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YouTube CEO says EU regulation will be bad for creators

97 points by anastalaz 8y ago

cal97g 8y ago
Inb4 the EU fanboys burst in and downvote this shit.
dvfjsdhgfv 8y ago
> The proposal will force platforms, like YouTube, to prioritize content from a small number of large companies. That's orthogonal to what the Article 13 really says. If anything, it will "force" the platforms to prioritize original content over remakes.
- AllegedAlec 8y ago
  It's orthogonal to the intention, perhaps. However, in implementation, it's much easier to make a few deals with large companies, rather than to ensure that each of the tens of millions of nobodies with 10 subscribers completely adheres to the letter of the law.
  - cinquemb 8y ago
    Part of me just thinks this will be bad for youtube in the long run, not content creators as they (and their audience) will find other outlets.
    - Jyaif 8y ago
      The outlets will be production studios that will eventually monetize the money on youtube. All that this regulation does is (surprise!) add intermediaries, reducing the amount of money youtube and content creators get, and increasing the barrier of entry for new creators. Less creators means the customers get less creative content.
  - dvfjsdhgfv 8y ago
    All the better - it would be great if YT finally started to have some serious competition.
    - AllegedAlec 8y ago
      How would this lead to competition? Any competition would have exactly the same problems.
    - cinquemb 8y ago
      The only competition I see for sites like YT are things like peertube in the long run, not necessarily a win for EU regulators or YT.
    - de_watcher 8y ago
      YT has become really bad for gamers for example, so now it's twitch+patreon+discord.
- nkkollaw 8y ago
  Big companies can just make deals and use whatever they want. Independent content creators don't have the resources to go to EMI and cut a deal for using their music as soundtrack for their videos. In addition, for a big company being sued is part of business, while for a regular guy it can mean bankruptcy. Taking the risk of using other people's stuff--even if it should obviously be considered fair use--might be too much of a gamble for most people. This is of course bad because the quality could go down and it makes the whole process more frustrating, but most importantly it makes reviewing stuff risky, specially for negative reviews where it's not unusual for the author of the reviewed item to sue for defamation (and now for using footage without permission) if a negative review becomes popular.
  - Moru 8y ago
    Maybe the royalty free music will get a well deserved upswing? It can be very cheap to buy non-exclusive music to put on your videos if that is what you need. And less exposure for the EMI-branded music in the process. Win win.
    - nkkollaw 8y ago
      Sure, maybe! YouTube also offers royalty-free music, but it doesn't always go well. I made a few videos in the past, and bought music from iStockPhoto. The problem of being sued to shut down negative reviews remains, though.
- qubax 8y ago
  > That's orthogonal to what the Article 13 really says. It's not orthogonal at all. What the CEO said lines up precisely with what Article 13 says. > If anything, it will "force" the platforms to prioritize original content over remakes. Your wording is very peculiar. "remakes" can be original content. Like the remake of "A Star is Born" is original content. Youtube's issue isn't about "remakes". It's about critism and fair use. The only thing EU regulation is meant to due is to stifle discussion, criticism, artist creation, etc in favor of multinational corporations and of course the political elite. It's not about "original content", but the ability of the media conglomerates to suppress smaller creators and take their money. It's about using law, money and regulation to bully and intimidate and silence. Youtube already does this to a limited degree as media companies have subsidiaries that pretty much mark everything as a copyright violation and force independent creators to prove their innocence. When in a fair society, things should be reversed. Innocence should be assumed and the guilt has to be proven.
vanderZwan 8y ago
Part of me hopes that this mess will at least have the positive side-effect of more people embracing copyleft practices, but I doubt it will happen.
- fsloth 8y ago
  Maybe there will be youtube "wrapper publisher" services that cater for indie producers by handling all the copyright management for them for a minimal fee?
- MrEfficiency 8y ago
  I'm a well paid engineer and I give away everything on my website for free + encourage people to share. This is possible because I'm well paid. The concern is that content creators that need money will turn to being paid by the worst offenders. Videos with the sole purpose of pushing a product/ad/political agenda.
josefresco 8y ago
"YouTube has already invested more than $60 million into its Content ID system" That actually seems low to me, given we're talking about numbers (revenue, users) in the billions.
- ilikerashers 8y ago
  I was surprised when the best way to watch UFC 229 (PPV) was simply typing it into YouTube and watching full HD quality. YouTube won't do anything unless government action forces them to.
  - danso 8y ago
    Content ID seems pretty robust* for non-live content. I uploaded a copy of one of the few wide-release U.S. movies in the public domain ("His Girl Friday" [0]) and was hit with a takedown notice instantaneously as the upload finished. I didn't contest it at the time, and I wonder if it's because Content ID was triggered by the Columbia Pictures fanfare/logo in the opening. [0] https://archive.org/details/his_girl_friday https://archive.org/details/his_girl_friday edit: By "robust", I actually mean, "a bit overly proactive", in that the system seems to be efficient in its detection, but the system's design seems unavoidably vulnerable to false positives.
    - jobigoud 8y ago
      > Content ID seems pretty robust* for non-live content. It's overly aggressive and has tons of false positive.
  - josefresco 8y ago
    I too was also amazed at how easy it was to find pirated TV content via Google having long given up my pirate ways. I pay for YouTube TV and their DVR messed up and didn't record 1 episode of a TV series. After exhausting all legal ways to acquire said content, I found numerous links on page 1 and 2 of Google, offering the content with minimal shadiness. The trick was to search for a very specific titles, such as "Shark Tank Season 1 Episode 1" or "Shark Tank S1E1" etc. This filters out all the "general" results. If 37 year old me, years detached from pirating can figure this out in 10 minutes, it's clear Google gives zero f*cks unless compelled (legally) to do so. Edit: To clarify, the streams were not hosted on YouTube, but rather Google results led me to 3rd party streaming options. This isn't a criticism of Content ID, more Google's policy towards privacy in general.
simongr3dal 8y ago
They really should add "Image credit: " to the text beneath the image to indicate that it is not an image description.
dvfjsdhgfv 8y ago
This is even better: > The burden of copyright proof will be too high for most independent creators to instantly demonstrate. If I record a video, and YT bans it because their faulty algorithm triggered a false alarm, how exactly the "burden of copyright proof" should be "too high" for me? First of all, they should prove that someone else owns the copyright. If they're mistaken - because of copyright trolls or faulty algorithms - it should be their burden, not the authors'.
- AllegedAlec 8y ago
  > First of all, they should prove that someone else own the copyright. If they're mistaken - because of copyright trolls or faulty algorithms - it should be their burden, not the authors'. That's rather optimistic; it's not a court of law. According to the rules as written, Youtube is responsible for not taking down the content. If they do not take down content which is actually copyrighted by someone else, they are the ones getting huge fines. Of course they'd err on the side of caution in this case.
  - Silhouette 8y ago
    Of course they'd err on the side of caution in this case. I think this is symptomatic of an underlying problem with the increasingly centralised Internet. It used to be that if you wanted to share content online, you put it on your web site and others could visit. If it was infringing someone else's copyright and they objected, they would send a friendly message and/or legal C&D notice to you, and you'd probably all be sensible about things. Today, ISPs don't tend to provide everyone with some basic web hosting allowance any more, while a tiny number of huge third party content hosts are making staggering amounts of money from redistributing others' content as a middleman. However, those hosts typically have no obligation to anyone to provide this service. So all the small creators are making themselves beholden to businesses that see them as the tree that money grows on but are quite happy to cut off a whole branch if there's any fruit that might be rotten rather than risk spoiling the lot. On top of that, a significant proportion of people are also uploading other people's content to the hosting services, but for some reason the hosting services get to have magic legal shields that mean they can be running extremely lucrative business models based in no small part on turning a blind eye to being accessories to infringement, all while offering debatable social benefits over what we used to have instead. So I think "erring on the side of caution" is probably understating things. The hosting services would do almost anything to defend that legal shield and their business model, because as things stand the hosts are basically laughing all the way to the bank while mysteriously immune to the normal laws that apply to you and me and while having no real obligation to the people who provide the very content on which the hosting service depends.
elejo 8y ago
I don't care if it's bad for creators, I care if it's bad for users.
nkkollaw 8y ago
The EU has passed this law so that it can be there waiting to be used to shut down dissidents. It doesn't make sense otherwise. These are smart people. With mostly bad ideas IMHO, but smart. They know what they're doing. This law has too many issues to be good for regular people.
- simias 8y ago
  The EU has passed this law because of the lobbying of the record industry, movie industry etc... There's really no need to search for some Big Brother conspiracy theory. Maybe the law can be abused that way but I doubt that's the main motivation.
  - nkkollaw 8y ago
    Why "Big Brother conspiracy theory"? It sounds like a great tool for them, it wouldn't be the first time a government passes similar laws for that reason. For instance, the law https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/election-trolls-social-media-abuse-ban-politicians-public-office-a8467831.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/election-trol... passed in the UK: without a clear definition of what a troll is, you can easily get rid of your opponent by saying he's an internet troll (and you can probably prove it for just about anybody, everyone has made at least 1 questionable comment, if anything as a kid). The EU is not the US. If it was the US I would definitely put lobbying as the only or main reason for passing such a law, but the EU doesn't seem to be as favorable to lobbists (see GMOs, labelling laws), while they seem to love pushing their agenda no matter what nowadays (see attacking other member states like Hungary and Poland), and creating a just-in-case legal framework to better their chances makes very much sense for them, IMHO. That's what I think, anyway. No one knows, for sure it's not the official explanation that it helps content creators, or they're unbelievably incompetent.
  - pluma 8y ago
    The record and movie industry? No, Europe has a different industry lobbying these issues that Americans tend to be oblivious about: newspaper publishers. A lot of the regulation is lifted verbatim from laws newspaper publishers lobbied for in Germany. This is why the regulation deals with issues like citing news stories -- a direct result of newspaper publishers going after Google. The content filter however seems to be the logical result of YouTube's impasse with collecting societies like GEMA and its ilk -- not quite the equivalent of the RIAA because of the complex legal situation surrounding its licensing requirements (tl;dr: in some situations you can be subject to GEMA licensing fees without actually using GEMA registered music). In a nutshell: RIAA is infamous for going after teenagers who illegally fileshared a few MP3s, GEMA is infamous for going after small businesses and non-profit events for publicly playing or performing music without permission. They're both problematic but in very different ways.
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waydowntogo 8y ago
Google ignored EU so long and one day EU's lawmakers got upset. Dear Youtube / Google / Alphabet, this mess is on your head.
charlesism 8y ago
So Youtube does have a CEO, after all! /s It irritates me that no article I have ever read discussing Youtube's failings mentions anything about the people in charge. There have been several articles over the past couple years pointing out Youtube's ill effects on the world. In each case, the author makes it seem that Youtube is just a force of nature, with nobody at the wheel. Meanwhile, the past week I've read two article that reference Susan Wojcicki, and neither are critical. At least when Zuckerberg encounters the public, there's a chance someone might give him a piece of their mind over Facebook's failings. I doubt Wojcicki ever hears feedback from the public... nobody knows who she is.
- okyougotmenow 8y ago
  Zucc, bless his heart, is only Jewish. Wojcicki is both Jewish and female, and therefore has an innate 4x resistance to criticism.
  - kadendogthing 8y ago
    Classic HN. EDIT: Lol flagged faster then the above comment.
  - sctb 8y ago
    We don't need unsubstantive troll comments here, so please don't post them. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - okyougotmenow 8y ago
      It was a humorous but perfectly substantive comment to me. I give you some credit for at least responding.
kibwen 8y ago
This is rich. Every YouTube creator that I follow has at least one video whose purpose is to rail against YouTube's mystifying demonetization policies, their trigger-happy DMCA policies that aggressively favor major copyright holders, and their opaque and useless litigation process. Here's one for reference: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bGZ_a6gL0f4 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bGZ_a6gL0f4 . Listening to the CEO of YouTube cry "but think of the content creators!" is about as transparently self-serving as a US politician crying "but think of the children!"
- ptero 8y ago
  I think you are right. However, almost any large company CEO often tries to skew policy/rules/politics in different directions, some of those may be beneficial to the society. What this is the case (as I think is happening here) I prefer to cheer them on instead of pointing that their real cause is self interest. My 2c.
  - kibwen 8y ago
    I'd be happy to cheer them on if there were any indication that this represented a legitimate change of heart. But we all know that as soon as they get their way in Europe, their concern for creators will mysteriously and instantly evaporate. I believe that favoring small players over large ones is a benefit to society, so I will continue to dismiss YouTube's outright hypocrisy until such time as they have earned the benefit of the doubt.
    - tzs 8y ago
      Because they have some policies that are unfriendly in some circumstances to creators, it is hypocritical of them to oppose the imposition of other policies that are more unfriendly and/or unfriendly in different circumstances to creators?
      - leereeves 8y ago
        It's hypocritical of them to claim they care about creators while treating creators badly.
knaik94 8y ago
I wonder if we'll see YouTube creators push towards more educational/documentary style videos.
pjc50 8y ago
Just so we're all on the same page, this is article 13.1: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:52016PC0593&rid=3 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL... "Information society service providers that store and provide to the public access to large amounts of works or other subject-matter uploaded by their users shall, in cooperation with rightholders, take measures to ensure the functioning of agreements concluded with rightholders for the use of their works or other subject-matter or to prevent the availability on their services of works or other subject-matter identified by rightholders through the cooperation with the service providers. Those measures, such as the use of effective content recognition technologies, shall be appropriate and proportionate. The service providers shall provide rightholders with adequate information on the functioning and the deployment of the measures, as well as, when relevant, adequate reporting on the recognition and use of the works and other subject-matter." Now, as written, that seems to be not so bad for Youtube who already have content-ID for the rightsholders, but bad for other competing services starting up which would have to develop it?
- mmirate 8y ago
  > Now, as written, that seems to be not so bad for X who already have Y, but bad for other competing services starting up which would have to develop it? That is generally the cause, effect and purpose of all government regulations, yes. (for all valid combinations of incumbent megacorp X and costly item Y)
- mrweasel 8y ago
  I think it would be pretty good for YouTube, as you say, if it wasn't for: > The service providers shall provide rightholders with adequate information on the functioning and the deployment of the measures, as well as, when relevant, adequate reporting on the recognition and use of the works and other subject-matter. If I hold the right to any video, or music, YouTube is now required to tell me how their system for identifying copy-right violations work. I suspect this is the part they don't like, because their system does in fact not work particularly well. It works as well as any technical person would expect, but a lawyer at Sony or Disney will have unreasonable expectations about the correctness of Content-ID.
- 8y ago
simplysimple 8y ago
YouTube's own policies are bad for creators.
- rv-de 8y ago
  Why? (Serious question - not trolling.)
  - pas 8y ago
    It favors creators who produce many short and basicaly clickbait videos every few days. Instead of the insightful deep dives, or the critical responses to other creators' content.
    - beatgammit 8y ago
      Well yeah, because that's what the majority of viewers want.
warp_factor 8y ago
what a joke. Youtube is bad for creators with their censorships//demonetiztion for most of the time absolutely no reason.
throw2016 8y ago
There is already widespread censorship and suppression of dissent [1] and content on these platforms by new 'ministry of truth' government formations like the Atlantic Council that are completely arbitrary with no due process or transparency. The EFF was recently interviewed [1] and discussed some of these issues and highlighted the importance the Santa Clara principles [2] for more transparent operation. It's better to have formalized mechanisms than arbitrary behind the scenes processes these companies are running anyway with no transparency. Creators do not benefit from lack of transparency and no due process so this sudden concern for users on article 13 by Youtube and others without rolling out some due process consistent with the Santa Clara principles is entirely self serving and insincere. [1] https://therealnews.com/stories/social-media-purge-silences-alternative-media-outlets-that-had-millions-of-likes-2-2 https://therealnews.com/stories/social-media-purge-silences-... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/may/09/santa-clarita-principles-could-help-tech-firms-with-self-regulation https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/may/09/santa-cla...
- amanaplanacanal 8y ago
  Not sure what suppression of political content has to do with copyright. I'm not saying that it isn't an important issue, but it's hard to see the relevance.
IBM 8y ago
>“This legislation poses a threat to both your livelihood and your ability to share your voice with the world,” Wojcicki wrote. “And, if implemented as proposed, Article 13 threatens hundreds of thousands of jobs, European Creators, businesses, artists, and everyone they employ. The proposal will force platforms, like YouTube, to prioritize content from a small number of large companies. I find it extremely hard to believe that an ad business that depends on scale and a long tail of videos, would ever just limit it to videos produced by big companies. I'm sure they'll make do even if it passes, because they literally have no choice.
- mrep 8y ago
  Are you actually suggesting that Google, a company that is infamous for shutting down products, will never shut down or limit this one?
  - rv-de 8y ago
    I keep my fingers crossed they'll shut it down. Youtube is a dysmorphic pile of garbage with little gold nuggets here and there. A new not-ad-based platform would be preferable - Vimeo would be a great alternative.
ru999gol 8y ago
This is so weird why is she complaining? YouTube already has this copyright censor system requested by Article 13 built with ContentID none of their potential competition has, I don't think it would be hard to comply for them and its not like they ever really cared for small content creators in the first place. This just sounds like double speak, in reality Alphabet will be delighted to have the EU shoot itself in the face like that, they won't bribe/lobby the EU for its removal guaranteed.
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choot 8y ago
The best way to benefit from a pie isn't to turn the plate upside down but to make and take a cut for yourself. Afaik, this is just a way to reduce profitability of YouTube, which YouTube will be cunningly passing down to the creators and advertisers.
- mrep 8y ago
  By reduce profitability, do you mean increase losses because they have literally never made money on it. Keep hammering them down and Google will eventually shut it down.
  - pas 8y ago
    Sources please.
OnlyRepliesToBS 8y ago
'we promise!'

97 points by anastalaz 8y ago

Inb4 the EU fanboys burst in and downvote this shit.

> The proposal will force platforms, like YouTube, to prioritize content from a small number of large companies. That's orthogonal to what the Article 13 really says. If anything, it will "force" the platforms to prioritize original content over remakes.

AllegedAlec 8y ago
It's orthogonal to the intention, perhaps. However, in implementation, it's much easier to make a few deals with large companies, rather than to ensure that each of the tens of millions of nobodies with 10 subscribers completely adheres to the letter of the law.
- cinquemb 8y ago
  Part of me just thinks this will be bad for youtube in the long run, not content creators as they (and their audience) will find other outlets.
  - Jyaif 8y ago
    The outlets will be production studios that will eventually monetize the money on youtube. All that this regulation does is (surprise!) add intermediaries, reducing the amount of money youtube and content creators get, and increasing the barrier of entry for new creators. Less creators means the customers get less creative content.
- dvfjsdhgfv 8y ago
  All the better - it would be great if YT finally started to have some serious competition.
  - AllegedAlec 8y ago
    How would this lead to competition? Any competition would have exactly the same problems.
  - cinquemb 8y ago
    The only competition I see for sites like YT are things like peertube in the long run, not necessarily a win for EU regulators or YT.
  - de_watcher 8y ago
    YT has become really bad for gamers for example, so now it's twitch+patreon+discord.
nkkollaw 8y ago
Big companies can just make deals and use whatever they want. Independent content creators don't have the resources to go to EMI and cut a deal for using their music as soundtrack for their videos. In addition, for a big company being sued is part of business, while for a regular guy it can mean bankruptcy. Taking the risk of using other people's stuff--even if it should obviously be considered fair use--might be too much of a gamble for most people. This is of course bad because the quality could go down and it makes the whole process more frustrating, but most importantly it makes reviewing stuff risky, specially for negative reviews where it's not unusual for the author of the reviewed item to sue for defamation (and now for using footage without permission) if a negative review becomes popular.
- Moru 8y ago
  Maybe the royalty free music will get a well deserved upswing? It can be very cheap to buy non-exclusive music to put on your videos if that is what you need. And less exposure for the EMI-branded music in the process. Win win.
  - nkkollaw 8y ago
    Sure, maybe! YouTube also offers royalty-free music, but it doesn't always go well. I made a few videos in the past, and bought music from iStockPhoto. The problem of being sued to shut down negative reviews remains, though.
qubax 8y ago
> That's orthogonal to what the Article 13 really says. It's not orthogonal at all. What the CEO said lines up precisely with what Article 13 says. > If anything, it will "force" the platforms to prioritize original content over remakes. Your wording is very peculiar. "remakes" can be original content. Like the remake of "A Star is Born" is original content. Youtube's issue isn't about "remakes". It's about critism and fair use. The only thing EU regulation is meant to due is to stifle discussion, criticism, artist creation, etc in favor of multinational corporations and of course the political elite. It's not about "original content", but the ability of the media conglomerates to suppress smaller creators and take their money. It's about using law, money and regulation to bully and intimidate and silence. Youtube already does this to a limited degree as media companies have subsidiaries that pretty much mark everything as a copyright violation and force independent creators to prove their innocence. When in a fair society, things should be reversed. Innocence should be assumed and the guilt has to be proven.

vanderZwan 8y ago

Part of me hopes that this mess will at least have the positive side-effect of more people embracing copyleft practices, but I doubt it will happen.

fsloth 8y ago
Maybe there will be youtube "wrapper publisher" services that cater for indie producers by handling all the copyright management for them for a minimal fee?
MrEfficiency 8y ago
I'm a well paid engineer and I give away everything on my website for free + encourage people to share. This is possible because I'm well paid. The concern is that content creators that need money will turn to being paid by the worst offenders. Videos with the sole purpose of pushing a product/ad/political agenda.

josefresco 8y ago

"YouTube has already invested more than $60 million into its Content ID system" That actually seems low to me, given we're talking about numbers (revenue, users) in the billions.

ilikerashers 8y ago
I was surprised when the best way to watch UFC 229 (PPV) was simply typing it into YouTube and watching full HD quality. YouTube won't do anything unless government action forces them to.
- danso 8y ago
  Content ID seems pretty robust* for non-live content. I uploaded a copy of one of the few wide-release U.S. movies in the public domain ("His Girl Friday" [0]) and was hit with a takedown notice instantaneously as the upload finished. I didn't contest it at the time, and I wonder if it's because Content ID was triggered by the Columbia Pictures fanfare/logo in the opening. [0] https://archive.org/details/his_girl_friday https://archive.org/details/his_girl_friday edit: By "robust", I actually mean, "a bit overly proactive", in that the system seems to be efficient in its detection, but the system's design seems unavoidably vulnerable to false positives.
  - jobigoud 8y ago
    > Content ID seems pretty robust* for non-live content. It's overly aggressive and has tons of false positive.
- josefresco 8y ago
  I too was also amazed at how easy it was to find pirated TV content via Google having long given up my pirate ways. I pay for YouTube TV and their DVR messed up and didn't record 1 episode of a TV series. After exhausting all legal ways to acquire said content, I found numerous links on page 1 and 2 of Google, offering the content with minimal shadiness. The trick was to search for a very specific titles, such as "Shark Tank Season 1 Episode 1" or "Shark Tank S1E1" etc. This filters out all the "general" results. If 37 year old me, years detached from pirating can figure this out in 10 minutes, it's clear Google gives zero f*cks unless compelled (legally) to do so. Edit: To clarify, the streams were not hosted on YouTube, but rather Google results led me to 3rd party streaming options. This isn't a criticism of Content ID, more Google's policy towards privacy in general.

simongr3dal 8y ago

They really should add "Image credit: " to the text beneath the image to indicate that it is not an image description.

dvfjsdhgfv 8y ago

This is even better: > The burden of copyright proof will be too high for most independent creators to instantly demonstrate. If I record a video, and YT bans it because their faulty algorithm triggered a false alarm, how exactly the "burden of copyright proof" should be "too high" for me? First of all, they should prove that someone else owns the copyright. If they're mistaken - because of copyright trolls or faulty algorithms - it should be their burden, not the authors'.

AllegedAlec 8y ago
> First of all, they should prove that someone else own the copyright. If they're mistaken - because of copyright trolls or faulty algorithms - it should be their burden, not the authors'. That's rather optimistic; it's not a court of law. According to the rules as written, Youtube is responsible for not taking down the content. If they do not take down content which is actually copyrighted by someone else, they are the ones getting huge fines. Of course they'd err on the side of caution in this case.
- Silhouette 8y ago
  Of course they'd err on the side of caution in this case. I think this is symptomatic of an underlying problem with the increasingly centralised Internet. It used to be that if you wanted to share content online, you put it on your web site and others could visit. If it was infringing someone else's copyright and they objected, they would send a friendly message and/or legal C&D notice to you, and you'd probably all be sensible about things. Today, ISPs don't tend to provide everyone with some basic web hosting allowance any more, while a tiny number of huge third party content hosts are making staggering amounts of money from redistributing others' content as a middleman. However, those hosts typically have no obligation to anyone to provide this service. So all the small creators are making themselves beholden to businesses that see them as the tree that money grows on but are quite happy to cut off a whole branch if there's any fruit that might be rotten rather than risk spoiling the lot. On top of that, a significant proportion of people are also uploading other people's content to the hosting services, but for some reason the hosting services get to have magic legal shields that mean they can be running extremely lucrative business models based in no small part on turning a blind eye to being accessories to infringement, all while offering debatable social benefits over what we used to have instead. So I think "erring on the side of caution" is probably understating things. The hosting services would do almost anything to defend that legal shield and their business model, because as things stand the hosts are basically laughing all the way to the bank while mysteriously immune to the normal laws that apply to you and me and while having no real obligation to the people who provide the very content on which the hosting service depends.

elejo 8y ago

I don't care if it's bad for creators, I care if it's bad for users.

nkkollaw 8y ago

The EU has passed this law so that it can be there waiting to be used to shut down dissidents. It doesn't make sense otherwise. These are smart people. With mostly bad ideas IMHO, but smart. They know what they're doing. This law has too many issues to be good for regular people.

simias 8y ago
The EU has passed this law because of the lobbying of the record industry, movie industry etc... There's really no need to search for some Big Brother conspiracy theory. Maybe the law can be abused that way but I doubt that's the main motivation.
- nkkollaw 8y ago
  Why "Big Brother conspiracy theory"? It sounds like a great tool for them, it wouldn't be the first time a government passes similar laws for that reason. For instance, the law https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/election-trolls-social-media-abuse-ban-politicians-public-office-a8467831.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/election-trol... passed in the UK: without a clear definition of what a troll is, you can easily get rid of your opponent by saying he's an internet troll (and you can probably prove it for just about anybody, everyone has made at least 1 questionable comment, if anything as a kid). The EU is not the US. If it was the US I would definitely put lobbying as the only or main reason for passing such a law, but the EU doesn't seem to be as favorable to lobbists (see GMOs, labelling laws), while they seem to love pushing their agenda no matter what nowadays (see attacking other member states like Hungary and Poland), and creating a just-in-case legal framework to better their chances makes very much sense for them, IMHO. That's what I think, anyway. No one knows, for sure it's not the official explanation that it helps content creators, or they're unbelievably incompetent.
- pluma 8y ago
  The record and movie industry? No, Europe has a different industry lobbying these issues that Americans tend to be oblivious about: newspaper publishers. A lot of the regulation is lifted verbatim from laws newspaper publishers lobbied for in Germany. This is why the regulation deals with issues like citing news stories -- a direct result of newspaper publishers going after Google. The content filter however seems to be the logical result of YouTube's impasse with collecting societies like GEMA and its ilk -- not quite the equivalent of the RIAA because of the complex legal situation surrounding its licensing requirements (tl;dr: in some situations you can be subject to GEMA licensing fees without actually using GEMA registered music). In a nutshell: RIAA is infamous for going after teenagers who illegally fileshared a few MP3s, GEMA is infamous for going after small businesses and non-profit events for publicly playing or performing music without permission. They're both problematic but in very different ways.

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waydowntogo 8y ago

Google ignored EU so long and one day EU's lawmakers got upset. Dear Youtube / Google / Alphabet, this mess is on your head.

charlesism 8y ago

So Youtube does have a CEO, after all! /s It irritates me that no article I have ever read discussing Youtube's failings mentions anything about the people in charge. There have been several articles over the past couple years pointing out Youtube's ill effects on the world. In each case, the author makes it seem that Youtube is just a force of nature, with nobody at the wheel. Meanwhile, the past week I've read two article that reference Susan Wojcicki, and neither are critical. At least when Zuckerberg encounters the public, there's a chance someone might give him a piece of their mind over Facebook's failings. I doubt Wojcicki ever hears feedback from the public... nobody knows who she is.

okyougotmenow 8y ago
Zucc, bless his heart, is only Jewish. Wojcicki is both Jewish and female, and therefore has an innate 4x resistance to criticism.
- kadendogthing 8y ago
  Classic HN. EDIT: Lol flagged faster then the above comment.
- sctb 8y ago
  We don't need unsubstantive troll comments here, so please don't post them. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - okyougotmenow 8y ago
    It was a humorous but perfectly substantive comment to me. I give you some credit for at least responding.

kibwen 8y ago

This is rich. Every YouTube creator that I follow has at least one video whose purpose is to rail against YouTube's mystifying demonetization policies, their trigger-happy DMCA policies that aggressively favor major copyright holders, and their opaque and useless litigation process. Here's one for reference: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bGZ_a6gL0f4 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bGZ_a6gL0f4 . Listening to the CEO of YouTube cry "but think of the content creators!" is about as transparently self-serving as a US politician crying "but think of the children!"

ptero 8y ago
I think you are right. However, almost any large company CEO often tries to skew policy/rules/politics in different directions, some of those may be beneficial to the society. What this is the case (as I think is happening here) I prefer to cheer them on instead of pointing that their real cause is self interest. My 2c.
- kibwen 8y ago
  I'd be happy to cheer them on if there were any indication that this represented a legitimate change of heart. But we all know that as soon as they get their way in Europe, their concern for creators will mysteriously and instantly evaporate. I believe that favoring small players over large ones is a benefit to society, so I will continue to dismiss YouTube's outright hypocrisy until such time as they have earned the benefit of the doubt.
  - tzs 8y ago
    Because they have some policies that are unfriendly in some circumstances to creators, it is hypocritical of them to oppose the imposition of other policies that are more unfriendly and/or unfriendly in different circumstances to creators?
    - leereeves 8y ago
      It's hypocritical of them to claim they care about creators while treating creators badly.

knaik94 8y ago

I wonder if we'll see YouTube creators push towards more educational/documentary style videos.

pjc50 8y ago

Just so we're all on the same page, this is article 13.1: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:52016PC0593&rid=3 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL... "Information society service providers that store and provide to the public access to large amounts of works or other subject-matter uploaded by their users shall, in cooperation with rightholders, take measures to ensure the functioning of agreements concluded with rightholders for the use of their works or other subject-matter or to prevent the availability on their services of works or other subject-matter identified by rightholders through the cooperation with the service providers. Those measures, such as the use of effective content recognition technologies, shall be appropriate and proportionate. The service providers shall provide rightholders with adequate information on the functioning and the deployment of the measures, as well as, when relevant, adequate reporting on the recognition and use of the works and other subject-matter." Now, as written, that seems to be not so bad for Youtube who already have content-ID for the rightsholders, but bad for other competing services starting up which would have to develop it?

mmirate 8y ago
> Now, as written, that seems to be not so bad for X who already have Y, but bad for other competing services starting up which would have to develop it? That is generally the cause, effect and purpose of all government regulations, yes. (for all valid combinations of incumbent megacorp X and costly item Y)
mrweasel 8y ago
I think it would be pretty good for YouTube, as you say, if it wasn't for: > The service providers shall provide rightholders with adequate information on the functioning and the deployment of the measures, as well as, when relevant, adequate reporting on the recognition and use of the works and other subject-matter. If I hold the right to any video, or music, YouTube is now required to tell me how their system for identifying copy-right violations work. I suspect this is the part they don't like, because their system does in fact not work particularly well. It works as well as any technical person would expect, but a lawyer at Sony or Disney will have unreasonable expectations about the correctness of Content-ID.
8y ago

simplysimple 8y ago

YouTube's own policies are bad for creators.

rv-de 8y ago
Why? (Serious question - not trolling.)
- pas 8y ago
  It favors creators who produce many short and basicaly clickbait videos every few days. Instead of the insightful deep dives, or the critical responses to other creators' content.
  - beatgammit 8y ago
    Well yeah, because that's what the majority of viewers want.

warp_factor 8y ago

what a joke. Youtube is bad for creators with their censorships//demonetiztion for most of the time absolutely no reason.

throw2016 8y ago

There is already widespread censorship and suppression of dissent [1] and content on these platforms by new 'ministry of truth' government formations like the Atlantic Council that are completely arbitrary with no due process or transparency. The EFF was recently interviewed [1] and discussed some of these issues and highlighted the importance the Santa Clara principles [2] for more transparent operation. It's better to have formalized mechanisms than arbitrary behind the scenes processes these companies are running anyway with no transparency. Creators do not benefit from lack of transparency and no due process so this sudden concern for users on article 13 by Youtube and others without rolling out some due process consistent with the Santa Clara principles is entirely self serving and insincere. [1] https://therealnews.com/stories/social-media-purge-silences-alternative-media-outlets-that-had-millions-of-likes-2-2 https://therealnews.com/stories/social-media-purge-silences-... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/may/09/santa-clarita-principles-could-help-tech-firms-with-self-regulation https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/may/09/santa-cla...

amanaplanacanal 8y ago
Not sure what suppression of political content has to do with copyright. I'm not saying that it isn't an important issue, but it's hard to see the relevance.

IBM 8y ago

>“This legislation poses a threat to both your livelihood and your ability to share your voice with the world,” Wojcicki wrote. “And, if implemented as proposed, Article 13 threatens hundreds of thousands of jobs, European Creators, businesses, artists, and everyone they employ. The proposal will force platforms, like YouTube, to prioritize content from a small number of large companies. I find it extremely hard to believe that an ad business that depends on scale and a long tail of videos, would ever just limit it to videos produced by big companies. I'm sure they'll make do even if it passes, because they literally have no choice.

mrep 8y ago
Are you actually suggesting that Google, a company that is infamous for shutting down products, will never shut down or limit this one?
- rv-de 8y ago
  I keep my fingers crossed they'll shut it down. Youtube is a dysmorphic pile of garbage with little gold nuggets here and there. A new not-ad-based platform would be preferable - Vimeo would be a great alternative.

ru999gol 8y ago

This is so weird why is she complaining? YouTube already has this copyright censor system requested by Article 13 built with ContentID none of their potential competition has, I don't think it would be hard to comply for them and its not like they ever really cared for small content creators in the first place. This just sounds like double speak, in reality Alphabet will be delighted to have the EU shoot itself in the face like that, they won't bribe/lobby the EU for its removal guaranteed.

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choot 8y ago

The best way to benefit from a pie isn't to turn the plate upside down but to make and take a cut for yourself. Afaik, this is just a way to reduce profitability of YouTube, which YouTube will be cunningly passing down to the creators and advertisers.

mrep 8y ago
By reduce profitability, do you mean increase losses because they have literally never made money on it. Keep hammering them down and Google will eventually shut it down.
- pas 8y ago
  Sources please.

OnlyRepliesToBS 8y ago

'we promise!'