Latest EU Copyright Directive Still Demands Internet Companies Wave Magic Wands
from the this-is-not-how-you-regulate dept
The EU Copyright Directive continues to be a total and complete disaster. It's so bad that neither of the two main groups lobbying around it -- the legacy entertainment industry and the big tech companies (with the vast majority of the lobbying coming from the copyright sector) are both unhappy with the bill (though for opposite reasons). And yet, despite all of this, the EU continues to soldier forward with a new proposal and a new draft that still requires that internet companies do the impossible:
The new text by the Romanians requires platforms to prevent uploads of copyrighted works, but requires next to no cooperation from rightholders! How is that supposed to work? #Article13 #SaveYourInternet pic.twitter.com/8LaEoDTiui
— Julia Reda (@Senficon) January 17, 2019
The specific suggestions being pushed in the revised Copyright Directive suggests that whoever is putting this stuff together still has no idea what they're talking about. There's an attempt at fixing Article 11 (the snippet tax) not by actually fixing it, but at least making sure that it doesn't apply to "individual words or very short extracts."
The rights referred to in the first subparagraph shall not apply in respect of uses of individual words or very short extracts of a press publication.
What does "very short extracts of a press publication" mean? Well, we'll have to see what courts think of it after extensive litigation, I guess.
More importantly, Article 13 remains an utter mess where they still think that internet companies can just wave a magic wand and suddenly they will stop all infringement without also taking down non-infringing content. The text still pushes for online platforms to have to take out licenses for everything -- and on the question of takedowns of stuff that isn't actually infringing, it just says "don't do that":
The steps taken by the online content sharing service providers should be without prejudice to the application of exceptions and limitations to copyright, including in particular those which guarantee the freedom of expression of users.
Users should not be prevented from uploading and making available content that they have produced and that contains existing works or other protected subject matter for specific purposes of illustration or parody when these uses do not create significant harm to rightholders.
First of all... how is that even possible to do these things without running afoul of the other parts of the law? The bureaucrats don't say because they don't understand any of this. Second, this new text basically only says that this applies to "parody" or when the uses "do not create significant harm to rightsholders." But, who determines that? We've seen rightsholders go nuts over all sorts of uses that wouldn't create actual harm (in some cases that would lead to more revenue). All of this is just left up to the idea that internet companies will magically figure out what's okay and what's not.
As the EFF notes in a thorough post, so much of Article 13 is really the EU putting out vague statements about what should be allowed and what should not be allowed, without any notion of how that'll work and then saying you two giant industries figure this mess out. Indeed, as scholar Annemarie Bridy pointed out recently in a wonderful (if terrifying) tweet storm, the entire Article 13 appears to be based on a model of the world that isn't accurate -- one where there are just a few internet companies negotiating with just a few content companies:
It's almost comical (if it weren't tragic) to think policy makers believe that this is all operationally feasible and no big deal. Just negotiate licenses with like a few million rightholders for every possible kind of copyrighted content that users upload, and it'll all be good.
— Annemarie Bridy (@AnnemarieBridy) January 15, 2019
And, btw, be sure not to run afoul of any fair dealing exceptions when you deploy your magical technologies. (We'll leave it up to you to make sure they're magical *enough* to reliably sort infringing from safe content, on the fly, across all the types of content you host.)
— Annemarie Bridy (@AnnemarieBridy) January 15, 2019
Somehow, in all of this ensuring that no unlicensed copyrighted content from your billion users is ever made available, "special focus should also be given to ensuring that...automated blocking of content" is avoided. 🤔
— Annemarie Bridy (@AnnemarieBridy) January 15, 2019
The whole thing remains an utter disaster that is moving forward even as no one is left who really seems to support it. The public doesn't want this shit. The big entertainment companies are now asking for Article 13 to be set aside. The big internet companies have always been against it. And yet it rolls ever forward, with a bunch of clueless, technically illiterate bureaucrats basically saying "well, if we just say big companies should do this without allowing any negative consequences to happen, surely they can figure it out..." and tossing it over the fence.
This is not how sane policy is made. This is how you fuck up the internet.
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Filed Under: article 11, article 13, censorship, copyright, eu copyright directive, filters, intermediary liability, magic wand, safe harbors
Reader Comments
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Hmmm
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Re: Hmmm
Piracy deserves no quarter.
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Re: Re: Hmmm
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Re: Re: Re: Hmmm
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An absolutist statement such as this covers your own ass, too. How certain are you that you have never, accidentally or intentionally, infringed upon anyone else’s copyright?
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Re: Re: Hmmm
This will properly remunerate artists.
This will keep children safe.
This will stop terrorists.
Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit.
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Re: Re: Hmmm
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'I asked for 2 million, but I suppose I can settle for 1.99...'
While they would certainly like to get everything they want, I'm sure they will graciously accept 'only' getting 99% of what they want, should it go through in it's current form with those pesky(weak) 'safe harbors' still included.
They'll be holding back tears and struggling to keep up a brave face the whole time though, having to settle for such a paltry amount, just you watch.
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Re: 'I asked for 2 million, but I suppose I can settle for 1.99.
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'Just because you have to do Y doesn't mean you HAVE to do Y.'
Oh I'm sure they'll try at least, the way the bills have been handled positively reek of (not so) plausible deniability.
'You need to accomplish X or face stiff penalties, and while the only real way to do that is by doing Y, since we never actually mentioned Y, and vehemently denied that it was required(despite the fact that our demands make it so), clearly it's entirely your fault for doing Y.'
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The question lawmakers never seem to ask.
This never seems to come up for some reason. All they care about is that they are doing Something/Anything so that it looks like they are in charge and know what they are doing.
Most of the time doing nothing is the best choice.
However for politicians that is not really an option because it is hard to earn bribes if you are not doing anything.
I look at the dumpster fire that the is the US political scene and think this is about as bad as it could get. Then I look to the EU and other countries and start thinking that maybe there is a contest I do not know about where the politicians of the world are trying to see who can screw up their country the worst.
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Re: The question lawmakers never seem to ask.
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Re: Re: The question lawmakers never seem to ask.
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Re: The question lawmakers never seem to ask.
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Just plaster their names and personal details out there for all to see.
Maybe get a gofundme going to have them retired to a institution where they can't hurt anyone.
I hear Siberia is nice.
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Re: (Naming eurocrats)
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You know the US has gotten a lot of flack for doing dumb things
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Oh if only
Yeah, about that...
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Why, it's almost as if this whole thing is created for a handful corporations who believe that they should be the gatekeepers for everything.
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Wie sagt man "nerd harder " auf Deutsch?
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making art ,music ,video,s everyday ,
so wheres the magical filter out there that can register all the content in real time
,with all the info on each item, eg creator,
name of video ,song, singer ,songwriter ,composer,
etc The people who wrote this directive do not understand the internet ,
or They are simply following the instructions
of legacy companys ,who do not care about
small creators or free speech .
Even the big record companys admit there are 1000,s of songs from the 50,s , 60s that are not registered ,
eg no one has records of who the composer,or songwriter is.
No one bothered to registered the copyright properly or the relevant paper documents have been lost as small record companys were bought by sony ,Emi etc
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Well, that day has arrived.
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Exactly how the major media corporations want it. Why bother competing with “new media” when you can use the government to kill it altogether?
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Holding a third party responsible for the actions of others does not solve any problems, while preventing law abiding people from having nice things.
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Cool think-of-the-kids whataboutism, bro.
If you can come up with a method of preventing copyright infringement that works as intended while taking into account the context of a given instance of infringement (e.g., Fair Use-protected parodies) and the costs of implementing enforcement to a given scale (e.g., Google hiring and training enough moderators to effectively run the entire enforcement system without flagging any false positives)…well, you need to let everyone know, because you will have created a silver bullet solution that cannot actually exist in our reality.
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"If the "impossible" were stopping "child porn" would that justify giving them a pass because no solution works?"
No but it certainly DOES exonerate any and all forms of core infrastructure such as electricity, the internet, router manufacturers and camera manufacturers from any and all blame even if those all fail similarly to prevent CP.
Bobmail, you've been propping up the same straw man arguments using terrorism, CP, murder, vandalism, and the general existence of evil as a "reason" to make people stop questioning your shitty rhetoric. Isn't it about time you realized that method doesn't work around anyone willing to call your bullshit?
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Your "big tech" can't even sue the right dead grandmother.
Have an Article 13 vote.
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The underlying premise of these articles seems to be that rightsholders have no right to defend their rights. They do. All the noise this site makes won't change a thing, except perhaps to make the endgame even more draconian, since it shows just how much the pro-piracy crowd wants to dig in.
Subsetitute "child porn" for "piracy" and the logical flaw becomes apparent very quickly.
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…corporations want to force third parties into defending corporate-owned copyrights in ways that refuse to take context, scale, and cost into account.
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Substitute "child porn" for "copyright" and all of these arguments fail. This is just people refusing to acknowledge copyright as valid, when it clearly is.
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Then the government should do a better job of enforcing the tax code on corporations and rich motherfuckers who game the system for their own benefit.
And unless it is commercial infringement, copyright infringement is generally a civil matter.
Hmm. Let’s see:
Well, you’re not wrong — in the most technical sense possible, anyway. But the creation and distribution of child pornography is not the same thing as an act of copyright infringement. Your attempt to create an equivalence the two makes your argument look weaker because, rather than directly address my argument about corporations and copyrights, you go “but child porn” as if I am supposed to cower away from the argument and give you an easy “win”.
Defend your opinions about copyright law on their own merits; avoid the moral equivalence fallacy (and that “think of the children” what-about-ism). A failure to do so makes your argument look like shit — and it makes you look like an asshole, to boot.
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"A failure to do so makes your argument look like shit — and it makes you look like an asshole, to boot."
"Look like"?
If this is the same jolly sociopath which has haunted both techdirt and torrentfreak for years - and the tone and methodology suggests it is - then we are talking about something far worse than merely an asshole.
Consider that by extending his logic, roads cars, electricity and power lines shouldn't exist because they all fail at stopping criminals from using them for nefarious purposes...
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Copyright is ties to an owner, and use can be licensed for other uses or publication.. Therefore while one can look at a picture and say child porn, and a computer algorithm can do the same, nobody other that the copyright owner can look at a created work and say its is their and this use is not licensed. Also, even when the copyright owner did not license the use, fair use comes into play, and the use may be unlicensed but not infringing on their rights.
So one is recognizable on sight, except for edge cases, and the other needs information not made available to the person or algorithm making the judgement.
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There's another massive difference in that, by definition, child porn has to have a victim. However the image is created or distributed, a child somewhere was abused.
Copying a song does not have this, and in fact there may literally be no victim if you copy a song you already own or go on to buy a copy after you listened to the copied version.
Anyone who uses this argument not only does not understand anything about the real situation, they are trying to use emotional arguments to shut down debate about reality, and thus push through legislation that's damaging to everyone.
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You've got a point: if we were talking about an entirely different subject, then your argument would be less stupid.
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I call bullshit on your tax revenue theory.
If they want tax revenue, the easiest thing to do would be to 1) make corporations pay the goddamn taxes they already owe, no hiding shit in other countries, and 2) putting the tax rates back somewhere reasonable. Bonus: 3) No Hollywood Accounting tricks, since you seem so concerned with revenues connected to copyrights.
Further, one can never identify "copyright" the way "child porn" is identifiable. And identifying "child porn" is still problematic. But i am pretty sure your legacy gatekeeper industries would have no issue making an automated copyright claim on some child porn.
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Then why are they supporting legislation that would make is vastly more difficult to collect revenue for the majority of created content?
"Substitute "child porn" for "copyright" and all of these arguments fail."
They don't, but thanks for providing the emotional argument that's the go to for people who can't defend the real situation.
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Copyright is valid. It's just that the way you enforce it makes a dumpster fire look like the preferable scenario.
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"How much tax do you think it generated?"
According to blues/bobmails previous posts, apparently "whatever value he himself assigns to it".
And that wealth failing to materialize in his wallet, he'll blame pirates.
Only the copyright cult, ladies and gents...
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No, it's not. The premise of these articles is that they point to the fact that creating laws for maximizing copyright enforcement puts an undue burden on 3rd parties PLUS they cause massive collateral damage to anyone using services on the internet.
If you can't understand that you really should have your head examined. Or perhaps you are hack that's taking payoffs from big media to astroturf their agenda. Either way, you are their puppet - unwitting or not.
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Enough, already.
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"All the noise this site makes won't change a thing, except perhaps to make the endgame even more draconian, since it shows just how much the pro-piracy crowd wants to dig in."
I've almost missed you, Bobmail. The same tired old idea that one day soon everyone making a copy will be jailed under inhuman circumstances to satisfy your ghoulish hate-boner.
It's the same answer as always - it doesn't matter which laws you apply the only victims will be the legitimate users. People making illicit copies will keep getting away scot-free. History should have showed you this when this exact battle was fought over the tape cassette and the VCR. You already lost this one as well.
"Subsetitute "child porn" for "piracy" and the logical flaw becomes apparent very quickly."
Nope.
Because it's actually harder by far to shut someone down over a CP accusation since penal law needs to be observed and it's actually a criminal offense to send a few thousand false accusations. The same high standard is not observed by copyright law which already in practice forces a "guilty until proven innocent" assumption.
The irony is that nothing you do will prevent filesharing. Not if every law copyright holders ask for passes unchanged. Not even if the laws YOU demand passes unchanged. The only victims will be legitimate businesses. And the worst thing which could happen for you is if you get exactly what you ask for because at that time the damage will be so bad the public as a whole will simply jettison copyright as a whole and kill the very concept of it for the next few centuries.
Please never change, Bobmail. Hell, make sure every one of those lazyasses in copyright enforcement get on board with your agenda. The faster you get this shit going the faster we pirates win.
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Of course they wont, as the intent is not so much to stop infringement as to kill off self publishing and restore gatekeeper control.
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The public does that just fine by demanding artists have deals with big outfits to establish their credibility.
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Would rather have sold 100,000 books at $10 each but that doesn't work when everyone can just torrent it.
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Funny thing, Hollywood and the labels are still in business, and making profits. Copyright infringement has never been a major cause of lost sales, and often the cause of sales. If your book didn't sell, it was rubbish.
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Then why are you complaining?
"Would rather have sold 100,000 books at $10 each but that doesn't work when everyone can just torrent it."
Also doesn't work when the content is crap, which I suspect is the more realistic option here.
Also, your attempt at maths is as poor as your writing portably is. The figures you quoted would give you $1 million. That's retail pricing, so after the cut for whoever you sell through and taxes you'd still be a long way from "pretty wealthy". Assuming you don't have a day job that's probably equivalent to 5-6 years maximum at a well paid professional gig, which is nice but not even close to wealthy.
So, either you've currently got a better deal than the unlikely retail situation you quoted, or you're lying your ass off.
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Not directly, no. But if the directives were used by malicious persons/corporations to target small-name artists who make a living through self-publishing — if they were used to ensure that those artists would leave their art in a desk drawer so they could avoid getting sued or worse — the directives would never need to directly target self-publishing artists for the same outcome to occur.
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Just like if Google no longer existed, human-directed portals (run by people with actual expertise in the topic) would make the same ad revenue.
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Also, you fail to recognize, or are scared of, the actual scale of the Internet. Lots of small manually curated search engines would make it unsearchable at a global level, and destroy it big advantage, if something exists, and or two searches will find it. This means that the only people with global reach will be those who gain a global name, and that means large corporations. Also, it is not like Google does not have competition, and could easily lose its crown to other companies if it alienates users of its services.
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"This would result in spreading the wealth among smaller sites who actually devote some of their money to policing infringement."
In the end this is why the copyright cult can buy as many laws as they like but will never win - they're functionally disabled where basic math is concerned.
No business where the cost is higher than the revenue will survive. And yet here you are, demanding that "smaller sites" who'll have to spend ten bucks for every cent they earn (assuming their programmers are genius level and cost the same as a cubicle coding slave in Calcutta).
If google no longer existed what we'd end up with will be Google v2.0. Never "human-directed portals" who, by basic definition, would cost multiple times what google currently earns to operate.
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On the other hand i agree with the comments here that the money that we could get as a copyright holder for most of the place might be a blur and it might get even harder to upload music and the smaller guys like us could make even less money than we are making now. maybe i need to get back to my bartending job, these governments are out to protect only the ones with bigger labels with already sh** loads of money.
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You are overlooking the prime requirement of article 13, all site that accept user uploads have to prevent infringing content being uploaded or risk a massive lawsuit against them rather than the uploader. The labels are practised at using the law to destroy competitors, and if the set their sights on Jamendo it will not survive, even if it wins every lawsuit brought against.
Even Youtube is worried that this sort of law will cripple its business model.
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This is akin to automobile companies complaining that safety requirements are too expensive, with the same false premise that criminal conduct has an inherent right to exist when it does not.
No one is telling these internet companies not to do business, just not to do business in a way which enables criminal behavior. Article after article makes noise as if to give the impression that there is some major crisis when there is now.
"This is important!"
Important to the pirates and those who enable them, not to anyone else. It is not the copyright holders' problem that internet companies can't figure out how to do business without BREAKING THE LAW.
They might as well break out into a number of "it's hard being a pimp."
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Grasp at all the straws you want. Your side will enver win this political battle. Copyright fuels lots of commerce, tax revenue, and improves the quality of creative works. Many rightsholders are indies who are not part of the "gatekeepers" either.
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Re: Re: Re:Btiching isn’t gonna make you lany ess impotent
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[citations needed]
[…especially for that last claim]
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Governments do too. That's why they are holding internet companies responsible for the piracy that they enable.
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Then it should be trivial for you to post a link to a reliable study that shows this figure, and a comparison showing that against the revenue that is lost by the proposed action. Studies that should be the first step before even proposing any kind of legislation.
Yet, you conspicuously refuse to cite the claim that you claim is obvious. That seems suspicious.
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Many in law enforcement who fail to curb crime do lose their jo9bs.
And yet you pay Mitch Bainwol increasing bonuses year after year of failing to curb piracy. With the money you said pirates stole from you. Which is it? Make up your damn minds!
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If we were to compare VCRs and DVD/CD burners to Internet platforms, would you say the VCRs manufacturers aren't guilty but Internet platforms are is that the manufacturers sell a physical product which (after sale) is out of their control, while Internet platforms provide a service that remains in their control? Or that it's impossible for VCRs to tell if they're engaged in illegal copying or not, while it is possible for Internet platforms? Or what?
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Reminder: everything's copyrighted
(I waive copyright on the preceding message and on this copyright waiver.)
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