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I'm curious: are there any supporters of the copyright regulations around HN that can provide some thoughts on the "pro" side of this? I'm trying to get my head

I'm curious: are there any supporters of the copyright regulations around HN that can provide some thoughts on the "pro" side of this? I'm trying to get my head around both sides of the argument, and I just can't see why it might be a good idea - but I may be biased by the strong "against" views from HN posters.

ocdtrekkie 8y ago
My take on the general issue of platforms and their lack of any meaningful regulation so far: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18434784 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18434784 I am not particularly big on the overreach our copyright system has. Chasing down people supporting orphaned works or trying to fix stuff for personal use, or whatever else is not cool, and our copyright system has a lot of problems, mostly because of the House of Mouse. But things like posting current, paid content does hurt the businesses that create that content, and short-term, relevant copyright is there for a reason, and beneficial. Without some form of copyright, the movie and TV industry would not exist. And YouTube channels commonly post full episodes of Game of Thrones or Last Week Tonight the same day of, and often go unchecked for months or years before YouTube takes action.
- trevyn 8y ago
  >Without some form of copyright, the movie and TV industry would not exist. We don’t actually know if that is true. (Or if it would be a bad thing, heh)
  - api 8y ago
    I think it would exist, but it would be even more ad and propaganda driven than it is today and the content would be even lower quality. The goal would be to achieve literally 100% ad time by transforming even ordinary content into stealth advertising. Basically today you have two models: paid content and ads. Without copyright there would be only one model.
    - naravara 8y ago
      >Basically today you have two models: paid content and ads. Without copyright there would be only one model. You also have publicly funded television. There is no reason you couldn't also have crowdfunded television. Budgets would be much lower, in all likelihood, but something would be there. It's actually hard to discuss counterfactuals like this because there is such a strong bias towards assuming that the world we got is the world we would/should have wanted. If things went differently creative outlets might have been different and our preferences would have been shaped differently.
      - ghaff 8y ago
        >You also have publicly funded television. Sort of. The accounting is complicated but public funding is something like 20% of PBS and local station revenue as I understand it. Most of it is membership, foundations, etc. So most of public TV already is crowdfunded.
      - api 8y ago
        Crowdfunding works for small scale stuff like radio shows, podcasts, and sometimes simple documentaries. Good films and TV shows are too expensive.
        icebraining 8y ago
        Crowdfunding is already giving out in the range of $10-20M for some video games, which is enough to fund an excellent movie, and that's despite competing with the other model. If it was the only way to get new movies, I'm pretty sure people would contribute much more (though probably not nearly enough to fund at current levels).
        EpicEng 8y ago
        People pay a lot more for a new video game than they do a lovie ticket.
        naravara 8y ago
  - shkkmo 8y ago
    Actually, I think we can pretty conclusively say that it is false. The value of the medium of video is such that it would have been used no matter what type of copyright exists and people would have found ways to make money in that industry. A different form of copyright or a complete lack of copyright would certainly result is a significantly different move and TV industry that produced different types of content, but it would almost definitely still exist. Edit: Two clear examples of types of business models that are much less reliant on copyright are BBC and PBS.
matt4077 8y ago
I'm opposed to this EU proposal, but maybe not quite as strongly as many others... The general sense I get is that people are completely indifferent (at best) to the interests of creators. This leads, unfortunately, to rather shallow discussions. You may, for example, see complaints about "artificial scarcity", and I actually share their opinion that the deadweight losses of copyright are rather terrible. What you won't see is any appreciation or consideration or even interest in the reason for the existence of copyright, except for lazy clichés of all politicians being corrupt. That's a shame, because it precludes this community (and most of the wider tech community) from being a meaningful source of improvements. It also renders its opposition somewhat meaningless, because reasonable people who may be open to arguments tend to stop listening when they encounter the first platitude. I think if people were less entrenched in this mindset, you'd see far more ideas for better solutions being generated in the comment. Just imagine a threat like this, but with an obtrusive law trying to prevent, say, lawnmower-related accidental deaths: You'd see a litany of ideas, some of which may actually not involve the blockchain. One example very close to this copyright law is, well, this copyright law's other well-known provision establishing a new sort of IP for news publishers. It's similarly broad, and full of practical difficulties. But when/if it becomes actual law, the tech community will shoulder (part of) the blame for it. Because over the last decade or so, it has watched, or even cheered, the destruction of journalism. The early 2000s' glee of a future of independent bloggers replacing professional journalism has thankfully passed because nobody can still cling to that fantasy with straight face, except Clay Sharky (or whatever his name is; the self-appointed expert that looks like Tom Hanks). Today most seem to have adopted the alt-right's propaganda against "mainstream media", or at least lost interest in anything beyond oneself's short-term comfort. Case in point: I think you could make an ad blocker that blocks 100% of ads that are annoying, dangerous, or tracking you, yet let unobtrusive ads pass. Something like that would likely block maybe 20% of ads, leaving 80% (and journalism's business model) intact while almost completely giving the users what they want. But the tech community sees no possible value in such a compromise, and ad blockers singularly compete on their ability to hurt creators (see, for example, the ad blocker that proudly proclaimed they would remove affiliate codes from amazon links: absolutely no difference for the reader, except possibly the joy of seeing others suffer). It's quite obvious that the "other side" of the copyright debate isn't blameless. Perpetual extensions of copyright are a travesty, and so is the loss of appreciation of the value of "fair use". Personally, I believe copyright of maybe 5 years on movies, 10 on music, and two days on newspapers would, once again, deliver 80% of the upside (incentive to create) while also activating the potential of re-use, and generally making these works available for a far larger audience.
lgleason 8y ago
A newspaper curates their content and is legally liable for any copyright violations along with civil liability in the US. Many platforms like YouTube are curating content, but don't want to have the responsibility. It gives these platforms a unfair advantage, to the detriment of media outlets and because of the pseudo monopoly status of them has a chilling effect on diverse ideas. Many, who are experts on the law also feel that it is going beyond the "good samaritan" allowance of section 230 the way they are currently being performed.
- matt4077 8y ago
  > going beyond the "good samaritan" allowance of section 230 the way they are currently being performed. These experts of yours must be illiterate, because the law couldn't be clearer. Quote: No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers [obscene/harassing/otherwise objectionable/etc.] > Many, who are experts on the law Name one! Here's a pretty good summary how the provision in question came about as a response to exactly your 30-year-old flawed reasoning. Plus the site design even fits with how 90s retro this debate is: http://www.cybertelecom.org/cda/samaritan.htm http://www.cybertelecom.org/cda/samaritan.htm
- TulliusCicero 8y ago
  There's a fundamental difference between curating content like a newspaper does vs what Youtube and similar sites do. It's a whitelist vs blacklist approach: a newspaper approves things one by one and only has so much content, while Youtube allows anything by default and then removes thing in certain categories. And even newspapers use the latter approach for some things. I doubt the New York Times wants to be held responsible if someone posts a link to pirated content in an article comment, for instance.
  - youeseh 8y ago
    When you visit youtube.com, you are shown a small slice of all the videos in the YouTube database that YouTube thinks you should watch. Isn't that curation? YouTube tries to automate curation with the use of algorithms that cater content to who they think their visitor is.
comboy 8y ago
Regulations become so ridiculous that we all move to decentralized and hidden web where they don't need to apply.
- aequitas 8y ago
  We won't. A few might. You will get a few hidden places here and there. But nowhere near the amount of creators and consumers (not just you and me, but everyday internet users) a platform like YouTube combines. Because once such a place becomes common enough to attract enough visitors to keep it viable for creators it must be so available it cannot be hidden. And the regulations will catch up.
  - RyanZAG 8y ago
    I don't think many would argue that the content was in any way worse back when the internet was used by a much smaller population. At the end of the day, the content that is really useful and that you actually want is rarely created by an army of everyday internet users. It's created by the dedicated and the ingenious, and those are the types that will migrate quickly to the hidden places.
    - aequitas 8y ago
      Look at how hard some of these creators are already struggling with getting enough patreons. How much do you think will survive in a hidden place? I'm not talking about the 1m channels that by now could just sign up with a publisher, but many of the sub 100k gems out there. Dedication and ingenuity will get you nowhere if you can't put bread on the table. Even with all its flaws YouTube has enabled a whole new world of creators to reach out to and be found by a crowd.
  - chongli 8y ago
    Back when the internet was decentralized as I remember it as a kid, all of the people you call "everyday internet users" weren't even on it yet. At best, they were on AOL. Usually, though, they just watched TV. So what's wrong with creating a new space for savvy internet users who appreciate the freedom of a decentralized web?
bjourne 8y ago
You run a site. On this site, copyright infringing material is available and distributed. This is criminal. Is the excuse "Someone else put it there" valid? No, because you allowed them to put it there. Essentially, it is exactly the same legal issue that has already been settled my The Pirate Bay trial. Note that there is nothing like the DMCA nor the Fair Use Act in the EU.
- saagarjha 8y ago
  You are making it seem like there is active acceptance of the posting of infringing material, when in fact it is very hard to prevent this material from being posted in the first place.
  - bjourne 8y ago
    Then why is porn so hard to find on YouTube? :p I agree that it is hard to prevent the material from being posted, but identifying it as infringing isn't. The trick is for YouTube to only analyze those videos garnering millions of view. Doesn't matter if those with <10 views are infringing because no one watches them anyway.
    - realusername 8y ago
      > Then why is porn so hard to find on YouTube? because detecting nudity is a much much easier problem.
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
      - bjourne 8y ago
        Pray tell, why on earth would detecting porn be easier than copyrigtht infringement?
        Walf 8y ago
        Nudity is visually detectable, it's in front of the camera. Attributing ownership of content the same way is like trying to guess the CEO of a cereal company by looking at the cartoon characters on the box.

ocdtrekkie 8y ago

My take on the general issue of platforms and their lack of any meaningful regulation so far: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18434784 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18434784 I am not particularly big on the overreach our copyright system has. Chasing down people supporting orphaned works or trying to fix stuff for personal use, or whatever else is not cool, and our copyright system has a lot of problems, mostly because of the House of Mouse. But things like posting current, paid content does hurt the businesses that create that content, and short-term, relevant copyright is there for a reason, and beneficial. Without some form of copyright, the movie and TV industry would not exist. And YouTube channels commonly post full episodes of Game of Thrones or Last Week Tonight the same day of, and often go unchecked for months or years before YouTube takes action.

trevyn 8y ago
>Without some form of copyright, the movie and TV industry would not exist. We don’t actually know if that is true. (Or if it would be a bad thing, heh)
- api 8y ago
  I think it would exist, but it would be even more ad and propaganda driven than it is today and the content would be even lower quality. The goal would be to achieve literally 100% ad time by transforming even ordinary content into stealth advertising. Basically today you have two models: paid content and ads. Without copyright there would be only one model.
  - naravara 8y ago
    >Basically today you have two models: paid content and ads. Without copyright there would be only one model. You also have publicly funded television. There is no reason you couldn't also have crowdfunded television. Budgets would be much lower, in all likelihood, but something would be there. It's actually hard to discuss counterfactuals like this because there is such a strong bias towards assuming that the world we got is the world we would/should have wanted. If things went differently creative outlets might have been different and our preferences would have been shaped differently.
    - ghaff 8y ago
      >You also have publicly funded television. Sort of. The accounting is complicated but public funding is something like 20% of PBS and local station revenue as I understand it. Most of it is membership, foundations, etc. So most of public TV already is crowdfunded.
    - api 8y ago
      Crowdfunding works for small scale stuff like radio shows, podcasts, and sometimes simple documentaries. Good films and TV shows are too expensive.
      - icebraining 8y ago
        Crowdfunding is already giving out in the range of $10-20M for some video games, which is enough to fund an excellent movie, and that's despite competing with the other model. If it was the only way to get new movies, I'm pretty sure people would contribute much more (though probably not nearly enough to fund at current levels).
        EpicEng 8y ago
        People pay a lot more for a new video game than they do a lovie ticket.
      - naravara 8y ago
- shkkmo 8y ago
  Actually, I think we can pretty conclusively say that it is false. The value of the medium of video is such that it would have been used no matter what type of copyright exists and people would have found ways to make money in that industry. A different form of copyright or a complete lack of copyright would certainly result is a significantly different move and TV industry that produced different types of content, but it would almost definitely still exist. Edit: Two clear examples of types of business models that are much less reliant on copyright are BBC and PBS.

matt4077 8y ago

I'm opposed to this EU proposal, but maybe not quite as strongly as many others... The general sense I get is that people are completely indifferent (at best) to the interests of creators. This leads, unfortunately, to rather shallow discussions. You may, for example, see complaints about "artificial scarcity", and I actually share their opinion that the deadweight losses of copyright are rather terrible. What you won't see is any appreciation or consideration or even interest in the reason for the existence of copyright, except for lazy clichés of all politicians being corrupt. That's a shame, because it precludes this community (and most of the wider tech community) from being a meaningful source of improvements. It also renders its opposition somewhat meaningless, because reasonable people who may be open to arguments tend to stop listening when they encounter the first platitude. I think if people were less entrenched in this mindset, you'd see far more ideas for better solutions being generated in the comment. Just imagine a threat like this, but with an obtrusive law trying to prevent, say, lawnmower-related accidental deaths: You'd see a litany of ideas, some of which may actually not involve the blockchain. One example very close to this copyright law is, well, this copyright law's other well-known provision establishing a new sort of IP for news publishers. It's similarly broad, and full of practical difficulties. But when/if it becomes actual law, the tech community will shoulder (part of) the blame for it. Because over the last decade or so, it has watched, or even cheered, the destruction of journalism. The early 2000s' glee of a future of independent bloggers replacing professional journalism has thankfully passed because nobody can still cling to that fantasy with straight face, except Clay Sharky (or whatever his name is; the self-appointed expert that looks like Tom Hanks). Today most seem to have adopted the alt-right's propaganda against "mainstream media", or at least lost interest in anything beyond oneself's short-term comfort. Case in point: I think you could make an ad blocker that blocks 100% of ads that are annoying, dangerous, or tracking you, yet let unobtrusive ads pass. Something like that would likely block maybe 20% of ads, leaving 80% (and journalism's business model) intact while almost completely giving the users what they want. But the tech community sees no possible value in such a compromise, and ad blockers singularly compete on their ability to hurt creators (see, for example, the ad blocker that proudly proclaimed they would remove affiliate codes from amazon links: absolutely no difference for the reader, except possibly the joy of seeing others suffer). It's quite obvious that the "other side" of the copyright debate isn't blameless. Perpetual extensions of copyright are a travesty, and so is the loss of appreciation of the value of "fair use". Personally, I believe copyright of maybe 5 years on movies, 10 on music, and two days on newspapers would, once again, deliver 80% of the upside (incentive to create) while also activating the potential of re-use, and generally making these works available for a far larger audience.

lgleason 8y ago

A newspaper curates their content and is legally liable for any copyright violations along with civil liability in the US. Many platforms like YouTube are curating content, but don't want to have the responsibility. It gives these platforms a unfair advantage, to the detriment of media outlets and because of the pseudo monopoly status of them has a chilling effect on diverse ideas. Many, who are experts on the law also feel that it is going beyond the "good samaritan" allowance of section 230 the way they are currently being performed.

matt4077 8y ago
> going beyond the "good samaritan" allowance of section 230 the way they are currently being performed. These experts of yours must be illiterate, because the law couldn't be clearer. Quote: No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers [obscene/harassing/otherwise objectionable/etc.] > Many, who are experts on the law Name one! Here's a pretty good summary how the provision in question came about as a response to exactly your 30-year-old flawed reasoning. Plus the site design even fits with how 90s retro this debate is: http://www.cybertelecom.org/cda/samaritan.htm http://www.cybertelecom.org/cda/samaritan.htm
TulliusCicero 8y ago
There's a fundamental difference between curating content like a newspaper does vs what Youtube and similar sites do. It's a whitelist vs blacklist approach: a newspaper approves things one by one and only has so much content, while Youtube allows anything by default and then removes thing in certain categories. And even newspapers use the latter approach for some things. I doubt the New York Times wants to be held responsible if someone posts a link to pirated content in an article comment, for instance.
- youeseh 8y ago
  When you visit youtube.com, you are shown a small slice of all the videos in the YouTube database that YouTube thinks you should watch. Isn't that curation? YouTube tries to automate curation with the use of algorithms that cater content to who they think their visitor is.

comboy 8y ago

Regulations become so ridiculous that we all move to decentralized and hidden web where they don't need to apply.

aequitas 8y ago
We won't. A few might. You will get a few hidden places here and there. But nowhere near the amount of creators and consumers (not just you and me, but everyday internet users) a platform like YouTube combines. Because once such a place becomes common enough to attract enough visitors to keep it viable for creators it must be so available it cannot be hidden. And the regulations will catch up.
- RyanZAG 8y ago
  I don't think many would argue that the content was in any way worse back when the internet was used by a much smaller population. At the end of the day, the content that is really useful and that you actually want is rarely created by an army of everyday internet users. It's created by the dedicated and the ingenious, and those are the types that will migrate quickly to the hidden places.
  - aequitas 8y ago
    Look at how hard some of these creators are already struggling with getting enough patreons. How much do you think will survive in a hidden place? I'm not talking about the 1m channels that by now could just sign up with a publisher, but many of the sub 100k gems out there. Dedication and ingenuity will get you nowhere if you can't put bread on the table. Even with all its flaws YouTube has enabled a whole new world of creators to reach out to and be found by a crowd.
- chongli 8y ago
  Back when the internet was decentralized as I remember it as a kid, all of the people you call "everyday internet users" weren't even on it yet. At best, they were on AOL. Usually, though, they just watched TV. So what's wrong with creating a new space for savvy internet users who appreciate the freedom of a decentralized web?

bjourne 8y ago

You run a site. On this site, copyright infringing material is available and distributed. This is criminal. Is the excuse "Someone else put it there" valid? No, because you allowed them to put it there. Essentially, it is exactly the same legal issue that has already been settled my The Pirate Bay trial. Note that there is nothing like the DMCA nor the Fair Use Act in the EU.

saagarjha 8y ago
You are making it seem like there is active acceptance of the posting of infringing material, when in fact it is very hard to prevent this material from being posted in the first place.
- bjourne 8y ago
  Then why is porn so hard to find on YouTube? :p I agree that it is hard to prevent the material from being posted, but identifying it as infringing isn't. The trick is for YouTube to only analyze those videos garnering millions of view. Doesn't matter if those with <10 views are infringing because no one watches them anyway.
  - realusername 8y ago
    > Then why is porn so hard to find on YouTube? because detecting nudity is a much much easier problem.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - bjourne 8y ago
      Pray tell, why on earth would detecting porn be easier than copyrigtht infringement?
      - Walf 8y ago
        Nudity is visually detectable, it's in front of the camera. Attributing ownership of content the same way is like trying to guess the CEO of a cereal company by looking at the cartoon characters on the box.