4 ms·

You need only look at the rampant abuse of Content ID to see what the likely result will be... "Sorry, the video you uploaded 'Me playing Beethoven on the pian

You need only look at the rampant abuse of Content ID to see what the likely result will be... "Sorry, the video you uploaded 'Me playing Beethoven on the piano' contains BEETHOVEN'S 5TH SYMPHONY by BMG-EMI-XYZ Music Corp. You cannot upload this video."

rurban 8y ago
This would be an invalid flag. BMG-EMI-XYZ Music Corp does not own this work, they could only own a certain recording of a certain orchestra playing this piece. And we know that detecting that certain recording via music matching does not work, only checking the strong hash of it would work. Which would be trivial to circumvent by a single bit-flip.
- philpem 8y ago
  Content ID uses some kind of fuzzy matching... a "single bit flip" (as you put it) isn't enough to confuse it. Yes it's true XYZ Music Corp would only own that performance (as it's Beethoven and the piece is long out of copyright). The problem is, the automatic filter is a fuzzy matcher: it compares the upload against every other performance of Beethoven's 5th it's been programmed to recognise. Let's say our uploader has been learning from one of those performances. Their performance will sound very similar to another pianist's -- at least to the fuzzy-matcher. And therein lies the problem: the uploader's piece is clearly copyright to them, but the magic upload filter can't tell the difference. It's like uploading a silent theatre production (let's say some kind of homage to silent films) and the upload being flagged for violating the copyright in 4'33".
- EpicEng 8y ago
  Does it matter when the average person has little to no recourse in the matter? Does it matter when e.g. YT will _punish_ you if you decide to contest it and lose per their arbitrary process?
  - fock 8y ago
    Just have a look at what was passed today: > Article 17/9: Where rightholders request to have access to their specific works or other subject matter disabled or those works or other subject matter removed, they shall duly justify the reasons for their requests. Complaints submitted under the mechanism provided for in the first subparagraph shall be processed without undue delay, and decisions to disable access to or remove uploaded content shall be subject to human review. Member States shall also ensure that out-of-court redress mechanisms are available for the settlement of disputes. Such mechanisms shall enable disputes to be settled impartially and shall not deprive the user of the legal protection afforded by national law, without prejudice to the rights of users to have recourse to efficient judicial remedies. In particular, Member States shall ensure that users have access to a court or another relevant judicial authority to assert the use of an exception or limitation to copyright and related rights. So this also encourages to appeal in court against the current very opaque content upload policies. Certainly this is not strictly better than the current situation (where you can be arbitrarily banned), but definitely progress compared to the situation today, where platforms just act like they see fit. > Article 17/7: The cooperation between online content-sharing service providers and rightholders shall not result in the prevention of the availability of works or other subject matter uploaded by users, which do not infringe copyright and related rights, including where such works or other subject matter are covered by an exception or limitation. So overblocking will be costly as well, if enough suitable laws are signed into effect and people start complaining. And this really puts large scale commercial (remember non-profits are exempt) sites in a though spot: they either share revenue with content-creators/their organisations (which are mostly s*, but could be changed...) or they employ even more moderators (remember the small paragraph, where banning is to be done by humans ;)) – which all severly limits the current exploitation of the internet as a big chunk of empty space, where the strongest strongman is going to grab the biggest slice and employs an army of user-slaves. > Article 17/10: For the purpose of the stakeholder dialogues, users' organisations shall have access to adequate information from online content-sharing service providers on the functioning of their practices with regard to paragraph 4. I guess already today a lot of people would like to know, how Content-ID blocks their content, but Google can't and won't say (because it will show their dirty secrets...). => IMO: all in all, for the average person, the internet might develop back to where it was 20 years ago with select content-providers and quite a large proportion of actual people hosting fun stuff (and moderating their own boards...). If people are as IT-literate as they claim to be (although I doubt that for the large percentage of fortnite-playing #saveyourinternet-people) we might as well enter a real golden age of the internet.
- thirdsun 8y ago
  > BMG-EMI-XYZ Music Corp does not own this work. Hasn't stopped big companies from making false claims before. After all they are the ones responding (and likely rejecting) the appeal of the uploader. See: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/09/sorry-sony-music-you-dont-own-the-rights-to-bachs-music-on-facebook/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/09/sorry-sony-music... > And we know that detecting that certain recording via music matching does not work, only checking the strong hash of it would work. Which would be trivial to circumvent by a single bit-flip. So you're saying that even Google hasn't made upload filters work reliably? Who can if not the company behind Youtube?
  - rurban 8y ago
    Google filters might have a success rate of 10%. We know that Facebook was not able to detect all the instances of the New Zealand shooting live recording, which is a trivial instance of exact matching. They would need to match all EU copyrighted work. There's not even a database of EU copyrighted work. Because our copyright law works differently than in the US. There's no exact OCR or proper fuzzy matching of video or audio possible. Maybe with success rates of 60%. This is too risky for a big content provider. Esp. dealing with an entity who has no idea what they are talking about (the EU parliament).
- thecatspaw 8y ago
  At which point you mark this as a false flag on youtube and youtube tells you to go to court over it.
  - philpem 8y ago
    How many small-time Patreon-funded content creators have the time and money to take on a major media company in court? Just because you could doesn't mean it's feasible from a financial point of view.
    - posterboy 8y ago
      Court fees are proportional to the cause, like 10%. At least in Germany, only that has to be payed up front; Paying the lawyers comes later. So the cost should be within income,and in cases where it isn't, procedures are in place to excuse the plaintiff. Filing should be relatively straight forward, safe any catch-21s that require a lawyer, that I not being a lawyer don't know, but even a lawyer could not foresee with certainty right now. A real problem would be the usually long wait. However, taking into account several more circumstances, either side might not be keen on a court case, and thus provide to avoid it. That hinges on morals and technical details. The problem with copyright's blurry edges around the originality threshold hasn't changed at least. The Olympics organisation is famous for suing, and loosing often enough, over its trademarks, for example. > take on a major media company in court In court or outside? And why the media companies? Laws can be repealed by supreme courts on constitutional grounds. That's an even bigger judicial hurdle to consider. If lobbying or legislative orders are involved, it would be a superset of the problem, as the court is to an extend bound by the lawgivers interpretation of the law, disregarding any side effects that are implementation specific. That's the undefined behaviour of the law. The service nulled all your bits after you passed ownership? The content wasn't registered initially and you assumed it was licensed to null? Ohohoho, none of those side-effects were mandated.
    - thecatspaw 8y ago
      You dont have to take youtube to court, you have to take the other side to court, which maliciously striked your video. So yes, its still an invalid flag, but if you want your video up again, you have to sue somebody who is probably in another country
gniv 8y ago
Is that illegal though (wrongly blocking a video)? If it isn’t, YT can just shrug it off.
- mcv 8y ago
  Small time content creators have no way to challenge this. YT's terms and conditions probably allow YT to block it for any reason at all, and as long as you lack the resources to sue them, they can just shrug it off. Measures like this only serve Big Content. And badly, in my opinion.
- dredmorbius 8y ago
  There is no consequence for filing unsubstantiated claims. There is consequence for failing to honour substantiated ones.
  - pbhjpbhj 8y ago
    It's probably fraud, but yeah, still no consequences for large media corp execs who are personally responsible for that fraud.
    - philpem 8y ago
      The DMCA has a similar provision (from memory it's something like "filing a false claim is considered perjury"). I've never, ever heard of a single charge being filed under that clause -- but I've heard of tons of instances of DMCA being abused. On this statement, I'd love to be proven wrong!
      - AnthonyMouse 8y ago
        > A statement that the information in the notification is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, that the complaining party is authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed. So basically useless. They claim to be acting "on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed" and they are, even though the allegation is completely without merit.
isostatic 8y ago
Don't use platforms them. Host it yourself.
- wvenable 8y ago
  You have to host somewhere!!! Ever gotten an abuse email from the data center holding your physical hardware? I have. My tiny forum that has 50 participants max actually has a filter to prevent anyone from using the word "Elton".
  - phinnaeus 8y ago
    It's simple, just get a static IP and host it on your home internet. Unless your ISP decides to shut you down. Then just setup your own ISP and datacenter and get your own peering agreements! /s
  - isostatic 8y ago
    > You have to host somewhere!!! Ever gotten an abuse email from the data center holding your physical hardware? No This law does nothing to change that in any case. Get a (US law) DMCA takedown, and ignore it, job done.
    - wvenable 8y ago
      No, this law changes nothing. But also hosting your own changes nothing. You can ignore a DMCA takedown but maybe your host won't. And from my experience, hosts don't care that much -- they'd rather toss you than deal with legal issues.
      - isostatic 8y ago
        Use a host that ignores the DMCA -- why would a bad american law apply to the majority of the internet? Now that americans are realising that other countries exist, and make laws like the DMCA, maybe they'll stop doing it.
- phinnaeus 8y ago

rurban 8y ago

This would be an invalid flag. BMG-EMI-XYZ Music Corp does not own this work, they could only own a certain recording of a certain orchestra playing this piece. And we know that detecting that certain recording via music matching does not work, only checking the strong hash of it would work. Which would be trivial to circumvent by a single bit-flip.

philpem 8y ago
Content ID uses some kind of fuzzy matching... a "single bit flip" (as you put it) isn't enough to confuse it. Yes it's true XYZ Music Corp would only own that performance (as it's Beethoven and the piece is long out of copyright). The problem is, the automatic filter is a fuzzy matcher: it compares the upload against every other performance of Beethoven's 5th it's been programmed to recognise. Let's say our uploader has been learning from one of those performances. Their performance will sound very similar to another pianist's -- at least to the fuzzy-matcher. And therein lies the problem: the uploader's piece is clearly copyright to them, but the magic upload filter can't tell the difference. It's like uploading a silent theatre production (let's say some kind of homage to silent films) and the upload being flagged for violating the copyright in 4'33".
EpicEng 8y ago
Does it matter when the average person has little to no recourse in the matter? Does it matter when e.g. YT will _punish_ you if you decide to contest it and lose per their arbitrary process?
- fock 8y ago
  Just have a look at what was passed today: > Article 17/9: Where rightholders request to have access to their specific works or other subject matter disabled or those works or other subject matter removed, they shall duly justify the reasons for their requests. Complaints submitted under the mechanism provided for in the first subparagraph shall be processed without undue delay, and decisions to disable access to or remove uploaded content shall be subject to human review. Member States shall also ensure that out-of-court redress mechanisms are available for the settlement of disputes. Such mechanisms shall enable disputes to be settled impartially and shall not deprive the user of the legal protection afforded by national law, without prejudice to the rights of users to have recourse to efficient judicial remedies. In particular, Member States shall ensure that users have access to a court or another relevant judicial authority to assert the use of an exception or limitation to copyright and related rights. So this also encourages to appeal in court against the current very opaque content upload policies. Certainly this is not strictly better than the current situation (where you can be arbitrarily banned), but definitely progress compared to the situation today, where platforms just act like they see fit. > Article 17/7: The cooperation between online content-sharing service providers and rightholders shall not result in the prevention of the availability of works or other subject matter uploaded by users, which do not infringe copyright and related rights, including where such works or other subject matter are covered by an exception or limitation. So overblocking will be costly as well, if enough suitable laws are signed into effect and people start complaining. And this really puts large scale commercial (remember non-profits are exempt) sites in a though spot: they either share revenue with content-creators/their organisations (which are mostly s*, but could be changed...) or they employ even more moderators (remember the small paragraph, where banning is to be done by humans ;)) – which all severly limits the current exploitation of the internet as a big chunk of empty space, where the strongest strongman is going to grab the biggest slice and employs an army of user-slaves. > Article 17/10: For the purpose of the stakeholder dialogues, users' organisations shall have access to adequate information from online content-sharing service providers on the functioning of their practices with regard to paragraph 4. I guess already today a lot of people would like to know, how Content-ID blocks their content, but Google can't and won't say (because it will show their dirty secrets...). => IMO: all in all, for the average person, the internet might develop back to where it was 20 years ago with select content-providers and quite a large proportion of actual people hosting fun stuff (and moderating their own boards...). If people are as IT-literate as they claim to be (although I doubt that for the large percentage of fortnite-playing #saveyourinternet-people) we might as well enter a real golden age of the internet.
thirdsun 8y ago
> BMG-EMI-XYZ Music Corp does not own this work. Hasn't stopped big companies from making false claims before. After all they are the ones responding (and likely rejecting) the appeal of the uploader. See: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/09/sorry-sony-music-you-dont-own-the-rights-to-bachs-music-on-facebook/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/09/sorry-sony-music... > And we know that detecting that certain recording via music matching does not work, only checking the strong hash of it would work. Which would be trivial to circumvent by a single bit-flip. So you're saying that even Google hasn't made upload filters work reliably? Who can if not the company behind Youtube?
- rurban 8y ago
  Google filters might have a success rate of 10%. We know that Facebook was not able to detect all the instances of the New Zealand shooting live recording, which is a trivial instance of exact matching. They would need to match all EU copyrighted work. There's not even a database of EU copyrighted work. Because our copyright law works differently than in the US. There's no exact OCR or proper fuzzy matching of video or audio possible. Maybe with success rates of 60%. This is too risky for a big content provider. Esp. dealing with an entity who has no idea what they are talking about (the EU parliament).
thecatspaw 8y ago
At which point you mark this as a false flag on youtube and youtube tells you to go to court over it.
- philpem 8y ago
  How many small-time Patreon-funded content creators have the time and money to take on a major media company in court? Just because you could doesn't mean it's feasible from a financial point of view.
  - posterboy 8y ago
    Court fees are proportional to the cause, like 10%. At least in Germany, only that has to be payed up front; Paying the lawyers comes later. So the cost should be within income,and in cases where it isn't, procedures are in place to excuse the plaintiff. Filing should be relatively straight forward, safe any catch-21s that require a lawyer, that I not being a lawyer don't know, but even a lawyer could not foresee with certainty right now. A real problem would be the usually long wait. However, taking into account several more circumstances, either side might not be keen on a court case, and thus provide to avoid it. That hinges on morals and technical details. The problem with copyright's blurry edges around the originality threshold hasn't changed at least. The Olympics organisation is famous for suing, and loosing often enough, over its trademarks, for example. > take on a major media company in court In court or outside? And why the media companies? Laws can be repealed by supreme courts on constitutional grounds. That's an even bigger judicial hurdle to consider. If lobbying or legislative orders are involved, it would be a superset of the problem, as the court is to an extend bound by the lawgivers interpretation of the law, disregarding any side effects that are implementation specific. That's the undefined behaviour of the law. The service nulled all your bits after you passed ownership? The content wasn't registered initially and you assumed it was licensed to null? Ohohoho, none of those side-effects were mandated.
  - thecatspaw 8y ago
    You dont have to take youtube to court, you have to take the other side to court, which maliciously striked your video. So yes, its still an invalid flag, but if you want your video up again, you have to sue somebody who is probably in another country

gniv 8y ago

Is that illegal though (wrongly blocking a video)? If it isn’t, YT can just shrug it off.

mcv 8y ago
Small time content creators have no way to challenge this. YT's terms and conditions probably allow YT to block it for any reason at all, and as long as you lack the resources to sue them, they can just shrug it off. Measures like this only serve Big Content. And badly, in my opinion.
dredmorbius 8y ago
There is no consequence for filing unsubstantiated claims. There is consequence for failing to honour substantiated ones.
- pbhjpbhj 8y ago
  It's probably fraud, but yeah, still no consequences for large media corp execs who are personally responsible for that fraud.
  - philpem 8y ago
    The DMCA has a similar provision (from memory it's something like "filing a false claim is considered perjury"). I've never, ever heard of a single charge being filed under that clause -- but I've heard of tons of instances of DMCA being abused. On this statement, I'd love to be proven wrong!
    - AnthonyMouse 8y ago
      > A statement that the information in the notification is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, that the complaining party is authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed. So basically useless. They claim to be acting "on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed" and they are, even though the allegation is completely without merit.

isostatic 8y ago

Don't use platforms them. Host it yourself.

wvenable 8y ago
You have to host somewhere!!! Ever gotten an abuse email from the data center holding your physical hardware? I have. My tiny forum that has 50 participants max actually has a filter to prevent anyone from using the word "Elton".
- phinnaeus 8y ago
  It's simple, just get a static IP and host it on your home internet. Unless your ISP decides to shut you down. Then just setup your own ISP and datacenter and get your own peering agreements! /s
- isostatic 8y ago
  > You have to host somewhere!!! Ever gotten an abuse email from the data center holding your physical hardware? No This law does nothing to change that in any case. Get a (US law) DMCA takedown, and ignore it, job done.
  - wvenable 8y ago
    No, this law changes nothing. But also hosting your own changes nothing. You can ignore a DMCA takedown but maybe your host won't. And from my experience, hosts don't care that much -- they'd rather toss you than deal with legal issues.
    - isostatic 8y ago
      Use a host that ignores the DMCA -- why would a bad american law apply to the majority of the internet? Now that americans are realising that other countries exist, and make laws like the DMCA, maybe they'll stop doing it.
phinnaeus 8y ago