever wrote the earlier part of the document trying to play down how many sites it would impact. Someone should introduce them to each other.

However, the text provides safeguards that will benefit SMEs. Measures must be appropriate and proportionate.

We cannot demand the same thing from an SME as from Youtube.

Since the measures may be very different in nature, from the content recognition system to a simple notification system, there are many possibilities for SMEs to find measures corresponding to their means and size.

Okay, so I run a small platform. You tell me that the measures must be “appropriate and proportionate.” I have no freaking clue what that means for me. I don’t need to implement ContentID, which is good because ContentID cost more to build than Techdirt probably makes in a century. But… as a small site I’m left with zero understanding of what I need to do, other than block the EU or hire some very, very expensive lawyers who probably still can’t stop me from getting dragged into court.

This kind of uncertainty is going to be a massive drag on smaller sites.

Finally, solutions compatible with the Directive already exist on the market, are affordable for SMEs and the market will continue to develop in this direction.

This is what should be known as “the Audible Magic lie.” Supporters of Article 13 love to point to Audible Magic — who makes a filter platform for music — to claim that there are products on the market. There are a few major problems with this claim. First of all, the idea that they are “affordable” is laughable. As I’ve noted in the past, we spoke with a smaller platform who noted that Audible Magic quoted them a price of approximately $50,000 per month. That’s over half a million dollars a year. And this was not a large site. Smaller sites don’t have an extra half a million dollars lying around to hand off to some company to provide a tool that doesn’t work very well and which serves no real purpose other than to annoy its users and drive them elsewhere.

Second, such filters may exist for music (and possibly video), but that’s not the case for lots of other content. Photos? Not really. Text? Nope. Yet, Article 13 applies to everything.

JURI’s attempt to salvage the horrible internet-destroying directive it passed a few weeks ago is confused, ignorant and disingenuous. Hopefully MEPs don’t buy it. If you haven’t yet, NOW is the time to tell MEPs to #SaveYourInternet. Because if they don’t, we’re going to have a very, very different internet in the near future. And the public isn’t going to like it.

Filed Under: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Rate this comment as insightful
Rate this comment as funny
You have rated this comment as insightful
You have rated this comment as funny
Flag this comment as abusive/trolling/spam
You have flagged this comment
The first word has already been claimed
The last word has already been claimed
Insightful Lightbulb icon Funny Laughing icon Abusive/trolling/spam Flag icon Insightful badge Lightbulb icon Funny badge Laughing icon Comments icon

Comments on “EU Parliament's Legislative Affairs Committee Is Now Misleading Members Of Parliament In Effort To Fundamentally Alter The Internet”

Subscribe: RSS Leave a comment
85 Comments
PNRCinema (profile) says:

I see nothing wrong with cutting off EU members

The idea that I have to supply my blog readers and listeners the ability to listen if they reside in the EU doesn’t wash with me, and we have quite a few listeners of our podcasts over there. But we’ve already decided that if they pass this monstrosity, our little site will survive, but only by blocking ALL EU countries. We run a small movie news site and several entertainment podcasts. If I can’t have the freedom to do what I need to do to report on EU celebs, their movies, music, and the like, then fuck ’em. I think the whole of the world should just cut the EU off from EVERYTHING For one week. One Week. Think about ONE WEEK not being able to access ANY major corporations like Google, Facebook, Amazon, and the like. Just cut them off. You show the people of the EU, who cannot like this mess, what they will be in for and just like here with SOPA, it will die a fast and resounding death. It’s the ONLY WAY to show the EU that they’re going to destroy the entire internet if this keeps going forward. Period. They refuse to listen to the experts, to the press, even the UN for pete’s sake. Maybe the people can make the difference. And cutting them off is the only surefire way to make them get up and start working to save their own butts, along with the rest of the world.

JarHead says:

Re: I see nothing wrong with cutting off EU members

While I agree with you, I don’t think that putting any time limit based only on time elapsed will do any lasting good. Those with entrenched beliefs in the directive will only yell “fake news” and/or “conspiracy” and double their efforts.

Even if the directive is struck down as the result of the embargo, what’s to stop them to wise up and sneak something like this again in the near future, in more stealthy manner.

I think the embargo should only be lifted if the EU lawmakers can show that they can be trusted to not destroy the internet. As to how they can show that to the rest of the world is open for debate, but please, no time limited embargo.

PNRCinema (profile) says:

Re: Re: I see nothing wrong with cutting off EU members

You Know, you’re absolutely right. I think a full embargo until the the EU accepts and guarantees that the internet belongs to the world, not just the EU, is a far more effective idea…but then again, isolation breeds contempt, so you have to be careful or we could have World War III on our hands…

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re: I see nothing wrong with cutting off EU members

The problem is that any embargo would encourage other countries to cut themselves off from the Internet, and before you know it, the Internet will be balkanised.

The entertainment industry and big business would be happy with that outcome, as they can keep or exploit regional markets for greater profit.

DogBreath says:

Re: Re: Re:2 I see nothing wrong with cutting off EU members

We finally have an answer to a new question of this era…

To paraphrase:

“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”
― Albert Einstein

(He may not ever have said that, but it still works in this context.)

“I know not with what weapons World Wide Web Copyright War III will be fought, but World Wide Web Copyright War IV will be fought with Ditto Machines and Radiofaxes.”

To be followed by 1979s Apocalypse Now of Marlin Brando’s characters final words-

Colonel Kurtz: [voiceover] The horror… the horror…

Oh, and the answer to what “World Wide Web Copyright War III”, will be fought with is “Voluntary (Mandatory) Copyright Filters, HTML Link Taxes and Doublespeak”.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: I see nothing wrong with cutting off EU members

I’ve been thinking the same thing for a while. And cutting off the EU might work, at least in the short term.

But sooner or later, the MPAA, RIAA, USTR, et al. will go crying to governments. “Europe does it! Why can’t we?” Then we’ll see copycat legislation in other countries and in trade agreements. That’s the biggest danger of this legislation.

That One Guy (profile) says:

Lies, damn lies, and EU parliament spin

There are a few major problems with this claim. First of all, the idea that they are "affordable" is laughable. As I’ve noted in the past, we spoke with a smaller platform who noted that Audible Magic quoted them a price of approximately $50,000 per month. That’s over half a million dollars a year.

Much like ‘anything is easy when you don’t have to do it’, ‘any amount is cheap when you aren’t the one paying’.

Of course half a million for one filter is affordable, I mean really, doesn’t everyone have that sort of pocket change just lying around? Obviously anyone who isn’t a criminal-communist-jaywalking-terrorists would be thrilled to pay that minuscule amount, and anyone who objected clearly could only be doing so for nefarious reasons.

Mike Masnick (profile) says:

Re: Re:

Nothing wrong at all with Article 13. If you can’t run your site without infringing copyright, you need a new business model.

That may be the dumbest, most ignorant comment anyone has made on here. EVERY SINGLE platform that enables user commentary will have copyright infringement. That’s just how it works. By your definition, no site should exist. The internet is over.

That One Guy (profile) says:

Re: Re: 'Over' would be the better option actually

EVERY SINGLE platform that enables user commentary will have copyright infringement. That’s just how it works. By your definition, no site should exist. The internet is over.

Oh not every site, just those that allow user submitted content, and/or any content that isn’t fully vetted and cleared ahead of time, ‘just in case’.

You know, the ones that compete with the gatekeepers by allowing people to bypass them in publishing and engaging in culture without going through them and paying them for the ‘privilege’.

Can’t have people possibly engaging in copyright infringement after all, if it’s a choice between massive reduction of free speech, slowing the growth of culture and creativity via protecting The Most Important Thing Ever, That Which Without All Creativity Would Cease, aka ‘copyright’, or allowing free speech, cultural growth and creativity, knowing that some of it will be infringing… well now, that’s not really a question at all.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:

You mean this will……….. BREAK THE INTERNET?

You’re so completely full of shit, Masnick, that it’s comical.

And poor widdle YouTube. Now they will no longer be able to toss musicians a couple pennies a year in exchange for streaming their music, since they’ll have to actually pay a decent rate for that privilege.

PaulT (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re: Re:

…or stop streaming music entirely, and now the major labels will have to build their own service. You know, like Vevo – the one they literally just shut down because they were making so little money there compared to their YouTube channels? The one where they outright stated it wasn’t economical to run rather than sticking with a YouTube channel instead?

Once again, your anti-Google obsession is yet to actually come into an area resembling reality.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re: Re:

_Have fun pretending such a thing could make it to a courtroom_

Hasn’t stopped all the people trying to use the DMCA to silence criticism, or demand Google take down all the links to articles detailing their criminal records.

But you won’t demand for a review of how relevant, practical or anti-abuse copyright law is, so what do you care? Submit yourself to your nearest small claims court with a burden of proof about as high as jack shit. That’s what you wanted!

PaulT (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:

Interesting points though – if its so easy, why do the people in charge of the content keep messing it up? From Viacom suing over clips it had itself uploaded, to the below gem of a story, they don’t seem capable of knowing themselves what is infringing. Then, when it’s the copyright owner doing the “piracy”*, what chance does the platform have of knowing they’re pirating their own material?

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2018/07/sony-tries-to-upload-movie-trailer-to-youtube-posts-entire-movie-instead/

*Although, obviously, it’s not really piracy if the copyright owner has implicitly or explicitly given permission, even if they didn’t mean to do that. But that wouldn’t stop them from attacking people who are only accessing what they offered to the public.

tp (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re: Re:

if its so easy, why do the people in charge of the content keep messing it up?

Maybe these platforms make publishing the content too easy? If some summer trainee that has access to the video clips can accidentally publish it on youtube without any possibility to fix his mistake and youtube stores it in their database forever, maybe the platform is making the dangerous publish operation too easy to perform.

Make it more difficult and these accidental publish operations would disappear. Maybe put a person in charge of checking the submissions.

> they don’t seem capable of knowing themselves what is infringing

Sending DCMA notices should be done for all the content that matches the copyrighted content. That’s how platform’s hashing technology works. If the platform cannot track owners and authors of the works, then maybe the platform is broken and provide conflict resolution in case there’s uncertainty of who is the copyright owner.

> what chance does the platform have of knowing they’re pirating their own material?

They could spend some effort to check the information provided in their web form. If it had copyright owner’s name, the author’s name, the size of the team that created the works, the length of the time it took to create it, and names of each part of the product which is claimed to be created by the authors and maybe some more information…

The platform could easily check that the contents of the video matches the information provided in the web form. If the video contains sections not mentioned in the description, the platform could remove that content until proper resolution of the right author is available.

If the hashing algorithm determines that complexity measurement of the videoclip is larger than the mentioned team can possibly create, it can remove the content that looks too complicated. For example pirated movie clips can be regognized by hashing algorithms by measuring the quality/complexity level of the movie clip. If the content contains urls to other content, those urls can be checked for bad access patterns like whether half of it comes from new york times and rest from boston herald.

Currently available technologies have not even tried to handle copyright correctly, if random people on internet can invent better ways to check for copyrighted content than what the platform are able to handle.

PaulT (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:2 Re:

“without any possibility to fix his mistake and youtube stores it in their database forever”

Why do you continue to lie in order to make your point? The link explains that it was removed once the mistake was discovered.

“Sending DCMA notices should be done for all the content that matches the copyrighted content.”

So, ignore every part of the law that states what is allowed. Gotcha.

“If it had copyright owner’s name, the author’s name, the size of the team that created the works, the length of the time it took to create it, and names of each part of the product which is claimed to be created by the authors and maybe some more information”

Then mistakes would still be made – see Viacom suing YouTube over clips they themselves had uploaded.

Once again – half of what you’re saying is an outright lie, the rest nonsense. Why do you bother?

“Currently available technologies have not even tried to handle copyright correctly”

They have, it’s just that copyright is both complex and changeable due to factors outside of the platform’s control. The same file can be uploaded 3 times, and whether or not it infringes 0, 1, 2 or 3 times depends on factors that the platform cannot possibly know.

“random people on internet can invent better ways to check for copyrighted content than what the platform are able to handle”

Oh, this should be fun. To which ways are you referring?

tp (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:3 Re:

So, ignore every part of the law that states what is allowed.

Even if it’s allowed, your platform DOES NOT NEED TO DO IT.
This is what you usually don’t understand about laws. Extending the allowed area is not a good position to take.

> Then mistakes would still be made

Youtube can check the mistakes via simple questions from the authors.

> it’s just that copyright is both complex and changeable due to factors outside of the platform’s control.

This is only caused by the fact that they try to expand the scope of the copyright, i.e. they’re working half-illegal-half-legal grey area. If they invented proper techniques that followed stricter rules than copyright allows, then they would not have such big problems.

> The same file can be uploaded 3 times

There’s a thing called authoring tools. If they built their own authoring tools, the tool could control the authoring process — i.e. force the content to be created by computer mouse and keyboard, thus ensuring that the user of the computer created the content himself, instead of copy-pasting it from external content. Youtube is in big problems because they are not trying to create content authoring solution.

> infringes 0, 1, 2 or 3 times depends on factors that the platform cannot possibly know.

Of course they can build walled garden which controls all aspects of their platform. Current situation is that they didn’t even try to fix their copyright problems.

> To which ways are you referring?

Simple question about team size reveals alot about how the content was created.

PaulT (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:4 Re:

“Even if it’s allowed, your platform DOES NOT NEED TO DO IT.”

There’s no reason why they shouldn’t, either.

“Extending the allowed area is not a good position to take.”

Why? Reality states the opposite – laws that are clear and narrow focussed tend to be better and less open to abuse. Unless you’re an authoritarian, allowing as much as possible with a few clearly defined exceptions is always the preferred solution.

“Youtube can check the mistakes via simple questions from the authors.”

Once again, you’re ignoring the facts. I gave you 2 documented cases where YouTube did this, and the content owner still uploaded material that was technically infringing. What can YouTube do when the copyright owner are trying to infringe their own copyright?

Stop ignoring facts, it’s not a good thing in a factual argument.

“Youtube is in big problems because they are not trying to create content authoring solution.”

Absolute, utter bullshit, and nothing to do with the copyright status of the work, even if you ignore things like fair use (which, apparently you have to in order to make your argument, because reality is too complex for you).

“Of course they can build walled garden which controls all aspects of their platform”

The platform, but not the content.

“Simple question about team size reveals alot about how the content was created.”

That’s really not an answer. Exp[lain yourself, because you’re not addressing the real world thus far.

tp (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:5 Re:

> “Simple question about team size reveals alot about how the content was created.”

> That’s really not an answer. Exp[lain yourself, because you’re not addressing the real world thus far.

This relates to copyright directly. Time estimation + team size allows calculating the amount of effort they spent on creating it. This means youtube can estimate how much money they should pay to the authors before they can properly license the content. Licensing is the core activity in copyright laws. Thus the information about team size and spent time is absolutely essential information when doing licensing decisions. Youtube didn’t even try to do this trivial stuff. They never planned to pay anything to the people who created the content.

PaulT (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:6 Re:

“Time estimation + team size allows calculating the amount of effort they spent on creating it”

…which is irrelevant to either its copyright status or its value.

Lots of crap nobody wants to buy has been made by large teams working for years, I can name several classic works that were essentially knocked off by an individual in an afternoon yet remain invaluable and influential decades or centuries later. The value of a work is not determined by what it took to create it.

You literally have zero idea what you’re talking about. Stop embarrassing yourself.

tp (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:7 Re:

The value of a work is not determined by what it took to create it.

The activity is making a loss, if the money it generates cannot compensate the hours it took to create. Basically they’re ripping off authors, devaluing their work by refusing to properly license the works.

This means youtube’s platform is built on copyright infringement.

PaulT (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:8 Re:

“The activity is making a loss, if the money it generates cannot compensate the hours it took to create”

So it is. That’s not YouTube’s fault. If you build a house for $500,000 but the local market value is an average of $250,000, that’s on you for spending too much on the build. It is not the fault of the real estate agent who only gets $250,000 for it.

“Basically they’re ripping off authors”

No, they’re really not.

I’m not sure if you’re this dense, or just pretending, so let me give you an example. Last night I watched 2 movies that were on a subscription service I’m on – Geostorm and Happy Death Day. One of those films is a notoriously overblown flop (though I did enjoy it for the dumb mess that it is) that cost somewhere north of $120 million to produce, but in its opening weekend got less than the extensive reshoots cost. The other cost less than $5 million, was well received and made over $100 million more than it cost to make at the box office.

By your logic, the producers of Geostorm are owed greatly higher licensing fees because they threw away so much money to make it, while the other film deserves less in licensing. But, in the real world, who cares how much it cost? In the real world, Happy Death Day found its audience and would thus get more viewers for the movie service than the flop that barely registered on theatrical release. For me as a viewer, I paid the same either way, so if Geostorm is getting less money because less people watch it, that’s on them for making a terrible movie.

In short – if you make expensive shit nobody wants to watch, it’s not YouTube’s problem. The amount of money you threw away to make that particular turd is not their problem.

“This means youtube’s platform is built on copyright infringement.”

No, it means that you don’t know what copyright infringement is.

tp (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:9 Re:

> “This means youtube’s platform is built on copyright infringement.”

> No, it means that you don’t know what copyright infringement is.

This problem was already mentioned earlier. The solution is that I’m not reading law books for the information, but instead I’m detecting the rules from the world. This means your local rules that you’re using are not the same rules that are available in the fabric of the space where this is being detected.

These are the rules that the world is actually following, not whatever the original purpose of the lawbooks was.

Detection of this point was made possible by implementing technology that makes resolving the problem possible.

PaulT (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:10 Re:

“The solution is that I’m not reading law books for the information, but instead I’m detecting the rules from the world”

a.k.a making things up because what actually happens doesn’t fit your preferred narrative about YouTube.

You’re actually making less and less sense as you go along, but it’s clear you don’t care about why you’re so utterly wrong about everything.

tp (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:11 Re:

You’re actually making less and less sense as you go along, but it’s clear you don’t care about why you’re so utterly wrong about everything.

Being right isn’t the problem. The main feature that detection needs to have is accuracy. If it replicates existing pattern from the world accurately, then it’s good to go. Noone cares if the pattern the world is following is actually the right one or wrong. It’s most likely not what the drafters expected.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:13 Re:

I like how he argues being right isn’t the problem, but argues the detection needs to have accuracy.

Then he spends another thread arguing that the RIAA’s IP detection doesn’t have to be accurate, but you need to send money to them in case you “ordered more of their products” while you were being sued, while reporting to their nearest corporate executive to dispute your case.

What a moron.

PaulT (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:12 'I reject your reality and substitute my own' in argument form

I’m never sure with this one. Sometimes he seems genuinely trying to put a point across, sometimes he’s so incoherent or far from the truth I suspect a performance artist. As ever, sorry to anyone annoyed by the discussion, I’m just passing time while I’m where the air con is before I have to go and face the journey home…

tp (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:13 'I reject your reality and substitute my own' in argument form

he’s so incoherent or far from the truth

There’s a story about this. When world champion racing driver is talking to reporter, he’s usually giving different responses to each of the reporters, because sometimes the message goes to yellow press, and other times to respectable news organisations.
Given that there’s two messages, you cannot choose one truth which would dominate. You’re somehow expecting that there exists absolute truth and reject every other viewpoint. When his cat was scared when it’s wet, it could be as good truth about his world than the news stories about him winning some races.

When there are multiple incompatible messages, you should assume that both are true, and not try to argue about wrongness of the messages you hear.

PaulT (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:14 'I reject your reality and substitute my own' in argument form

The problem with your incoherent rambling is that, to use your random analogy, you’re not arguing with the messaging that the driver is giving. You’re arguing about the result of the race. It doesn’t matter which message the driver gives, if he came in second, he didn’t win. You’re trying to argue that if the driver interprets the rules in a certain ways then he really did win, but that’s not how it works.

You are not arguing interpretations or subjective opinions in this thread. You’re trying to argue against verifiable objective facts.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:6 Re:

Time estimation + team size allows calculating the amount of effort they spent on creating it. This means YouTube can estimate how much money they should pay to the authors before they can properly license the content.

That is not how self publishing via YouTube, or Publishing via the gatekepers who insist on copyright transfer works.

Also note time and effort expended on creating something is always a risk, and if the work does not attract a big enough audience it will not recoup its costs. If you cannot sell copies of whatever it is you created that is you failure, either in determining what was wanted, nat being a work that attracts an audience, not being able to market it properly, or not having any advantage over what is established in the market.

tp (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:7 Re:

Also note time and effort expended on creating something is always a risk, and if the work does not attract a big enough audience it will not recoup its costs.

If youtube has this kind of activity ongoing, they should stop the activity and move the people to do something more profitable. Any other solution will cause huge damage.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:8 Re:

YouTube is not carrying the risk, and storage of something that has zero audience is a fraction of a penny, so they are not in the business of choosing winners and losers. Also, many people putting effort into creating content on YouTube are happy if they find a small audience that shares their passion, and interact via the comments, and are not publishing as a means of making a living.

You should also note that the effective way of making money for content with a smaller audience is to go the patronage route, and only use YouTube as a distribution platform, and let YouTube make its money by placing adds at the beginning of the video.

So why should YouTube decide what people spend their time doing?

tp (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:9 Re:

So why should YouTube decide what people spend their time doing?

Google should know better than let thousands or millions of people do idle activity. Every second they collectively spend their time on idle will increase the depth of the hole they’re digging when the rest of the world is following normal time defined by einstein’s theory and calculated by the atomic clocks. Large groups of people the timing issues become extreamly dangerous, when their organisation cannot react fast enough to changing world while the deep well they’re digging grows larger and larger. Soon they’ll be sending the whole country to the technology level suitable in africa.

tp (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:11 Re:

what’s your opinion on TV broadcasters?

If you’ve been in london’s metro while the train is late 2 minutes, you’ll know what I mean. The whole city is completely blocked for days after one of their maintainers misses his deadline. When whole city of london goes sleep, it might cause some nice timing issues. Do you think they adjust tv broadcasts whenever this stuff happens? Maybe it needs to be delayed for 2 seconds around the globe?

PaulT (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:12 Re:

“If you’ve been in london’s metro while the train is late 2 minutes, you’ll know what I mean”

Well, I have but since I’m only there for a film festival once a year it really doesn’t bother me. I do know enough to know that someone using it regularly wouldn’t call it the “metro”, however.

But, what’s your point? You’re actually trying to say that TfL’s problems have something to do with the TV schedule? Even if that silly point was true, that should make you more in favour of YouTube, since people make their own schedules rather than stick to someone else’s.

“When whole city of london goes sleep, it might cause some nice timing issues”

You… actually think that everybody in a major city works and sleeps at the same time?

“Do you think they adjust tv broadcasts whenever this stuff happens? Maybe it needs to be delayed for 2 seconds around the globe?”

You… think that TV broadcasts are both global and on the same schedule everywhere?

tp (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:13 Re:

you have just failed the Turing tes, you are a computer,

I tend to call it “robot”, not “a computer”. What is different
in robots is that there’s actual real human involved, it’s not just a piece of hardware. And it isn’t the programmer of the logic.

I want you to learn about the following conversions
* human to robot conversion
* robot to human conversion

You really need to try these conversions, especially how it allows you to bypass captcha.

> Please tell tour programmers they need to work harder.

If I was able to find the bastard, I would rather do something
else to him.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:4 Re:

More delusional ravings.

Youtube is in big problems because they are not trying to create content authoring solution.

Why would YouTube want to provide a content autoring system, their business is a platform to allows other to publish on. Authoring is carried out before the content is uploaded by the person creating the content·

This is only caused by the fact that they try to expand the scope of the copyright,

Wrong, it is the gatekeeper publishers who are trying to extend copyright far beyond its original purpose, permission to create and distribute copies. They now want to control every use of the content that they bought from whoever created it.

There’s a thing called authoring tools. If they built their own authoring tools, the tool could control the authoring process

And just how do you propose to control what video clips can be assembled in a video by those tools.

PaulT (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:6 Re:

So, your solution is to force things even more into the control of major studios, shut out independent artists who cannot participate without paying fees to whoever controls the required codec, destroy the public domain and fair use, hand over control of media playback to encumbant players with zero chance of competition – and you think this is all a good thing?

“Split the content to parts, require proof that each part was authored by the author.”

How do you define the “parts”? Who is the “author”? The studio? The distributor? The producer? Director? Cinematographer? Screenwriter? What about content that has none of these?

You are literally demanding a nightmarish, unworkable bureaucracy designed to lock out anyone not working for an existing major corporation.

The Wanderer (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:7 Re:

Given that it was in a response to a quote about video clips, I think he was defining “part” as “segment which is used as input to the editing tool which the author is trying to use”. In other words, if you can’t prove – to the satisfaction of the (presumably proprietary) editing tool – that you’re the one who created the video clip, you don’t get to use that clip in making another video.

(I think his “Split the content to parts” was meant to mean “If you split the content into parts” – conditional, not imperative; he’s done odd grammatical things like that before.)

That doesn’t reduce any of the numerous negative aspects you point out, of course; in fact, it probably makes some of them worse.

tp (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:7 Re:

> “Split the content to parts, require proof that each part was authored by the author.”

> How do you define the “parts”?

Here’s a story that explains where the part idea comes from. There’s a concept called “effort calculation”, which is a tool designed for people who watch content on the internet. This effort calculation looks at a content item, splits it to (arbitrary) parts, then estimates the time it takes to create the part from scratch, then sums the effots of the parts together to find out the effort required to create the whole work. This is suitable tool for users of the copyrighted conntent to estimate whether the product he’s seeing is actually created by the group that claims to be the authors. Once you know effort required for the whole work, you just need information about the team size to estimate the time it takes to create the work with that team. If the estimated time is something crazy like 100 years, it’s clear that the claims presented are somehow broken.

For example, if you take someone’s piracy movie collection and execute these steps to it, and then get a number that the pirate must have used 1000000000 hours of work to create the collection from scratch, it’s then clear that the pirate isn’t author of each element of his collection and you can start to question the claim that the pirate has a permission to distribute the material.

Same calculation for a smaller work item, returns suitable numbers like the author has spend only 5 years to create the product. If it’s playsible that the human responsible spent 5 years for the work, then you can believe that the author is the owner of the material and can actually legally distribute the material.

So the essential information here is to do the effort estimation/calculation to every part of the product, to get overall view of what is happening in the creation of the work.

PaulT (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:8 Re:

So, you still don’t understand the basics of the conversation, and in response to the stupidly unrealistic version that exists in your head, you will happily destroy a vast majority of work not made and distributed by employees of major corporations. You will happily remove the ability for non-corporate drones to create, in order that those who created bad work be compensated unfairly.

Got it.

“Once you know effort required for the whole work”

…you understand that man hours has absolutely fuck all to do with the quality or commercial viability of the end product. You don’t get to demand money just because you spend an extra decade creating a piece of shit nobody wants to pay for, when someone else who managed to only take a week created something that’s lasted in the market is going to get less by your idiotic demands.

Face reality, because your version of things is both unrealistic and hugely destructive to the very people you claim to wish to protect.

PaulT (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:10 Re:

“The information is used to check if you did copyright infringement or not.”

Then you’re doing something very wrong, it’s completely irrelevant to that. You can infringe on a work that took one hour to create as quickly and easily as you can infringe on one that took a decade to make. You can infringe on a video that cost $500 million or one that cost $5 in the same amount of time and effort.

That data you’re obsessed with has nothing to do with it. It’s worthless information to what you insist you’re trying to prove.

tp (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:11 Re:

> “The information is used to check if you did copyright infringement or not.”

> Then you’re doing something very wrong, it’s completely irrelevant to that.

Nope. You’re reading the algorithm wrong. This algorithm is supposed to be used after the pirate offers a product to your use. I.e. in situation where you need to decide whether to buy the product or not. It relies on the ignorance of the pirates — they never bother to calculate how large products can be offered to people and they offer too large product that they have no way of creating from scratch themselves.

> You can infringe on a work that took one hour to create as quickly and easily as you can infringe on one that took a decade to make.

This misses the point. The pirate is offering a product to you and you need to check if the authorship claims are true. It doesnt prevent piracy, it only allows you to detect it.

The time it took to “pirate” it doesnt matter. The important parameter is how long it took to “create” it. Pirates business model only succeeds because they can offer larger or more products than legal entities. So it can be useful to check if the product they offer is too large, that their puny team cannot ever possibly create it from scratch.

PaulT (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:12 Re:

“The pirate is offering a product to you and you need to check if the authorship claims are true”

…and, again, when they are and Viacom sues your ass anyway?

“The important parameter is how long it took to “create” it”

Which, once again, means absolutely nothing in terms of value.

” Pirates business model only succeeds because they can offer larger or more products than legal entities”

Yes, which is down to the utterly broken and outdated licensing and distribution models the legacy industry insists on sticking to. Again, nothing YouTube can do about that. If you don’t offer your product for someone to legally buy, but it’s available for free, you’re doing it very wrong.

Anonymous Coward says:

> Moreover, it is important to note that Member States shall ensure that authors receive an appropriate share of the additional revenues that press publishers receive for the use of a press publication by information society service providers.

I’m curious if JURI has done any research on how corrupt Collection Societies have been over time. The idea that the money will flow from publishers to authors is laughable.

There is no need for corruption if you are working on a blanket cheque arrangement. The collection societies pass the moneys they receive on to the authors minus their operating costs. Their operating costs are whatever they feel like paying themselves. The more money they control, the smaller the percentages are that they remove and the better they look for the same amount of money.

The percentages they take are quite larger than the percentages banks take from the money flowing through them, but for banks, there is competition and they cannot just force everyone to be their customer who wants to do business.

Really, there is little leeway for copyright societies to be corrupt since the system they are working in does all the curruption for them.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re:

The collection societies pass the moneys they receive on to the authors minus their operating costs.

Actually, they usually pass the moneys on to the publishers and labels, who are meant to pass it on to the authors and artists, after they have taken their cut and recouped any advances.

The chance of this causing any self publisher to receive any money is zero, while the bestseller authors will get the lions share of the money left after everybody else has taken their cut, and it will take a year or more for it to filter through.

stderric (profile) says:

Small platforms, even a one-person business, can cause as much damage to right holders as big companies, if their content is spread (first on this platform and possibly within seconds throughout the whole internet) without their consent.

So, they’re actually straight-up admitting that copyright as it currently exists is an archaic legal construct that’s failed to evolve to survive in the environment created by current technology?

Let’s hope nobody figures out a workable method of time-travel anytime soon: these half-wits would start sending space heaters back to the dinosaurs.

Anonymous Coward says:

I have to apologise, in an attempt to post a well thought-out comment on the proposed legislation…I failed. Unfortunately I was unable to come up with a rational argument against such an irrational proposal.

My brain and spirit have been shattered in the process…Sorry, and I really do hope that someone able to cope with ridiculousness is able to provide real assistance to save the Internet.

System Warning: **Please help, Canadian in distress… Invalid logic detected! Reasonable expectation of sanity has been irreperably harmed!

Add Your Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Have a Techdirt Account? Sign in now. Want one? Register here

Comment Options:

Make this the or (get credits or sign in to see balance) what's this?

What's this?

Techdirt community members with Techdirt Credits can spotlight a comment as either the "First Word" or "Last Word" on a particular comment thread. Credits can be purchased at the Techdirt Insider Shop »

Follow Techdirt

Techdirt Daily Newsletter

Ctrl-Alt-Speech

A weekly news podcast from
Mike Masnick & Ben Whitelaw

Subscribe now to Ctrl-Alt-Speech »
Techdirt Deals
Techdirt Insider Discord
The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...
Loading...