7 ms·

Forget GDPR, EU's New Copyright Proposal Will Be a Disaster for the Internet

111 points by SirOibaf 8y ago

amelius 8y ago
> Make platforms directly liable for all copyright infringements by their users, and then offer that they can avoid that unreasonable liability if they can show they’ve done everything in their power to prevent copyrighted content from appearing online – namely, by deploying upload filters I guess that's okay, as long as the EU provides those upload filters. Or a machine-readable specification of one. And as long as the EU is penalized for false positives.
- Kenji 8y ago
  > I guess that's okay, as long as the EU provides those upload filters. Do you realize how wrong that sounds? The EU should provide upload filters for all companies that put content on the internet? Wow! Yeah, let's make everyone have to get approval from Brussels every time they publish anything. What could possibly go wrong?
  - mattnewton 8y ago
    You’re right, lets hand it off to multinational corporations instead. What could go wrong? (Not disagreeing, I just want to say that I think this idea is fundamentally broken beyond repair)
  - extra88 8y ago
    I think it is a facetious statement to reflect how difficult meeting the regulatory requirement would be.
    - Kenji 8y ago
      I think you did not get my point. My point was not how difficult meeting the regulatory requirement would be. My point was the incredible danger of censorship.
  - 0xffff2 8y ago
    I don’t actually see the problem here. By their nature the filters would be inspectable. To me it just sounds like encoding the law in machine readble format.
    - hobofan 8y ago
      To me it sounds like implementing censorship tools.
      - mattnewton 8y ago
        And they are indirectly, or rather, giving copywriter holders the legal power to implement them.
      - ncallaway 8y ago
        One is mandating censorship tools the other is implementing censorship tools. There's not much of a practical difference between the two.
- tmalsburg2 8y ago
  Why should platforms not be held liable for copyright infringement? Most of them are directly benefiting from distributing pirated content (page views), which means they have a selfish interest not to act forcefully against copyright infringement. For instance, Youtube would likely not have been the success that it was without pirated content. Edit: It's okay to disagree with my comment. But why not share your view with us instead of just downvoting me?
  - mattnewton 8y ago
    I am against stronger copyright protections as a whole. I think it effectively hands over large swaths of culture to large corporations forever and can make free speech onerous. I would also like a new YouTube to have a similar shot at existing and not “close the door” by legally requiring programs that only large existing companies can implement.
  - ghaff 8y ago
    YouTube is a really interesting case. I'm probably not unique in thinking they were going to go the way of Napster given how much of the content of YouTube 1.0 infringed copyrights. It operated in a time when "user-generated content" wasn't nearly as big a thing and certainly wasn't monetizable for the most part. I doubt they'd have made it out the other side had Google not acquired them.
    - padthai 8y ago
      Copyright infringement is still big in Youtube. It is flooded with stolen content. Big things The Simpson or Family guy or even full films. But also compilation channels from other Youtubers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRwTep1kvrw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRwTep1kvrw
      - DanBC 8y ago
        But youtube has mechanisms to remove monetisation from the uploader and funnel it to the rights-holder. I haven't read the proposed EU regulation, and it sounds like there's a bunch more stuff in it. It would have been nice if Techdirt had a clear link to the proposal.
- xab9 8y ago
  No, it's not okay. Imagine a blog engine (or a better forum) where the user can upload media (be it pictures or video) - and all those files will have to be sent for analysis to a EU server? The checksum is clearly not enough in this case, so EU administering bodies would have to set up a really sophisticated system - and in countries where getting even an appointment date to the social healthcare system is nigh impossible I see literally zero chance for such a backend (so everyone's on their own). In this case what's happening here is that we are killing the internet as we know it (or knew it five years ago). Government bodies most of the time are incompetent in IT (unless they have an ulterior motive, like large scale censorship or surveillance), so you're probably better off relying the giants' service and create a facebook page, or a google doc, instead of building something on your own (creating a gray net). There are many worst case scenarios with this law. Facebook and Google creating a new Internet, government bodies setting up "copyright servers" (with advanced data mining capabilites), link tax rendering hyperlinks feared, extortion schemes by shady organizations and lawyers, implementation tax for software development, fear of innovations et cetera.
  - amelius 8y ago
    > Government bodies most of the time are incompetent in IT Like universities and DARPA?
    - xab9 8y ago
      DARPA is a common and overused response here, but nowdays we hear more about killer drones and face recognition... but yeah, I guess the military will always create inventions that are useful for civil purposes, but I still consider that focused research. Universities depend on governmental funding to a certain extent, but they have their own freedom - though I still can't see how the next Facebook or next Google or the next super intelligent state firewall will emerge from a research project.
  - Barrin92 8y ago
    > in this case what's happening here is that we are killing the internet as we know it This basically depends on how high the bar for due diligence is set. Will the regulatory bodies provide a certain set of filter criteria that the companies have to implement and everything that isn't being caught is not their problem? Then it's not that big of a deal and might be a good idea to catch the worst offenders and hold platforms accountable. Is it going to end in countless copyright lawsuits against platform owners just because some content escaped them? Then it'd be a nightmare. I think there is some healthy middle-ground. Platform owners should have to face some duty to see that their platforms are used in lawful ways, (akin to say owners of a bar not allowing illegal gambling under their noses), but it shouldn't interfer too strongly with regular, legitimate business.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
sbhn 8y ago
The internet wayback machine is one of the biggest copyright thiefs in my opinion. I hope the proposal considers how that business model works and why it should be immune from prosecution
- AsyncAwait 8y ago
  > The internet wayback machine is one of the biggest copyright thiefs in my opinion. Ugh, Is Google too then? EDIT: Misunderstood OP, it appears he/she was being sarcastic.
  - mattnewton 8y ago
    I read gp as sarcastically pointing out how this would destroy a nonprofit.
  - detaro 8y ago
    > why it should be immune from prosecution I don't think the parent is raging against the Internet Archive, just pointing out the legal problems of what it does. Strict copyright law will destroy archives.
    - vanderZwan 8y ago
      Libraries tend to have (some) exemptions to such laws, no? And the Internet Archive is recognised as a library AFAIK
      - DanBC 8y ago
        Educational or scientific repositories are probably exempt. https://www.politico.eu/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Copyright-compromise-amendments-V6.pdf https://www.politico.eu/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Copyright...
      - ghaff 8y ago
        Some limited exceptions. Section 108. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/108 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/108 But these don't really address digital archives as the Copyright Office recognizes. https://www.copyright.gov/policy/section108/ https://www.copyright.gov/policy/section108/ Presumably the Internet Archive is considered a library, museum, or archive although I don't know if there are specific technical factors that would make them one or if it's more of a "know it when you see it" situation in the event of a dispute.
neilwilson 8y ago
The EU is just a disaster in general. Unless you believe corporatist technocracy is the future of civilisation. This proposal is just another example of that process.
- gcb0 8y ago
  you have your vague political terms backwards. the US is the poster child for corporatist technocracy.
  - neilwilson 8y ago
    There seems to be a competition between them for who can hand out the biggest cultural monopolies.
- AsyncAwait 8y ago
  The GDPR is pretty good, this is terrible, like any org/government they have both good and bad policies. Sadly, i.e. Brexiteers generally want to eliminate the good ones, (food standards), and keep the bad ones, (copyright), so am not sure what the solution to eliminating is here, but it doesn't seem to be specific to the EU.
  - neilwilson 8y ago
    You know that ascribing views to a group without evidence is prejudice.
    - AsyncAwait 8y ago
      You can ascribe certain views to a group certainly, if that's what you read, observed etc. about them and it is not discriminatory. For example, I can say "religious people generally believe in a God". This is problematic when you start making judgments about people based on outright false claims or based on attributes that they have no control over. I said "generally" on purpose. There are exceptions of course, but from speaking to a lot of them, watching interviews etc. that's the impression I got for their general sentiment. I of course am not presenting this as a fact, just as what I observed.
eveningcoffee 8y ago
This sounds Orwellian to me. We should not give in to so called "content producers". Their privileges are not more important than peoples rights.
dang 8y ago
This article is a gloss on a more original source, which was submitted at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17164244 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17164244.
anoncow 8y ago
Related discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17164244 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17164244 HN, unfortunately, seems biased towards laws like the GDPR and somehow believes that start-ups can no longer self regulate or Do-no-evil. I hope I am wrong regarding this. Self-regulation was once the gold standard on boards like HN. Imagine creating the Google search engine in 2018 without the new proposed EU copyright law in place. Seems difficult right? Most websites have anti-scraping techniques in place if you are not Google-bot. Now imagine, creating the next Google after laws like the new EU copyright law go live. Laws like the GDPR are red tape and are poison to start-ups. Self regulation is the way to go and we need industry bodies who can stand up and talk to government bodies like the EU to come up with meaningful regulations which help both the industry and the end user.
- tannhaeuser 8y ago
  This has nothing to do with GDPR.
- cdancette 8y ago
  Self regulation, really? Startups could never self regulate and never will. And a few bad startups can be enough to do massive damages. Look Cambridge analytica: this startup alone made the case for regulations like GDPR. As a user, I really am pleased with gdpr, so that "do-no-evil" startups stop selling my data around and not caring at all about my privacy.
  - existencebox 8y ago
    (For the record, and to confuse my own statement, I actually generally agree that self-regulation isn't historically effective. I'm just also not sold on GDPR as a US resident/am as nervous as heavy regulation as I am of a lack thereof, and when I read your post it begged a devils-advocate counter to your statement from a different angle.) As a user, I'm _not_ pleased that the law has devoided me of a choice to participate with businesses under a previously acceptable business model, and without any input/say on my part, assumes my agency to chose which businesses I interact with. I accepted it as my responsibility to know that some may be selling my information, and to make conscientious choices accordingly. This not even touching on that the law does precisely nothing against the sort of data incidences that I have the most issue with (Equifax).
tannhaeuser 8y ago
I hope someone could explain who is supposed to check content, under which conditions and how. If this applies to anybody running a web site or offering hosting services I simply fail to see how this can be realistically implemented at all. I don't even understand the primary goal of this proposal for a law, and thus question it's adequateness (which gives rise to appeal before court). Criminal persecution is the police's/attorney's job; offloading these duties to private entities prompts the question why we need those institutions in the first place.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- teamhappy 8y ago
  If this draft passes tech companies "storing and giving access to large amounts of works and other subject-matter uploaded by their users" would be liable for copyrighted content that is shared on their platforms. They can (but aren't forced to) avoid that liability by making "best efforts to prevent the availability of specific works or other subject matter by implementing effective and proportionate measures, [...], to prevent the availability on its services of the specific works or other subject matter identified by rightholders and for which the rightholders have provided the service with relevant and necessary information for the application of these measures" and "upon notification by rightholders of works or other subject matter, it has acted expeditiously to remove or disable access to these works". There's also some stuff in there saying these measures should be "effective and proportionate", taking into account how big the company is, how much content is uploaded on their platform and the availability, cost and effectiveness of the measures.
  - tannhaeuser 8y ago
    Thanks. They seem to want to go after sharing platforms just shrugging when their community uploads videos, music, and warez, yet receiving all the commercial benefit, and I guess that's fair. But clearly this law needs more exposure, discussion and refinement. It also should be unbundled from the law about link previews for news snippets which is an entirely different legal issue.
sbhn 8y ago
From a point of view of a creator who's had there work copied for someone else's profit, I created some music for cats. It was a bit of fun really, you wouldn't like it, but your cat might, https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKWUX7aMnlEK3edghsEnSyBU7FjosH0qd https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKWUX7aMnlEK3edghsEnS... anyway, occasionally my music is copied and monetised on other youtube channels without me knowing. While this annoys me, YouTubes approach to this is very good, If I report this copyright infringement, YouTube allows me to enter an agreement with the copyright infringer for shared revenue or other. I balance this multi tiered approach as very good, since this other channel may be getting better views than me, and the cost of marketing is so high, and this other user is effectively endorsing my brand and creating awareness for me, and to waiver their violation, I can enter a shared revenue agreement with them. This is a win/win for me as I get another opportunity to profit, and my music is shared in more places than just the places I manage to manually put it myself or pay someone to.
dvfjsdhgfv 8y ago
> Make platforms directly liable for all copyright infringements by their users, and then offer that they can avoid that unreasonable liability if they can show they’ve done everything in their power to prevent copyrighted content from appearing online – namely, by deploying upload filters (Article 13, paragraph 4). Which remain totally optional, of course! Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. I have some personal story about this. A while ago a certain person decided to scan some books copyrighted by me and put it on Scribd. Every few weeks he'd scan one and upload it, saying that information should be free. I contacted Scribd and my experience was overly negative. Yes, they would wait a few days, then answer and remove the book. Then this person would reupload it, and the story repeated itself. Basically, the book was longer on rather than off Scribd. I repeatedly asked Scribd to take it more seriously, and, for example, remove the offending account, but they refused. They did it in the end after some weeks. Of course the same day that person uploaded all books again under another account. It all looked like a joke, as if the copyright law was some boring invention that they only pretended to observe. Now, this was a few years ago, and maybe things changed since, I don't know. But at that time it felt like Scribd was cooperating more with the offender than with me.
- true_religion 8y ago
  You should go after the person directly rather than relying on the 3rd party platform to enforce law and carry out investigation.
  - dvfjsdhgfv 8y ago
    He was using Tor for uploading.
sbhn 8y ago
The proposal should also consider the product placement business model. For example, I create a movie, and I get some funding from a trusted advertiser because I said my famous hero actor will wear your shoes, use your earphones, use your phone, drive your car, shoot your guns, flash your badge, wear your glasses and drink your drink on film and at all press events. I say, I think I can get millions of views using clever marketing techniques. I won’t need to spend anything on distribution and promotion. I get the money and I release the film on pirate bay. I even cry my film was copied by the North Koreans and the Russians since the BBC is so eager shove it in people’s faces as they eat breakfast. Win/Win. The people can share and copy my film as much as they want, I still own the original copyright, and I would have monetised the product placement better than anybody else.

111 points by SirOibaf 8y ago

amelius 8y ago

Kenji 8y ago
> I guess that's okay, as long as the EU provides those upload filters. Do you realize how wrong that sounds? The EU should provide upload filters for all companies that put content on the internet? Wow! Yeah, let's make everyone have to get approval from Brussels every time they publish anything. What could possibly go wrong?
- mattnewton 8y ago
  You’re right, lets hand it off to multinational corporations instead. What could go wrong? (Not disagreeing, I just want to say that I think this idea is fundamentally broken beyond repair)
- extra88 8y ago
  I think it is a facetious statement to reflect how difficult meeting the regulatory requirement would be.
  - Kenji 8y ago
    I think you did not get my point. My point was not how difficult meeting the regulatory requirement would be. My point was the incredible danger of censorship.
- 0xffff2 8y ago
  I don’t actually see the problem here. By their nature the filters would be inspectable. To me it just sounds like encoding the law in machine readble format.
  - hobofan 8y ago
    To me it sounds like implementing censorship tools.
    - mattnewton 8y ago
      And they are indirectly, or rather, giving copywriter holders the legal power to implement them.
    - ncallaway 8y ago
      One is mandating censorship tools the other is implementing censorship tools. There's not much of a practical difference between the two.
tmalsburg2 8y ago
Why should platforms not be held liable for copyright infringement? Most of them are directly benefiting from distributing pirated content (page views), which means they have a selfish interest not to act forcefully against copyright infringement. For instance, Youtube would likely not have been the success that it was without pirated content. Edit: It's okay to disagree with my comment. But why not share your view with us instead of just downvoting me?
- mattnewton 8y ago
  I am against stronger copyright protections as a whole. I think it effectively hands over large swaths of culture to large corporations forever and can make free speech onerous. I would also like a new YouTube to have a similar shot at existing and not “close the door” by legally requiring programs that only large existing companies can implement.
- ghaff 8y ago
  YouTube is a really interesting case. I'm probably not unique in thinking they were going to go the way of Napster given how much of the content of YouTube 1.0 infringed copyrights. It operated in a time when "user-generated content" wasn't nearly as big a thing and certainly wasn't monetizable for the most part. I doubt they'd have made it out the other side had Google not acquired them.
  - padthai 8y ago
    Copyright infringement is still big in Youtube. It is flooded with stolen content. Big things The Simpson or Family guy or even full films. But also compilation channels from other Youtubers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRwTep1kvrw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRwTep1kvrw
    - DanBC 8y ago
      But youtube has mechanisms to remove monetisation from the uploader and funnel it to the rights-holder. I haven't read the proposed EU regulation, and it sounds like there's a bunch more stuff in it. It would have been nice if Techdirt had a clear link to the proposal.
xab9 8y ago
No, it's not okay. Imagine a blog engine (or a better forum) where the user can upload media (be it pictures or video) - and all those files will have to be sent for analysis to a EU server? The checksum is clearly not enough in this case, so EU administering bodies would have to set up a really sophisticated system - and in countries where getting even an appointment date to the social healthcare system is nigh impossible I see literally zero chance for such a backend (so everyone's on their own). In this case what's happening here is that we are killing the internet as we know it (or knew it five years ago). Government bodies most of the time are incompetent in IT (unless they have an ulterior motive, like large scale censorship or surveillance), so you're probably better off relying the giants' service and create a facebook page, or a google doc, instead of building something on your own (creating a gray net). There are many worst case scenarios with this law. Facebook and Google creating a new Internet, government bodies setting up "copyright servers" (with advanced data mining capabilites), link tax rendering hyperlinks feared, extortion schemes by shady organizations and lawyers, implementation tax for software development, fear of innovations et cetera.
- amelius 8y ago
  > Government bodies most of the time are incompetent in IT Like universities and DARPA?
  - xab9 8y ago
    DARPA is a common and overused response here, but nowdays we hear more about killer drones and face recognition... but yeah, I guess the military will always create inventions that are useful for civil purposes, but I still consider that focused research. Universities depend on governmental funding to a certain extent, but they have their own freedom - though I still can't see how the next Facebook or next Google or the next super intelligent state firewall will emerge from a research project.
- Barrin92 8y ago
  > in this case what's happening here is that we are killing the internet as we know it This basically depends on how high the bar for due diligence is set. Will the regulatory bodies provide a certain set of filter criteria that the companies have to implement and everything that isn't being caught is not their problem? Then it's not that big of a deal and might be a good idea to catch the worst offenders and hold platforms accountable. Is it going to end in countless copyright lawsuits against platform owners just because some content escaped them? Then it'd be a nightmare. I think there is some healthy middle-ground. Platform owners should have to face some duty to see that their platforms are used in lawful ways, (akin to say owners of a bar not allowing illegal gambling under their noses), but it shouldn't interfer too strongly with regular, legitimate business.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

sbhn 8y ago

The internet wayback machine is one of the biggest copyright thiefs in my opinion. I hope the proposal considers how that business model works and why it should be immune from prosecution

AsyncAwait 8y ago
> The internet wayback machine is one of the biggest copyright thiefs in my opinion. Ugh, Is Google too then? EDIT: Misunderstood OP, it appears he/she was being sarcastic.
- mattnewton 8y ago
  I read gp as sarcastically pointing out how this would destroy a nonprofit.
- detaro 8y ago
  > why it should be immune from prosecution I don't think the parent is raging against the Internet Archive, just pointing out the legal problems of what it does. Strict copyright law will destroy archives.
  - vanderZwan 8y ago
    Libraries tend to have (some) exemptions to such laws, no? And the Internet Archive is recognised as a library AFAIK
    - DanBC 8y ago
      Educational or scientific repositories are probably exempt. https://www.politico.eu/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Copyright-compromise-amendments-V6.pdf https://www.politico.eu/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Copyright...
    - ghaff 8y ago
      Some limited exceptions. Section 108. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/108 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/108 But these don't really address digital archives as the Copyright Office recognizes. https://www.copyright.gov/policy/section108/ https://www.copyright.gov/policy/section108/ Presumably the Internet Archive is considered a library, museum, or archive although I don't know if there are specific technical factors that would make them one or if it's more of a "know it when you see it" situation in the event of a dispute.

neilwilson 8y ago

The EU is just a disaster in general. Unless you believe corporatist technocracy is the future of civilisation. This proposal is just another example of that process.

gcb0 8y ago
you have your vague political terms backwards. the US is the poster child for corporatist technocracy.
- neilwilson 8y ago
  There seems to be a competition between them for who can hand out the biggest cultural monopolies.
AsyncAwait 8y ago
The GDPR is pretty good, this is terrible, like any org/government they have both good and bad policies. Sadly, i.e. Brexiteers generally want to eliminate the good ones, (food standards), and keep the bad ones, (copyright), so am not sure what the solution to eliminating is here, but it doesn't seem to be specific to the EU.
- neilwilson 8y ago
  You know that ascribing views to a group without evidence is prejudice.
  - AsyncAwait 8y ago
    You can ascribe certain views to a group certainly, if that's what you read, observed etc. about them and it is not discriminatory. For example, I can say "religious people generally believe in a God". This is problematic when you start making judgments about people based on outright false claims or based on attributes that they have no control over. I said "generally" on purpose. There are exceptions of course, but from speaking to a lot of them, watching interviews etc. that's the impression I got for their general sentiment. I of course am not presenting this as a fact, just as what I observed.

eveningcoffee 8y ago

This sounds Orwellian to me. We should not give in to so called "content producers". Their privileges are not more important than peoples rights.

dang 8y ago

This article is a gloss on a more original source, which was submitted at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17164244 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17164244.

anoncow 8y ago

Related discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17164244 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17164244 HN, unfortunately, seems biased towards laws like the GDPR and somehow believes that start-ups can no longer self regulate or Do-no-evil. I hope I am wrong regarding this. Self-regulation was once the gold standard on boards like HN. Imagine creating the Google search engine in 2018 without the new proposed EU copyright law in place. Seems difficult right? Most websites have anti-scraping techniques in place if you are not Google-bot. Now imagine, creating the next Google after laws like the new EU copyright law go live. Laws like the GDPR are red tape and are poison to start-ups. Self regulation is the way to go and we need industry bodies who can stand up and talk to government bodies like the EU to come up with meaningful regulations which help both the industry and the end user.

tannhaeuser 8y ago
This has nothing to do with GDPR.
cdancette 8y ago
Self regulation, really? Startups could never self regulate and never will. And a few bad startups can be enough to do massive damages. Look Cambridge analytica: this startup alone made the case for regulations like GDPR. As a user, I really am pleased with gdpr, so that "do-no-evil" startups stop selling my data around and not caring at all about my privacy.
- existencebox 8y ago
  (For the record, and to confuse my own statement, I actually generally agree that self-regulation isn't historically effective. I'm just also not sold on GDPR as a US resident/am as nervous as heavy regulation as I am of a lack thereof, and when I read your post it begged a devils-advocate counter to your statement from a different angle.) As a user, I'm _not_ pleased that the law has devoided me of a choice to participate with businesses under a previously acceptable business model, and without any input/say on my part, assumes my agency to chose which businesses I interact with. I accepted it as my responsibility to know that some may be selling my information, and to make conscientious choices accordingly. This not even touching on that the law does precisely nothing against the sort of data incidences that I have the most issue with (Equifax).

tannhaeuser 8y ago

I hope someone could explain who is supposed to check content, under which conditions and how. If this applies to anybody running a web site or offering hosting services I simply fail to see how this can be realistically implemented at all. I don't even understand the primary goal of this proposal for a law, and thus question it's adequateness (which gives rise to appeal before court). Criminal persecution is the police's/attorney's job; offloading these duties to private entities prompts the question why we need those institutions in the first place.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
teamhappy 8y ago
If this draft passes tech companies "storing and giving access to large amounts of works and other subject-matter uploaded by their users" would be liable for copyrighted content that is shared on their platforms. They can (but aren't forced to) avoid that liability by making "best efforts to prevent the availability of specific works or other subject matter by implementing effective and proportionate measures, [...], to prevent the availability on its services of the specific works or other subject matter identified by rightholders and for which the rightholders have provided the service with relevant and necessary information for the application of these measures" and "upon notification by rightholders of works or other subject matter, it has acted expeditiously to remove or disable access to these works". There's also some stuff in there saying these measures should be "effective and proportionate", taking into account how big the company is, how much content is uploaded on their platform and the availability, cost and effectiveness of the measures.
- tannhaeuser 8y ago
  Thanks. They seem to want to go after sharing platforms just shrugging when their community uploads videos, music, and warez, yet receiving all the commercial benefit, and I guess that's fair. But clearly this law needs more exposure, discussion and refinement. It also should be unbundled from the law about link previews for news snippets which is an entirely different legal issue.

sbhn 8y ago

From a point of view of a creator who's had there work copied for someone else's profit, I created some music for cats. It was a bit of fun really, you wouldn't like it, but your cat might, https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKWUX7aMnlEK3edghsEnSyBU7FjosH0qd https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKWUX7aMnlEK3edghsEnS... anyway, occasionally my music is copied and monetised on other youtube channels without me knowing. While this annoys me, YouTubes approach to this is very good, If I report this copyright infringement, YouTube allows me to enter an agreement with the copyright infringer for shared revenue or other. I balance this multi tiered approach as very good, since this other channel may be getting better views than me, and the cost of marketing is so high, and this other user is effectively endorsing my brand and creating awareness for me, and to waiver their violation, I can enter a shared revenue agreement with them. This is a win/win for me as I get another opportunity to profit, and my music is shared in more places than just the places I manage to manually put it myself or pay someone to.

dvfjsdhgfv 8y ago

> Make platforms directly liable for all copyright infringements by their users, and then offer that they can avoid that unreasonable liability if they can show they’ve done everything in their power to prevent copyrighted content from appearing online – namely, by deploying upload filters (Article 13, paragraph 4). Which remain totally optional, of course! Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. I have some personal story about this. A while ago a certain person decided to scan some books copyrighted by me and put it on Scribd. Every few weeks he'd scan one and upload it, saying that information should be free. I contacted Scribd and my experience was overly negative. Yes, they would wait a few days, then answer and remove the book. Then this person would reupload it, and the story repeated itself. Basically, the book was longer on rather than off Scribd. I repeatedly asked Scribd to take it more seriously, and, for example, remove the offending account, but they refused. They did it in the end after some weeks. Of course the same day that person uploaded all books again under another account. It all looked like a joke, as if the copyright law was some boring invention that they only pretended to observe. Now, this was a few years ago, and maybe things changed since, I don't know. But at that time it felt like Scribd was cooperating more with the offender than with me.

true_religion 8y ago
You should go after the person directly rather than relying on the 3rd party platform to enforce law and carry out investigation.
- dvfjsdhgfv 8y ago
  He was using Tor for uploading.

sbhn 8y ago

The proposal should also consider the product placement business model. For example, I create a movie, and I get some funding from a trusted advertiser because I said my famous hero actor will wear your shoes, use your earphones, use your phone, drive your car, shoot your guns, flash your badge, wear your glasses and drink your drink on film and at all press events. I say, I think I can get millions of views using clever marketing techniques. I won’t need to spend anything on distribution and promotion. I get the money and I release the film on pirate bay. I even cry my film was copied by the North Koreans and the Russians since the BBC is so eager shove it in people’s faces as they eat breakfast. Win/Win. The people can share and copy my film as much as they want, I still own the original copyright, and I would have monetised the product placement better than anybody else.