Hollywood Helps China Set Up National Surveillance And Censorship System To Tackle Copyright Infringement
from the how-long-before-the-MPAA-asks-for-the-same-in-the-US? dept
The Copyright Society of China has just launched a new site, called the 12426 Copyright Monitoring Center, whose job is to scan the entire Chinese Internet for evidence of copyright infringement. As a post on the EFF site explains, its scope is incredibly wide:
This frightening panopticon is said to be able to monitor video, music and images found on "mainstream audio and video sites and graphic portals, small and medium vertical websites, community platforms, cloud and P2P sites, SmartTV, external set-top boxes, aggregation apps, and so on."
Quite how it manages to monitor SmartTVs and external set-top boxes in people's homes is not clear, but the fact that it even claims to be searching them is pretty worrying, since it may be true.
When it finds content that matches material submitted to it by a copyright holder, the Center provides them with a streamlined notification and takedown machine, from the issuance of warning notices through to the provision of mediation services.
Complementary to that "streamlined" search and takedown system, the Center's technology provider offers a preemptive platform filtering solution:
The Content Filtering System automatically matches, retrieves, de-emphasizes, and automatically alerts or filters content related to copyrighted content or content in violation, by means of content matching technology; thereby it reduces the labor costs and the potential risk of content infringement. It can be applied to cloud disks and all kind of platforms including music, video, pictures, literature and other media contents.
Of course, such automatic filtering systems can't encompass all the subtleties of copyright law, and inevitably take a very crude approach that generally amounts to "when in doubt, block". Once in place, they can also easily be extended, for example to "content in violation", as here. The Chinese system comes from the company First Brave, which claims to be the "world's leading copyright monitoring and distribution service provider". That's probably just the usual hyperbole at the moment, but it's not impossible that it could become true as a result of moves in the EU.
There the main copyright legislation is being updated, supposedly to make it fit for the digital world. And yet, alongside the ridiculous snippet tax, which would create a new ancillary copyright for newspaper publishers (as if they needed any more monopolies), there is an even more dangerous proposal to require major online platforms to filter all user uploads before posting them. That's very similar to the Chinese content filtering system -- good news for First Brave -- and would be just as toxic to freedom of expression and privacy.
The Chinese upload filtering system on its own would be bad enough, but coupled with a similar requirement in the EU, it would pose a real threat in the US too. The copyright industry would doubtless claim that since it is being done everywhere else, there is no reason why Internet platforms should not roll out the same system in the US.
The head of the MPAA, Chris Dodd, used exactly this argument back in 2011 to call for online censorship in the name of reducing copyright infringement. It's noteworthy that two of the six major Hollywood studios that make up the MPAA, 21st Century Fox and Warner Bros., are listed at the bottom of the 12426 Copyright Monitoring Center's home page as partners in the new venture. Once the service has been up and running for a while, we can expect breathless reports from the MPAA on how well the surveillance and censorship system is working in China, along with yet more demands that something similar be set up in the US.
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Filed Under: censorship, china, copyright
Companies: mpaa
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Think about how Hollywood has waged war on torrent files and streaming sites, URL blocking and it's latest was on Kodi and other boxes.
Hollywood is using China as a proof of concept to block users from seeing content that Hollywood doesn't want you to have access to (without kicking them some money first) or by the way of a license to enable you or the box provider to view or allow it to be distributed via a program or add on to the box, this concept would also be applied to smart tv's no doubt.
Hollywood would never get away with doing a trial like this to block or censor set top boxes or smart tv's in the U.S. or UK, but China one could see allowing Hollywood do it with a large contribution of cash from Hollywood to get the goverment to okay it.
China also benefits because they to can use this to have another way to filter what their citizens see and where they are getting it from and then blocking access to views that it doesn't like from reaching the public.
You can bet if this proves effective that Hollywood will push this revelation of battling copyright infringement to other countries by saying the stats prove this is most effective and will save thousands of jobs and the infusion of cash that Hollywood needs to survive from all that piracy that threatens to push Hollywood to the brink of collapse... or so they say.
This is another of Hollywood's wet dreams to control where you get their content, how you get their content and what you pay to get their content and when you will get to see it.
I would say this is like something out of a bad spy movie, China and Hollywood in bed together plotting evil against it's enemies, but no.... it's real
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Because the other 12425 attempts worked wonders, right guys?
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Re:
Wouldn't them? One would think they would never get away with having the Govt seize domain names and get people jailed based on ip addresses. Or sue printers for infringement.
As you said, it's just proof of concept while they wait the other governments to set up the legal framework so they can screw us all. It's kind of mixed but eventually it will get there, the governments stopped pretending they care about their citizenry.
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Your "free speech" and access to information may well be reduced due to YOUR piracy. Rights are in conflict, and you pirates are on the wrong side.
And of course, you're still just trying to find a legal loophole so that you can sit on your fat ass and consume mindless content for free. It's a major flaw in your position, because everyone knows that's your ultimate goal.
"Technology" is to point where it's possible to monitor streams. The re-writer here doesn't seem to grasp that's possible with TVs and set-top boxes that are either digital or internet connected. So as practical fact, the end of rampant piracy is in sight. Still be some, but it must be suppressed for good cause. -- You pirates are so wicked, useless, and lazy that even China is against you!
You don't have money, courts, Constitution, or public opinion of you on your side. So of course you're losing...
As shown by reading the first link in the last para and noting how few brazen pirates are here now. Left me appalled, except for one AC, non-stop demands for free content. That's not going to happen because CONTENT COSTS MONEY TO MAKE. After nearly 20 years, there's still no hint here of another viable system for major motion pictures. They're hugely expensive up front, a risk which is intolerable with widespread piracy.
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Hollywood financing Chinas fascist regime
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To get their pound of flesh, they'll open another new door for people's rights and privacy to be taken away... And if it leads to a few crummy dissidents going to jail or being killed... Well, that's a small price to pay for their comfort and splendor.
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Re: Hollywood financing Chinas fascist regime
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people form hollywood are traitors
they are all traitors to democracy and all you have to do is ask
when has govt given me a civil right rather then take them away
no really
start saying this everywhere and its your wake up call
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copyrighted content or *content in violation*
Oh gee, I wonder that other "content in violation" could be.
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Abolish Copyright
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Re: Your "free speech" and access to information may well be reduced due to YOUR piracy. Rights are in conflict, and you pirates are on the wrong side.
So what happens to reporters, Let's players, reviewers, anyone that uses parody and satire? They get caught up in the mess too.
Come up with a better excuse for your straw-man argument, because there is an actual concern here.
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Re: Your "free speech" and access to information may well be reduced due to YOUR piracy. Rights are in conflict, and you pirates are on the wrong side.
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Re: people form hollywood are traitors
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Re: Your "free speech" and access to information may well be reduced due to YOUR piracy. Rights are in conflict, and you pirates are on the wrong side.
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Why Not?
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Re: people form hollywood are traitors
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Re: Re: people form hollywood are traitors
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--------- Oh, but private censorship is okay! -- FOR THE RECORD:
2nd attempt as sometimes works not through then either.
Techdirt is breaking its "forms contract" that's stated by existence of public comments box without any guidelines or reservation. And yet you have the chutzpah to kvetch about China censoring.
Tried a 3rd time at 8:45 Pacific...
Only appeared sometime before NOON Pacific, when this topic essentially dead. Techdirt cheating behind the scenes yet again. You wouldn't know this unless I report, when can.
That's lying by omission, pretending it's a fair forum when only dissent is "moderated", pirates not at all. And proving that the multiple postings that are sometimes let through is the intention of Techdirt, presumably in order to discredit me.
And again, there's never any response from Techdirt to the charges I make, which any normal persons would do. They can't deny without possible worse tangles, so just ignore. But over time (YEARS NOW), unanswered charges are evidence.
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BTW: last week Techdirt implied that Facebook should live video of murders, but won't even put up my little bits of text! SHEESH!
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Re:
out_of_the_blue hates it when due process is enforced.
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