A far cry from the early days of setting up a simple forum for people to chat about their hobbies and interests. I don't think the beurocrats understand the impact of their decisions. All the GDPR has really done is generated a mass of extra clicks as people robotically click away at the popups and carry on regardless.
Articles 11 & 13 from the EU Copyright Directive
- Thread starter Kalo
- Start date
jmurrayhead
Well-known member
Absolutely. The kind of tech involved with filtering out content before it gets posted is not something the average person or small business will ever have access to. I doubt the geniuses behind XenForo could even come up with something like that within a reasonable amount of time. This will do nothing but hurt a lot of people and really, only the corporations that own content have anything to gain from it.
Mr Lucky
Well-known member
GDPR has actually meant many sites have done what they should have all along, provide a clear privacy statement and let people know what the implications are of whatever cookies the site may be causing to be downloaded. A totally different thing to this issue though.
Mr Lucky
Well-known member
Along with the creative individuals who probably have far more to lose from theft than the corporations.
jmurrayhead
Well-known member
I know you're hardcore into this and I suspect you've been burnt in your own way. I can respect that. But this is not the right way.
Mr Lucky
Well-known member
What is the right way?
jmurrayhead
Well-known member
I don't have the answers to that, but the technical requirements to do what I think the EU is asking are costly and out of reach for most people and businesses. You're on this site so I assume you're a forum owner. Are you ready to take on the technical challenges of content filtering or are you expecting XenForo, vBulletin, IPB, and various other software creators to figure it out?
shimspedy
Well-known member
well if youtube will manage then i will manage
jmurrayhead
Well-known member
I think that's a huge "if", too. Even then, it's likely only those with deep pockets will be able to continue on.
Mr Lucky
Well-known member
I don't believe for a minute this ruling will in practice cause prosecutions of small site owners who take due diligence. Like GDPR, there seems to be a lot of panic and taking things out of proportion.
My own sites have moderators that do take out instances of copyright theft. I also pay a licence for the use of audio clips that I personally upload. I honestly do not believe that Article 13 will punish any site owner who takes such precautions, but I sincerely hope it will have a positive effect on the likes of Youtube etc. If not then I'll be saying what a bad law it is.
jmurrayhead
Well-known member
That's an optimistic outlook and I can appreciate that. I guess we'll have to see how things unfold. In a way, it does remind me of how the whole "Net Neutrality" events unfolded with the republican party taking over in the US recently. Yet, nothing bad has happened....yet.
Lukas W.
Well-known member
Definitely not a rushed decision by politicians that barely even understand the scope and consequences of what they just decided for more than 500 million people despite the biggest uproar across all of the EU that has ever taken place. Article 13 takes the platform owners into responsibility to prevent copyrighted content from being uploaded. We already have the rulings of platforms being accountable if they don't remove copyrighted material in hindsight, so that's clearly not what has been decided.
How do you programatically determine if something someone uploads is copyright-protected? You can't even always tell as a human, so how would an algorithm be capable to? To determine it with the best possible accuracy, you'd need something that is able to actually know, not to mathematically guess. Now even ignoring obscuring through all kinds of edits, you'd need a database of at least everything that is allowed on your site. And that still would block everything that is not explicitly in the database, including for example private photos - the algorithm has never seen that picture before, so who knows? Maybe it's copyrighted? Better block it, we don't want/can't afford that fine.
So ignoring that this is obviously far from ideal, this is yet one of the "best" ways we have. So where do we get such a database from? Google and other big companies, that already have them today. The very companies that the EU is so keen on to keep under their foot just gained a massive new market. And I'm pretty sure that they already have a bunch of experts exploring ways how these services could me marketed and sold to smaller companies and other platforms.
Once the decision passed the council, which it most likely will, it'll be up to the individual nations to decide on how this law is actually applicable. If they don't realize, that it's literally impossible to turn this into an applicable ruling given the current state of technology, they'll sentence user content generation in the EU to death. Only big companies and everyone buying their services will be able to have something better than the current status.
jmurrayhead
Well-known member
You hit the nail on the head. Well said and I don't doubt the big "G" and others are already looking at ways of marketing this to not only businesses but also the creators to enforce it. Brilliant.
Mr Lucky
Well-known member
I think a big part of what may become a problem is the way people argue. Below is an example of somebody ranting and swearing, even admitting that some of what they want to use they don't own the rights to. "But it's only a few seconds..." (I only did a little bit of stealing...)
Some more measured and articulate arguments from people who actually do appreciate that copyright theft is a bad thing, and can be damaging to the livelihoods of artists, may be more useful than this kind of thing. I have no particular love for MEPs or the way the EU is run, but they are more likely to listen without the ranting.
Some more measured and articulate arguments from people who actually do appreciate that copyright theft is a bad thing, and can be damaging to the livelihoods of artists, may be more useful than this kind of thing. I have no particular love for MEPs or the way the EU is run, but they are more likely to listen without the ranting.
imno007
Well-known member
I don't think he actually admits to "stealing" anything, just that he might take a few liberties with maybe using some footage a few seconds longer than necessary, or something to that effect. Also, he tends to be a bit tongue-in-cheek, so I'm not sure how serious he was in that moment anyway. And...well, "ranting and swearing" is kind of what he does on a regular basis: he's a gaming critic, not a political commentator. I just posted that because he's fairly well known by those who play a lot of games and it's a bit of an every man perspective, from someone who actually makes his living making content for Youtube. You're welcome to not like it.
jmurrayhead
Well-known member
But why is the way people "argue" a problem? Sure, he swears and rants. He still makes valid points. It's just that the MEPs or EU or whatever they're all called are not listening and they seem to have no experience in tech on which they are making decisions on.
imno007
Well-known member
It's cool. Some of us are just a bit more conservative than others. Nothing wrong with that, just means you won't find us all at the same parties.
On a more serious note, your second sentence is right on. Like so many of the people trying to legislate the internet, a good many of those voting in favor of these Articles probably barely know how to check their email, and once in a while they can manage to check out Facebook to see some pics of the grand kids. Aside from the money being thrown their way, these laws likely won't much affect most of them personally. Maybe when most of them have died off and a younger generation has assumed their positions things will take a turn for the better.
Walter
Well-known member
Running forums for nearly 20 years, I have taken all precautions you can imagine.
Last week I got a bill from a publishing house over more than 30 000 EUR. Reason: They found lyric text users posted on a forum which has millions of posts. They calculated x years of "usage" per poem (e.g. 2014-2019) resulting in the said amount.
My lawyer took care of this bill as under the current legislation my only obligation was to remove the poems as soon as I was notified.
Guess what will happen as soon as the new regulation will pass into local laws.
I have one of the best available lawyers for copyright issues. He sees it as I see it - we will have to cease operation as soon as the new regulation will become law.
Mr Lucky
Well-known member
The problem is that he may well be making valid points but is not getting them across as an articulate argument to the people who matter.
This seems like a useful platform, but I'd still not advise ranting and swearing to your MEP:
I understand of course if the publisher’s claim of copyright on the lyrics was bogus, they do sometimes “try it on”
But I don’t really understand how allowing copyright material to be posted on your forum is taking all precautions you can imagine.
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He did obviously not allow it. He did not know.
Or do you (or your mods) examine each and every post on your board ? How many posts do you have daily ? Automate this ? Welcome to the filter ...