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U.S. Senators Introduce SMART Copyright Act to Combat Piracy

95 points by redm 5y ago

jimbob45 5y ago
How convenient that Patrick Leahy is retiring this year and won’t be on the hook for screwing his voter base.
mikestew 5y ago
Among other things, the senators stress that all government-imposed protection tools and takedown measures will go through a consultation process, where all stakeholders and the public are allowed to have their say. If history is any indicator, the public can have their say, but that won't be who the government is listening to. That, or it will be the clusterfuck that was the FCC's public comment period on net neutrality. Hope always springs eternal for me that Senators and Congressfolk will act in good faith (EDIT: toward their constituents), but I'm also realistic in that they probably won't. If one has the time, click the "facts and myths" link in the article[0]. Or as I like to call it "vague rebuttals, and the straw man arguments that they rebut". [0] https://www.tillis.senate.gov/services/files/BBDBFA87-17CA-4D15-AA0F-9B54BFEEA31D https://www.tillis.senate.gov/services/files/BBDBFA87-17CA-4...
- excalibur 5y ago
  > If history is any indicator, the public can have their say, but that won't be who the government is listening to. The government officials selling political favors and the company executives buying them are the ones we should be putting in prison here.
Arubis 5y ago
Setting aside the arguments around infringement equaling/not equaling actual theft, is the actual incidence of piracy high enough that it's on beancounters' radar? I may be wrong, but my impression is that streaming made it a non-issue. This feels like a smokescreen.
- 542458 5y ago
  I can't speak to media piracy, but I previously did work with a large supplier of professional software. This is not stuff people often use for fun, and the software had free and easy-to-get student versions available. The software still saw 80+% piracy in many markets according to internal metrics. This is a big part of why companies are so enthusiastic about cloud everything - recurring revenue is nice, but unpirateable recurring revenue is even nicer. That's not to defend this bill. It sounds like rubbish to me.
  - meeriee 5y ago
    Does making pirating some software impossible actually increase its sales revenue? I'd wager that most people who pirate software wouldn't want to, are even have the means to pay for the full price of the software.
  - jacobolus 5y ago
    Tools like Photoshop, Ableton, ArcGIS, Maya, AutoCAD, or Matlab rely on widespread piracy to remain the industry standard (also cheaper student versions and university site licenses, but those aren’t enough by themselves), and make up the lost income by soaking professional users from established firms. If large numbers of people can’t affordably access these, they will adopt some alternative cheaper tool and ultimately bleed users, understanding, and activity away.
- sschueller 5y ago
  Obviously, but no one wants to go after the crimes their donors have committed. From tax "avoiding" to outright fraud. The amount of money lost to the tax payer by these actual criminals makes the small amount lost to piracy look like traces of cocaine on a dollar bill.
- gernb 5y ago
  I'm totally on board with copying is not theft https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeTybKL1pM4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeTybKL1pM4 Except that it is something. I go to my tax accountant, have them calculate my taxes, then, when they send me the filled out paperwork I make a copy, send back the originals, and say "No thanks. Didn't really need this". What would we call that? Theft of time? Theft of labor? Breach of contract? (I didn't sign a contract). Breach of implied contract? Does any of this apply to movies/music? It feels similar except there's more than 1 person making a copy and they didn't "pre-order". Do those differences matter? It still feels like taking the product of someone's labor without compensating them for it, same as the tax accountant example.
uo21tp5hoyg 5y ago
I don't pirate music, I don't pirate games, I don't pirate software, I don't pirate anything but TV and movies and the reason is simple: piracy is a service problem for me. I know where to get music/games/software, I have no idea where to get the movies and TV I want to watch, they're spread over 20 different services, 90% of which are not available in my country and the ones that are don't have that specific content available in my country, I've even ran into issues where a streaming service say they for sure have some content and I just need to sign up to start watching, great! but after signing up and paying boop nope that content isn't available in your country anymore. And even in the cases I find the content available I am treated like a pirate, use a browser without DRM support? nope go away, use a VPN even when connected to the country your payment details come from? nope go away, oh and by the way we removed that content you were watching but we still have season 1 and 2 if you want anything after that it's on this other streaming platform and no it's not in your country. Even when everything goes right I get a highly compressed stream with all sorts of ugly artifacting. Piracy fixes every single one of those issues for me so I will continue to do it without feeling bad about it. I am very willing to pay for these services by why would I if paying is an inherently worse experience? And I didn't even list all the issues I've faced with these services.
- bitwize 5y ago
  You are not entitled to any movies or television shows at any quality at all because it's not your IP. If someone wants to shoot a movie and then lock it in a vault, never to be seen by anyone, Prince-style, that is their right. If they want to change it to remove and permanently memory-hole offensive elements, that is their right. If they want to release it only in certain formats, up to and including theatrical-only releases, that is their right. Because they own the copyright and hence, control over how the work is distributed and exhibited. So take what they offer you or leave it. Anything else is a violation of the law.
  - uo21tp5hoyg 5y ago
    I don't like the idea of running my life within the confines of IP law of another country especially considering that IP law is wholly moulded by giant corporations like Disney and not based on anything that actually makes sense for the modern provider/consumer digital world. And breaking a law I don't agree with definitely won't keep me up at night, in fact if they catch me and force me to pay for all the content I downloaded it will still end up being a more convenient experience as I am very willing to pay in the first place.
sschueller 5y ago
What sucks is how the US will pressure the rest of the world to also implement this garbage. https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/downloading-and-uploading_what-the-new-swiss-copyright-law-means-for-consumers-of-pirated-online-content/45305402 https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/downloading-and-uploading_what-... I am going to cancel my Netflix and start pirating because am not going to pay more than Germans for netflix and get an even smaller catalog than they get. Germany already pays more than the US for a much smaller catalog. We just get take to the cleaner just because, no reason whatsoever. The law that would require Netflix to pay a percentage to subsidice Swiss movies hasn't even been voted on yet and if it does pass will push the price even higher.
- dessant 5y ago
  But who will even need Better Call Saul when you'll be able to watch local exclusives, like Swiss Prince.
  - sschueller 5y ago
    I can watch Tschugger for free on playsuisse paid for by my tax dollars. https://m.imdb.com/title/tt15425948/ https://m.imdb.com/title/tt15425948/
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- mardifoufs 5y ago
  What? Europe absolutely does not need to get pressured to implement restrictive copyright laws. If anything, they are pioneers in the field. The european copyright filters laws of 2018 were even more insane[0]. And in general, IP right holders have a lot more power in the EU than in the US, where the DMCA provides quite a lot of protection relatively speaking. [0] I have not heard a lot about the copyright filters since 2018 though. I know the controversial copyright directive has been ratified and implemented, but I don't know if it led to any concrete change up until now.
- kmeisthax 5y ago
  The EU changed their copyright directive a few years ago to mandate "best practices" as a condition for online safe harbor; I find that provision to be equivalent to the SMART Act. As for paying more for less in Germany... the problem is that nobody in the TV industry wants to go to sim-ship[0]. Most countries want to have a local-market/local-language TV broadcast and production industry, which is only viable if you let people portion off rights to their work on a country-by-country basis. The subsidy laws you mentioned are part and parcel of the same thing. [0] A game development term that is short for "simultaneous ship"; in which you ship all languages in every territory all on the same day.
ipnon 5y ago
It's getting to the point that services will simply be hosted outside the United States, the index page will say "this site shall not be used by United States citizens," and then people can go about using the Web like it already works anyway. It seems Senators don't understand well what it is they're trying to accomplish because they don't understand how the Web works.
- kobalsky 5y ago
  > this site shall not be used by United States citizens so megaupload with a disclaimer? kim dotcom is still fighting extradition.
- heavyset_go 5y ago
  Pretty sure many countries have agreements to recognize US IP and its protections, and the ones that don't are incentivized (i.e. punished) into recognizing them, as well.
perihelions 5y ago
Would a government-mandated upload filter pass constitutional scrutiny?
- AnimalMuppet 5y ago
  Interesting question. My first instinct was to answer "no", but after thinking a bit more, I'm less sure. Does a red light camera pass constitutional scrutiny? I think it's kind of the same logic: the law in question is constitutional; the new thing is just automating enforcement. The upload filter might be a bit different, though, because it's mandated on private servers. Is that enough to swing the question? I really don't know.
  - xanaxagoras 5y ago
    > The upload filter might be a bit different, though, because it's mandated on private servers. Would it be? They can make you do all sorts of things on private land. Ever tried to renovate a home in CA?
  - namlem 5y ago
    Red light cameras have been rules unconstitutional in my state and taken down fwiw.
- kmeisthax 5y ago
  Probably. The way copyright law interacts with the Constitution is... - The Constitution itself says Congress can enact copyright law, as long as the laws themselves have a finite copyright term[0] - As amended, the Constitution has a prohibition on "Congress" (state actors) making laws that circumscribe speech - Since the intent of the 1st Amendment was not to immediately repeal the Copyright Clause, both provisions are valid; the 1st Amendment only protects novel acts of speech. The speaker is free to prohibit further speech that infringes upon their own. - However, said speakers (copyright owners) are not free to prohibit any and all speech that touches their own. Only stuff that actually harms their monopoly on copying. Fair use is how copyright law passes constitutional scrutiny. - Because DMCA 512 contains provisions for counter-notices and legal penalties for misidentification; people attempting to use copyright as a censorship tool can be punished for doing so. - The SMART Act appears to amend DMCA 512, so said provisions would still apply. It also does not mandate upload filters on it's own, it just says the Copyright Office may decide to do so. Whether or not an upload filter would violate the 1st would require SCOTUS to find that the DMCA counternotice provision is too burdensome for speakers making fair uses of copyrighted content. I'm not sure that would fly, even with very strict upload filters everywhere. Courts don't like having to make emergency judgments on these sorts of things, especially in situations where the remedy to the problem is "just send a counternotice". If you were able to demonstrate in court that a particular mandate for upload filtering unnecessarily burdened speakers, then you probably might be able to overturn a specific Copyright Office SMART Act ruling. However, that would be a huge pain in the ass at best. [0] It is currently undecided if this includes lim ©->; the closest attempt to apply "limited times" (Eldred v. Ashcroft) to asymptotic infinities failed. The thing about the Copyright Term Extension Act is that it wasn't just a blanket retroactive extension of copyrights; there were actual Germany-flavored reasons to do so.
542458 5y ago
I'm a bit confused as to how this even solves anything to do with piracy even if you take the RIAA's side. Youtube et al already have incredibly aggressive copyright filters. I can't actually think of a major media platform that is based in the US sphere of influence that lacks those filters. At best this sounds like reinventing what already exists, but with more bureaucracy. I'm also confused as to how anybody expects to create an upload filter system that respects fair use, given how subjective the fair use criteria are. We have already have seen how this works out with sites like YouTube - it simply does not work. I'm triply confused as to how this interacts with the DMCA safe harbor provisions. If this doesn't override them, as the bill authors say, how does it accomplish anything? Even The Pirate Bay nominally accepts DMCA takedown requests - so if sites can continue with their existing DMCA processes and be safe from being sued, why would anybody bother with implementing the technical measures?
- anonymousab 5y ago
  > that respects fair use The expectation is that fair use, if considered at all, is almost wholly up to rightsholders. Ideally (as is the case on platforms like YouTube) you allow this control to take place well before any legal mechanisms come into play, such that there is no legal recourse.
- smegsicle 5y ago
  > At best this sounds like reinventing what already exists, but with more bureaucracy. in the absence of an effective predator to bureaucracy besides corruption and more bureaucracy, that's all you get- in other words, you can't stop progress!
- heavyset_go 5y ago
  > I'm also confused as to how anybody expects to create an upload filter system that respects fair use, given how subjective the fair use criteria are. We have already have seen how this works out with sites like YouTube - it simply does not work. The groups that want this do not like fair use, either. In their ideal world, fair use wouldn't exist and you'd go to prison the second you opened a BitTorrent client.
- 5y ago
fivestarman 5y ago
There are a lot of problems in the world and the US right now, and these shmucks are busy worrying about online piracy?
- vibrio 5y ago
  …and daylight savings time.
- kobalsky 5y ago
  this is exactly when politicians get to pass all the ugly crap the public hates.
- autoexec 5y ago
  > There are a lot of problems in the world and the US right now, and these shmucks are busy worrying about online piracy? In the US our lawmakers just do what they're being paid for. They're paid by the media cartel to improve that industry's profits and protect their ability to act as gatekeepers controlling what we're allowed to see or hear. Our rights, freedoms, and desires don't matter to lawmakers. Only corporations and a very small number of extremely wealthy individuals have representation in government. The average American citizen and honest grassroots campaigns have essentially zero impact on policy. (https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/testing-theories-of-american-politics-elites-interest-groups-and-average-citizens/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-poli...).
insickness 5y ago
This article is far better written that most mainstream news articles on any topic. It provides detailed and balanced coverage of both sides of this issue. Wasn't expecting that from a site called TorrentFreak.
- Cyclical 5y ago
  Torrentfreak has for many years been a very reliable, well-researched news source for issues related to internet copyright law. I've personally been reading it since before the SOPA/PIPA era, when their coverage was an important nexus of information on the legislation.
encryptluks2 5y ago
Now they want to scan the files on my hosting providers. Imagine another Panama Papers drop or something similar being shared and how quick the government will use a system like this to delete the files and disable your hosting accounts.
car_analogy 5y ago
Please don't cancel your Netflix and Disney+ subscriptions. These laws don't come cheap!
ianbutler 5y ago
This is gross, it's clearly stacked by the middle men and otherwise rent seekers that generally own the rights and will cause issues for literally everyone else. No doubt this is not actually about getting value for the artists, more like the RIAA and co.
lkxijlewlf 5y ago
Maybe the "rights holders" should invent the technology and let streaming services use it. That way the "rights holders" are on the hook for piracy.
- webmaven 5y ago
  > Maybe the "rights holders" should invent the technology and let streaming services use it. That's exactly what they have done before (eg. region-locked DVD players, Selectable Output Control[0], Macrovision, HDCP, etc.[1]), and all it has ever done is cause pain and confusion to consumers ("Why does my DVD player not work when I hook it to the TV through the VCR, or vice versa?"), with nary a blip in piracy rates. > That way the "rights holders" are on the hook for piracy. That's wishful thinking. The rights-holding media companies are never responsible[2], that burden falls solely on "implementors". [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selectable_Output_Control https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selectable_Output_Control [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Compact_Disc_and_DVD_copy_protection_schemes https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Compact_Disc_and_DVD... [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD_Copy_Control_Association https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD_Copy_Control_Association
alexfromapex 5y ago
Why won’t government officials and corporations acknowledge there are some issues with digital supply chains and mediums for consuming content? Instead they want to strong-arm consumers into consuming content the way corporations want them to. I wonder if lobbying is at play here.
QuikAccount 5y ago
I think I'm more anti-piracy than the average person and despite bitwize being downvoted to oblivion, they are right. You aren't entitled to anything anyone creates. However, piracy is also 100% a service problem that has been exacerbated by everyone creating their own streaming services and I'm actually really curious how Amazon, Netflix, and Disney get away with "exclusive content." The US vs Paramount Pictures[1] decided that you can't have exclusive theaters that are owned by production companies yet it is entirely fine if they have streaming exclusives. If anything, this is an indicator that the laws haven't kept up and need to be updated to probably apply to streaming as well. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Paramount_Pictures,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Paramount_Pic....
- autoexec 5y ago
  > You aren't entitled to anything anyone creates. I don't think that's always true even now, but it certainly shouldn't be. When something becomes of a part of our culture, and our history, it belongs to all of us. No one is entitled to anything someone else creates until it is shared. Once it is, ownership is also somewhat shared. If someone wants to write a song and have total control over it they just need to keep it to themselves because once I hear it, I naturally have a right to hum that tune to myself for the rest of the day, or to sing it at the top of my lungs. If someone wants total control over a story they write they should keep it to themselves because once I hear or read it, it's my natural right to be allowed to remember it, think about it, talk about it with others, and retell it in my own words. Before copyright this was the norm. Stories and songs were written and sung, others heard them, repeated what they remembered, added in their own changes and continued to share. If someone designed an illustration, or a bridge, or a garment, once others saw it, they could study it and incorporate those designs into their own works freely. Improving and modifying those designs however they liked. Telling people that they are forbidden from saying, writing, or re-telling certain things to anyone is a massive imposition on our freedoms. We created copyright knowing it would be a special exception to the norm. It gave special rights and privileges to content creators which would allow them to circumvent our rights and limit what we can say or write or share for a limited time, and in exchange for the brief imposition on our freedoms to reward and encourage creators, copyrighted works were supposed to enter the public domain and after that everyone could freely access and use them. It's wasn't even a terrible idea, but it's been perverted and corrupted into something that does more harm than good to creativity and progress. Now copyright lasts forever, and if somehow after centuries a copyright does manage to lapse, DRM can still keep those works from ever reaching the public. The copyright on most of what we think of as media doesn't even protect creators at this point, just the corporations who purchased the copyrights from the creative minds responsible for the work. Basically, the contract between creators and the public good has been completely broken. Th media industry paid to have and keep the power of law on their side, but in terms of "entitlement" and morality, they lost the high ground ages ago.
uncomputation 5y ago
Fascinating how greed and the demand for ever increasing profits leads to these cycles of purchase and privacy. First we had physical DVDs but studios’ greed in extending the theater playtime as long as profitable resulted in bootleg recordings so people could watch at home. Then torrenting was the final nail to this physical media strategy. Netflix arose, consolidating content into an even easier experience than torrenting with none of the legal/ISP risks. Then Disney and Warner Bros and NBC caught on, got greedy, and now we’re back to torrenting seemingly because people don’t want to deal with country licensing, platform lock in, fragmentation, or price increases. Anyone wanting a glimpse at this bill’s future can look at YouTube’s draconian copyright strike engine which ensures artists will live in fear of daring to use a 5 second sample of Major Music Label Intellectual Property. Attempts to legislate this (rather than curbing corporate greed) will only create a new hydra, one providing ML-resistant protections for media against perceptual hashes, greater anonymity, and the fertile grounds for stronger piracy.
- uncomputation 5y ago
  Also framing the discussion of whether or not you are entitled to view media or not is a dead end IMO. Rather than do the typical Western philosophy thing and try to define and rationalize “property” or “rights,” let’s look at the world as is, as a system of incentives and rational actors. If it is easy to watch $(UK-licensed TV show) from America, people will do it and then the production and distribution companies get exactly 0 dollars and in fact will lose money fighting a losing whack-a-mole war against torrents. If it is easy to log in to netflix dot com (NOTE: netflix, not (NFLX | DIS | HBO | AMZN | HULU | NBC)) to watch $(show), people will do that and you can let Netflix and production companies fight about the beans.
- heavyset_go 5y ago
  Don't forget when DVDs shipped with ads that your DVD player wouldn't let you skip.
  - goosedragons 5y ago
    And when Blu-rays started wasting your bandwidth to show you ads you can't skip. Such progress.
xanaxagoras 5y ago
I wonder if they'll finally come after that one thing we don't talk about, that I use constantly for music and TV shows.
Program_Install 5y ago
I can't believe this is still a thing, from both sides. There is no stopping piracy or greed, maybe some speed bumps here and there. For the pirates its an access issue, that can range from "can't afford" to "can't see it" to simply just "I am cheap". For the companies, it's profits, pure and simple. I always wonder though how they quantify taking into consideration most pirates weren't going to purchase movie/music anyway.
Eddy_Viscosity2 5y ago
I didn't see any mention of fixing the biggest problem with the current system: no penalties for false claims. If I post a video of myself playing moonlight sonata to youtube, and somebody puts a copyright claim (or more than one) against it, then it gets taken down and I suffer the consequences, but there is no mechanism for penalties for what amounts to fraud by the claimant. They should automatically get fined (payed to both me and youtube), and if damages were more severe I should be able to bring them to court to receive larger damages. Claimants should also get strikes the same way posters due, too many false claims and you then have to manually prove the copyright is yours before youtube takes the video down. The above example was for youtube, but broadly this is how it should work. If copyright protection action cause harm, because of false claims (either accidental or intentional) then the claimant gets punished.
- gutitout 5y ago
  This legislation is to protect those that paid for the legislation directly. It is not intended for the tax payers.
- partiallypro 5y ago
  It took me abnout 6-7 months to get an account restored because the appeal process with Facebook took that long. I even reached out to the actual copyright holder and got a letter saying I could reuse the video (a very short clip, maybe 10 seconds) which was automatically flagged by Facebook. I can't even imagine the appeals hoops you'd have to jump through with this new proposal.
- heavyset_go 5y ago
  The system will never be set up to punish rights holders as it is meant to enrich them.
- nullc 5y ago
  If you were objectively harmed you shouldn't need any additional law to go after them for damages ... except for the fact that youtube absolutely refuses to tell you who filed the false complaint (as I've personally experienced). You could try to bring an action joining youtube but google is so wealthy that it's nearly essentially immune to litigation, including by states-- so it would be a waste of time.
DebtDeflation 5y ago
>The bill requires online hosting services to implement standard technical protection measures, designated by the Copyright Office. How does it define an "online hosting service"? Literally any computer connected to the internet could potentially be considered an online host.
beej71 5y ago
As a regular American consumer and producer of copyrighted material, how does this law help me?
t0suj4 5y ago
I've stopped watching shows and movies altogether. I simply don't want to deal with this mess. I just find something else to do. I have couple channels on YouTube I watch without recommendations and a couple of twitch streamers. Recently, I've started reading.
- octopoc 5y ago
  Yep, same here. I loved watching movies for years. What helped me get off it was to always have always have a fun task planned for a side project whenever I was going to have a significant amount of free time. And, I listen to audiobooks, which satisfies my desire for fiction.

95 points by redm 5y ago

How convenient that Patrick Leahy is retiring this year and won’t be on the hook for screwing his voter base.

Among other things, the senators stress that all government-imposed protection tools and takedown measures will go through a consultation process, where all stakeholders and the public are allowed to have their say. If history is any indicator, the public can have their say, but that won't be who the government is listening to. That, or it will be the clusterfuck that was the FCC's public comment period on net neutrality. Hope always springs eternal for me that Senators and Congressfolk will act in good faith (EDIT: toward their constituents), but I'm also realistic in that they probably won't. If one has the time, click the "facts and myths" link in the article[0]. Or as I like to call it "vague rebuttals, and the straw man arguments that they rebut". [0] https://www.tillis.senate.gov/services/files/BBDBFA87-17CA-4D15-AA0F-9B54BFEEA31D https://www.tillis.senate.gov/services/files/BBDBFA87-17CA-4...

excalibur 5y ago
> If history is any indicator, the public can have their say, but that won't be who the government is listening to. The government officials selling political favors and the company executives buying them are the ones we should be putting in prison here.

Arubis 5y ago

Setting aside the arguments around infringement equaling/not equaling actual theft, is the actual incidence of piracy high enough that it's on beancounters' radar? I may be wrong, but my impression is that streaming made it a non-issue. This feels like a smokescreen.

542458 5y ago
I can't speak to media piracy, but I previously did work with a large supplier of professional software. This is not stuff people often use for fun, and the software had free and easy-to-get student versions available. The software still saw 80+% piracy in many markets according to internal metrics. This is a big part of why companies are so enthusiastic about cloud everything - recurring revenue is nice, but unpirateable recurring revenue is even nicer. That's not to defend this bill. It sounds like rubbish to me.
- meeriee 5y ago
  Does making pirating some software impossible actually increase its sales revenue? I'd wager that most people who pirate software wouldn't want to, are even have the means to pay for the full price of the software.
- jacobolus 5y ago
  Tools like Photoshop, Ableton, ArcGIS, Maya, AutoCAD, or Matlab rely on widespread piracy to remain the industry standard (also cheaper student versions and university site licenses, but those aren’t enough by themselves), and make up the lost income by soaking professional users from established firms. If large numbers of people can’t affordably access these, they will adopt some alternative cheaper tool and ultimately bleed users, understanding, and activity away.
sschueller 5y ago
Obviously, but no one wants to go after the crimes their donors have committed. From tax "avoiding" to outright fraud. The amount of money lost to the tax payer by these actual criminals makes the small amount lost to piracy look like traces of cocaine on a dollar bill.
gernb 5y ago
I'm totally on board with copying is not theft https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeTybKL1pM4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeTybKL1pM4 Except that it is something. I go to my tax accountant, have them calculate my taxes, then, when they send me the filled out paperwork I make a copy, send back the originals, and say "No thanks. Didn't really need this". What would we call that? Theft of time? Theft of labor? Breach of contract? (I didn't sign a contract). Breach of implied contract? Does any of this apply to movies/music? It feels similar except there's more than 1 person making a copy and they didn't "pre-order". Do those differences matter? It still feels like taking the product of someone's labor without compensating them for it, same as the tax accountant example.

uo21tp5hoyg 5y ago

I don't pirate music, I don't pirate games, I don't pirate software, I don't pirate anything but TV and movies and the reason is simple: piracy is a service problem for me. I know where to get music/games/software, I have no idea where to get the movies and TV I want to watch, they're spread over 20 different services, 90% of which are not available in my country and the ones that are don't have that specific content available in my country, I've even ran into issues where a streaming service say they for sure have some content and I just need to sign up to start watching, great! but after signing up and paying boop nope that content isn't available in your country anymore. And even in the cases I find the content available I am treated like a pirate, use a browser without DRM support? nope go away, use a VPN even when connected to the country your payment details come from? nope go away, oh and by the way we removed that content you were watching but we still have season 1 and 2 if you want anything after that it's on this other streaming platform and no it's not in your country. Even when everything goes right I get a highly compressed stream with all sorts of ugly artifacting. Piracy fixes every single one of those issues for me so I will continue to do it without feeling bad about it. I am very willing to pay for these services by why would I if paying is an inherently worse experience? And I didn't even list all the issues I've faced with these services.

bitwize 5y ago
You are not entitled to any movies or television shows at any quality at all because it's not your IP. If someone wants to shoot a movie and then lock it in a vault, never to be seen by anyone, Prince-style, that is their right. If they want to change it to remove and permanently memory-hole offensive elements, that is their right. If they want to release it only in certain formats, up to and including theatrical-only releases, that is their right. Because they own the copyright and hence, control over how the work is distributed and exhibited. So take what they offer you or leave it. Anything else is a violation of the law.
- uo21tp5hoyg 5y ago
  I don't like the idea of running my life within the confines of IP law of another country especially considering that IP law is wholly moulded by giant corporations like Disney and not based on anything that actually makes sense for the modern provider/consumer digital world. And breaking a law I don't agree with definitely won't keep me up at night, in fact if they catch me and force me to pay for all the content I downloaded it will still end up being a more convenient experience as I am very willing to pay in the first place.

sschueller 5y ago

What sucks is how the US will pressure the rest of the world to also implement this garbage. https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/downloading-and-uploading_what-the-new-swiss-copyright-law-means-for-consumers-of-pirated-online-content/45305402 https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/downloading-and-uploading_what-... I am going to cancel my Netflix and start pirating because am not going to pay more than Germans for netflix and get an even smaller catalog than they get. Germany already pays more than the US for a much smaller catalog. We just get take to the cleaner just because, no reason whatsoever. The law that would require Netflix to pay a percentage to subsidice Swiss movies hasn't even been voted on yet and if it does pass will push the price even higher.

dessant 5y ago
But who will even need Better Call Saul when you'll be able to watch local exclusives, like Swiss Prince.
- sschueller 5y ago
  I can watch Tschugger for free on playsuisse paid for by my tax dollars. https://m.imdb.com/title/tt15425948/ https://m.imdb.com/title/tt15425948/
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
mardifoufs 5y ago
What? Europe absolutely does not need to get pressured to implement restrictive copyright laws. If anything, they are pioneers in the field. The european copyright filters laws of 2018 were even more insane[0]. And in general, IP right holders have a lot more power in the EU than in the US, where the DMCA provides quite a lot of protection relatively speaking. [0] I have not heard a lot about the copyright filters since 2018 though. I know the controversial copyright directive has been ratified and implemented, but I don't know if it led to any concrete change up until now.
kmeisthax 5y ago
The EU changed their copyright directive a few years ago to mandate "best practices" as a condition for online safe harbor; I find that provision to be equivalent to the SMART Act. As for paying more for less in Germany... the problem is that nobody in the TV industry wants to go to sim-ship[0]. Most countries want to have a local-market/local-language TV broadcast and production industry, which is only viable if you let people portion off rights to their work on a country-by-country basis. The subsidy laws you mentioned are part and parcel of the same thing. [0] A game development term that is short for "simultaneous ship"; in which you ship all languages in every territory all on the same day.

ipnon 5y ago

It's getting to the point that services will simply be hosted outside the United States, the index page will say "this site shall not be used by United States citizens," and then people can go about using the Web like it already works anyway. It seems Senators don't understand well what it is they're trying to accomplish because they don't understand how the Web works.

kobalsky 5y ago
> this site shall not be used by United States citizens so megaupload with a disclaimer? kim dotcom is still fighting extradition.
heavyset_go 5y ago
Pretty sure many countries have agreements to recognize US IP and its protections, and the ones that don't are incentivized (i.e. punished) into recognizing them, as well.

perihelions 5y ago

Would a government-mandated upload filter pass constitutional scrutiny?

AnimalMuppet 5y ago
Interesting question. My first instinct was to answer "no", but after thinking a bit more, I'm less sure. Does a red light camera pass constitutional scrutiny? I think it's kind of the same logic: the law in question is constitutional; the new thing is just automating enforcement. The upload filter might be a bit different, though, because it's mandated on private servers. Is that enough to swing the question? I really don't know.
- xanaxagoras 5y ago
  > The upload filter might be a bit different, though, because it's mandated on private servers. Would it be? They can make you do all sorts of things on private land. Ever tried to renovate a home in CA?
- namlem 5y ago
  Red light cameras have been rules unconstitutional in my state and taken down fwiw.
kmeisthax 5y ago
Probably. The way copyright law interacts with the Constitution is... - The Constitution itself says Congress can enact copyright law, as long as the laws themselves have a finite copyright term[0] - As amended, the Constitution has a prohibition on "Congress" (state actors) making laws that circumscribe speech - Since the intent of the 1st Amendment was not to immediately repeal the Copyright Clause, both provisions are valid; the 1st Amendment only protects novel acts of speech. The speaker is free to prohibit further speech that infringes upon their own. - However, said speakers (copyright owners) are not free to prohibit any and all speech that touches their own. Only stuff that actually harms their monopoly on copying. Fair use is how copyright law passes constitutional scrutiny. - Because DMCA 512 contains provisions for counter-notices and legal penalties for misidentification; people attempting to use copyright as a censorship tool can be punished for doing so. - The SMART Act appears to amend DMCA 512, so said provisions would still apply. It also does not mandate upload filters on it's own, it just says the Copyright Office may decide to do so. Whether or not an upload filter would violate the 1st would require SCOTUS to find that the DMCA counternotice provision is too burdensome for speakers making fair uses of copyrighted content. I'm not sure that would fly, even with very strict upload filters everywhere. Courts don't like having to make emergency judgments on these sorts of things, especially in situations where the remedy to the problem is "just send a counternotice". If you were able to demonstrate in court that a particular mandate for upload filtering unnecessarily burdened speakers, then you probably might be able to overturn a specific Copyright Office SMART Act ruling. However, that would be a huge pain in the ass at best. [0] It is currently undecided if this includes lim ©->; the closest attempt to apply "limited times" (Eldred v. Ashcroft) to asymptotic infinities failed. The thing about the Copyright Term Extension Act is that it wasn't just a blanket retroactive extension of copyrights; there were actual Germany-flavored reasons to do so.

542458 5y ago

I'm a bit confused as to how this even solves anything to do with piracy even if you take the RIAA's side. Youtube et al already have incredibly aggressive copyright filters. I can't actually think of a major media platform that is based in the US sphere of influence that lacks those filters. At best this sounds like reinventing what already exists, but with more bureaucracy. I'm also confused as to how anybody expects to create an upload filter system that respects fair use, given how subjective the fair use criteria are. We have already have seen how this works out with sites like YouTube - it simply does not work. I'm triply confused as to how this interacts with the DMCA safe harbor provisions. If this doesn't override them, as the bill authors say, how does it accomplish anything? Even The Pirate Bay nominally accepts DMCA takedown requests - so if sites can continue with their existing DMCA processes and be safe from being sued, why would anybody bother with implementing the technical measures?

anonymousab 5y ago
> that respects fair use The expectation is that fair use, if considered at all, is almost wholly up to rightsholders. Ideally (as is the case on platforms like YouTube) you allow this control to take place well before any legal mechanisms come into play, such that there is no legal recourse.
smegsicle 5y ago
> At best this sounds like reinventing what already exists, but with more bureaucracy. in the absence of an effective predator to bureaucracy besides corruption and more bureaucracy, that's all you get- in other words, you can't stop progress!
heavyset_go 5y ago
> I'm also confused as to how anybody expects to create an upload filter system that respects fair use, given how subjective the fair use criteria are. We have already have seen how this works out with sites like YouTube - it simply does not work. The groups that want this do not like fair use, either. In their ideal world, fair use wouldn't exist and you'd go to prison the second you opened a BitTorrent client.
5y ago

fivestarman 5y ago

There are a lot of problems in the world and the US right now, and these shmucks are busy worrying about online piracy?

vibrio 5y ago
…and daylight savings time.
kobalsky 5y ago
this is exactly when politicians get to pass all the ugly crap the public hates.
autoexec 5y ago
> There are a lot of problems in the world and the US right now, and these shmucks are busy worrying about online piracy? In the US our lawmakers just do what they're being paid for. They're paid by the media cartel to improve that industry's profits and protect their ability to act as gatekeepers controlling what we're allowed to see or hear. Our rights, freedoms, and desires don't matter to lawmakers. Only corporations and a very small number of extremely wealthy individuals have representation in government. The average American citizen and honest grassroots campaigns have essentially zero impact on policy. (https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/testing-theories-of-american-politics-elites-interest-groups-and-average-citizens/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-poli...).

insickness 5y ago

This article is far better written that most mainstream news articles on any topic. It provides detailed and balanced coverage of both sides of this issue. Wasn't expecting that from a site called TorrentFreak.

Cyclical 5y ago
Torrentfreak has for many years been a very reliable, well-researched news source for issues related to internet copyright law. I've personally been reading it since before the SOPA/PIPA era, when their coverage was an important nexus of information on the legislation.

encryptluks2 5y ago

Now they want to scan the files on my hosting providers. Imagine another Panama Papers drop or something similar being shared and how quick the government will use a system like this to delete the files and disable your hosting accounts.

car_analogy 5y ago

Please don't cancel your Netflix and Disney+ subscriptions. These laws don't come cheap!

ianbutler 5y ago

This is gross, it's clearly stacked by the middle men and otherwise rent seekers that generally own the rights and will cause issues for literally everyone else. No doubt this is not actually about getting value for the artists, more like the RIAA and co.

lkxijlewlf 5y ago

Maybe the "rights holders" should invent the technology and let streaming services use it. That way the "rights holders" are on the hook for piracy.

webmaven 5y ago
> Maybe the "rights holders" should invent the technology and let streaming services use it. That's exactly what they have done before (eg. region-locked DVD players, Selectable Output Control[0], Macrovision, HDCP, etc.[1]), and all it has ever done is cause pain and confusion to consumers ("Why does my DVD player not work when I hook it to the TV through the VCR, or vice versa?"), with nary a blip in piracy rates. > That way the "rights holders" are on the hook for piracy. That's wishful thinking. The rights-holding media companies are never responsible[2], that burden falls solely on "implementors". [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selectable_Output_Control https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selectable_Output_Control [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Compact_Disc_and_DVD_copy_protection_schemes https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Compact_Disc_and_DVD... [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD_Copy_Control_Association https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD_Copy_Control_Association

alexfromapex 5y ago

Why won’t government officials and corporations acknowledge there are some issues with digital supply chains and mediums for consuming content? Instead they want to strong-arm consumers into consuming content the way corporations want them to. I wonder if lobbying is at play here.

QuikAccount 5y ago

I think I'm more anti-piracy than the average person and despite bitwize being downvoted to oblivion, they are right. You aren't entitled to anything anyone creates. However, piracy is also 100% a service problem that has been exacerbated by everyone creating their own streaming services and I'm actually really curious how Amazon, Netflix, and Disney get away with "exclusive content." The US vs Paramount Pictures[1] decided that you can't have exclusive theaters that are owned by production companies yet it is entirely fine if they have streaming exclusives. If anything, this is an indicator that the laws haven't kept up and need to be updated to probably apply to streaming as well. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Paramount_Pictures,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Paramount_Pic....

autoexec 5y ago
> You aren't entitled to anything anyone creates. I don't think that's always true even now, but it certainly shouldn't be. When something becomes of a part of our culture, and our history, it belongs to all of us. No one is entitled to anything someone else creates until it is shared. Once it is, ownership is also somewhat shared. If someone wants to write a song and have total control over it they just need to keep it to themselves because once I hear it, I naturally have a right to hum that tune to myself for the rest of the day, or to sing it at the top of my lungs. If someone wants total control over a story they write they should keep it to themselves because once I hear or read it, it's my natural right to be allowed to remember it, think about it, talk about it with others, and retell it in my own words. Before copyright this was the norm. Stories and songs were written and sung, others heard them, repeated what they remembered, added in their own changes and continued to share. If someone designed an illustration, or a bridge, or a garment, once others saw it, they could study it and incorporate those designs into their own works freely. Improving and modifying those designs however they liked. Telling people that they are forbidden from saying, writing, or re-telling certain things to anyone is a massive imposition on our freedoms. We created copyright knowing it would be a special exception to the norm. It gave special rights and privileges to content creators which would allow them to circumvent our rights and limit what we can say or write or share for a limited time, and in exchange for the brief imposition on our freedoms to reward and encourage creators, copyrighted works were supposed to enter the public domain and after that everyone could freely access and use them. It's wasn't even a terrible idea, but it's been perverted and corrupted into something that does more harm than good to creativity and progress. Now copyright lasts forever, and if somehow after centuries a copyright does manage to lapse, DRM can still keep those works from ever reaching the public. The copyright on most of what we think of as media doesn't even protect creators at this point, just the corporations who purchased the copyrights from the creative minds responsible for the work. Basically, the contract between creators and the public good has been completely broken. Th media industry paid to have and keep the power of law on their side, but in terms of "entitlement" and morality, they lost the high ground ages ago.

uncomputation 5y ago

Fascinating how greed and the demand for ever increasing profits leads to these cycles of purchase and privacy. First we had physical DVDs but studios’ greed in extending the theater playtime as long as profitable resulted in bootleg recordings so people could watch at home. Then torrenting was the final nail to this physical media strategy. Netflix arose, consolidating content into an even easier experience than torrenting with none of the legal/ISP risks. Then Disney and Warner Bros and NBC caught on, got greedy, and now we’re back to torrenting seemingly because people don’t want to deal with country licensing, platform lock in, fragmentation, or price increases. Anyone wanting a glimpse at this bill’s future can look at YouTube’s draconian copyright strike engine which ensures artists will live in fear of daring to use a 5 second sample of Major Music Label Intellectual Property. Attempts to legislate this (rather than curbing corporate greed) will only create a new hydra, one providing ML-resistant protections for media against perceptual hashes, greater anonymity, and the fertile grounds for stronger piracy.

uncomputation 5y ago
Also framing the discussion of whether or not you are entitled to view media or not is a dead end IMO. Rather than do the typical Western philosophy thing and try to define and rationalize “property” or “rights,” let’s look at the world as is, as a system of incentives and rational actors. If it is easy to watch $(UK-licensed TV show) from America, people will do it and then the production and distribution companies get exactly 0 dollars and in fact will lose money fighting a losing whack-a-mole war against torrents. If it is easy to log in to netflix dot com (NOTE: netflix, not (NFLX | DIS | HBO | AMZN | HULU | NBC)) to watch $(show), people will do that and you can let Netflix and production companies fight about the beans.
heavyset_go 5y ago
Don't forget when DVDs shipped with ads that your DVD player wouldn't let you skip.
- goosedragons 5y ago
  And when Blu-rays started wasting your bandwidth to show you ads you can't skip. Such progress.

xanaxagoras 5y ago

I wonder if they'll finally come after that one thing we don't talk about, that I use constantly for music and TV shows.

Program_Install 5y ago

I can't believe this is still a thing, from both sides. There is no stopping piracy or greed, maybe some speed bumps here and there. For the pirates its an access issue, that can range from "can't afford" to "can't see it" to simply just "I am cheap". For the companies, it's profits, pure and simple. I always wonder though how they quantify taking into consideration most pirates weren't going to purchase movie/music anyway.

Eddy_Viscosity2 5y ago

I didn't see any mention of fixing the biggest problem with the current system: no penalties for false claims. If I post a video of myself playing moonlight sonata to youtube, and somebody puts a copyright claim (or more than one) against it, then it gets taken down and I suffer the consequences, but there is no mechanism for penalties for what amounts to fraud by the claimant. They should automatically get fined (payed to both me and youtube), and if damages were more severe I should be able to bring them to court to receive larger damages. Claimants should also get strikes the same way posters due, too many false claims and you then have to manually prove the copyright is yours before youtube takes the video down. The above example was for youtube, but broadly this is how it should work. If copyright protection action cause harm, because of false claims (either accidental or intentional) then the claimant gets punished.

gutitout 5y ago
This legislation is to protect those that paid for the legislation directly. It is not intended for the tax payers.
partiallypro 5y ago
It took me abnout 6-7 months to get an account restored because the appeal process with Facebook took that long. I even reached out to the actual copyright holder and got a letter saying I could reuse the video (a very short clip, maybe 10 seconds) which was automatically flagged by Facebook. I can't even imagine the appeals hoops you'd have to jump through with this new proposal.
heavyset_go 5y ago
The system will never be set up to punish rights holders as it is meant to enrich them.
nullc 5y ago
If you were objectively harmed you shouldn't need any additional law to go after them for damages ... except for the fact that youtube absolutely refuses to tell you who filed the false complaint (as I've personally experienced). You could try to bring an action joining youtube but google is so wealthy that it's nearly essentially immune to litigation, including by states-- so it would be a waste of time.

DebtDeflation 5y ago

>The bill requires online hosting services to implement standard technical protection measures, designated by the Copyright Office. How does it define an "online hosting service"? Literally any computer connected to the internet could potentially be considered an online host.

beej71 5y ago

As a regular American consumer and producer of copyrighted material, how does this law help me?

t0suj4 5y ago

I've stopped watching shows and movies altogether. I simply don't want to deal with this mess. I just find something else to do. I have couple channels on YouTube I watch without recommendations and a couple of twitch streamers. Recently, I've started reading.

octopoc 5y ago
Yep, same here. I loved watching movies for years. What helped me get off it was to always have always have a fun task planned for a side project whenever I was going to have a significant amount of free time. And, I listen to audiobooks, which satisfies my desire for fiction.