A Dozen Bad Ideas That Were Raised At The Copyright Office's DMCA Roundtables
from the not-looking-good dept
The Copyright Office has been holding a series of "roundtable discussions" on copyright reform that it's going to use to produce a paper supporting certain changes to copyright law. We already know that some sort of copyright reform bill is expected in the near future, and what comes out of this whole process is going to be fairly important. Unfortunately, the roundtables are not encouraging. There was one held in NY a few weeks ago, which Rebecca Tushnet blogged about in great detail, and I attended the ones last week in San Francisco and I've gathered up my tweeted commentary, if you feel like reading through it.Unlike the House Judiciary Committee roundtable that was held in Silicon Valley last year, where the Representatives surprised many of us by actually asking good questions and listening to the answers, the Copyright Office's roundtables were bizarre and troubling. First, the whole setup of the two two-day events was problematic. The Copyright Office wanted to make sure that everyone who applied to speak was allowed to participate in some manner, so for each set of roundtables, they set up 7 roundtables of 20 people each on pre-defined topics, where each roundtable was only 90 minutes.
This was problematic in many ways, because the very fact that the Copyright Office already assigned the topics of each "panel" suggested the preconceived notions that the Office came into the hearings with. Second, 20 people in 90 minutes meant a kind of soundbite culture, rather than an actual discussion. Basically, 4 people from the Copyright Office sat up front and would declare the topic and ask a single (usually general) question to kick off the panel. Then anyone who wanted to respond would turn their name placards on the side. Each person speaking was told they had 2 minutes, and a Copyright Office person would hold up cards counting down the time until finally holding up a giant STOP sign when time ran out. If the Copyright Office people felt like it, they might pepper you with follow up questions, or just move on to the next upturned placard. Only a few times during two full days of everyone locked in a courtroom was there any real discussion or attempt at moving the ball forward on issues. Instead, there were a lot of 2 minute speeches, often totally contradictory, and sometimes with people saying blatantly false things.
The hearings were not livestreamed, though there was a court reporter who apparently is creating a transcript that will be distributed at some point (hopefully soon). While anyone could sign up to participate, the public was definitely a big missing factor. The Copyright Office itself repeatedly seemed to act as if copyright law is about two industries at war with each other -- "content" v. "tech" -- and unfortunately seemed to think that all content creators who mattered were against the tech industry. While the public could, in theory, have attended, there was very little seating available for non-participants, and we were all quite literally locked into a courtroom in San Francisco (getting out was always fun as we had to wait for the doors to unlock).
If I had to summarize the most general theme throughout the hearings, it was this: many individuals and businesses that relied on a certain way of doing business in past decades have not been able to adapt to the changing internet world, and they're very upset about this. They see that companies like Google (especially) are now making lots of money, and assume that somehow that money belongs to them. This ridiculous chart was waved around by one of the participants. It's basically the old way of doing business lashing out at the new way. Attempts to point out that there are many more new content creators today, and many more ways to make money, were dismissed, ignored or ridiculed. Attempts to point out that the "obvious" solutions weren't at all obvious and might cause more harm than good were similarly ignored. There were many attempts to "blame Google" and to use copyright law to "force Google" to do... something. Many of the things that people were asking for, Google actually already does, but people wanted more.
With that as background, here are twelve really troubling ideas that were raised during the hearing, many (though not all) by representatives from the Copyright Office itself:
- Notice & Staydown: If there was one overarching theme to the hearings it was the idea that many kept pushing for a "notice and staydown" regime to replace the current "notice and takedown" regime in the DMCA today. There would be weird alternating comments from people where a recording industry person would say something like "look, we need notice & staydown!" and then someone who actually understood the technology or the law would explain the problems of a notice & staydown regime, only to have the next person ignore all of that and say "what we truly need is notice and staydown." Concerns raised about abusive takedowns were mostly ignored. The Copyright Office kept arguing that people can just counternotice abusive takedowns, and didn't seem to care that evidence suggests many people are too afraid to counternotice. They also totally ignored the fact that if you move to a notice and staydown regime, there won't be notices to counter in many cases.
Related to this, there seemed to be little willingness to recognize that copyright is context specific, and that the same content in one realm may be infringing, while in another may be non-infringing. Which brings us to:
- Notice & Staydown For Full-Length Content: This appears to be the "compromise" solution that the Copyright Office kept pushing during the discussions, repeatedly bringing this up as an option. Their argument is that "okay, some people are worried about notice and staydown interfering with fair use, but 'full-length content' isn't fair use, so perhaps we just say that if it's 'full-length' movies, books and music, then any platform needs to have a notice & staydown setup."
Of course, there are numerous problems with this as well. First off, such filtering platforms are both expensive and often not very good (see: ContentID, which cost $60 million to build, and still sucks). A requirement for such a filtering system would basically stop all new entrants into the market and lock the big players (YouTube, Facebook) in as the dominant platforms. It also doesn't make sense for all kinds of content. A lawyer from Wikimedia pointed out that a technology filter mandate would be insane for Wikipedia, since its human editors already seemed to be better and more efficient at removing infringing stuff.
Most importantly, plenty of full-length content may be non-infringing. I mean, we just had the Google Books ruling not too long ago, which found that scanning, indexing and storing full-length books was fair use. Or there's the Bloomberg/Swatch case where full-length recordings of investor conference calls were used in a way that was fair use. Or what about people backing up their own movies? After all, one of the most famous copyright lawsuits ever, the Betamax case over the legality of home video recordings, found that recording full-length video... was fair use. Creating a bright line rule saying that full-length content isn't fair use would go against settled law and harm many forms of innovation.
And that brings us to:
- One-size-fits-all tech mandates and carve-out attempts: Because of the points above, the Copyright Office and some others kept trying to see if there were ways to write the rules so that they would only target certain players (i.e., "Google"). This makes little sense for a variety of reasons. First, as Google itself noted, when you're talking about something like YouTube, it already offers a notice-and-staydown tool in the form of ContentID, but many people choose not to use the staydown portion, because Google also offers an option to "monetize" those works. Whether or not we agree with how ContentID works, it's clear that it already provides a lot more than what the law currently says YouTube needs to do, and people still aren't satisfied.
But it's nearly impossible to create mandates for technology in a way that doesn't (1) harm many other companies in the space and (2) create weird and dangerous incentives. The most common suggestion was some sort of special safe harbor for "small" companies, so that the next startup wasn't burdened with having to build or buy a filter... until they reached a certain size. But that doesn't work either. Both Wikimedia and the Internet Archive noted that in terms of traffic, they're both pretty big... but they're also both non-profits with limited funding and where a mandated tech filter would be both prohibitively expensive and total overkill. So, then the Copyright Office suggested maybe a carve-out for "non-profits." But, as someone from eBay pointed out, that still creates problems for a site like eBay. eBay notes that it doesn't have a huge issue of copyright infringement, but there is always some that happens -- usually in the form of people using photographs for an auction without having a license. But, as eBay notes, the "harm" here is pretty minimal, and the idea that eBay should need to purchase an expensive tech filter to weed that out is clearly overkill.
- Only some kinds of content matter: Perhaps the most frustrating thing was how clearly the Copyright Office and many of the participants who had experience in the legacy content creation world seemed to totally dismiss the idea of new content creators, new kinds of content and new content business models. When lawyer Cathy Gellis mentioned that she was an amateur singer who was able to make some money today, whereas in the past she'd be totally out of luck, the Copyright Office's immediate response was to basically say, "but that doesn't count" for content creators who need to invest in their content creation. Similarly, one musician did the "get off my lawn" style of complaint, saying that all the music today sounds the same, and blamed piracy and Google for that happening (which is incredible, since there is so much more music, including so many different kinds of music, more widely available than ever before). Over and over again people suggested that their own content mattered much more than anyone else's.
Too often, panelists absolutely dismissed amateur content or even professional content from new kinds of content creators. People dismissed YouTube as just being about "cat videos." And, again, the Copyright Office seemed to support this idea. In fact, somewhat astoundingly, at one point, someone from the Copyright Office tossed out the suggestion that political content could get extra rights, compared to other kinds of content, suggesting that maybe political related videos could get a carve-out such that it would get put back up online faster if it gets a bogus takedown, whereas a "dancing baby" doesn't matter enough. That would clearly violate the First Amendment in determining that some kinds of speech get extra rights compared to other kinds of speech. Update: In the original post, I wrote that Copyright Office General Counsel Jacqueline Charlesworth made the comparison between political speech and "dancing baby" speech. It turns out that it was another Copyright Office employee, Karyn Temple Claggett. I apologize for the error.
- Service providers shouldn't be allowed to reject takedown notices: This one was pretty incredible (especially combined with the next one). The Copyright Office's General Counsel seemed taken aback by the idea that service providers might choose, of their own volition, to reject DMCA takedown notices. She came back to this point multiple times on day one, suggesting that she was somehow uncomfortable with the idea that a service provider might choose to "adjudicate" whether or not a takedown notice was valid. This was surprising, because the law is pretty clear. The DMCA does not say what a service provider must do. It just describes steps that are necessary to keep the safe harbors. That doesn't mean that if you don't follow the safe harbor requirements you're violating the law, it just means that if you're sued, you don't get an automatic pass on liability. But Charlesworth seemed really disturbed by that idea. And that's problematic, because if you talk to various platforms that receive lots of takedowns, they need to be able to reject some to avoid completely bogus takedowns.
- Service providers should lose their safe harbors based on a single decision to reject safe harbors over a single takedown: This one could potentially be lumped together with the one above, but it's so crazy that it deserves its own bullet point. Basically, Charlesworth suggested that if a service provider decides to forego the safe harbors for a single item (e.g., refusing to take down content based on an obviously frivolous takedown notice), it might mean that they've removed safe harbors for the entire site. This came up during a direct discussion with a lawyer from Google, in which she interrupted him to ask why a service provider would refuse to take down content, and it was explained that if the takedown was obviously bogus, a site shouldn't take it down. Charlesworth then questioned the lawyer about whether or not the safe harbors only applied to each individual instance, or to the site as a whole, leaving many people in the audience stunned that this was even a question -- including the Google lawyer, who basically said that "obviously" the safe harbor question applied to each individual takedown.
Put these two things together and the suggestion is that service providers should never be allowed to question a takedown, no matter how bogus, and if they do, they automatically lose the DMCA's safe harbors entirely. Talk about a recipe for mass censorship.
- Punishment for false counternotices: Another bizarre idea that came up during these discussions was adding punishment for false counternotices. This is crazy. The system is already totally imbalanced in favor of the person sending the takedown. They get to remove content in most cases based on a single email, and there's no real punishment for false takedowns at all. But after one person complained about false counternotices (a problem that I find it difficult to believe actually exists at any type of scale that warrants further corrective action), suddenly the Copyright Office suggested that maybe there could be additional punishment for bogus counternotices (but without suggesting there should be any punishment for false notices). This makes no sense. There's already punishment for false counternotices, which is that the copyright holder gets to sue the person for up to $150k per infringed work.
And, indeed, as various studies have pointed out, the fear of such a lawsuit already greatly chills the willingness of many people to file counternotices at all. The idea of chilling the counternotice process even further, especially without fixing the problem of abusive takedowns, is crazy.
- Artists struggling to make money have piracy/Google to blame: Over and over again speakers and the Copyright Office kept pointing out this or that content creator who is struggling to make money as proof of "the problem." But that's a massive logical leap. I'm sure that some content creators are losing some earning opportunities because of infringement, but making money as a content creator has always been incredibly difficult. Most musicians don't make very much money. Most movies don't make much money. And it was that way before the internet was even around, and it's still true today. It seems ridiculous to assume that single examples of artists struggling must be a result of piracy. The author TJ Stiles, who is on the board of the Authors Guild, literally claimed that because of infringement he was less creative and wrote less, saying piracy meant he couldn't pay healthcare or his mortgage.
Yet, I can just as easily point to new authors or other content creators who are now making a living entirely because of these new platforms that so many people at last week's hearings were angry about. These days, there are new business models using Kickstarter, Patreon, IndieGogo, YouTube, Vine, Instagram, Snapchat, Amazon and many, many more. And many of the artists making money from those platforms wouldn't even have been able to create content in the old world. So those seem to wipe out the claims that it's "piracy" undermining the ability to make money. It seems to suggest that it frequently is a number of other factors from (1) a lack of an audience, (2) an audience that is no longer interested, (3) an inability to go where the audience wants to go these days or (4) an unwillingness to adapt to new business models. One filmmaker even claimed that he didn't think the law should allow "new media" business models to upend "old media" business models. That's an interesting viewpoint, given that under that thinking, film shouldn't have been allowed, since it undermined the market for theater.
- Public comments are a "denial of service" attack: As mentioned earlier, it was somewhat distressing how frequently the public was ignored in all of this. The Copyright Office was clearly not entirely happy with the fact that Fight for the Future and the YouTube creators (yes, actual content creators!) urged the public to file comments with the Copyright Office on the problems with bogus takedowns. But perhaps the most ridiculous comment came from (known Techdirt hater) Jonathan Taplin, who suggested that because the Copyright Office's servers couldn't handle the ~87,000 inbound comments, it might be considered a "denial of service attack." Really? Helping the public to comment is a denial of service attack?
On one of the panels that I was on, I raised the issue of the public being left out of all of this, and the focus on tech v. content -- neither of which might have the public's best interests in mind. The Copyright Office asked about how to better engage the public, and I suggested that encouraging more public comments, rather than dismissing them or labeling them "zombies" or a denial of service attack, might be a good start.
- Gov't-supported "Voluntary measures" as a panacea: Repeatedly this was one area where the Copyright Office kept claiming "we have some agreement!" where both tech and the legacy content players kept insisting that "voluntary measures" between these parties could solve many of the issues. Representatives from Microsoft and Google excitedly talked up all the great "voluntary measures" that were going on in working with the content industries to come up with solutions that went beyond what the law required. Others talked up various efforts to stop ad networks or payment processors from working with "pirate sites."
But, again, this seems dangerous to me. Voluntary measures between two giant industries leave the public and the public interest out of the discussion. Attacking "pirate" sites sounds great until you ask, "how is that list made?" Considering that the Internet Archive, personal blogs and even 50 Cent's personal website have been called pirate sites in previous attempts to build such lists, it's not quite as obvious as some would have you believe.
On top of that, lots of brilliant innovations look like piracy when they're first created, but later turn out to be revolutionary. As I noted in my 2-minute soundbite opportunity, radio, the photocopier, cable TV, the VCR, the DVR, the mp3 player and online video were all decried as nothing but piracy tools when they first came out. And yet all of them turned into significant business opportunities for content creators. Cutting those off in the early days through the collusion of "voluntary measures" could stifle all sorts of powerful innovations that actually would help content creators make more money and reach a wider audience.
- The Lumen Database as a rogue site: One filmmaker was particularly concerned about the fact that Lumen Database (formerly known as ChillingEffects.org) archived DMCA takedown notices that were forwarded to the site. The claim was that people seeking infringing versions of content would search through Lumen to find the URLs listed for takedown. Someone else pointed out that there's no evidence that this is happening at any sense of scale, but someone from the Copyright Office substituted anecdotes for data, and claimed, "well, it's come up a lot." The suggestion was that perhaps Lumen should be required to redact the details of takedowns, and that only certified researchers should be allowed to access the full corpus.
This is troubling on any number of levels. One of the things that was clear throughout the discussion is that we need more data and more research into what's working and what's not working. And you don't do that by locking up important data and then suggesting that only a special class of people should be allowed in. Though, I guess it fits with the idea that only some kinds of content creators matter. Apparently only some kinds of researchers might matter as well.
- Technology is magic: Over and over again, folks who actually understood the technology pointed out why technology is no magic bullet. You can't automate understanding what is and what is not infringing. But someone from a lobbying group for the legacy copyright players pulled out the "you're all so smart, nerd harder" card by saying that if Silicon Valley can build a self-driving car, surely it can build a technology that can determine what is and what is not fair use. This has echoes of the debate over backdooring encryption, which is another of these "nerd harder" situations, in which non-technologists assume that technology is magic and doing x and doing y are somehow equivalent. All I can say in response to that is obligatory xkcd:
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Filed Under: 512, copyright, copyright office, dmca, dmca 512, fair use, notice and staydown, notice and takedown, safe harbors
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Refreshing for its honesty.
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Oh I'm positive they can build this technology. The problem is that the results will not be what the Copyright industry wants them to be.
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- The Dinosaur Business Prop-up Department
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We are to busy looking for ways to try and extract every possible cent from content, and we only have 100+ years to do it, we can't possibly be expected to do anything.
We deserve the super power to censor the world, and don't dare think about penalizing us for shitty takedowns but if anyone dares file a bogus counter notice burn them alive!
We are always right and ISPs should fold under our demands and cut off users based on allegations, that pesky court system is to hard. So what if it might leave people unable to access the internet, they were thieves we said so.
Google stole all of our money, so they should pay for our dream tech.
Or... we could reform copyright to be something like it once was. We could punish bad actors & shitty takedowns, making them pay for all of the effort they force others to expend based on their flawed crap. We could stop trying to shoehorn copyright into a tool to save our business model from a bygone era, and revamp our industry to handle the idea of a single world marketplace and eliminate all of the leeches at every step who take their cut for the societies that never seem to want to pay out to anyone.
We could stop demonizing every new technology for what it MIGHT be used to do, and embrace them early on making it easier to do the thing we exist to do... provide the content to consumers are the price they want to pay. We can finally accept that everything we decried as destroying our business actually helped when we stopped fighting against the future and we could increase our profits by not paying those who claim to have solutions to problems we imagine but never fix anything.
But they instead will keep thinking it can be the way it was forever, try to inflict their desires onto the world, limit the growth of the net & technology, and have even more slip through their fingers as they lock everything up and the new ideas run out...
80 million for a movie based on Tetris... the end times are neigh!
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To them, nobody outside their 'system' who kickstarts, patreons, or self-funds their own "content creation" counts as a serious player or worthy enough to be at the table for discussions.
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Eventually...
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They don't want to destroy the internet as infrastructure. They want to control the use of the internet as a means of media distribution. They don't really care about how they make that happen or what the fallout would be, so long as it happens.
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That is the 'real piracy' that the legacy industry is trying to destroy, by destroying the means of distribution. The self publishers are taking money from the public that should have gone into their bank accounts. Google is the primary target because it enables such legal content to be found, and via YouTube they are even helping to distribute it.
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Obligatory skynet comment
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Re: Eventually...
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Self-driving cars not a good comparison
By contrast, a competent notice & staydown system (i.e. one that takes into account the nuances of relevant law) has very little return on investment in a market sense and has comparatively little development to date. The only thing it has in its favour is that a notice & staydown mistake is unlikely to result in fatalities. Even so, it could result in a huge business disaster if a major hosting platform incorrectly blocks a high demand work.
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Nice legacy you've left for yourself there, pal. Sleep well.
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Fine, how about a compromise: You'll do everything my way.
Even more clear they didn't consider the public whatsoever during the process, it was all about 'tech' vs 'Content creators', the latter only comprised of 'professionals', because if you're not signed to a label or major publisher you don't count.
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The parasites didn't want the tech industry to 'police itself', they wanted them to act as unpaid employees, doing everything that the parasites demanded of them regardless of whether or not they had to by law.
Copyright may or may not be here to stay, given how many companies have vested financial interests in it remaining, but piracy will always be around, there will always be people willing to share what they have with others, and the sooner you adapt to that fact the better off you'll be.
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Like you say, refreshing for it's honesty.
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"If I can't control it no one gets to use it."
They'd prefer to control it and turn it into just another method of media distribution like tv, but if they can't do that then they will happily settle for making sure that no one else can use it to compete with them.
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BTW, look at the bright side - in 2001, they were pulling in ~$14 billion; since 2010, it's only been $7 billion per year. Well, if you can believe them...
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Fox News, Godwin, Hitler
The fact that they just kept repeating this request over and over, regardless of counterpoints is a probably part of an organized effort. It uses element's from one dear leader's große Lüge theory, that if you just repeat the lie over and over, people start to believe it.
The result of their organization and repetition will doubtless be that one of the Copyright Office's MAIN take-aways will be "There seems to be consensus around the need for notice and staydown."
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Re: Self-driving cars not a good comparison
Self driving cars are skilled at keeping the car between the lane paint.
Remove the lane paint, the car is lost.
So, all we need is someone to paint lines around each set of content FIRST, and then the AI can handle the non-existent job that comes next.
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This entire thing is trending in a certain direction, and it's not the one you'd like.
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And as we know, with all utopia, any attempts at it lead to dystopia rather predictably.
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Read what you wrote slowly once again. Some very nefarious abilities you associate with certain individuals.
Hope you had a good sleep sir!
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Why does one always spot the error between pressing the submit button and the comment being submitted?
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Yeah, but they *are* policing themselves. Basically every major platform now has automated filtering, that goes way beyond what the law requires. Companies are working with various consortiums to deny ads and payment processing to certain sites deemed piracy venues, and registrars are working with copyright holders to take down entire sites.
So they are doing it.
And you and your friends still want more. Because it's never enough.
But no, you had to continue to spew the same BS about piracy not being a problem and that copyright was the problem.
Do you really think any of these things will stop piracy?
Copyright is never going away, and now the public will have to suffer because Google was too greedy to simply do the right thing.
What, exactly, do you think Google should do that it's not doing already?
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Does that make sense to anyone else?
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As for what I'd 'like', given I have no interest in either piracy or the crap shoveled out by the parasites I care about their flailing around solely because they have demonstrated absolutely no care for the collateral damage their actions cause. If I want to see them crash and burn it has nothing to do with allowing me to continue the piracy that I don't engage in, and everything to do with stopping them from continually trying to destroy anything that they can't control.
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If Google had "done the right thing" by your definition years ago, they would have wasted a whole bunch of resources building something that is of no use to them, they would be less efficient that the competition who would have laid them to waste and you would be whining about someone else right now who didn't "do the right thing" (ie: work for you for nothing).
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But seriously, we're not talking with rational people here. Just imagine debating against a crazy wing of libertarianism demanding a "JPEG standard" to replace our fiat currencies: there's a point where you just have to accept no amount of reason will do.
Even the gold standard enthusiasts would know it was time to give up if research into technology lead to discoveries where you could suddenly download gold at the click of a mouse.
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I don't care anyway at this point, as things are getting bad for Google and will very quickly be getting worse. Consequences of actions and all that.
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This is where it suggests a real ignorance of the details on your part. First, Google has never been found by a court to have lost its safe harbor, so... yeah, you're wrong.
Second, the safe harbors require knowledge of *specific* bad activity. Not general knowledge. EIGHT judges have all found this. None have found for your twisted interpretation.
Third, Google abides by the safe harbor policies by closing the accounts of repeat infringers on YouTube. On Google search there's no "account" for Google to remove, but it does demote sites that get regular takedown notices (which goes beyond what the law allows).
So... really, I'm not sure what you think Google should be doing instead.
Perhaps if you suggested an actual response we could discuss if it's a good idea or not. If the answer is just "don't ever link to infringing content" well, that's impossible. In fact when Google started demoting sites based on DMCA notices, you know what happened, right? Other, even more questionable sites figure out ways to get into the search results as well.
You keep expecting Google to do magic. It can't do that.
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I don't think this is going to lead to any progress.
The Copyright-holder's are asking for literally impossible things. There cannot be changes until both parties agree.
I actually think that's the plan. Asking for impossible things so the DMCA stays the same.
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So you admit that these copy protection laws are contrary to the public interest. That they cause the public to suffer? That this is not in fact the democracy that it's supposed to be because mostly it's big corporate interests pushing for IP laws.
As a member of the public my vote is to abolish or greatly reduce copy protection laws. and your admission that the public has no say in the matter is telling.
You're the one advocating for laws to be made undemocratically yet everyone else are the bad guys. Your own posts demonstrate your own lack of a conscience.
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Which isn't really new news.
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I'm ahead of the curve
If I want something, I pirate it. Unless it's from an independent artist, and then I happily pay then *after* I've ensured that it has value to me.
The old hurdles between me and content no longer exist, so I don't live my life pretending that they do.
And no, Google plays no part in any of this.
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This is where you twist things and act like the complete tech douche you are.
Google has never been found by a court to have lost its safe harbor, so... yeah, you're wrong.
Yet.
I didn't say they had. I'm betting with the next legal action they will.
the safe harbors require knowledge of *specific* bad activity.
Google is 100% aware and knowledgeable of the specific bad activity of the Pirate Bay, etc.
On Google search there's no "account" for Google to remove, but it does demote sites that get regular takedown notices
No reason for them to be indexed at all.
Everyone knows you and Google's game, Masnick: try to destroy what little protections creators have and then exploit their work for profit. No mystery at all anymore.
None.
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So is your complaint just that Google isn't entirely blocking certain sites/domains known to engage in piracy? Or is it more than that?
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The point of copyright isn't to exploit what you've created for money, if it were it would run smack dab into the first amendment. No, it's to encourage the creation of new works and technology by granting control of the work to the author, rather than anyone who finds it. This is the compelling government interest which allows this infringement upon our basic rights to exist.
Copyright isn't about profiting from every copy, if it were than it wouldn't have been needed to send a copy to the copyright office and the library of congress to qualify. These copies were for the public, and to ensure that nothing granted this protection was destroyed. The first sale doctrine, which states that once a good has been sold, the new owner has sole discretion in the disposition of this item, conflicts completely with your view of copyright.
If the public begins to be harmed by copyright, be it by the deprivation of the ability to share things which we have purchased or otherwise acquired, or by the destruction of these things which, We The People, have granted control of temporarily to those who originated them, or even by the over restriction on the expression of the people, then it is time for the destruction and dismantlement of copyright, because it's sole purpose has become lost, and the only reason we allow it to restrict our rights has been lost.
Your rights do not trump those of the thousands or millions, or if you take the long view, billions or trillions of people who will benefit from these things. If you do not wish to accept the terms which are offered, then you may take your ball and go home, or you may work to come to an acceptable compromise, whether that be a pattreon, indigogo, or simple paypal donation link, is up to you.
The responsibility to the public is the governments sole job, and indeed the only one which they are authorized to act in service on. The only person who has any duty whatsoever to your pocketbook is you. Just because you and the government have both forgotten this is no excuse.
Pray tell, do the rights profits of a handful of people supersede the rights of thousands of others? I do believe that all of mankind are created equal, and that we guarantee our rights through force of arms these rights, against enemies foreign and domestic.
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No reason for them to be indexed at all.
If it were just Pirate Bay, I'd have a harder time disposing this argument. But it isn't, not really, because you said, "etc."
No, you're arguing for a world in which an IP holder can accuse a website of stealing a song and the website is immediately and utterly destroyed--cut out of the internet. No evidence, no defense, no trial, no conviction, no appeal; just the pointing accusatory finger and then the death penalty.
What will you do when the finger points at you?
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You should have posted the name so we could have done a quick check for all the artists he stole from for his music.
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I note that you didn't actually answer my questions, but resorted to insults. Kinda telling.
I didn't say they had. I'm betting with the next legal action they will.
So 8 judges were wrong, but the next one will be right? Good luck with that...
Google is 100% aware and knowledgeable of the specific bad activity of the Pirate Bay, etc.
Right, and go do a Google search that links to infringing content on the Pirate Bay. It doesn't show up. I just ran a few google searches myself trying to find any infringing content on the Pirate Bay and couldn't find any (at least not on the front page, which is all that matters). So... yeah. Basically they did what you asked. And you're too clueless to realize it.
No reason for them to be indexed at all.
So you want a ban on indexing? That's a whole different issue and one that creates a whole host of other problems, without ANY of the benefits you think it brings.
Everyone knows you and Google's game, Masnick: try to destroy what little protections creators have and then exploit their work for profit. No mystery at all anymore.
None.
Uh, no. I've spent YEARS explaining how ARTISTS themselves can make more money online. I have no desire to exploit anyone.
Anyway, again, I'll ask: What more do you want Google to do that it's not doing already. Because they only thing you've mentioned, they're actually doing for all intents and purposes.
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So, they're so clueless about technology, an actual clock/timer is beyond them? Figures.
"The author TJ Stiles, who is on the board of the Authors Guild, literally claimed that because of infringement he was less creative and wrote less, saying piracy meant he couldn't pay healthcare or his mortgage."
Who?
*Googles the name*
Still never heard of him, but he seems to specialise in biographies. But, according to Wikipedia at least, apart from some editing work, he only has 3 books published, the first of which was in 2002. Really? Piracy is suddenly a problem now but wasn't in the early 2000s?
Also, he seems to have written a total of 3 books, albeit all well received. If his complaint is that his new book has sold significantly less that the previous ones, it could be something as simple as the subject matter (his 2nd book was about Cornelius Vanderbilt while the most recent was about Custer - I'd personally be interested in the former but have no interest in the latter). What's his citation for piracy being the cause other than "piracy happens"?
"Jonathan Taplin, who suggested that because the Copyright Office's servers couldn't handle the ~87,000 inbound comments, it might be considered a "denial of service attack."
Figures. They blow millions on lawyers, but don't want to pay for competent tech staff. No wonder lawyers seem to be their answer to everything rather than adjusting to reality.
"Someone else pointed out that there's no evidence that this is happening at any sense of scale, but someone from the Copyright Office substituted anecdotes for data, and claimed, "well, it's come up a lot.""
Come up from whom? People with verifiable data, or paranoid morons who are scared it could happen? I'll presume the latter.
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So, they're so clueless about technology, an actual clock/timer is beyond them? Figures.
"The author TJ Stiles, who is on the board of the Authors Guild, literally claimed that because of infringement he was less creative and wrote less, saying piracy meant he couldn't pay healthcare or his mortgage."
Who?
*Googles the name*
Still never heard of him, but he seems to specialise in biographies. But, according to Wikipedia at least, apart from some editing work, he only has 3 books published, the first of which was in 2002. Really? Piracy is suddenly a problem now but wasn't in the early 2000s?
Also, he seems to have written a total of 3 books, albeit all well received. If his complaint is that his new book has sold significantly less that the previous ones, it could be something as simple as the subject matter (his 2nd book was about Cornelius Vanderbilt while the most recent was about Custer - I'd personally be interested in the former but have no interest in the latter). What's his citation for piracy being the cause other than "piracy happens"?
"Jonathan Taplin, who suggested that because the Copyright Office's servers couldn't handle the ~87,000 inbound comments, it might be considered a "denial of service attack."
Figures. They blow millions on lawyers, but don't want to pay for competent tech staff. No wonder lawyers seem to be their answer to everything rather than adjusting to reality.
"Someone else pointed out that there's no evidence that this is happening at any sense of scale, but someone from the Copyright Office substituted anecdotes for data, and claimed, "well, it's come up a lot.""
Come up from whom? People with verifiable data, or paranoid morons who are scared it could happen? I'll presume the latter.
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Would that be the one where you learn that refusing to service the demand might lead people to not pay for the goods, or the one where you ignore the point of the comments you respond to?
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Plus, the stabilisation probably has a lot more to do with the availability of legal services (Spotify's US launch was 2011, Netflix started streaming in 2007 but would have taken a couple of years to get statistically significant numbers, etc.) than any legal wrangling. But, why consider reality?
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A call to remove rights from people and destroy innocent service providers, rather than address the root causes of piracy? Yeah, that is not a good direction, for anyone (including the "creators").
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So, he is not a content creator? How daft can you be?
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Only a clueless asshat like you would think this could ever result in more sales rather than contempt for the legacy players. Bring it on, crybaby!
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And the entertainment industry is whining that it's not getting enough money (immediately after boasting that they're the biggest survivors on the block).
Can't win with these fuckers.
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We should get all of the people who own copyright on something to register that copyright (along with the work of course) at a government web site for reference purposes. The AI would then be a simple lookup on that site.
But wait ... wouldnt that make the web site a copyright infringer?
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What these people want to see are (in no specific order):
1) A return to the 89's and 90's level of physical media sales
2) Piracy articles to disappear from the media
3) For Google to pay them all large sums and then become their marketing tool for free
4) ISPs and Governments should police the IP market for free
5) Turn the internet into a mostly one-way delivery channel (you can vote during shows) with all publishing rights assigned to them
6) Technology must not disrupt to existing business models. Because effort and money are required to refresh business rules
7) Technology must, however, disrupt their competitors business models. Even though they have the same business models
Basically what the IP industry wants is essentially what all selfish humans want: Favoritism and Protectionism, for free.
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Also advertising on searches that drive traffic to sites that legally offer the content, and also a vast amount that has absolutely nothing to do with the entertainment industry. but, they have money so gimme gimme gimme.
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I tend to feel that this is the real end game. It's often more about control than actual sales, and they'd love to be able to block amateur and independent competitors as much as they'd love to make piracy magically disappear.
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But that depends on a narrow (and sane) view on infringement.
A lot of people use Google to access information that, even if it is publicly accessible, would legally put them in a position of infringement.
If everyone was as anal about copyright infringement as the RIAA, MPAA and Elsevier then we would be looking at a far more different picture.
You've got to realize that the laws we have come from a locked-down world where there was no concept of free information. Sure you could learn a few bits here and there, borrow a newspaper, maybe go to a library. But most everything was behind a paywall. And now it's not.
And the industries are tanking it harder than they should because they're stubborn.
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If someone creates a painting that's clearly inspired by someone else's song, how would a simple database comparison AI detect that it's fair use ?
Even Content ID which "simply" compares works for similarity within the same medium has a large false positive rate. For an AI to do cross-medium comparison (movie turned into song) and infer fair use would be a monumental task. One that might just require a degree of ahem... "self-awareness".
Whatever the outcome, it will surely please lawyers everywhere. Man, I really should have gone to law school instead... :P
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Ridiculous chart
That seems like incredibly worthwhile information to me - it seems like that tends to show that takedowns have absolutely zero impact on music industry revenue. In fact, considering that it seems to come from a music industry source, I would think this would put to rest forever the idea that Google negatively impacts the music industry.
Maybe it's meant as an olive branch!
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Sounds more like this is where you can't come up with a compelling argument so you resort to childish insults. Again...
"I'm betting with the next legal action they will."
Betting against a strong losing streak may get you a fluke win in sports, not legal precedents don't quite work that way.
"Everyone knows you and Google's game, Masnick: try to destroy what little protections creators have and then exploit their work for profit."
You've just described the MO of most of the big content industries (not the creators). Trying to gain sympathy by accusing the tech industry of mistreating artists is galling in its abject hypocrisy. Even if there was truth in it, you're certainly not the ones who get you say it out loud.
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The more intrusive DRM gets, the more I think about fucking these guys up as a professional occupation. Existing ad blocking technology is really just the tip of the iceberg. There will be many more companies to come in this sector.
They want DRM encoded video, and screens with built in spyware? OK... The next logical evolution is a collaborative RBL that allows users to vote on who the biggest dicks are, and implement a good old fashion collective ostracism, of an ENTIRE BRAND across ALL media platforms.
To use Sony as an example, it is pretty much like booze. Yeah I like a drink once in a while, but I don't miss it when it is gone. So if there were an RBL database that I could wire up to which bit bucketed everything ever made by anybody associated with that brand or any of their subsidiaries... Yeah, I'd use it. I've felt that way since 2005.
The fact that rights aren't defended, doesn't mean they can't be defended. The state may neglect the value of its public domain assets, but that is a matter of negligence, not natural law. To presume otherwise is intellectual laziness. Too often the phrase "tragedy of commons" is used to conceal that laziness in a funk of professional swagger.
Violating privacy rights with intrusive DRM, is not all that different from violating human rights by polluting streams and rivers. It a pollution of our collective liberty and happiness, and we have a right and obligation to defend ourselves.
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he obviously wants google to shut down entirely.
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Ufuckingtopia
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That's the whole POINT of copyright - to prop up legacy business models and prevent innovation and the spread of information. In this regard, it's almost as bad as patents.
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Or, you know, the exact opposite of that. But thanks for playing.
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"You believe that all takedown notices should be treated as valid and processed no matter what?"
"Yes!"
"And once the content/site is taken down, there should be no appeal process, it just stays down permanently?"
"Yes!"
"So you believe that [websites for that studio's movies] should be taken permanently offline?"
"Umm, well... I uh...."
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This is the basic conceptual problem driving all this. To most of government, there is "content" - meaning the copyright-aggregation industry - and "tech".
Creators are not in the picture.
Neither are watchers, readers, and consumers.
That's the problem. Correcting their thinking will not happen until they are made to acknowledge the existence of creators and consumers of copyrighted works as stakeholders who should be at the table. (Then we can maybe work on the concept of the primacy of these groups over "content" and "tech". Baby steps.)
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FTFY
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Good to know this is what the IP camp considers an achievement: being an annoying fuck.
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I think that's what he's objecting to; I think he's proposing that "The Pirate Bay is used overwhelmingly (if not exclusively) for infringement, and Google knows that, so Google should not return any results from The Pirate Bay at all, no matter what search term is used".
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I think that's what he's objecting to; I think he's proposing that "The Pirate Bay is used overwhelmingly (if not exclusively) for infringement, and Google knows that, so Google should not return any results from The Pirate Bay at all, no matter what search term is used".
But that's idiotic. If you're typing "the Pirate Bay" you already know about the site. It's not like you're going to say "oh, I guess it doesn't exist" when Google doesn't show it.
If the idea is stopping Google from aiding piracy, that's already happened.
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So, illogical and factually incorrect? Sounds about right.
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I'm just trying to parse his position, and aid in understanding (for whatever good that may do), as best I can.
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http://pando.com/2014/11/13/google-is-the-biggest-corporate-lobbyist-in-america-now-says -new-public-citizen-report/
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http://pando.com/2014/11/13/google-is-the-biggest-corporate-lobbyist-in-america-now-says -new-public-citizen-report/
1. Posting a Pando link and thinking it's an accurate representation of the world is... a mistake. They tend to be wrong about just about everything.
2. They're wrong about this. Google DOES spent a lot of money on lobbying and they have been a growing presence in DC, but they are FAR from the top spot.
3. If you look at various lists that actual compile the details you see Google/Alphabet is a little ways down the list. Here's OpenSecrets: http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?showYear=2015&indexType=s and here's CNN: http://money.cnn.com/2014/10/01/investing/companies-lobbying-10-biggest-spenders/
4. The claim that "most of their efforts are for IP abolishment" is just... wrong. I mean, it's so far wrong that it calls into question everything else you have to say. There are a group of people that think Google wants to abolish IP, but they are ignorant of reality and are, at best, tinfoil wearing conspiracy theorists.
5. That's not to say that I agree with Google's lobbying positions, but their main focus is actually on things like tax policy and being able to bring money from outside the US back into the US. Where they have lobbied on IP issues I've never seen any indication it's about abolishment. On copyright they've lobbied in favor of stricter copyright laws for blocking advertising on infringing sites (the opposite of abolishment). On patents they've argued for things like venue reform. But again, that's not about abolishment.
In short, you're extraordinarily misinformed.
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Yes, but that's what they want.
Recall that one of the reasons that Jim Hood issued an "administrative subpoena" to Google is that they refused to block the TLD's of "pirate sites."
Never mind that thousands of musicians have use TPB to promote their own music. (You may think it's stupid, but it's their right to do it.) Blocking TBP altogether would infringe on the rights of these artists to distribute their works to the public, which is a fundamental human right.
But never mind that. According to this Anonymous Coward, the internet isn't bowing down enough to the wills of the monopsony labels, so fuck it. Let it die.
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TALES OF TAKE DOWN ABUSE
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I make and sell digital teaching resources and am just livid at what punks from different parts of the world do with my images. They appear to use them to trick unsuspecting folks to click them and they end up at a site that is borderline porn or just a bunch of pointless images or giving away the worksheets for free, that are not free.
When I have tried to be nice and ask them to remove them, many times I will get denials in the beginning. I keep asking and eventually I get cussed out in broken English and threatened. When I try to contact the hosting companies they want my cell phone number and address and the last thing I want to do is give these punks that info. I work from home and just have my personal cell phone. It is like being mugged and now the police want to give the muggers you personal information so they can stop by and ask any questions if they have them. So I avoid these DMCAs. I wish I could afford to hire agents to use their phone# and address.
I find certain hosting companies attract these types of punks (sorry for using the word punks but after dealing with them they have earned that label) and they won't do a darn thing about it and I think they actual market to these types. They are cheap and will look the other way.
Then I come across Russian hosting sites that are either Forbidden or have danger warnings from Google. Why these sites from these Russian hosting companies are allowed in the U.S. web is surprising. If I can't get to the hosting company because they are so bad then none of their hosted sites should be allowed to pull up in the U.S.
There are hosting sites that care about it all and actually thank me for bringing the problem to their attention and those give me hope but most times I am dealing with all the bad players.
Google has been helpful in their own way. They don't need my phone number or address. I use my first initial and last name and business email and link to my original content and check the boxes that I am above board on my claims.
I have had to learn the hard way on all this and it took me too long to realize they were stealing from me. I never thought someone would use my word problems to bring folks to their borderline porn site or a site that does nothing really.
I would pay a service to register my blog and cart images with them to check if they pop up on other sites. They could do an initial Google image search and I could check them all out and if one is not authorized I can click and have an electronic DMCA emailed to the hosting site very simply. If they do not fix the infringement then the company can let Google know they are not in compliance and Google should just bury the site and ding the hosting site rankings in search results as a punishment. When you let one bad apple get away with stuff it affects the whole bunch. This might put peer pressure on all of this too and get others to report on the bad players. I think it might provide an incentive for the bad players and hosting sites to play fair.
Since it would be all so automated then it shouldn't cost a lot. It would also depend on the number of images. Say 10.00 a month? Also I could use the company as my agent and their phone number and address can be used. The automated take down would also show a link to the original content url and maker and provide adequate proof. The images could be searched once a day or every few days. I just don't see why that could not be implemented. Maybe no one wants to invest in solutions since they have no idea what the government will rule on all this?
I know that when I look for answers or ideas online lately I come across so many sites that just post a stolen image and there is nothing helpful about it. It is a phony type site. For me it is a total waste of time and I feel duped every time I fall for it. It is hard to tell which ones to avoid with this and I get very frustrated with wasting so much time helping jerks get clicks. I think it also impacts on Google's credibility to provide the best results for folks. If I was an advertiser I would never pay anyone for clicks for such crappy sites since they are worthless.
I spent this past week playing whackamo on asking for my stolen images to be removed from sleazy sites and not getting anything else done and this is not productive. I also get upset having do deal with the scummy site owners and scummy hosting companies on the internet and think maybe I will just pull the plug on the blog and cart and unplug entirely, but I need the income. I don't make a lot but I work extremely hard for what I do. It shouldn't be this stressful. I am tiring of the games and I am older and I know what it was like before the computer it is looking more attractive all the time. But the internet helps us older folks make some money from home and something we can actually do. If there is such a company that offers this service I would sign up in a heartbeat. If you know of one please share. I know many others who would want to those services.
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