11 ms·

“I just got a copyright claim for TYPING ON MY KEYBOARD”

454 points by smitop 5y ago

anigbrowl 5y ago
Suggestion: people who get hit with bullshit copyright strikes (which is quite a lot of people now) need to find each other and team up to file a class action suit against YT. You might even be able to get state or federal justice dept.'s civil division interested. There could be some compensation due, but what you really want is to cover your costs and demand specific performance of YT actively making changes to uphold fair use and stop being an willing instrumentality for copyright trolls.
- mschuster91 5y ago
  YT is the wrong subject for such a lawsuit. Creators affected by abusive bans would have to go after the entities filing DMCA claims "under penalty of perjury"... the problem is, either you're heading up against some shell company that gets dissolved at the first whiff of trouble or you're heading up against mega-corporations that spend more money for lawyers defending against your suit than you'll earn in your entire life.
  - masswerk 5y ago
    As I understand it (I may be in the wrong), the problem is that those copyright claims do not have any DMCA status. Which is the crux of the matter, as there are no real consequences to false claims other than those eventually effected by YT.
  - msandford 5y ago
    I can't help but think that YouTube is the right target. I don't believe that the three strikes system is a part of copyright law or the DMCA. This is something that YouTube did beyond the law to avoid getting sued to oblivion. They might actually be the right target if their copyright claim system isn't the law but their own system.
    - Denvercoder9 5y ago
      But what law did YouTube violate? They're not obligated to host your content.
      - anigbrowl 5y ago
        Laws don't have to be violate din civil litigation. Most cases are about torts (or contractual violations. big corporations generally get people to agree to big contracts that effectively say 'we can do anything and you have no rights ha ha' but as soon as any exchange of money takes place, things gt to e more complex. In extreme circumstances, contracts can be declared to be unconscionable. Of course, wealthy defendants often try to spin the process out as long as possible and then offer a fat settlement right before trial if all else fails.
      - msandford 5y ago
        Agreed! They have no moral, legal or ethical responsibility or obligation to host anyone's content. They also don't have any legal, ethical or moral responsibility to ensure that any one copyright holder gets "their fair share" of the revenue for a particular video. The law already has a provision for the recourse copyright holders have if people use copyrighted material improperly. That's called a DMCA takedown request and it requires certain conditions to be met. What YouTube has done with the contentid and three-strikes system is to create an extra-judicial system for settling claims of a similar kind to DMCA takedown requests, but without going through the courts. That's their prerogative! But it may or may not be legal for them to do so, especially using the language that they use. For example something they might get sued for is fraud. These copyright claims that copyright holders are able to make. Are these legal claims via the courts? Or are they YouTube claims made through YouTube? What if YouTube has appropriated too many legal terms for this system? Imagine that I created a Security as a Service (SaaS) called The Police (tm) and for a small monthly fee you can subscribe to The Police (tm) and if/when you find yourself in some kind of tight spot they'll show up and fix things for you. It's not hard to imagine that this might not go well, and for similar reasons one could suspect that YouTube using legal-like terms for an entirely private "copyright policing" system they might eventually find themselves on the losing side of a legal challenge. It's really up to what kind of legal theories the plaintiffs could come up with that would put YouTube on the wrong end of the law.
  - colejohnson66 5y ago
    Worth noting: ContentID is not the DMCA. If it was a ContentID takedown, you basically have no recourse outside YouTube.
    - mschuster91 5y ago
      The screenshots in the tweet and the thread look like a DMCA claim to me.
    - kmeisthax 5y ago
      A related fact: some companies with ContentID access have an additional indemnification agreement with YouTube. They agree to pay any judgment brought against YouTube in exchange for YouTube ignoring DMCA counterclaims entirely. What that means is that if that particular claimnant decides they own your video, they own your video, and your only recourse is very expensive legal action against them to prove it's yours. YouTube has so thoroughly contravened the intent and spirit of the DMCA it's hilarious.
      - EE84M3i 5y ago
        Where can I read more about those agreements?
      - snowwrestler 5y ago
        I don’t see how Google can ignore DMCA counterclaims because handling them properly is a matter of federal law. There is no way a private party can indemnify Google against illegal behavior. I would not be surprised if Content ID participants have indemnification agreements with Google related to Content ID, which is itself a private agreement.
        dragonwriter 5y ago
        > Google cannot ignore DMCA counterclaims Yes, they can. > because handling them properly is a matter of federal law. They can ignore them unless they have some legsl obligation outside of the DMCA not to take the content down, because the only matter of federal law applicable to handling counterclaims properly is the DMCA safe harbor, which: (1) continues to protect against copyright liability to the purported rights holder so long as they do not restore the content without a proper counternotice, an (2) protects against any liability they would have under any other law to the user for taking down the content unless they fail to restore it with a valid counternotice. But, there is no separate liability for not honoring a counternotice, and Google (like most free content hosts) structurrs their relations with users so that there is almost possibility of liability for taking content down with or without cause, so #2 isn’t much of a concern.
  - IshKebab 5y ago
    Yeah I don't know. Yes YouTube has to obey DCMA takedowns but these aren't DCMA takedowns. They're part of Google's own ContentID system that they created themselves. They could definitely improve it to avoid this sort of nonsense.
- cheeseomlit 5y ago
  Youtube would get a gentle slap on the wrist and the claimants would get $3.50 + an applebees gift card
  - fridif 5y ago
    And the class action firm 25 million ^.^
    - LeifCarrotson 5y ago
      ...which is the aforementioned slap on the wrist for Youtube, with revenues of $20B per year. That's not even a slap on the wrist, it's more like a kiss on the cheek.
      - fridif 5y ago
        I think its important to highlight that the slap on the wrist is disbursed to a group of people who are essentially mercenaries that take the lion's share of the pie (proportionally compared to an individual claimant)
  - anigbrowl 5y ago
    I addressed this in my last sentence. specific performance means a litigant can ask the court to require a change in policy. Shaking them down for cash is not the only available option.
    - imoverclocked 5y ago
      I think this is key. The law is definitely not my area of expertise and policy can be surprisingly complex ... still, I would think there is a better way. My naive stab at the problem would be to withhold ad revenue for content in dispute. Obviously this would hurt original authors when their content is disputed but it might squelch the current bad-behavior. One step further (but still maybe not overall better) would be for the winner of the claim to take all/part of ad-revenue from monetized+infringing uses.
  - 5y ago
- IfOnlyYouKnew 5y ago
  Youtube is following the letter of law. They are acting on someone's claim of copyright infringement, and allowing the accused to dispute the claim. Chances may be better going after the claimant. But this case, like many other, seems to be a false positive of a maybe slightly too sensitive system rather than some wild claim with absolutely no rational basis. Does anyone believe it's possible to identify copyright violations with complete accuracy? If not, why is it such a terrible scandal if some erroneous claims are made, which can be disputed with a few clicks? If you happened to be a musician, how many videos using your music unauthorised would you be willing to tolerate for avoiding a single erroneous claim against some video of yours?
  - majormajor 5y ago
    If 'Deestan's comment about this being a typical scheme to temporarily steal ad revenue is accurate, then Youtube is probably still legally in the clear to let someone else benefit like that - I'm sure their TOS covers all sorts of shit - but definitely should (from a "what's best for the world" perspective) try to do something about that to prevent abuse of the system.
    - sumtechguy 5y ago
      What is also interesting is the game many youtubers have resorted to playing. Where they upload videos 5 or 6 times and have them demonetized and they play the 'what broke the system this time' game and reupload. Even then 6 months later someone else can come along and change the rules and half their catalog is struck for some rule/copyright violation. It is why we are seeing lots of 'patron' style support systems, or self promoted ads by the people making the vids. edit: removed bit that I am probably wrong on.
      - kelnos 5y ago
        How does that work, though? Wouldn't each of those demonetized uploads count as a copyright strike? AIUI, after three of those your account gets deactivated.
- lupire 5y ago
  What exactly is the legal harm? Google doesn't owe you free video hosting.
  - kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
    It could be construed as a form of libel.
mfer 5y ago
People have had the same thing over generated white noise. There are no perfect laws or implementations to support them. The solutions err on one side or the other. In our current case, the solutions privilege the corps.
- postsantum 5y ago
  Can't wait for the same logic to be applied to self-driving cars. The solution was produced by a blackbox, sorry about your grandma
  - minikites 5y ago
    This is exactly what is going to happen.
  - mfer 5y ago
    Are you arguing there are perfect laws or solutions? Let's say that anything someone uploads fly's and there is no means to deal with copyright violation. In that case, the person who created the work gets screwed. For example, a song writer or singer. The very people we appreciate for their artistic work. Self driving and cars is a different case when you're talking about laws and the solutions being built around them. They are also a bit different when it comes to the financial side (and incentives) of it all.
    - jstanley 5y ago
      > In that case, the person who created the work gets screwed. For example, a song writer or singer. How are they getting screwed? Art and culture grows through sharing, it doesn't diminish.
      - mfer 5y ago
        It gets to goals. For example, of the artist has a goal of making money to pay for food and a roof over their head that is reduced and their ability to create art is reduced. Artists and consumers have different needs and goals.
rubatuga 5y ago
There should be multiple outsourced replacements for copyright detection, which users on YouTube should be able to choose. Otherwise, there’s no incentive to improve the models. Could such an option be put into law?
- kmeisthax 5y ago
  Content ID exists to keep YouTube's nose clean, not yours. What you're asking would be like letting speeders choose what cops get to write them a ticket... in response to certain towns over-prosecuting moving violations for revenue.
- petermcneeley 5y ago
  You want to make a law that forces options on copyright detection that the users can choose? Thats a pretty specific law. Also like what if one of the options always just returns false? I think writing narrow specific one off use case laws like this is like writing code with a series of if statements. If one wants to go to the effort of changing laws one should write laws that are general and dont contain a bunch of potential loopholes. Aka the law should be written like good code.
  - infogulch 5y ago
    Interestingly, the term "code" applied to laws centuries before it was applied to computer code. I'd bet most computer code best practices would apply to law code.
- IfOnlyYouKnew 5y ago
  We only get to see the system's failures, and only the scandalous or funny at that. The system probably flags tens of thousands of uploads every day. Note how, in this case, it probably did correctly identify segments of a certain length and entropy. At that point, it needs to loop in a human to decide if the audio can be copyrighted. It does so, with the uploader being the first human it asks. Yes, that last part may be annoying, and slightly cheap. But the uploader is also in a better position to judge the matter than some content moderator, so I don't know why it's supposedly scandalous.
smithcoin 5y ago
Does anybody else get an error every time you click a link to twitter? Edit* To be clear it seems to be browser independent. I use firefox on my mac and safari on my iphone and it seems every time I click a link to twitter I get an error and have to refresh the page.
- jabsters 5y ago
  Yup. I add ?t=20 to the end of the url and that fixes it most of the time.
  - spywaregorilla 5y ago
    Why does this work? I get similar issues on reddit as well. I had assumed this was them trying to push me onto the app. Is it actually a safari bug?
    - flatiron 5y ago
      Passing in nonsense parameters usually just busts the cache.
    - smithcoin 5y ago
      I have been getting errors on reddit lately when I click any comment section not logged in. Something along the lines of "repeated errors on <<site>>" and the page is white.
- masswerk 5y ago
  I get regularly errors with Safari on M1, the engine is apparently too fast for Twitter.
- Etheryte 5y ago
  Same here, oddly enough it seems to work fine in incognito, despite the setup being identical, enabled extensions and all.
- klyrs 5y ago
  It's a gentle reminder that twitter is bad for your health and best avoided.
MisterTea 5y ago
Another victim crushed in the cogs of googles attention juicer. > Looking forward to the company who "owns" it hitting the "nah, screw that guy and give him a copyright strike" button so we can turn this into yet another media cycle about just how utterly broken this system is. If its broken then stop using it. I cant help but not care that peoples videos are flagged or taken down. "Content" "Creators" aren't customers and should not expect anything. Google owns youtube and will do whatever it takes to avoid liability and maximize profit. Video playback in a browser is a solved problem. Simple self hosting isn't. Hopefully, projects like IPFS can solve the hosting issues. I just want to hand out a URL that points directly to a video file. I don't need or desire recommendations, follow anyone, or like/dislike content. Just something that plays a URL be it a browser or a video player like vlc.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
Deestan 5y ago
This is no ha ha accident. The claimant is one of many copyright trolls who try to get as many copyright claims as possible. Once the claim hits, they are able to run their ads on the video get the revenue from it. Once the dispute is settled, they keep the ad money and receive no negative consequence.
- 35fbe7d3d5b9 5y ago
  The entire ecosystem of big tech has depressingly bent towards this practice – Youtube trolls monetizing your work, Amazon allowing people to steal your listing and sell counterfeit goods with the five stars you earned... The only solution I've found is "don't engage". It doesn't change anything, but at least I'm not the one getting burnt.
  - lmilcin 5y ago
    This is direct result of DMCA. It basically says "Dear Youtube, if someone claims copyright you can't be liable if you immediately comply with the claim. However, if you don't, there is no bounds on how much you can be slapped for content posted on your platform." It creates powerful incentive to err on the side of claimant, however ridiculous the claim is. So if you are looking for somebody responsible for this, find politicians responsible for getting this passed and forever breaking Internet for everybody.
    - ascagnel_ 5y ago
      My specific issue with YouTube is that the Content ID process _isn't_ the DMCA (which, while not great, is much fairer to individual creators than YouTube's dispute resolution), it's the result of a big media corp fantasy that Google somehow willed into reality to avoid losing their protection and being liable to Viacom. The DMCA, at least as it's written, is somewhat equitable: if I think you post something of mine, I can go to a lawyer in good faith to file a notice to get it removed, you can go to your lawyer and have it restored, and then we hash it out in court without the video provider needing to be involved for the duration of the case. With YouTube, it's YT throwing up more roadblocks in my way (as the uploader) should you start sniffing around. Plus, you can claim copyright on my work in a scalable, automated way, without needing to verify individual works, and that last part is where all the abuse of the system happens. Google has absolutely no intention of fixing this claims process; doing so would break the armistice they agreed to with Viacom more than a decade ago, since Google wasn't complying with the DMCA.
kazinator 5y ago
Copyright, as such, must go. It's done. It's served its purpose in history; it's time to move past it.
- TomVDB 5y ago
  Great! What kind of alternative do you have in mind?
  - kazinator 5y ago
    I care only about plagiarism: the presenting someone's work as having been created by a different author. Every work has authors, and it should be illegal to claim that it has any other authors. Otherwise, copy all you want.
- vlunkr 5y ago
  This isn't really a problem with Copyright as a legal concept. It's the horrible way that Youtube is detecting and enforcing that allows trolls to exploit it so easily.
  - jstanley 5y ago
    The reason YouTube enforce it that way is because copyright-the-legal-concept is so draconian. They don't want to upset their video creators, but they also don't want to be sued into oblivion.
    - vlunkr 5y ago
      But they could certainly do a better job. As others in the comments are saying: why does the original creator have no path to reclaim the ad money they lost? And is it really necessary to automate seemingly every step of this process? Seems like some simple manual review could weed out bad actors.
bitwize 5y ago
John Cage owns the copyright on silence. At least one composer has been sued by the estate of John Cage for including silent "music" on their album.
- NeoTar 5y ago
  Apparently the story there is a little more complicated that just being sued for using silence. The composer of the new piece was intending to challenge / satirise copyright law, and actually credited Cage as a coauthor. https://ipkitten.blogspot.com/2012/04/price-of-silence-and-myth-of-batt-cage.html?m=1 https://ipkitten.blogspot.com/2012/04/price-of-silence-and-m...
andrewmcwatters 5y ago
I wonder who “owns” the copyright on taking a piss.
- ryantgtg 5y ago
  Copyright for taking a piss is automatically awarded to whomever takes the longest one. So, Austin Powers is the current owner, after that epic pee he took when he woke up from cryo.
phendrenad2 5y ago
Note that it's always sub-1million subscriber channels that get hit with this kind of "oopsie" (or deliberate ad revenue theft by copyright trolls). YouTube somehow shields the larger channels from this, because they know that all it takes is a few Linus Tech Tips or PewDiePies getting copyright trolled for them to create a new platform to compete with Google. Actually, a few have, but they're always just for one creator. If enough creators were affected, they would band together and make their own YouTube clone.
- ramtatatam 5y ago
  And then google or other Moloch acquires it :)
- dredmorbius 5y ago
  Simple distribution laws are going to ensure that the bulk of claims go against smaller channels, and that those channels will have little recourse but than public outcry and outrage to seek redress. But larger channels have been hit, notably Adam Neely, at 1.38m subscribers, by Warner Chappel, over his defence of Katy Perry's copyright in a Warner recording, for a segment of the video illustrating the source of the claim against Perry, and not the Perry piece Warner claimed infringement of by Neely. https://www.dailydot.com/upstream/adam-neely-youtube-copyright-claim-katy-perry/ https://www.dailydot.com/upstream/adam-neely-youtube-copyrig... https://youtube.com/user/havic5 https://youtube.com/user/havic5 https://youtube.com/watch?v=KM6X2MEl7R8 https://youtube.com/watch?v=KM6X2MEl7R8
  - gurchik 5y ago
    Thank you for the Adam Neely example, I forgot about that. To summarize, Warner was being sued over Katy Perry's Dark Horse, claiming that the melody violated the copyright of Flame's Joyful Noise. After Neely published a video at no expense or request from Warner defending Katy Perry, Warner rewarded him by copyright claiming him. It gets even more absurd. That lawsuit against Warner? It was found that Katy Perry's melody infringed on Joyful Noise, but when Warner issued the DMCA claim to Neely, they said Neely infringed on the melody of Katy Perry. In other words, they issued a claim on something that a judge literally just ruled that they do not have copyright on. If it couldn't get any absurd, there's one last thing I remember. In the DMCA claim Warner has to select a time period of Neely's video where the Katy Perry's melody was being infringed, and the time period they chose was actually when Neely was demonstrating the melody of Joyful Noise. So perhaps even Warner's lawyers can't tell the difference.
pinkythepig 5y ago
I have to wonder, at some point with googles system not being the DMCA, when does it become copyright infringement on the part of youtube that they are hosting your copy righted works and making money off ads from them. Even if they are not taking a cut, they are still facilitating it. Someone selling fake gucci bags at cost of materials would still be in trouble even if they aren't making money off it.
- blendergeek 5y ago
  Youtube can do whatever you want with your content, pretty much. Here is the relevant parts of the Standard Youtube License: > By providing Content to the Service, you grant to YouTube a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicensable and transferable license to use that Content (including to reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works, display and perform it) in connection with the Service and YouTube’s (and its successors' and Affiliates') business, including for the purpose of promoting and redistributing part or all of the Service. > You also grant each other user of the Service a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to access your Content through the Service, and to use that Content, including to reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works, display, and perform it, only as enabled by a feature of the Service (such as video playback or embeds). For clarity, this license does not grant any rights or permissions for a user to make use of your Content independent of the Service. This license pretty clearly gives Youtube the ability to show ads on your video and give the revenue to whomever they want. Further, if the interface to claim copyright of your video is part of Youtube (and not a DMCA claim), you give the copyright trolls a license to do that (they are after all using your video through the Youtube interface). You have no standing to sue the moment that you grant Youtube a license to do whatever they want with your work.
- sircastor 5y ago
  The magic part comes from the user agreement. Users have given up their rights to host. , and in a lot of courts I think that is an automatic dismissal.
defen 5y ago
How many times do people need to get the football pulled away before we collectively realize that putting content on Youtube is a bad idea?
- motoxpro 5y ago
  If you don't need distribution then sure host it on S3, or Vimeo, or anywhere really. If you need distribution, you're going have to find it somewhere and Youtube is a great place for that. Or you could build up an audience on some other network (email, facebook, twitter) so that you could then get an audience for your video, oh and also think of a business model where you can make money off of said video using that audience. Which many people do and make plenty of money off of. Making the content (typing on a keyboard) is not nearly as difficult as getting distribution for that content.
ramtatatam 5y ago
I'm discovering PeerTube for hosting my own vids I want to share, had anyone received claims to put down self-hosted content?
- wizzwizz4 5y ago
  If they have, it'd be DMCA claims, and as the host you could just say “I refute this claim, perjurer”.
- riffic 5y ago
  In theory, a DMCA notification can be sent to your server provider or ISP. They would then forward the notification to you. Server hosts receive a lot of DMCA notices on a day-to-day basis.
underseacables 5y ago
I filmed a live concert in the basement of a friends house, and someone from Brazil had the audacity to claim copyright over it. Weeks have gone by while they monetized my video and there was nothing I could do about that. I disputed it, and they were forced to release their copyright claim, but I should be entitled to damages. They knowingly and falsely made a claim against the video I recorded, and it got to the point where I had to tell Youtube That I can produce the actual camera and the original footage before they would believe me. YouTube content and copyright system is garbage.
- desmondw 5y ago
  Realistically it'll be like this until they get some good competition (if ever) or some laws change
  - judge2020 5y ago
    As if any sizable competitor wouldn't also be faced with the compromise proposed by media conglomerates: "allow us to monetize stuff we claim without utilizing the DMCA or lose access to hosting our content (music videos, movies, clips, etc)".
    - opheliate 5y ago
      I think there’s a subset of YouTube who would much prefer the website without content from media conglomerates. Not sure if it could be profitable on its own though.
      - lotsofpulp 5y ago
        Given that many video streaming websites have come and gone, it is pretty safe to assume it is not profitable. The only one that might work is if they charged a reasonable fee and only allowed people that had uploaded government issued IDs and accepted liability for their accounts. That might help sufficiently deter bad actors and reduce labor costs to sift through all the garbage.
brundolf 5y ago
I just can't wrap my head around how a person with any sort of moral framework can do this kind of thing, every day, and maintain a shred of self-respect. It just doesn't compute for me. At least the negligent people at YouTube can stretch it and tell themselves they're "doing their best on a hard problem" or whatever. But intentionally abusing the system... the sheer contempt you must have for your fellow human beings.
xucheng 5y ago
For anyone is interested, Tom Scott has a great video about YouTube copyright system: https://youtu.be/1Jwo5qc78QU https://youtu.be/1Jwo5qc78QU.
1970-01-01 5y ago
I've always wondered how long it would be until farting becomes accidentally copyrighted. I see we are getting close to that reality.
sam0x17 5y ago
With this getting frontpage HN attention and going viral on twitter, it is likely Youtube will right the situation. But think of all the similar situations that don't get this kind of attention and the chilling effects of that. We need to move towards an innocent until proven guilty system where content is only taken down after human review and that dramatically punishes false reports (probably in a way that threatens losing ownership of the copyrighted work after repeated false claims). That is the only way to solve this problem, and it isn't going to be solved by Twitch or Youtube taking a stand (because they never will) -- it has to be legislation that changes the playing field. Fair use is supposed to allow you to, say, use a 20 second or so clip of a popular song, no problem. That's impossible these days. The laws as they were originally written and the way they are enforced by big tech have drifted apart dramatically. It's quite sad. Keep in mind that people growing up right now, the only thing they have ever heard about the DMCA is "oh, that's that thing that got my favorite twitch streamer almost banned". Believe me when I say zoomers will obliterate this in 20 years.
phkahler 5y ago
Again I say we need verifiable identities on the internet. Then you can create (OMG I hate the term) an NFT for every piece of content you create. This will document your ownership of a particular file at a point in time. A copy might not have the same hash, but viewing it would show it's the same and you can show priority on the blockchain. The blockchain is a distributed notary.
Causality1 5y ago
I thought copyright trolls were out of control when I got a copyright strike for five seconds of a recording of President Kennedy but this is beyond ridiculous.
AlbertCory 5y ago
I have a pretty deep background in patents, but not much in copyright. So I find it interesting that you can get a copyright on "typing on my keyboard." Unlike a patent, which can be pretty broad, a copyright is only THAT expression of an idea, not every possible expression. So I would think your copyright only covers typing on your keyboard, not any keyboard. Or maybe, the exact rhythmic sequence of key presses you did, not any sequence. But how that is enforced -- I have no idea. I can easily believe that YouTube's automated copyright checker doesn't do a good job with that. If you went to court and sued someone for violating your copyright, you would lose (unless they used your keyboard and/or did the same rhythmic pattern). But probably YT doesn't know that.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
chrismcb 5y ago
I believe this is an audio claim for the clickety clack of typing... Not for the phrase "typing on my keyboard." I was confused at first.
account42 5y ago
Tangentially related, but I think that the root problem with the current copyright laws is that they are not really defined by a democratic process in each country but rather negotiated via trade deals, effectively eliminating any chance to significantly change them locally without breaking those deals. Such trade deals that restrict what citizens can do in their own country should really be unconstitutional in any democracy. If some countries want strong copyrights they can enforce them for any imports and exports, but he effect of their laws should stop at their border. We have many other laws governing what you can and cannot do that vary significantly between countries and they do no get harmogonized globablly like copyright has been. And no, a global internet really does not change that.

“I just got a copyright claim for *TYPING ON MY KEYBOARD*”

454 points by smitop 5y ago

Suggestion: people who get hit with bullshit copyright strikes (which is quite a lot of people now) need to find each other and team up to file a class action suit against YT. You might even be able to get state or federal justice dept.'s civil division interested. There could be some compensation due, but what you really want is to cover your costs and demand specific performance of YT actively making changes to uphold fair use and stop being an willing instrumentality for copyright trolls.

mschuster91 5y ago
YT is the wrong subject for such a lawsuit. Creators affected by abusive bans would have to go after the entities filing DMCA claims "under penalty of perjury"... the problem is, either you're heading up against some shell company that gets dissolved at the first whiff of trouble or you're heading up against mega-corporations that spend more money for lawyers defending against your suit than you'll earn in your entire life.
- masswerk 5y ago
  As I understand it (I may be in the wrong), the problem is that those copyright claims do not have any DMCA status. Which is the crux of the matter, as there are no real consequences to false claims other than those eventually effected by YT.
- msandford 5y ago
  I can't help but think that YouTube is the right target. I don't believe that the three strikes system is a part of copyright law or the DMCA. This is something that YouTube did beyond the law to avoid getting sued to oblivion. They might actually be the right target if their copyright claim system isn't the law but their own system.
  - Denvercoder9 5y ago
    But what law did YouTube violate? They're not obligated to host your content.
    - anigbrowl 5y ago
      Laws don't have to be violate din civil litigation. Most cases are about torts (or contractual violations. big corporations generally get people to agree to big contracts that effectively say 'we can do anything and you have no rights ha ha' but as soon as any exchange of money takes place, things gt to e more complex. In extreme circumstances, contracts can be declared to be unconscionable. Of course, wealthy defendants often try to spin the process out as long as possible and then offer a fat settlement right before trial if all else fails.
    - msandford 5y ago
      Agreed! They have no moral, legal or ethical responsibility or obligation to host anyone's content. They also don't have any legal, ethical or moral responsibility to ensure that any one copyright holder gets "their fair share" of the revenue for a particular video. The law already has a provision for the recourse copyright holders have if people use copyrighted material improperly. That's called a DMCA takedown request and it requires certain conditions to be met. What YouTube has done with the contentid and three-strikes system is to create an extra-judicial system for settling claims of a similar kind to DMCA takedown requests, but without going through the courts. That's their prerogative! But it may or may not be legal for them to do so, especially using the language that they use. For example something they might get sued for is fraud. These copyright claims that copyright holders are able to make. Are these legal claims via the courts? Or are they YouTube claims made through YouTube? What if YouTube has appropriated too many legal terms for this system? Imagine that I created a Security as a Service (SaaS) called The Police (tm) and for a small monthly fee you can subscribe to The Police (tm) and if/when you find yourself in some kind of tight spot they'll show up and fix things for you. It's not hard to imagine that this might not go well, and for similar reasons one could suspect that YouTube using legal-like terms for an entirely private "copyright policing" system they might eventually find themselves on the losing side of a legal challenge. It's really up to what kind of legal theories the plaintiffs could come up with that would put YouTube on the wrong end of the law.
- colejohnson66 5y ago
  Worth noting: ContentID is not the DMCA. If it was a ContentID takedown, you basically have no recourse outside YouTube.
  - mschuster91 5y ago
    The screenshots in the tweet and the thread look like a DMCA claim to me.
  - kmeisthax 5y ago
    A related fact: some companies with ContentID access have an additional indemnification agreement with YouTube. They agree to pay any judgment brought against YouTube in exchange for YouTube ignoring DMCA counterclaims entirely. What that means is that if that particular claimnant decides they own your video, they own your video, and your only recourse is very expensive legal action against them to prove it's yours. YouTube has so thoroughly contravened the intent and spirit of the DMCA it's hilarious.
    - EE84M3i 5y ago
      Where can I read more about those agreements?
    - snowwrestler 5y ago
      I don’t see how Google can ignore DMCA counterclaims because handling them properly is a matter of federal law. There is no way a private party can indemnify Google against illegal behavior. I would not be surprised if Content ID participants have indemnification agreements with Google related to Content ID, which is itself a private agreement.
      - dragonwriter 5y ago
        > Google cannot ignore DMCA counterclaims Yes, they can. > because handling them properly is a matter of federal law. They can ignore them unless they have some legsl obligation outside of the DMCA not to take the content down, because the only matter of federal law applicable to handling counterclaims properly is the DMCA safe harbor, which: (1) continues to protect against copyright liability to the purported rights holder so long as they do not restore the content without a proper counternotice, an (2) protects against any liability they would have under any other law to the user for taking down the content unless they fail to restore it with a valid counternotice. But, there is no separate liability for not honoring a counternotice, and Google (like most free content hosts) structurrs their relations with users so that there is almost possibility of liability for taking content down with or without cause, so #2 isn’t much of a concern.
- IshKebab 5y ago
  Yeah I don't know. Yes YouTube has to obey DCMA takedowns but these aren't DCMA takedowns. They're part of Google's own ContentID system that they created themselves. They could definitely improve it to avoid this sort of nonsense.
cheeseomlit 5y ago
Youtube would get a gentle slap on the wrist and the claimants would get $3.50 + an applebees gift card
- fridif 5y ago
  And the class action firm 25 million ^.^
  - LeifCarrotson 5y ago
    ...which is the aforementioned slap on the wrist for Youtube, with revenues of $20B per year. That's not even a slap on the wrist, it's more like a kiss on the cheek.
    - fridif 5y ago
      I think its important to highlight that the slap on the wrist is disbursed to a group of people who are essentially mercenaries that take the lion's share of the pie (proportionally compared to an individual claimant)
- anigbrowl 5y ago
  I addressed this in my last sentence. specific performance means a litigant can ask the court to require a change in policy. Shaking them down for cash is not the only available option.
  - imoverclocked 5y ago
    I think this is key. The law is definitely not my area of expertise and policy can be surprisingly complex ... still, I would think there is a better way. My naive stab at the problem would be to withhold ad revenue for content in dispute. Obviously this would hurt original authors when their content is disputed but it might squelch the current bad-behavior. One step further (but still maybe not overall better) would be for the winner of the claim to take all/part of ad-revenue from monetized+infringing uses.
- 5y ago
IfOnlyYouKnew 5y ago
Youtube is following the letter of law. They are acting on someone's claim of copyright infringement, and allowing the accused to dispute the claim. Chances may be better going after the claimant. But this case, like many other, seems to be a false positive of a maybe slightly too sensitive system rather than some wild claim with absolutely no rational basis. Does anyone believe it's possible to identify copyright violations with complete accuracy? If not, why is it such a terrible scandal if some erroneous claims are made, which can be disputed with a few clicks? If you happened to be a musician, how many videos using your music unauthorised would you be willing to tolerate for avoiding a single erroneous claim against some video of yours?
- majormajor 5y ago
  If 'Deestan's comment about this being a typical scheme to temporarily steal ad revenue is accurate, then Youtube is probably still legally in the clear to let someone else benefit like that - I'm sure their TOS covers all sorts of shit - but definitely should (from a "what's best for the world" perspective) try to do something about that to prevent abuse of the system.
  - sumtechguy 5y ago
    What is also interesting is the game many youtubers have resorted to playing. Where they upload videos 5 or 6 times and have them demonetized and they play the 'what broke the system this time' game and reupload. Even then 6 months later someone else can come along and change the rules and half their catalog is struck for some rule/copyright violation. It is why we are seeing lots of 'patron' style support systems, or self promoted ads by the people making the vids. edit: removed bit that I am probably wrong on.
    - kelnos 5y ago
      How does that work, though? Wouldn't each of those demonetized uploads count as a copyright strike? AIUI, after three of those your account gets deactivated.
lupire 5y ago
What exactly is the legal harm? Google doesn't owe you free video hosting.
- kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
  It could be construed as a form of libel.

mfer 5y ago

People have had the same thing over generated white noise. There are no perfect laws or implementations to support them. The solutions err on one side or the other. In our current case, the solutions privilege the corps.

postsantum 5y ago
Can't wait for the same logic to be applied to self-driving cars. The solution was produced by a blackbox, sorry about your grandma
- minikites 5y ago
  This is exactly what is going to happen.
- mfer 5y ago
  Are you arguing there are perfect laws or solutions? Let's say that anything someone uploads fly's and there is no means to deal with copyright violation. In that case, the person who created the work gets screwed. For example, a song writer or singer. The very people we appreciate for their artistic work. Self driving and cars is a different case when you're talking about laws and the solutions being built around them. They are also a bit different when it comes to the financial side (and incentives) of it all.
  - jstanley 5y ago
    > In that case, the person who created the work gets screwed. For example, a song writer or singer. How are they getting screwed? Art and culture grows through sharing, it doesn't diminish.
    - mfer 5y ago
      It gets to goals. For example, of the artist has a goal of making money to pay for food and a roof over their head that is reduced and their ability to create art is reduced. Artists and consumers have different needs and goals.

rubatuga 5y ago

There should be multiple outsourced replacements for copyright detection, which users on YouTube should be able to choose. Otherwise, there’s no incentive to improve the models. Could such an option be put into law?

kmeisthax 5y ago
Content ID exists to keep YouTube's nose clean, not yours. What you're asking would be like letting speeders choose what cops get to write them a ticket... in response to certain towns over-prosecuting moving violations for revenue.
petermcneeley 5y ago
You want to make a law that forces options on copyright detection that the users can choose? Thats a pretty specific law. Also like what if one of the options always just returns false? I think writing narrow specific one off use case laws like this is like writing code with a series of if statements. If one wants to go to the effort of changing laws one should write laws that are general and dont contain a bunch of potential loopholes. Aka the law should be written like good code.
- infogulch 5y ago
  Interestingly, the term "code" applied to laws centuries before it was applied to computer code. I'd bet most computer code best practices would apply to law code.
IfOnlyYouKnew 5y ago
We only get to see the system's failures, and only the scandalous or funny at that. The system probably flags tens of thousands of uploads every day. Note how, in this case, it probably did correctly identify segments of a certain length and entropy. At that point, it needs to loop in a human to decide if the audio can be copyrighted. It does so, with the uploader being the first human it asks. Yes, that last part may be annoying, and slightly cheap. But the uploader is also in a better position to judge the matter than some content moderator, so I don't know why it's supposedly scandalous.

smithcoin 5y ago

Does anybody else get an error every time you click a link to twitter? Edit* To be clear it seems to be browser independent. I use firefox on my mac and safari on my iphone and it seems every time I click a link to twitter I get an error and have to refresh the page.

jabsters 5y ago
Yup. I add ?t=20 to the end of the url and that fixes it most of the time.
- spywaregorilla 5y ago
  Why does this work? I get similar issues on reddit as well. I had assumed this was them trying to push me onto the app. Is it actually a safari bug?
  - flatiron 5y ago
    Passing in nonsense parameters usually just busts the cache.
  - smithcoin 5y ago
    I have been getting errors on reddit lately when I click any comment section not logged in. Something along the lines of "repeated errors on <<site>>" and the page is white.
masswerk 5y ago
I get regularly errors with Safari on M1, the engine is apparently too fast for Twitter.
Etheryte 5y ago
Same here, oddly enough it seems to work fine in incognito, despite the setup being identical, enabled extensions and all.
klyrs 5y ago
It's a gentle reminder that twitter is bad for your health and best avoided.

MisterTea 5y ago

Another victim crushed in the cogs of googles attention juicer. > Looking forward to the company who "owns" it hitting the "nah, screw that guy and give him a copyright strike" button so we can turn this into yet another media cycle about just how utterly broken this system is. If its broken then stop using it. I cant help but not care that peoples videos are flagged or taken down. "Content" "Creators" aren't customers and should not expect anything. Google owns youtube and will do whatever it takes to avoid liability and maximize profit. Video playback in a browser is a solved problem. Simple self hosting isn't. Hopefully, projects like IPFS can solve the hosting issues. I just want to hand out a URL that points directly to a video file. I don't need or desire recommendations, follow anyone, or like/dislike content. Just something that plays a URL be it a browser or a video player like vlc.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

Deestan 5y ago

This is no ha ha accident. The claimant is one of many copyright trolls who try to get as many copyright claims as possible. Once the claim hits, they are able to run their ads on the video get the revenue from it. Once the dispute is settled, they keep the ad money and receive no negative consequence.

35fbe7d3d5b9 5y ago
The entire ecosystem of big tech has depressingly bent towards this practice – Youtube trolls monetizing your work, Amazon allowing people to steal your listing and sell counterfeit goods with the five stars you earned... The only solution I've found is "don't engage". It doesn't change anything, but at least I'm not the one getting burnt.
- lmilcin 5y ago
  This is direct result of DMCA. It basically says "Dear Youtube, if someone claims copyright you can't be liable if you immediately comply with the claim. However, if you don't, there is no bounds on how much you can be slapped for content posted on your platform." It creates powerful incentive to err on the side of claimant, however ridiculous the claim is. So if you are looking for somebody responsible for this, find politicians responsible for getting this passed and forever breaking Internet for everybody.
  - ascagnel_ 5y ago
    My specific issue with YouTube is that the Content ID process _isn't_ the DMCA (which, while not great, is much fairer to individual creators than YouTube's dispute resolution), it's the result of a big media corp fantasy that Google somehow willed into reality to avoid losing their protection and being liable to Viacom. The DMCA, at least as it's written, is somewhat equitable: if I think you post something of mine, I can go to a lawyer in good faith to file a notice to get it removed, you can go to your lawyer and have it restored, and then we hash it out in court without the video provider needing to be involved for the duration of the case. With YouTube, it's YT throwing up more roadblocks in my way (as the uploader) should you start sniffing around. Plus, you can claim copyright on my work in a scalable, automated way, without needing to verify individual works, and that last part is where all the abuse of the system happens. Google has absolutely no intention of fixing this claims process; doing so would break the armistice they agreed to with Viacom more than a decade ago, since Google wasn't complying with the DMCA.

kazinator 5y ago

TomVDB 5y ago
Great! What kind of alternative do you have in mind?
- kazinator 5y ago
  I care only about plagiarism: the presenting someone's work as having been created by a different author. Every work has authors, and it should be illegal to claim that it has any other authors. Otherwise, copy all you want.
vlunkr 5y ago
This isn't really a problem with Copyright as a legal concept. It's the horrible way that Youtube is detecting and enforcing that allows trolls to exploit it so easily.
- jstanley 5y ago
  The reason YouTube enforce it that way is because copyright-the-legal-concept is so draconian. They don't want to upset their video creators, but they also don't want to be sued into oblivion.
  - vlunkr 5y ago
    But they could certainly do a better job. As others in the comments are saying: why does the original creator have no path to reclaim the ad money they lost? And is it really necessary to automate seemingly every step of this process? Seems like some simple manual review could weed out bad actors.

bitwize 5y ago

John Cage owns the copyright on silence. At least one composer has been sued by the estate of John Cage for including silent "music" on their album.

NeoTar 5y ago
Apparently the story there is a little more complicated that just being sued for using silence. The composer of the new piece was intending to challenge / satirise copyright law, and actually credited Cage as a coauthor. https://ipkitten.blogspot.com/2012/04/price-of-silence-and-myth-of-batt-cage.html?m=1 https://ipkitten.blogspot.com/2012/04/price-of-silence-and-m...

andrewmcwatters 5y ago

I wonder who “owns” the copyright on taking a piss.

ryantgtg 5y ago
Copyright for taking a piss is automatically awarded to whomever takes the longest one. So, Austin Powers is the current owner, after that epic pee he took when he woke up from cryo.

phendrenad2 5y ago

Note that it's always sub-1million subscriber channels that get hit with this kind of "oopsie" (or deliberate ad revenue theft by copyright trolls). YouTube somehow shields the larger channels from this, because they know that all it takes is a few Linus Tech Tips or PewDiePies getting copyright trolled for them to create a new platform to compete with Google. Actually, a few have, but they're always just for one creator. If enough creators were affected, they would band together and make their own YouTube clone.

ramtatatam 5y ago
And then google or other Moloch acquires it :)
dredmorbius 5y ago
Simple distribution laws are going to ensure that the bulk of claims go against smaller channels, and that those channels will have little recourse but than public outcry and outrage to seek redress. But larger channels have been hit, notably Adam Neely, at 1.38m subscribers, by Warner Chappel, over his defence of Katy Perry's copyright in a Warner recording, for a segment of the video illustrating the source of the claim against Perry, and not the Perry piece Warner claimed infringement of by Neely. https://www.dailydot.com/upstream/adam-neely-youtube-copyright-claim-katy-perry/ https://www.dailydot.com/upstream/adam-neely-youtube-copyrig... https://youtube.com/user/havic5 https://youtube.com/user/havic5 https://youtube.com/watch?v=KM6X2MEl7R8 https://youtube.com/watch?v=KM6X2MEl7R8
- gurchik 5y ago
  Thank you for the Adam Neely example, I forgot about that. To summarize, Warner was being sued over Katy Perry's Dark Horse, claiming that the melody violated the copyright of Flame's Joyful Noise. After Neely published a video at no expense or request from Warner defending Katy Perry, Warner rewarded him by copyright claiming him. It gets even more absurd. That lawsuit against Warner? It was found that Katy Perry's melody infringed on Joyful Noise, but when Warner issued the DMCA claim to Neely, they said Neely infringed on the melody of Katy Perry. In other words, they issued a claim on something that a judge literally just ruled that they do not have copyright on. If it couldn't get any absurd, there's one last thing I remember. In the DMCA claim Warner has to select a time period of Neely's video where the Katy Perry's melody was being infringed, and the time period they chose was actually when Neely was demonstrating the melody of Joyful Noise. So perhaps even Warner's lawyers can't tell the difference.

pinkythepig 5y ago

I have to wonder, at some point with googles system not being the DMCA, when does it become copyright infringement on the part of youtube that they are hosting your copy righted works and making money off ads from them. Even if they are not taking a cut, they are still facilitating it. Someone selling fake gucci bags at cost of materials would still be in trouble even if they aren't making money off it.

blendergeek 5y ago
Youtube can do whatever you want with your content, pretty much. Here is the relevant parts of the Standard Youtube License: > By providing Content to the Service, you grant to YouTube a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicensable and transferable license to use that Content (including to reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works, display and perform it) in connection with the Service and YouTube’s (and its successors' and Affiliates') business, including for the purpose of promoting and redistributing part or all of the Service. > You also grant each other user of the Service a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to access your Content through the Service, and to use that Content, including to reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works, display, and perform it, only as enabled by a feature of the Service (such as video playback or embeds). For clarity, this license does not grant any rights or permissions for a user to make use of your Content independent of the Service. This license pretty clearly gives Youtube the ability to show ads on your video and give the revenue to whomever they want. Further, if the interface to claim copyright of your video is part of Youtube (and not a DMCA claim), you give the copyright trolls a license to do that (they are after all using your video through the Youtube interface). You have no standing to sue the moment that you grant Youtube a license to do whatever they want with your work.
sircastor 5y ago
The magic part comes from the user agreement. Users have given up their rights to host. , and in a lot of courts I think that is an automatic dismissal.

defen 5y ago

How many times do people need to get the football pulled away before we collectively realize that putting content on Youtube is a bad idea?

motoxpro 5y ago
If you don't need distribution then sure host it on S3, or Vimeo, or anywhere really. If you need distribution, you're going have to find it somewhere and Youtube is a great place for that. Or you could build up an audience on some other network (email, facebook, twitter) so that you could then get an audience for your video, oh and also think of a business model where you can make money off of said video using that audience. Which many people do and make plenty of money off of. Making the content (typing on a keyboard) is not nearly as difficult as getting distribution for that content.

ramtatatam 5y ago

I'm discovering PeerTube for hosting my own vids I want to share, had anyone received claims to put down self-hosted content?

wizzwizz4 5y ago
If they have, it'd be DMCA claims, and as the host you could just say “I refute this claim, perjurer”.
riffic 5y ago
In theory, a DMCA notification can be sent to your server provider or ISP. They would then forward the notification to you. Server hosts receive a lot of DMCA notices on a day-to-day basis.

underseacables 5y ago

I filmed a live concert in the basement of a friends house, and someone from Brazil had the audacity to claim copyright over it. Weeks have gone by while they monetized my video and there was nothing I could do about that. I disputed it, and they were forced to release their copyright claim, but I should be entitled to damages. They knowingly and falsely made a claim against the video I recorded, and it got to the point where I had to tell Youtube That I can produce the actual camera and the original footage before they would believe me. YouTube content and copyright system is garbage.

desmondw 5y ago
Realistically it'll be like this until they get some good competition (if ever) or some laws change
- judge2020 5y ago
  As if any sizable competitor wouldn't also be faced with the compromise proposed by media conglomerates: "allow us to monetize stuff we claim without utilizing the DMCA or lose access to hosting our content (music videos, movies, clips, etc)".
  - opheliate 5y ago
    I think there’s a subset of YouTube who would much prefer the website without content from media conglomerates. Not sure if it could be profitable on its own though.
    - lotsofpulp 5y ago
      Given that many video streaming websites have come and gone, it is pretty safe to assume it is not profitable. The only one that might work is if they charged a reasonable fee and only allowed people that had uploaded government issued IDs and accepted liability for their accounts. That might help sufficiently deter bad actors and reduce labor costs to sift through all the garbage.

brundolf 5y ago

I just can't wrap my head around how a person with any sort of moral framework can do this kind of thing, every day, and maintain a shred of self-respect. It just doesn't compute for me. At least the negligent people at YouTube can stretch it and tell themselves they're "doing their best on a hard problem" or whatever. But intentionally abusing the system... the sheer contempt you must have for your fellow human beings.

xucheng 5y ago

For anyone is interested, Tom Scott has a great video about YouTube copyright system: https://youtu.be/1Jwo5qc78QU https://youtu.be/1Jwo5qc78QU.

1970-01-01 5y ago

I've always wondered how long it would be until farting becomes accidentally copyrighted. I see we are getting close to that reality.

sam0x17 5y ago

With this getting frontpage HN attention and going viral on twitter, it is likely Youtube will right the situation. But think of all the similar situations that don't get this kind of attention and the chilling effects of that. We need to move towards an innocent until proven guilty system where content is only taken down after human review and that dramatically punishes false reports (probably in a way that threatens losing ownership of the copyrighted work after repeated false claims). That is the only way to solve this problem, and it isn't going to be solved by Twitch or Youtube taking a stand (because they never will) -- it has to be legislation that changes the playing field. Fair use is supposed to allow you to, say, use a 20 second or so clip of a popular song, no problem. That's impossible these days. The laws as they were originally written and the way they are enforced by big tech have drifted apart dramatically. It's quite sad. Keep in mind that people growing up right now, the only thing they have ever heard about the DMCA is "oh, that's that thing that got my favorite twitch streamer almost banned". Believe me when I say zoomers will obliterate this in 20 years.

phkahler 5y ago

Again I say we need verifiable identities on the internet. Then you can create (OMG I hate the term) an NFT for every piece of content you create. This will document your ownership of a particular file at a point in time. A copy might not have the same hash, but viewing it would show it's the same and you can show priority on the blockchain. The blockchain is a distributed notary.

Causality1 5y ago

I thought copyright trolls were out of control when I got a copyright strike for five seconds of a recording of President Kennedy but this is beyond ridiculous.

AlbertCory 5y ago

I have a pretty deep background in patents, but not much in copyright. So I find it interesting that you can get a copyright on "typing on my keyboard." Unlike a patent, which can be pretty broad, a copyright is only THAT expression of an idea, not every possible expression. So I would think your copyright only covers typing on your keyboard, not any keyboard. Or maybe, the exact rhythmic sequence of key presses you did, not any sequence. But how that is enforced -- I have no idea. I can easily believe that YouTube's automated copyright checker doesn't do a good job with that. If you went to court and sued someone for violating your copyright, you would lose (unless they used your keyboard and/or did the same rhythmic pattern). But probably YT doesn't know that.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

chrismcb 5y ago

I believe this is an audio claim for the clickety clack of typing... Not for the phrase "typing on my keyboard." I was confused at first.

account42 5y ago

Tangentially related, but I think that the root problem with the current copyright laws is that they are not really defined by a democratic process in each country but rather negotiated via trade deals, effectively eliminating any chance to significantly change them locally without breaking those deals. Such trade deals that restrict what citizens can do in their own country should really be unconstitutional in any democracy. If some countries want strong copyrights they can enforce them for any imports and exports, but he effect of their laws should stop at their border. We have many other laws governing what you can and cannot do that vary significantly between countries and they do no get harmogonized globablly like copyright has been. And no, a global internet really does not change that.