Ending The Memes: EU Copyright Directive Is No Laughing Matter
from the it's-bad dept
On Friday, I wrote about all of the many problems with the link tax part of the proposed EU copyright directive -- but that's only part of the problem. The other major concern is around mandatory upload filters. As we discussed with Julia Reda during last week's podcast, the upload filters may be even more nefarious. Even the BBC has stepped up with an article about how it could put an end to memes. While that might be a bit of an exaggeration, it's only just a bit exaggerated. Despite the fact that the E-Commerce Directive already makes it clear that platforms should not be liable for content placed on their platforms by users absent any notice and that there can be no "general monitoring" obligation, the proposal for Article 13 would require that all sites have a way to block copyright-covered content from being uploaded without permission of the copyright holder.
As per usual, this appears to have been written by those who have little understanding of how the internet itself works, or how this will impact a whole wide variety of services. Indeed, there's almost nothing that makes any sense about it at all. Even if you argue that it's designed to target the big platforms -- the Googles and Facebooks of the world -- it makes no sense. Both Google and Facebook already implement expensive filtering systems because they decided it was good for their business to do so at their scale. And even if you argue that it makes sense for platforms like YouTube to put in place filters, it doesn't take into account many factors about what copyright covers, and the sheer impossibility of making filters that work across everything.
How would a site like Instagram create a working filter? Could it catch direct 100% copies? Sure, probably. But what if you post a photo to Instagram of someone standing in a room that has a copyright-covered photograph or painting on the wall? Does that need to be blocked? What about a platform like Github where tons of code is posted? Is Github responsible for managing every bit of copyright-covered code and making sure no one copies any of it? What about sites that aren't directly about the content, but which involve copyright-covered content, such as Tinder. Many of the photos of people on Tinder are covered by copyright, often held by a photographer, rather than the uploader. Will Tinder need to put in place a filter that blocks all of those uploads? Who will that be helping exactly? How about a blog like ours? Are we going to be responsible to make sure no one posts a copyright-covered quote in the comments? How are we to design and build a database of all copyright-covered content to block such uploads (and won't such a database potentially create an even larger copyright question in the first place)? What about a site like Airbnb? What if a photo of a home on Airbnb includes copyright-covered content in the background? Kickstarter? Patreon? I'm not sure how either service (which, we should remind you, both help artists get paid) can really function if this becomes law. Would they need a filter to block creators from uploading their own works?
And that leaves out even more fundamental questions about how do filters handle things like fair use? Or parody? To date, they don't. Now making such filters mandatory even for smaller sites would be a complete and total disaster for how the internet works.
This is why it is not hyperbolic at all to suggest that this change to how the EU looks at copyright could have a massive consequence on how the internet functions. At the very least, it is likely to limit the places where users can participate, because that will price out tons of services. It takes the internet far, far away from its core as a communications platform and moves it more and more towards one that is broadcast only. Perhaps that's what the EU really wants, but at least the discussion should be honest on that point. So far, it is not. The debate goes over the usual grounds, claiming that copyright holders are somehow being ripped off by the internet -- though that is stated without evidence. If the EU wants to fundamentally change how the internet works, it should at least justify those changes with something real and be willing to explain why those changes are acceptable. To date, that has not happened.
Internet companies are trying to speak out about this, but many are so busy fighting other fires -- such as the net neutrality repeal here in the US -- that it's difficult to run over to Europe to point out just how moronic this is. Automattic (the people who do Wordpress) have put out a big statement about the problems of this plan that is well worth reading:
We’re against the proposed change to Article 13 because we have seen, first-hand, the dangers of relying on automated tools to police nuanced speech and copyright issues. Bots or algorithms simply cannot determine whether a blog post, photo in a news article, or video posted to a website is copyright infringement or legitimate use. This is especially true on a platform like wordpress.com, where copyrighted materials are legitimately posted in the context of news articles, commentary, criticism, remixing, memes — thousands of times per day.
We’ve also seen how copyright enforcement, without adequate procedures and safeguards to protect free expression, skews the system in favor of large, well-funded players, and against those who need protection the most: individual website owners, bloggers, and small publishers who don’t have the resources or legal wherewithal to defend their legitimate speech.
Based on our experience, the changes to Article 13, while well-intentioned will almost certainly lead to a flood of unintended, but very real, censorship and chilling of legitimate, important, online speech.
Reddit has also put out a statement:
Article 13 would force internet platforms to install automatic upload filters to scan (and potentially censor) every single piece of content for potential copyright-infringing material. This law does not anticipate the difficult practical questions of how companies can know what is an infringement of copyright. As a result of this big flaw, the law’s most likely result would be the effective shutdown of user-generated content platforms in Europe, since unless companies know what is infringing, we would need to review and remove all sorts of potentially legitimate content if we believe the company may have liability.
Finally, a bunch of internet luminaries, including Tim Berners-Lee, Vint Cerf, Brewster Kahle, Katherine Maher, Bruce Schneier, Dave Farber, Pam Samuelson, Mitch Kapor, Tim O'Reilly, Guido von Rossum, Mitchell Baker, Jimmy Wales and many, many more have put out quite a statement on how bad this is:
In particular, far from only affecting large American Internet platforms (who can well afford the costs of compliance), the burden of Article 13 will fall most heavily on their competitors, including European startups and SMEs. The cost of putting in place the necessary automatic filtering technologies will be expensive and burdensome, and yet those technologies have still not developed to a point where their reliability can be guaranteed.Indeed, if Article 13 had been in place when Internet’s core protocols and applications were developed, it is unlikely that it would exist today as we know it.
The impact of Article 13 would also fall heavily on ordinary users of Internet platforms—not only those who upload music or video (frequently in reliance upon copyright limitations and exceptions, that Article 13 ignores), but even those who contribute photos, text, or computer code to open collaboration platforms such as Wikipedia and GitHub.
Scholars also doubt the legality of Article 13; for example, the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition has written that “obliging certain platforms to apply technology that identifies and filters all the data of each of its users before the upload on the publicly available services is contrary to Article 15 of the InfoSoc Directive as well as the European Charter of Fundamental Rights.”
It doesn't have to be this way. There are campaign pages for those in Europe to contact their MEPs at SaveYourInternet.eu and ChangeCopyright.org. As it stands, the EU's Legal Affairs Committee will vote on this proposal next week. If it passes in tact, it's very likely that this will become official and all EU member countries will need to change their laws to enable this ridiculous and counterproductive plan.
There are, of course, all sorts of threats to the internet. In the past, SOPA/PIPA and ACTA would have changed fundamental concepts. Here in the US, we've just dumped net neutrality in the garbage. How the internet is shaped post-GDPR is still being figured out. But I can't think of a greater threat to the basic functioning of the internet than the current proposal in the EU right now. And, yet, it seems to not be getting nearly as much attention as those other things. Perhaps we're all fatigued from the other threats to the internet. But we need to wake up and speak out, because this one is worse. It will fundamentally change massive parts of how the internet works -- and almost all of it is designed to make it incredibly difficult to run an internet site that allows for any public participation at all.
If you're not in the EU, you can still speak up, and hopefully some Members of the European Parliament will pay attention. The world is watching what the EU Parliament does next week to the internet. If it goes along with the plan it will stamp out innovation and free speech, and basically hand over a huge gift to a small group of large media players who never liked the disruptive nature of the internet in the first place, and are now gleeful that EU regulators have more or less gone along with their plan to stamp out what makes the internet so wonderful. We've heard that some EU Parliament members are getting at least a little concerned because of the noise people are making about this, but it's time to make them very concerned. They are trying to fundamentally change the internet, and they don't seem to care about or understand what this actually means.
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Filed Under: article 13, censorship, censorship machines, copyright, eu, eu copyright directive, free speech, upload filters
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Remove your assumption that teh internets works as should now.
That IS just your arbitrary assertion for premise -- because it empowers corporations as YOU wish, not that it serves The Public so much. CDA Section 230 made an EXCEPTION to prior law. Corporations of course monetized that "freedom" to gain money indirectly from the works of others. No one paid any heed to growing problems for too long. -- It's only been lately that FOSTA stopped blatant advertising for prostitution!
BUT OF COURSE you "libertarians" who believe that the norms against drug use, prostitution, and numerous scams enabled by anonymity, that all societies have found necessary for basically three thousand years, ALL THAT CAN JUST BE THROWN OUT, right?
Again, The Public does have to allow corporations to run totally wild in order to get most of the advantages! It's only masnicks and googles and pirates who skim off the margins without contributing who are worried by this.
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Re: Remove your assumption that teh internets works as should now.
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Re: Remove your assumption that teh internets works as should now.
That IS just your arbitrary assertion for premise -- because it empowers corporations as YOU wish, not that it serves The Public so much.
I know that you're not arguing seriously, but let's take this argument and respond to it, just to be clear: my concern here is not at all about empowering corporations. It's the exact opposite. Intermediary liability protections empower THE PUBLIC by enabling them to speak out. The EU Copyright Directive above does the opposite -- empowering corporations to stomp out places on the internet where the public can speak, speak back, and speak out.
If you think that the EU Copyright Directive is being driven by the interests of the public, rather than the interests of big corporations, you are not paying attention.
It's only been lately that FOSTA stopped blatant advertising for prostitution!
It's almost as if you don't know that the SAVE Act existed long before FOSTA and already outlawed advertising for prostitution...
numerous scams enabled by anonymity
Says the guy who has posted anonymous bullshit on our site for years...
all societies have found necessary for basically three thousand years, ALL THAT CAN JUST BE THROWN OUT, right?
Who says we're supporting throwing out norms? We're supporting PROTECTING the norms that benefit the public and give them a voice. You're the one supporting a plan that turns the internet into a broadcast medium, run by giant corporations.
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How many times must this be explained to you? Maybe if spent as much time reading responses to the crap you spew as you do trying manufacture a "gotcha" moment against Techdirt, you might actually learn something.
Section 230 IS NOT an exception to prior law. As a matter of fact, it's inline with old English common law that you love to espouse so much. We didn't hold the blacksmith responsible when a sword he made was used to kill, we held the person who wielded the sword responsible. We didn't hold the owner of building responsible when someone wrote disparaging remarks about the king on it, we held the person who wrote the remarks responsible.
Why is placing blame where blame belongs such a hard concept for you to grasp? Is it simple jealousy? Are you angry that others where able to profit on the internet by giving people what they wanted while you are reduced to being just another anonymous commenter on someone else's website?
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Deodand
Deodand
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Re: Deodand
Interesting stuff.
Apparently, that's the basis for modern civil forfeitures.
It seems to me (and I could be wrong) that banes were used where there really wasn't a responsible party (ie: horse bolts from a loud noise and runs someone over with the cart) as a way to compensate the victim's family. It looks like practice transitioned into deodands because the King (just like any government) wanted a piece of that action.
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Re: Re: Deodand
A further source is Walter Woodburn Hyde's article, “The Prosecution and Punishment of Animals and Lifeless Things in the Middle Ages and Modern Times” (1916).
Also note Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England, vol. I, p.291
Enjoy reading.
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Re: Remove your assumption that teh internets works as should now.
Oh yes they should. ASAP. The war on drugs is a complete and utter failure that managed only to enrich drug lords and screw poorer places. The 'moral war' on prostitution has empowered pimps and put thousands of sex workers at risk while doing exactly nothing to stop the demand. Because you and your "moral police" friends don't like it it doesn't mean it's wrong and by trying to impose your 'morals' onto everybody else you have been doing much more harm than good. For many, many years now.
So do us a favor and go fuck yourself.
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Re: Re: Remove your assumption that teh internets works as should now.
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"Norms all societies have found necessary three thousand years"
Um, drug use? Prostitution? Even consumer protections against scams have only been in place since the 20th century and they don't work all that well.
Prostitution was legal through most places into the 19th century, unless you're arguing church law, which often conflicted with state law in other areas.
Drug use wasn't even acknowledged, unless you're looking specifically at booze. Ale, Beer and Wine were the drinking stables of Europe before we had water processing.
So WTF?
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Re: Remove your assumption that teh internets works as should now.
Actually, 47 USC § 230 isn't a copyright exception; it deals with protections from other forms of third-party liability.
What three thousand year-old norms?
Drugs generally haven't been illegal or even well-regulated at all until quite recently, except to varying extents in the Islamic world, and then only in the last 1400 years or so. A hundred years ago you could've gotten all kinds of stuff on the open market. A hundred and fifty years ago, virtually anything at all could easily be had in shops. And even more recently, plenty of hard drugs have been legal. In the US amphetamines didn't start to become controlled substances until the 60s and 70s -- before that they were legal, over the counter drugs, often used for dieting and recreation.
As for prostitution, it's generally been perfectly legal, or at least well-tolerated for virtually all of the last 3000 years. Reportedly, a number of religions even had temple prostitutes as part of their rituals.
For someone who hates the future, you sure are ignorant about the past.
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Which is what the legacy players, and even the politicians want. Those are groups that used to control the public conversations, and they want that control back.
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Magic.
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How do they expect anyone else to do something only they have the capacity to do, and even they are incapable of doing?
Short answer: They don't. Rather I suspect the goal is to make it impossible for platforms to host user submitted content as it's far too risky to do so, eliminating competition and forcing people back to them if they want to be published.
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So in order to even attempt to make a flawless filter, you have to violate copyright. The entire thing is doomed to failure before you even begin.
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Response to: any moose cow word on Jun 12th, 2018 @ 10:03am
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Failure to define key terms
How many words when copying a book / news article is a copyright violation? Would typing "It was a dark and stormy night" be a violation? (Correct response, no, it was first written in 1830). But a judge could say it is copyrighted because it appeared as a movie title, a Peanuts comic, and more fan-fic then I wanna shake a stick at.
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Re: Failure to define key terms
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Re: Re: Failure to define key terms
3 more rounds of editing and half your jokes are gone because they use a trademarked name that does not want to be part of your story.
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Re: Re: Re: Failure to define key terms
It was night. Not so much damp outside as dank: with the occasional fat, wet drop falling down through the musty fog like a bullet landing in a coal cellar. The lamplighters were on strike that autumn week.
Muffled horse sounds off somewhere away down the cobblestones, dragging carriagewheels, with an axle begging for grease.
A pistol shot. . . .
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Good Omens chapter one...
It was a nice day. All the days had been nice. There had been rather more than seven of them so far, and rain hadn't been invented yet. But clouds massing east of Eden suggested that the first thunder storm was on its way, and it was going to be a big one.
Terry Pratchett. Possibly my favorite tribute to the Bulwer-Lytton opening.
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Re: Re: Failure to define key terms
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Re: Failure to define key terms
In some cases, it's possible for 100% of a given document to be copied, even as fair use, without any copyright violation occurring at all. In other cases, even a single sentence might be a violation. The law is a MESS.
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Don't worry, a judge implies some kind of due process, which isn't going to happen here. Sometimes you'll get copyright claims, even takedowns, for no reason, as when people upload white noise to Youtube. Are you really going to pay a lawyer every time this happens? No, in the internet of the future, stuff just disappears over time.
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How about if you want to make sure that no one copies anything you never post it to the Internet instead.
Anything that can be viewed through a web browser can be copied via taking a screenshot of it.
Anything you write on a website can be copied by highlighting the text and copy and pasting it.
And while we're at it, you aren't actually going to the website and seeing the original. You're downloading a copy of that part of the website. So even if you somehow disable all of the above things, you're still lost, because the computer has still made a copy of the content in their temporary folders.
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If only. What about a copy in the graphics card memory?
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Of course this means its now illegal to get access to your web temp files. Good job breaking the Internet.
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Fully agreed
Our representatives have been literally turned against their own people. Overnight they want to take European digital rights below the levels of China, Egypt, Turkey, and other similar nations! This would be a joke if it wasn't just horrifying... we almost cannot believe this is actually real.
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Infringement Sucks?
How about a blog like ours? Are we going to be responsible to make sure no one posts a copyright-covered quote in the comments?
All posts are automatically copyrighted. So did I just infringe your copyright by quoting it so I could reply to it? Talk about a great way by the EU to insure that civil discourse becomes night unto impossible. Well, any discourse really. At least we'll be able to reply to the government as they don't get a copyright on their statements. However could I reply to a post on Facebook, or Twitter if I have to quote from the original to make my reply coherent?
If this passes, I predict a great deal of foreseeable problems.
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This will mark the death of the European Union
This is supposed to be a democracy, we are the free world! How can something like this even be discussed here? I am ashamed to be a citizen of the EU right now, and hope that my country is soon liberated from those psychopaths before they destroy anything else. Absolutely no excuse!
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Re: This will mark the death of the European Union
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HOW good is it??
tAKE ALL THE data, Multiply by 1,000,000, which is Less the equal to all the posted sites on the internet..
Then every year Multiple Again the updated number of Copyrights and soforth...
Then look at Amazon, google, Youtube, and All the programming they have already done...and Multiply the size of their site, by the above number..
THATS HOW BIG of a program you will need.
Go ask Google/youtube how much fun they have Editing..
Then ask them what they would need to KEEP UP, with Censoring and DMC complaints..
DMC complaints that hit 10 times as many WRONG HITS as they HIT.
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PAYING for non-trivial content means losing on tet internets.
That's the ONE certain point backed by 20 years of YOUR everyday experience.
Madnick is oblivious to FACTS:
Pirates just plain steal $100 million movies, readily available.
Producers get not one cent, but Kim Dotcom and other pirate sites monetize it, Dotcom gaining at least $175 million while paying just for bandwidth (as in Manick's "can't compete" piece!).
Newspapers, even prestigious New York Times, ALL going broke.
It's estimated that HALF of all advertising costs wasted sheerly going to bot nets. -- Google of course still gets the money.
Spotify and other music sites are not yet profitable despite tens of millions people directly paying. -- Youtube is probably subsidized by other operations, but in any case, depends upon infringing content.
Madnick's only actually workable "business model" for teh internet is shown right here every day: re-write for free from those who DO pay to produce the content, while YELLING that they're stupid dinosaurs!
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Re: PAYING for non-trivial content means losing on tet internets.
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Only you could lose an argument with a spam filter.
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Re: Re: PAYING for non-trivial content means losing on tet internets.
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Re: Re: PAYING for non-trivial content means losing on tet internets.
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Re:
Seriously, in the last twenty years you claimed this was happening, the industry, in your own terms, was being devastated. Raped. Hell, let's throw murdered into the mix since you idiots literally believe copyright infringement is tantamount to murder.
Yet every time the box office numbers are in, you boast records up the fucking roof. So which is it? Are you being raped or not?
I think I'll choose the option that costs me the least money: I'LL DO WITHOUT, JUST LIKE YOU ASKED ME TO, YOU FUCKING CUNT.
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There is a couple questions I would like to know...
What do they expect to happen to the reviewers/let's players? These people act as (for lack of a better term) a Colbert Bump for whatever they decide to a video/article on. Without them can you expect their respective industries to do nearly as well?
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Criminality
Given the shortage of respect for norms and customs in the places from which most memes stem (e.g. 4chan/b) I wonder if the criminality of memes would jettison them into a prohibition-style gilded age, where they'd be twice as popular for being automatically against the law.
Also being automatically NSFW they don't have to be made for safe sharing at work.
Considering a search for angry hitler on YouTube still yields results, it seems Lionsgate's effort to quash the Angry Hitler memes ultimately failed.
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Between this and GDPR...
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Re: Between this and GDPR...
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Re: Re: Between this and GDPR...
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When laws become really inconvenient to follow...
The people don't follow them. Look at speeding in the US. It's illegal and yet everyone does it. In fact, one can be more easily arrested for slow driving (obstructing traffic, reckless driving) than for speeding.
We're watching the same process of how (media) pirates become sympathetic: when it becomes too difficult to engage in culture without connection to media, and obtaining the media becomes too inconvenient (too expensive, or bundled with too much crap, or too limited in distribution) then the public is going to pirate.
And yes, some people will get thrown into jail and treated poorly and made examples of, but sooner or later the law is going to incarcerate or ruin the life of someone sympathetic. At that point law enforcement will realize it's a dumb law that makes law enforcement look bad and hated by the public.
We'll be where we are already regarding song-downloaders: everyone knows its illegal, but lots of people do it and no one enforces the law, because that only drives the public to disrespect the state even more. And the RIAA is still notorious for suing grandmothers and little girls.
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Re: When laws become really inconvenient to follow...
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Trying to hold everyone to hopes, dreams, desires of a few.
Give them what they want, a world of their own to rule over while protecting the rest of us from the insanity.
Every time they try this, they get shown why its bad... yet think this time it is going to work. Let them have their own net cut off from everyone else to ruin with these idiotic laws & demands... when they grow up they can ask to move from the kids table.
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And humor helps, little...
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