Dopers...what do you think about Article 13?

[XT]

I have to admit…I hadn’t heard much about this so I’m coming into this mostly cold. I saw a YouTube video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbXHrj8k7dg) on it and did a bit of digging. Here is a Wired UK article on the subject that I’ll cut and paste from: https://www.wired.co.uk/article/what-is-article-13-article-11-european-directive-on-copyright-explained-meme-ban

What is Article 13? The EU’s divisive new copyright plan explained

Articles 11 and 13 of the EU’s new copyright directive have stoked fears that memes will effectively be banned and platforms will need to pay publishers when people link to their websites

The European Parliament has voted in favour of a controversial new copyright directive that could force tech giants to do much more to stop the spread of copyrighted material on their platforms. The European Union Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market, to give it its full name, is designed to update existing copyright laws for the internet age.

Simply put, the Directive on Copyright places more responsibility on websites such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter to make sure that copyrighted materially isn’t being illegaly shared on their platforms. Until now, the onus has mostly been on the copyright holders – usually the companies that produce audio, video or written content – to enforce copyright protection but under the new law this responsibility will shift onto the major platforms themselves.
At the heart of the Directive on Copyright are two divisive articles – Article 11 and Article 13 – that have been dubbed the “link tax” and “meme ban” articles respectively. Critics of the Directive on Copyright argue that these articles mean that platforms will have to pay a fee to share a link to a news article and have to start filtering and removing memes.

But the Directive on Copyright isn’t law yet. It still has to go through a series of steps before it becomes finalised as an EU directive and then it still has to be implemented in law by by member states. To help clear things up, here’s WIRED’s guide to the EU Directive on Copyright.

What is the Directive on Copyright?
The European Union Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market is a proposed European Union directive that is designed to limit how copyrighted content is shared on online platforms. EU directives are a form of legislation that set an objective for member states to achieve, so if the Directive on Copyright passess, all EU member states will be expected to eventually pass their own domestic legislation in line with the terms of the directive.

The Directive on Copyright is sometimes referred to as ‘Article 13’ after its most controversial component – the article that would require online platforms to filter or remove copyrighted material from their websites. It’s this article that people think could be interpreted as requiring platforms to ban memes, but more on that later.

The Directive on Copyright would make online platforms and aggregator sites liable for copyright infringements, and supposedly direct more revenue from tech giants towards artists and journalists. Under current legislation, platforms such as YouTube aren’t responsible for copyright violations, although they must remove that content when directed to do so by the rights holders. Proponents of the Directive on Copyright argue that this means that people are listening to, watching and reading copyrighted material without the creators being properly paid for it.

I honestly haven’t heard that much about it, probably because I don’t live in the EU and wouldn’t have thought it would affect me in any case, but according to the YouTube video and his discussion with a senior YouTube VP that might not be the case if they go with the least common denominator for ease of administration. Even if they don’t and they have one set of rules for Europe and one for the US (and who knows how many others…I noticed he included China on his map, but YouTube is banned in China and so are most of those other platforms), it will mean a further fragmentation of the internet. Also, I have to wonder, will European net users just do what many Chinese do, and use a VPN gateway to get around the restrictions at least on viewing (European creators will almost certainly be fucked, regardless)?

Anyway, thoughts?

[mikecurtis]

My first reaction is: any laws that seek to curtail freedom of expression are wrong.

However. . .

Platforms such as YouTube and Facebook want to be free to make money off of content providers without having any responsibility for that content.
Does the content violate community standards? Sorry, not our content, we’re just provide a place for it (and make money off of it.)
Does the content violate the privacy of users? Sorry, not our content. . .
Does the content incite violence? Sorry, not our content. . .

I think most people are fine with holding platforms responsible for the threats to safety and privacy of what they they choose to “air”

Does the content violate copyright regs? Sorry, not our content. . .

so, why the problem with holding them responsible for violations of copyright law?

mc

[CarnalK]

Becuse most people actually give a crap about public safety and privacy but mostly don’t give a crap about minor copyright infringement.

[Whack-a-Mole]

If it really is true that a site will have to pay a fee to have a link to another site’s content then it will be the end of the internet as they know it (and by exentsion maybe here in the US too).

Consider how many links we put in posts on this site alone. If the SDMB had to pay for every such link they would be banned. That or the SDMB would charge us all a fee to include links which means most posters would stop posting links.

For a site to manage such a system would be unwieldy to impossible. How the hell would any search engine be able to work? It’s so crazy I cannot help but think I am missing something here.

I really do not see how providing a link to someone else’s content is robbing them of anything anyway. Sure if their work is copied and placed on a site apart from the content creator but that seems a straight-up, normal copyright violation already covered today. Pointing someone to their site seems it would actually help the content creator since more people will be able to find their work.

[XT]

According to the video at least the US has a very different view of fair use and accountability than the EU does. It seems the EU is really wanting to tighten up wrt fair use of copyrighted material, which seems (ironically I guess) slanted really towards the big media corporations and large players and against the smaller creators and platforms like YouTube. I know there has been a lot of ongoing head butting between the EU and content providers like Facebook and YouTube, but I hadn’t realized it had gotten to this level…or that it could potentially affect us here in the US. It seems to me to be a further Balkanization of the internet we already seem to be seeing. In the end we may end up with Great Firewalls all over the place and content and content providers segregated within those different zones.

[mikecurtis]

Article 11, or the link tax, prob wouldn’t apply to sites like SDMB. It’s aimed at sites such as news gathering sites like Google News. Where they give the headline of the story or a short synopsis of the story or even an excerpt and then link to the orig content if the reader wants more info. The idea is that they are selling ad space, and making money, while not producing any orig content of their own. Money that at least in part, should go to the content originator.

It’s a tricky issue. If I have a news website I make money when people read my stories, by charging advertisers based on views. If I get viewers from other sites, I still make money off of the views, but the website that sent me the viewer can also make money, because the reader went to them first. So, essentially the news story (or whatever) is making money twice, but I as the originator of the story am only getting paid once. It’s comparable to buying a book or movie and then charging others to view it.

mc

[Whack-a-Mole]

@mikecurtis

Article 11, or the link tax, prob wouldn’t apply to sites like SDMB. It’s aimed at sites such as news gathering sites like Google News. Where they give the headline of the story or a short synopsis of the story or even an excerpt and then link to the orig content if the reader wants more info. The idea is that they are selling ad space, and making money, while not producing any orig content of their own. Money that at least in part, should go to the content originator.

I have no evidence but my gut instinct tells me a news aggregator is overall more beneficial to a news source than a drain on their revenue.

There are hundreds of decent news websites out there. There is no way in hell I am visiting all of them. Without an aggregator I might visit 6-12 of them a day. There is no way I will ever see mikecurtis blog[sup]tm[/sup] on my own. If others could not link to you without paying you then I will probably never see your site.

If I see your story with a headline and a few sentences on an aggregation site I still might not visit. But then there is a chance I will. The more I see examples of your work, and assuming I have liked the content, the more likely I am to visit.

Some chance is better than no chance. Have I consumed your content for free thus ripping you off? Only in the most literal sense I think and definitely not under fair use laws (else if I use a quote from you on the SDMB with a link I would be stealing your content and I do not think anyone here thinks that is the case).

[mikecurtis]

It’s not about you reading my stuff for free, it’s about newsagrregatordotcom making money off of it. And these sites are making a shit ton of money. As I pointed out, links do increase traffic on the content provider sites and they can make more money that way. But the other site is also making money off of the content and the original provider should get a cut of that too. At least according to the EU.

It’s all about money. Nobody cares if people on SDMB are linking to websites all over the globe. Or if some guy is making meme type Star Wars videos using actual footage from the movies. There’s little or no money being made in these instances. But sites like Fark and Daily Motion are making oodles of cash on other people’s content.

It’s ok for you to quote me and provide a link to the orig. But if you’re making money off of quoting me; then I should gt a cut!

mc

[mikecurtis]

The hypocrisy comes in when you learn that YouTube has been fighting with Facebook over this very issue. That Facebook is “freebooting” Youtube’s content. But when the EU tries to legislate against the practice, they say that the EU is stifling creativity.

mc

[smiling_bandit]

@mikecurtis

Article 11, or the link tax, prob wouldn’t apply to sites like SDMB. It’s aimed at sites such as news gathering sites like Google News.

It’s all about money. Nobody cares if people on SDMB are linking to websites all over the globe.

You may not have noticed, but the SD has ads. Most websites do in some fashion. Which means that they could indeed run afoul of such laws. The fact that you don’t care in no way means the content providers don’t.

The hypocrisy comes in when you learn that YouTube has been fighting with Facebook over this very issue

If I understand correctly, that issue is about othr sites creating in-page youtube applets that use Youtube, but do not offer any support to YOutube in return. The issue here is primaliry converned with indexing, aggregation, or search forms directly linking to content, with at most material that would normally be considered Fair Use, probably even in a commercial setting, and which therefore immedialte has their own chance to monetize.

Furthermore, one of the most insane things about Article 13 is that it seems to put an absurd and impractical onus on groups that would have a difficult time sorting through issues like copyright - which I’m 100% will never be deployed for convenient political purposes or because some jerkface politician decides he needs a distraction or wants ot pick a fight. (/Sarcasm) As much as I might offer criticism to Google, I also recognize they are firmly between a rock and a hard place when it comes to issues like these. Everybody wants the service, and nobody wants to pay for it. Everybody wants their material protected to an absurd degree, and wants to use everything else with cheerful abandon. Everybody hates their takedown service and methods (and it has been abused, and the abuses documented), but I do recognize they are tying to wrestle with a system on a scale beyond most human comprehenion.

[mikecurtis]

I don’t know if this is a good law or not (I usually lean away from legislation in these types of matters). But at least the EU is trying to protect creators.

There is a long and storied history of presenters and publishers taking advantage of creators:
In the 18th century literary publishers would give writers a flat (some would say paltry) one time payment for their product and then own the rights with no more financial responsibility to the artists. It’s the leading reason why copyright law today looks like it does.
In the 50’s and 60’s the record industry did the same thing to musicians and the laws were amended to protect those artists as well.
When the shoe was on the other foot; In the 70’s Hollywood screamed bloody murder that VHS home machines were gonna ruin the film industry. And they did it again in the 90’s over DVD’s, and again not so long ago over streaming.
The record industry, likewise, had to learn how to cope with p2p and streaming.
But we’ve still got books and music and movies.
Will this new law disrupt how companies like YouTube, and Snapchat, and Huffpo (and, yes, maybe even the SD) do business? Almost certainly. But I’m pretty sure the internet will survive.

In the mean time, it seems to me, that the loudest complainers are the most egregious offenders. It’s kinda like listening to the serpent complain about the price of apples.

mc

[Whack-a-Mole]

@mikecurtis

It’s not about you reading my stuff for free, it’s about newsagrregatordotcom making money off of it. And these sites are making a shit ton of money. As I pointed out, links do increase traffic on the content provider sites and they can make more money that way. But the other site is also making money off of the content and the original provider should get a cut of that too. At least according to the EU.

This is like saying that since the state built a toll road which gets automobile traffic to my store the state should pay my store a cut of the tolls collected since what the people really wanted was to get to my store which enabled the state to collect tolls on car traffic.

Nevermind that the people would never get to my store without the toll road in the first place.

[Sage_Rat]

I’m all for copyright protection.

But I think that before any such law is passed, a group should be established for establishing a central registry of content signatures which can be used by all of the content managers.

Right now, they’re mandating that Facebook not show YouTube’s content. How is Facebook supposed to know what content YouTube has? How are they supposed to know which content is the original?

You need a public, centralized source that allows the different groups to swap information. Any law that doesn’t provide a means, like that, is going to see a huge amount of lobbying against it by the big Internet companies, and is liable to fail.

If you provide a service like that, I imagine that the big companies would be relatively happy to accept the rules.

[Flyer]

@mikecurtis

I don’t know if this is a good law or not (I usually lean away from legislation in these types of matters). But at least the EU is trying to protect creators.

There is a long and storied history of presenters and publishers taking advantage of creators:
In the 18th century literary publishers would give writers a flat (some would say paltry) one time payment for their product and then own the rights with no more financial responsibility to the artists. It’s the leading reason why copyright law today looks like it does.
In the 50’s and 60’s the record industry did the same thing to musicians and the laws were amended to protect those artists as well.
When the shoe was on the other foot; In the 70’s Hollywood screamed bloody murder that VHS home machines were gonna ruin the film industry. And they did it again in the 90’s over DVD’s, and again not so long ago over streaming.
The record industry, likewise, had to learn how to cope with p2p and streaming.
But we’ve still got books and music and movies.
Will this new law disrupt how companies like YouTube, and Snapchat, and Huffpo (and, yes, maybe even the SD) do business? Almost certainly. But I’m pretty sure the internet will survive.

In the mean time, it seems to me, that the loudest complainers are the most egregious offenders. It’s kinda like listening to the serpent complain about the price of apples.

mc

Content creators are already protected WAY more than they need to be.

Greedy companies like Disney keep hounding Congress to pass extensions to copyright, and so far Congress just rolls over and does what they want. The current law extends automatic copyright for 70 years AFTER the author’s death!

[XT]

This is an EU YouTuber also talking about this. He paints a pretty grim picture. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBTJb08VYUU

[DPRK]

I propose that, all other things being equal, it is preposterous and disingenuous to expect “online platforms” to act for the Copyright Police. Let the Copyright Police be the Copyright Police.

[CarnalK]

@Whack-a-Mole

This is like saying that since the state built a toll road which gets automobile traffic to my store the state should pay my store a cut of the tolls collected since what the people really wanted was to get to my store which enabled the state to collect tolls on car traffic.

Nevermind that the people would never get to my store without the toll road in the first place.

I generally agree but I really hate the use of analogy in these circumstances. What’s actually happening is clear enough. A website is offering brief summaries and a link to another person’s website. This rule is saying that is not a valid to say what other websites are saying without paying for the privilege.

[BigT]

Obvious garbage. It effectively destroys the one good thing about the DMCA by making companies liable for infringement. It is inherently too burdensome to put the onus on the host.

It also upsets a ton of what the Internet is. There are tons of copyvios that are considered by the copyright owners to be no big deal. Image macros (often called “memes”), fan fiction, fan art, Let’s Plays, many types of reviews, remixes, AMVs, hacks, mods, speedruns, trailer rehosting, and so forth.

If you shift the onus to the host, how can they know if the copyright owner is okay with it? They have to ban it all. And then they have to err on the side of blocking anything that might be a copyvio, like legit reviews that may be fair use, but you don’t want to lose a suit because it isn’t.

That’s why the DMCA had its safe harbor provisions. It is what kept the sites safe as long as they tried and allowed companies to send takedown notices and responded quickly. It kept the onus on the copyright owner to police their content–you know, what the whole point of copyright actually is.

The whole thing just seems to be written by people who don’t understand how the Internet works. I don’t know any online site or content producer that thinks this is a good idea.

Oh, and Article 11 is dumb, too, but more in a “shoot yourself in the foot” way. It will just do the opposite of what is intended. If you make a company have to pay to advertise your content, they simply won’t advertise your content. And that is what search engines and indexers do. They advertise your content so that people go to your site and you get money. If Article 11 passes as is, you’ve just cut off EU companies from those reviews. It was already attempted in Germany and another country that I forget at the moment (maybe Spain), and it didn’t work.

This is why we need tech literate people in government at all levels.

(It actually wouldn’t surprise me at all if this is being pushed by large companies that are seeing their massive profits erode slightly by Internet companies. It’s just a way to hurt them. It is weird how Europe has such a problem with Google but not the huge media companies who are much bigger.)

[BigT]

@Sage_Rat

I’m all for copyright protection.

But I think that before any such law is passed, a group should be established for establishing a central registry of content signatures which can be used by all of the content managers.

Right now, they’re mandating that Facebook not show YouTube’s content. How is Facebook supposed to know what content YouTube has? How are they supposed to know which content is the original?

You need a public, centralized source that allows the different groups to swap information. Any law that doesn’t provide a means, like that, is going to see a huge amount of lobbying against it by the big Internet companies, and is liable to fail.

If you provide a service like that, I imagine that the big companies would be relatively happy to accept the rules.

Such a system would have to have a huge number of false positives. Even if you create a perfect fingerprinting system (which we know doesn’t exist, given how often YouTube’s system gets it wrong), you still can’t check for non-infringing uses like fair use, or harmless/helpful infringement. And you still are making the companies liable, so they would have to do whatever the central algorithm said.

The underlying problem is trying to make the hosts liable without giving them things they can do to avoid liability that don’t utterly disrupt how the Internet works at a communal level.

YouTube already has a system. But it’s under their control, and works within safe harbor. The mere existence of having to implement a system is only a real problem for the medium-sized companies that can’t afford it. The big companies, the problem is making them more liable.

YouTube has said that they would literally have to restrict uploads to special approved users in order to comply with this. Even with their system, the false negatives are enough that it would be a liability to let anyone upload. And that’s the underlying concept of how YouTube works.

Same with basically all social media. That is why they are so hard against all this.

[Sage_Rat]

@BigT

Such a system would have to have a huge number of false positives. Even if you create a perfect fingerprinting system (which we know doesn’t exist, given how often YouTube’s system gets it wrong), you still can’t check for non-infringing uses like fair use, or harmless/helpful infringement. And you still are making the companies liable, so they would have to do whatever the central algorithm said.

Do you have a link about YouTube’s system? So far as I know, they have something for audio, but not video.