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I agree completely, but I am very pessimistic when it comes to decentralised publishing platforms. The architectural hurdles are not insurmountable but I think

I agree completely, but I am very pessimistic when it comes to decentralised publishing platforms. The architectural hurdles are not insurmountable but I think the legal ones are. Individuals or small organisations simply can't afford to take on the potential liability that comes with letting arbitrary people upload arbitrary stuff to their servers. If some hosts carry the controversial stuff and others don't, then those who do will be targeted, censored, persecuted and/or sued out of existence, and they don't have money to defend themselves because all the money making stuff is hosted by others.

infogulch 8y ago
That's not all bad though: it means that as a host, you have some legal representation at all. On youtube? Your video is just taken down because it was flagged, or someone made three bogus copyright claims on your channel, or some algorithm thought your video of art is nudity. In these cases, you have zero legal recourse at all, even if you wanted to pursue it. Youtube's solution is not to protect creators, but to simplify their own legal logistics. But you're not wrong about liability, hosts will need some solution. One part will be that PeerTube will probably build in features to help hosts moderate and manage legal documents like DMCA. Another common solution to dealing with liability and risk is insurance.
- fauigerzigerk 8y ago
  You're absolutely right about having no legal recourse at all on youtube. That's a very important point. But for individuals acting in a personal capacity that doesn't matter. For them youtube is the no recourse, no financial risk option. People upload random stuff, not everything completely legal but often not interesting for copyright holders either (e.g very old episodes of TV shows). Sometimes it gets taken down. No harm done. For professionals, relying on youtube is risky though. They could lose their entire audience over night if they get suspended. So it sounds like decentralisation could work for professionals, but of course the catch is that without the huge volume of random stuff uploaded by non-professionals the platform doesn't have mass appeal because it's not the go-to place for video search, and that means professinals won't find the large audience they are looking for. Insurance doesn't work in this case. It only works if the likelihood of getting sued is low and you cannot be accused of having broken the law knowingly, neither of which is compatible with working in a grey area.
  - infogulch 8y ago
    There's a spectrum from "random home video" to "professional". At the "home video" end, the risk of getting sued is low, and built-in tools to help handle DMCA etc are enough (e.g. enable automatic takedowns). At the "professional" end they can afford to have a lawyer on retainer. That leaves the middle: where people are trying to make nicely produced videos, but they're not big enough to afford keeping a lawyer on retainer. Let me try to make a case for how insurance could fit in here. Insurance like this is often predicated on the insured meeting various conditions. I could see a forward-thinking insurance company offering terms like these: 1. Require the producer to pre-declare exact claims of all source material for both music and video. For example, "1:02-3:55; Public domain music. Sourced from ...", "0:00-0:10; Licensed stock intro. License details ...", "5:07-5:15; Fair use news clip. Source at ...", "0:15-15:35; Original footage. Taken with X camera at Y location on Z date.". 2. Perform random audits on videos including tracking down all claimed sources to make sure they're documenting their sources correctly. 3. Offer running video through a ContentID system that can automatically check claimed sources with an internal database of known content. By opting-in, you can reduce your rate. I think these bring the risk down to similar levels in other industries that insurance companies currently serve. Figuring out the exact rates, plans, kinds and amounts and limits of coverage, rates for different content etc etc etc is all the job of an adjuster. For example, fair use claims might have a higher rate of being contested, so maybe using them would be restricted and/or more expensive. It's in the insurance company's best interest to reduce the number of lawsuits and claims, so they will pursue anti-SLAPP judgements (and lobby for them!) to recoup legal costs of frivolous suits, thus reducing frivolous claims. The producer will have a well-known coverage and be able to manage their risk. If the pre-declared claims sounds onerous to you, I could see video production tools being able to read specially formatted claim metadata embedded in any source and automatically outputting a properly formatted list of claims with timestamps embedded as metadata in the output. As long as the producer uses properly tagged sources it can be automatic. In fact, this could even be backed up with cryptographic signatures to allow in-place verification that you've purchased a particular license. Another benefit: My apartment requires me to maintain renters insurance. Similarly, you could provide your cloud provider with proof that you maintain this kind of insurance, in exchange for them promising they won't disconnect your account due to copyright claims (and forward them to your insurance company instead). This combats the "walking up the stack" problem discussed in other threads.

infogulch 8y ago

That's not all bad though: it means that as a host, you have some legal representation at all. On youtube? Your video is just taken down because it was flagged, or someone made three bogus copyright claims on your channel, or some algorithm thought your video of art is nudity. In these cases, you have zero legal recourse at all, even if you wanted to pursue it. Youtube's solution is not to protect creators, but to simplify their own legal logistics. But you're not wrong about liability, hosts will need some solution. One part will be that PeerTube will probably build in features to help hosts moderate and manage legal documents like DMCA. Another common solution to dealing with liability and risk is insurance.

fauigerzigerk 8y ago
You're absolutely right about having no legal recourse at all on youtube. That's a very important point. But for individuals acting in a personal capacity that doesn't matter. For them youtube is the no recourse, no financial risk option. People upload random stuff, not everything completely legal but often not interesting for copyright holders either (e.g very old episodes of TV shows). Sometimes it gets taken down. No harm done. For professionals, relying on youtube is risky though. They could lose their entire audience over night if they get suspended. So it sounds like decentralisation could work for professionals, but of course the catch is that without the huge volume of random stuff uploaded by non-professionals the platform doesn't have mass appeal because it's not the go-to place for video search, and that means professinals won't find the large audience they are looking for. Insurance doesn't work in this case. It only works if the likelihood of getting sued is low and you cannot be accused of having broken the law knowingly, neither of which is compatible with working in a grey area.
- infogulch 8y ago
  There's a spectrum from "random home video" to "professional". At the "home video" end, the risk of getting sued is low, and built-in tools to help handle DMCA etc are enough (e.g. enable automatic takedowns). At the "professional" end they can afford to have a lawyer on retainer. That leaves the middle: where people are trying to make nicely produced videos, but they're not big enough to afford keeping a lawyer on retainer. Let me try to make a case for how insurance could fit in here. Insurance like this is often predicated on the insured meeting various conditions. I could see a forward-thinking insurance company offering terms like these: 1. Require the producer to pre-declare exact claims of all source material for both music and video. For example, "1:02-3:55; Public domain music. Sourced from ...", "0:00-0:10; Licensed stock intro. License details ...", "5:07-5:15; Fair use news clip. Source at ...", "0:15-15:35; Original footage. Taken with X camera at Y location on Z date.". 2. Perform random audits on videos including tracking down all claimed sources to make sure they're documenting their sources correctly. 3. Offer running video through a ContentID system that can automatically check claimed sources with an internal database of known content. By opting-in, you can reduce your rate. I think these bring the risk down to similar levels in other industries that insurance companies currently serve. Figuring out the exact rates, plans, kinds and amounts and limits of coverage, rates for different content etc etc etc is all the job of an adjuster. For example, fair use claims might have a higher rate of being contested, so maybe using them would be restricted and/or more expensive. It's in the insurance company's best interest to reduce the number of lawsuits and claims, so they will pursue anti-SLAPP judgements (and lobby for them!) to recoup legal costs of frivolous suits, thus reducing frivolous claims. The producer will have a well-known coverage and be able to manage their risk. If the pre-declared claims sounds onerous to you, I could see video production tools being able to read specially formatted claim metadata embedded in any source and automatically outputting a properly formatted list of claims with timestamps embedded as metadata in the output. As long as the producer uses properly tagged sources it can be automatic. In fact, this could even be backed up with cryptographic signatures to allow in-place verification that you've purchased a particular license. Another benefit: My apartment requires me to maintain renters insurance. Similarly, you could provide your cloud provider with proof that you maintain this kind of insurance, in exchange for them promising they won't disconnect your account due to copyright claims (and forward them to your insurance company instead). This combats the "walking up the stack" problem discussed in other threads.