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I may be naive in saying this, but I believe the law is made with good intentions in mind. The real problem lies in the laws it relies on, namely the extremely

I may be naive in saying this, but I believe the law is made with good intentions in mind. The real problem lies in the laws it relies on, namely the extremely stringent copyright laws and the weird fair use. > Much of YouTube content is (perfectly legal) remixes, responses, or criticisms of other YouTube content that embeds part of the referenced video in their own video. As weird as it sounds, you are wrong. In a short summary: 1. Fair use is a very small exception to some very broad rights. 2. Fair use almost definitely does not apply to most youtube content : if you use content other people made (video games or music immediately come to mind) you are infringing copyright holder rights. 3. If you rely on fair use rights, then you might find yourself in trouble. What's even worse is that right holders can pick and choose who to bust, and they don't need to be consistent about it. So even if they rarely go after small groups, they can still shut down bigger ones. I have a childhood friend who is now a copyright lawyer and I sometimes jokingly ask him whether something is copyright infringing. Other than yes, the most frequent answer I get is "I don't know, it depends. Both sides have arguments so ultimately it's down to the judge." It's just bad law. The only difference between then and now is that now we have the technology to actually enforce it.

simias 8y ago
That's an interesting point. It's true that the issue wouldn't be quite as terrible if IP laws were more reasonable to begin with. We shouldn't have to wait for literal centuries before a work becomes public domain for instance.
zaroth 8y ago
Fair use (in the US) is actually designed to provide for the ability to comment on, or criticize another work. You can’t do that effectively without showing the subject matter you are discussing. There are absolutely well defined “fair use” exceptions which a stringent filter will block. > Other than yes, the most frequent answer I get is "I don't know, it depends. This is the only answer a lawyer will basically ever give you.
ericdykstra 8y ago
I don't believe this is true. Every legitimate YouTube fair use case that I've seen go to court has gone in favor of the fair user. The biggest name one so far is the H3H3 trial.[1] One that looks to be settled soon is Akilah Hughes suing Carl Benjamin (Sargon of Akkad), where all that Benjamin does is edit together two of Hughes videos with the only original addition being a new title. This is almost certainly going to go in favor of Sargon, yet YouTube's algorithms turned up to the nth degree would almost certainly have blocked it.[2] If you go outside of YouTube, fair use law in the United States is very broad. Just look at what Richard Prince does with others' art. [3] edit: added links 1. http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/41037631/youtube-stars-h3h3-win-landmark-court-case-against-matt-hoss http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/41037631/youtube-stars... 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LMgGBDZbJY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LMgGBDZbJY 3. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jul/18/instagram-artist-richard-prince-selfies https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jul/18/instagram...
- pbhjpbhj 8y ago
  Combining two videos in this way would be unlawful in the UK, where we have the very restricted "Fair Dealing" concessions, because downloading the videos in the first place is a tort[0]. Combining them is another, sharing them is another. We basically have no concept of personal use in our copyright. [0] if they were broadcast you can record but only for time-shifting, you can only watch once (alone!) and then are obliged to destroy the copy; you aren't allowed to format shift. The lack of any remaining semblance of balance in copyright between the rights of the demos and media interests shows how badly distorted our Western democracies have become from representing the rights of people in general above the rights of the rich.
  - paulie_a 8y ago
    Honestly the lack of balance with copyright law is why I simply ignore copyrights. They have become irrelevant to me.
  - megous 8y ago
    Compare that to my country, where it's perfectly legal to download whatever music or movies you like from the internet for personal use, pirate websites or not. Also a western democracy. So it's not so bad everywhere. Though a price for this is that we pay a special tax on every storage device we purchase.
_pmf_ 8y ago
Fair use has a much narrower definition in the EU, in addition to varying from country to country.
logifail 8y ago
If rights-holders and/or YouTube had to pay a monetary penalty every time they screwed up (by taking down content that was fair use), perhaps it might level the playing field?
phkahler 8y ago
>> 2. Fair use almost definitely does not apply to most youtube content : if you use content other people made (video games or music immediately come to mind) you are infringing copyright holder rights. Have you read the YouTube terms for original content uploaded by individuals? I'm not so sure doing remixes isn't allowed. If you don't want people doing that to your stuff, keep it off YouTube. I could be wrong, it's been many years since I read their ToS.
- herpes 8y ago
  I believe this is in reference to US "fair use" in a separate legal sense, not the YouTube Terms of Service. Many times simply claiming "fair use" is the defense of the layman online in regards to virtually anything involving someone else's intellectual property, which in fact it's fairly well defined and limited. YouTube does have a reasonable page (https://www.youtube.com/yt/about/copyright/fair-use/ https://www.youtube.com/yt/about/copyright/fair-use/) on fair use in this context which I think essentially says that they're interested in following the law.
Scarblac 8y ago
Are you basing this on law in the EU? Because as far as I know, "fair use" is purely a US thing that doesn't even exist in the EU -- although specific countries may have laws that do somewhat similar things.
briandear 8y ago
Why force the platform to enforce? Shouldn’t the copyright owner be required to protect their own rights rather than having others do it for them?
- rocqua 8y ago
  Copyright owners have successfully lobbied with the argument: "It is soooo much effort to go after each case, and these platforms make it so easy to infringe they are essentially complicit". And now we are stuck with upload filters.
- 14 8y ago
  Just extending your thought farther, why have police then as well? Shouldn't an individual protect themselves? If I am stronger then you and you can't protect your rights does that mean I am now right by taking them away for myself? If everyone was required to protect their own rights things would get messy fast. I do look forward to the day, and I believe it will come, where companies and individuals will be handsomely fined for any false copyright claims.
  - buboard 8y ago
    There is no copyright police. People do defend themselves - they pay the police to do so and so do businesses. EU is not instituting a copyright police- it is asking internet media to set it up and pay for it.
gutnor 8y ago
> The real problem lies in the laws it relies on, namely the extremely stringent copyright laws and the weird fair use. Real problem is the negative incentive to be correct. The rule penalise you harshly if you serve copyrighted content, but there is nothing if you decide to not serve non-copyrighted content and there is so much content on the internet, that "market pressure" simply isn't going to work. If you are a small publisher of free content, there is a huge risk for content platform to serve your content and no reward if they do. And that's the best case scenario, where all actors have good intentions. But in the real world we know that large copyright holder are very often bulk claiming bulk content. There is no penalty, so that would be crazy for them no to do it. The laws is also talking about terrorist content and the need to remove it within 1 hour or risk up to 4% turnover fine ! There is not going to be any manual check done within 1 hour, and anyway the risk is so great you may as well have a blanket no-question ask removal policy. I fail to see the "good intentions in mind" you mention. MEP are some of the most successful politicians, they would be Olympic level is it was a sport. Their field of expertise is the people and public relation. I can believe they are naive with technology (like encryption or monitoring actual capabilities) but I can't accept they are candid about businesses or individual motivations. Any negative consequence of this law is there on purpose.
- rocqua 8y ago
  > MEP are some of the most successful politicians, they would be Olympic level is it was a sport. I don't think so. I think MEPs are much closer to members of a state-congress in the US than member of congress. With the equivalent of a member of the US congress being a member of some national parliament. My criterium here is how fierce the campaign is to get elected. At the very least here in the Netherlands, the campaign for the European Parliament is nearly an afterthought in the news. It ranks far below the campaign for the German parliament, let alone our national parliament.
  - logifail 8y ago
    >> MEPs are much closer to members of a state-congress in the US than member of congress What's the salary and expenses package like in a state congress? "[..] expense payments of €4,416 per month are given to MEPs as a lump sum in addition to their regular pre-tax monthly salary of €8,611. They are not required to provide any proof of how the money is spent" sources: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/en/about-meps.html http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/en/about-meps.html and https://www.politico.eu/article/european-parliament-corruption-move-to-reform-meps-expenses-wholly-inadequate-say-critics/ https://www.politico.eu/article/european-parliament-corrupti...
morsma 8y ago
"but I believe the law is made with good intentions in mind" The road to hell is paved with good intentions...
dangerface 8y ago
> I believe the law is made with good intentions in mind I disagree, no other utility is blamed for the actions of its users, if I use an electric drill to hurt some one I am at fault not my electricity provider, but if I do something illegal on the internet like piracy its some how my internet providers fault? I also don't like making excuses for policy makers who "don't understand the internet", its not the 90s, ignorance is no longer an excuse, these people know what the internet is, and they know exactly what they are doing.
- Joeri 8y ago
  if I use an electric drill to hurt some one I am at fault not my electricity provider The physical equivalent is more like you sending pirated dvd's through the mail to your entire neighborhood. The equivalent law would then require the post office to check all packages upon sending to verify that they contain only content which is not pirated, which for privacy reasons they do in an automated way that sometimes blocks the package with the family movie you're sending to your mom (because your daughter was wearing mickey mouse ears and the automated check thought it was a disney movie). Oftentimes when you physicalize online legislation it becomes apparent just how invasive and silly it is.
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PurpleBoxDragon 8y ago
>I may be naive in saying this, but I believe the law is made with good intentions in mind. I disagree. This law was made with the intention of being selectively enforced. This is never a good intention.
LoSboccacc 8y ago
> I believe the law is made with good intentions in mind the first time around? _maybe_ after the enormous backslash and numerous expert opinion pieces decrying the exact problems of the proposal? _hardly_
int_19h 8y ago
> I believe the law is made with good intentions in mind. "He looked down at the broad steps they were climbing. They were something of a novelty; each one was built out of large stone letters. The one he was just stepping on to, for example, read: I Meant It For The Best. The next one was: I Thought You’d Like It. Eric was standing on: For the Sake of the Children. “Weird, isn’t it?” he said. “Why do it like this?” “I think they’re meant to be good intentions,” said Rincewind. This was a road to Hell, and demons were, after all, traditionalists. And, while they are of course irredeemably evil, they are not always bad. And so Rincewind stepped off We Are Equal Opportunity Employers and through a wall, which healed up behind him, and into the world."

simias 8y ago

That's an interesting point. It's true that the issue wouldn't be quite as terrible if IP laws were more reasonable to begin with. We shouldn't have to wait for literal centuries before a work becomes public domain for instance.

zaroth 8y ago

Fair use (in the US) is actually designed to provide for the ability to comment on, or criticize another work. You can’t do that effectively without showing the subject matter you are discussing. There are absolutely well defined “fair use” exceptions which a stringent filter will block. > Other than yes, the most frequent answer I get is "I don't know, it depends. This is the only answer a lawyer will basically ever give you.

ericdykstra 8y ago

I don't believe this is true. Every legitimate YouTube fair use case that I've seen go to court has gone in favor of the fair user. The biggest name one so far is the H3H3 trial.[1] One that looks to be settled soon is Akilah Hughes suing Carl Benjamin (Sargon of Akkad), where all that Benjamin does is edit together two of Hughes videos with the only original addition being a new title. This is almost certainly going to go in favor of Sargon, yet YouTube's algorithms turned up to the nth degree would almost certainly have blocked it.[2] If you go outside of YouTube, fair use law in the United States is very broad. Just look at what Richard Prince does with others' art. [3] edit: added links 1. http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/41037631/youtube-stars-h3h3-win-landmark-court-case-against-matt-hoss http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/41037631/youtube-stars... 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LMgGBDZbJY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LMgGBDZbJY 3. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jul/18/instagram-artist-richard-prince-selfies https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jul/18/instagram...

pbhjpbhj 8y ago
Combining two videos in this way would be unlawful in the UK, where we have the very restricted "Fair Dealing" concessions, because downloading the videos in the first place is a tort[0]. Combining them is another, sharing them is another. We basically have no concept of personal use in our copyright. [0] if they were broadcast you can record but only for time-shifting, you can only watch once (alone!) and then are obliged to destroy the copy; you aren't allowed to format shift. The lack of any remaining semblance of balance in copyright between the rights of the demos and media interests shows how badly distorted our Western democracies have become from representing the rights of people in general above the rights of the rich.
- paulie_a 8y ago
  Honestly the lack of balance with copyright law is why I simply ignore copyrights. They have become irrelevant to me.
- megous 8y ago
  Compare that to my country, where it's perfectly legal to download whatever music or movies you like from the internet for personal use, pirate websites or not. Also a western democracy. So it's not so bad everywhere. Though a price for this is that we pay a special tax on every storage device we purchase.

_pmf_ 8y ago

Fair use has a much narrower definition in the EU, in addition to varying from country to country.

logifail 8y ago

If rights-holders and/or YouTube had to pay a monetary penalty every time they screwed up (by taking down content that was fair use), perhaps it might level the playing field?

phkahler 8y ago

>> 2. Fair use almost definitely does not apply to most youtube content : if you use content other people made (video games or music immediately come to mind) you are infringing copyright holder rights. Have you read the YouTube terms for original content uploaded by individuals? I'm not so sure doing remixes isn't allowed. If you don't want people doing that to your stuff, keep it off YouTube. I could be wrong, it's been many years since I read their ToS.

herpes 8y ago
I believe this is in reference to US "fair use" in a separate legal sense, not the YouTube Terms of Service. Many times simply claiming "fair use" is the defense of the layman online in regards to virtually anything involving someone else's intellectual property, which in fact it's fairly well defined and limited. YouTube does have a reasonable page (https://www.youtube.com/yt/about/copyright/fair-use/ https://www.youtube.com/yt/about/copyright/fair-use/) on fair use in this context which I think essentially says that they're interested in following the law.

Scarblac 8y ago

Are you basing this on law in the EU? Because as far as I know, "fair use" is purely a US thing that doesn't even exist in the EU -- although specific countries may have laws that do somewhat similar things.

briandear 8y ago

Why force the platform to enforce? Shouldn’t the copyright owner be required to protect their own rights rather than having others do it for them?

rocqua 8y ago
Copyright owners have successfully lobbied with the argument: "It is soooo much effort to go after each case, and these platforms make it so easy to infringe they are essentially complicit". And now we are stuck with upload filters.
14 8y ago
Just extending your thought farther, why have police then as well? Shouldn't an individual protect themselves? If I am stronger then you and you can't protect your rights does that mean I am now right by taking them away for myself? If everyone was required to protect their own rights things would get messy fast. I do look forward to the day, and I believe it will come, where companies and individuals will be handsomely fined for any false copyright claims.
- buboard 8y ago
  There is no copyright police. People do defend themselves - they pay the police to do so and so do businesses. EU is not instituting a copyright police- it is asking internet media to set it up and pay for it.

gutnor 8y ago

> The real problem lies in the laws it relies on, namely the extremely stringent copyright laws and the weird fair use. Real problem is the negative incentive to be correct. The rule penalise you harshly if you serve copyrighted content, but there is nothing if you decide to not serve non-copyrighted content and there is so much content on the internet, that "market pressure" simply isn't going to work. If you are a small publisher of free content, there is a huge risk for content platform to serve your content and no reward if they do. And that's the best case scenario, where all actors have good intentions. But in the real world we know that large copyright holder are very often bulk claiming bulk content. There is no penalty, so that would be crazy for them no to do it. The laws is also talking about terrorist content and the need to remove it within 1 hour or risk up to 4% turnover fine ! There is not going to be any manual check done within 1 hour, and anyway the risk is so great you may as well have a blanket no-question ask removal policy. I fail to see the "good intentions in mind" you mention. MEP are some of the most successful politicians, they would be Olympic level is it was a sport. Their field of expertise is the people and public relation. I can believe they are naive with technology (like encryption or monitoring actual capabilities) but I can't accept they are candid about businesses or individual motivations. Any negative consequence of this law is there on purpose.

rocqua 8y ago
> MEP are some of the most successful politicians, they would be Olympic level is it was a sport. I don't think so. I think MEPs are much closer to members of a state-congress in the US than member of congress. With the equivalent of a member of the US congress being a member of some national parliament. My criterium here is how fierce the campaign is to get elected. At the very least here in the Netherlands, the campaign for the European Parliament is nearly an afterthought in the news. It ranks far below the campaign for the German parliament, let alone our national parliament.
- logifail 8y ago
  >> MEPs are much closer to members of a state-congress in the US than member of congress What's the salary and expenses package like in a state congress? "[..] expense payments of €4,416 per month are given to MEPs as a lump sum in addition to their regular pre-tax monthly salary of €8,611. They are not required to provide any proof of how the money is spent" sources: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/en/about-meps.html http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/en/about-meps.html and https://www.politico.eu/article/european-parliament-corruption-move-to-reform-meps-expenses-wholly-inadequate-say-critics/ https://www.politico.eu/article/european-parliament-corrupti...

morsma 8y ago

"but I believe the law is made with good intentions in mind" The road to hell is paved with good intentions...

dangerface 8y ago

> I believe the law is made with good intentions in mind I disagree, no other utility is blamed for the actions of its users, if I use an electric drill to hurt some one I am at fault not my electricity provider, but if I do something illegal on the internet like piracy its some how my internet providers fault? I also don't like making excuses for policy makers who "don't understand the internet", its not the 90s, ignorance is no longer an excuse, these people know what the internet is, and they know exactly what they are doing.

Joeri 8y ago
if I use an electric drill to hurt some one I am at fault not my electricity provider The physical equivalent is more like you sending pirated dvd's through the mail to your entire neighborhood. The equivalent law would then require the post office to check all packages upon sending to verify that they contain only content which is not pirated, which for privacy reasons they do in an automated way that sometimes blocks the package with the family movie you're sending to your mom (because your daughter was wearing mickey mouse ears and the automated check thought it was a disney movie). Oftentimes when you physicalize online legislation it becomes apparent just how invasive and silly it is.

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deleted 8y ago

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PurpleBoxDragon 8y ago

>I may be naive in saying this, but I believe the law is made with good intentions in mind. I disagree. This law was made with the intention of being selectively enforced. This is never a good intention.

LoSboccacc 8y ago

> I believe the law is made with good intentions in mind the first time around? _maybe_ after the enormous backslash and numerous expert opinion pieces decrying the exact problems of the proposal? _hardly_

int_19h 8y ago

> I believe the law is made with good intentions in mind. "He looked down at the broad steps they were climbing. They were something of a novelty; each one was built out of large stone letters. The one he was just stepping on to, for example, read: I Meant It For The Best. The next one was: I Thought You’d Like It. Eric was standing on: For the Sake of the Children. “Weird, isn’t it?” he said. “Why do it like this?” “I think they’re meant to be good intentions,” said Rincewind. This was a road to Hell, and demons were, after all, traditionalists. And, while they are of course irredeemably evil, they are not always bad. And so Rincewind stepped off We Are Equal Opportunity Employers and through a wall, which healed up behind him, and into the world."