Articles 11 & 13 from the EU Copyright Directive

All points being made so far are something that the current EU Copyright Directive should have considered and established almost two decades ago before allowing anyone to reach the stage we are right now and since the votes on deleting the articles were in fact against the changes (read my last post on page 6) there is still a good chance that the EU Council would reject the newly proposed directive. See Even after today's EU Parliament vote, we can still kill Article 13 through pressure on German government to prevent formal adoption by EU Council
 
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I still can't figure out if I'm responsible as a service provider with a server in the US but with users globally, including the EU...

Unfortunately you will be responsible if you want to continue operating globally to the degree @Robust mentioned on page 6
4. If no authorisation is granted, online content-sharing service providers shall be liable for unauthorised acts of communication to the public, including making available to the public, of copyright-protected works and other subject matter, unless the service providers demonstrate that they have:

(a) made best efforts to obtain an authorisation, and

(b) made, in accordance with high industry standards of professional diligence, best efforts to ensure the unavailability of specific works and other subject matter for which the rightholders have provided the service providers with the relevant and necessary information; and in any event

(c) acted expeditiously, upon receiving a sufficiently substantiated notice from the rightholders, to disable access to, or to remove from, their websites the notified works or other subject matter, and made best efforts to prevent their future uploads in accordance with point (b).

5. In determining whether the service provider has complied with its obligations under paragraph 4, and in light of the principle of proportionality, the following elements, among others, shall be taken into account:

(a) the type, the audience and the size of the service and the type of works or other subject matter uploaded by the users of the service; and

(b) the availability of suitable and effective means and their cost for service providers.

6. Member States shall provide that, in respect of new online content-sharing service providers the services of which have been available to the public in the Union for less than three years and which have an annual turnover below EUR 10 million, calculated in accordance with Commission Recommendation 2003/361/EC (20) , the conditions under the liability regime set out in paragraph 4 are limited to compliance with point (a) of paragraph 4 and to acting expeditiously, upon receiving a sufficiently substantiated notice, to disable access to the notified works or other subject matter or to remove those works or other subject matter from their websites .
 
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All points being made so far are something that the current EU Copyright Directive should have considered and established almost two decades ago before allowing anyone to reach the stage we are right now

As it should have been worldwide. The DMCA seems to operates under a "Wild West" mentality and seems to be based around "take down" rather than providing or aiding initial protection. Kind of almost like "it's OK to steal copyright material as long as you don't get caught. But if we catch you we will tell you off and make you give it back" (although obviously you cannot give digital/intellectual property back).
 
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seems to be based around "take down" rather than providing or aiding initial protection.

I personally think that that's the most that can be expected from most platforms, and especially if we look back to the means available when it was implemented.
The problem in my eyes are not the platforms "allowing" the content to be uploaded by ignoring it, but the users uploading it. Now that we put even more fault on the platforms, it's again the actual thieves that get away unpunished.
We don't have to argue that there's sites out there who willingly turn a blind eye on things, or some black sheeps that encourage hosting illegal content, but I think those few can normally be clearly separated.
The people that actually do the infringements are who should've been targeted, but nothing of that sort happened. They'll find their way around every filter you put in their way, and you'll be responsible for it.
 
I personally think that that's the most that can be expected from most platforms, and especially if we look back to the means available when it was implemented.
The problem in my eyes are not the platforms "allowing" the content to be uploaded by ignoring it, but the users uploading it. Now that we put even more fault on the platforms, it's again the actual thieves that get away unpunished.

You could argue (and I believe an earlier law in Germany) did argue that if a site is moderated, then moderators should take down illegal content as soon as they spot it. presumably the bigger the site, the more moderators there are to do this.

We certainly mange to take down a lot of stuff immediately with 3 moderators, obvious things like images with a copyright or author signature, music files we know to not yet be in the public domain. I'm not saying we can get all of it but I think that is reasonable endeavours. Someone above mention song lyrics - that should be easy enough to spot as lyrics will generally formatted with very/chorus lines. You can safely assume anything 60s onwards is still in copyright and a vast majority of post 30s, which is a huge amount of popular music.
 
As it should have been worldwide. The DMCA seems to operates under a "Wild West" mentality and seems to be based around "take down" rather than making initial protection. Kind of almost like "it's OK to steal copyright material as long as you don't get caught. But if we catch you we will tell you off and make you give it back" (although obviously you cannot give digital/intellectual property back).
I agree, but the fact of the matter is that it wasn't made worldwide and now the EU is heading to a direction to exclude themselves from something they willingly participated all these years.

What's frustrating is that they proposed their new rules without offering practical solutions for everyone. For example they want copyright filters that work 100% without offering such filters themselves. So, in essence, they are sacrificing the needs of the majority to satisfy some needs of a minority because such filters do not exist and probably never will.
 
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... The problem in my eyes are not the platforms "allowing" the content to be uploaded by ignoring it, but the users uploading it. Now that we put even more fault on the platforms, it's again the actual thieves that get away unpunished...
Good point, but this undermines the purpose of the notion of ''free sharing''. Yes you can share none copyrighted material, but 90% of the material on the internet is copyrighted. So how can you bypass that without infringing copyright?
 
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I agree, but the fact of the matter is that it wasn't made worldwide and now he EU is heading to a direction to exclude themselves from something they willingly participated all this years.

True, but then neither the DMCA nor the policy of any EU country was actually following the law. Copyright laws for decades and maybe centuries) have always staled clearly that owned works must not be copied, and that would mean that making digital copies and uploading is against the law.

I know this is all hindsight and so not really an argument that is going anywhere, although if I had my way then I think the DMCA should have more teeth, and something like this EU directive would be worldwide. When I say something like I do accept that the key thing is its implementation - that it should be realistic and proportionate so that smaller sites that do their best to comply are not penalised.

But time will tell, it seems after the initial GDPR panic, the sky didn't actually fall down.

NB: The word copyright literally means "the right make a copy". The rights holder has the right to make a copy, nobody else does. The don't have the right to make a copy provided they remove it or destroy it when found out.
 
Theoretically, my users should have permission for everything they upload, and theoretically everybody knows that. By assuming they don't, I put distrust between me and my users and by taking down stuff preemptively even though they may have the rights, I bring frustration. They'll not learn from that as in they broke a law, but they'll blame me for taking it down cause it's "not a big deal". The worst someone faces for uploads in that scale is a digital warning, which can normally be navigated around by simply creating a new account, so why bother about copyright. And why do I have to take sole responsibility for them not caring as service provider and face legal consequences while they just walk away?
 
Good point, but this undermines the purpose of the notion of ''free sharing''. Yes you can share non copyrighted material, but 90% of the material on the internet is copyrighted. So how can you bypass that with infringing copyright?

So basically "free sharing" in most cases would mean theft (and fencing stolen property).

In the music industry this started happening with the advent and popularity of the cassette. Before that, Joe public could not easily make and share vinyl. So pirate cassettes became freely sold in the open public at markets etc. (And people started making mix tapes for their mates). The way that was dealt with was (instead of arresting every Del Boy) was to slap a tax onto blank cassettes - the assumption (like the DMCA) being - we can't stop it happening but here is a token gesture towards rights owners.
 
We certainly mange to take down a lot of stuff immediately with 3 moderators, obvious things like images with a copyright or author signature, music files we know to not yet be in the public domain. I'm not saying we can get all of it but I think that is reasonable endeavours. Someone above mention song lyrics - that should be easy enough to spot as lyrics will generally formatted with very/chorus lines. You can safely assume anything 60s onwards is still in copyright and a vast majority of post 30s, which is a huge amount of popular music.
You seem to be approaching this with a confidence that you're able to identify images or pieces of work that are copyright works? Am I going to be expected to try and search and research every single image uploaded to see whether it's an original work from someone that doesn't allow sharing? If that image appears across many sites from a google search, I'm supposed to delve into all of them and try to find where it was originally posted? That turns a small niche community with a gallery into a part time job with no income and no way to pay moderators to perform these tasks. Am I supposed to flag all images for moderation upon upload and demand the user prove it is their original work or they have the right to upload it?
 
You seem to be approaching this with a confidence that you're able to identify images or pieces of work that are copyright works?

We can know for sure if an image has a copyright watermark then we remove, and anyone who does that is warned. Other images then obviously you cannot know but by having forum T & C which make it clear, we find our users become good at making themselves responsible.

With music, as I said, it's easy to know about the vast majority of what gets uploaded.

I totally get that if you have a user base that doesn't care about the law, or believes everything should be free, then that is more of a problem for site owners, but the first thing to do may be to make it clear that uploading copyright material is not allowed. As with the T&C here on xenforo.com which I find interestingly worded.:

You agree to not use the Service to submit or link to any Content which is defamatory, abusive, hateful, threatening, spam or spam-like, likely to offend, contains adult or objectionable content, contains personal information of others, risks copyright infringement, encourages unlawful activity, or otherwise violates any laws.
 
Other images then obviously you cannot know but by having forum T & C which make it clear, we find our users become good at making themselves responsible
But with this directive I become legally and financially responsible. DMCA protects me from users breaking the law regarding copyright, this means I'm breaking the law. I have no idea what reasonable and proportionate actions I'm supposed to take.

Oh yeah, I'm supposed to see a lawyer. And pay the lawyer again if I'm sued.
 
DMCA protects me from users breaking the law regarding copyright

DMCA also protects you from breaking the law. It's not a great thing and could be argued something needs to be done for better protection of rights owners.
 
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DMCA also protects you from breaking the law. It's not a great thing.
So instead let's finally and completely commercialize the internet where the only sites with user content are entities capable of actually implementing whatever is required and willing and able to pay lawyers due to the spectre of litigation for hosting a site that allows user content.
 
The DMCA has been widely abused by copyright holders and those in their employ, as well as by a whole horde of people who don't have anything to do with the works they're reporting on - whether to exact some kind of revenge or to exploit money out of people. I don't see much reason to suppose that these new directives won't also lead to all kinds of abuses, on an even larger scale, negatively impacting many innocent people. But I guess we can take some comfort in the fact that some of these copyright trolls eventually get their just deserts:


 
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I totally get that if you have a user base that doesn't care about the law, or believes everything should be free, then that is more of a problem for site owners, but the first thing to do may be to make it clear that uploading copyright material is not allowed. As with the T&C here on xenforo.com which I find interestingly worded.:

You agree to not use the Service to submit or link to any Content which is defamatory, abusive, hateful, threatening, spam or spam-like, likely to offend, contains adult or objectionable content, contains personal information of others, risks copyright infringement, encourages unlawful activity, or otherwise violates any laws.

Right. At the moment XenForo has 134 974 members. Assuming that every member has posted, is posting or will post at least one copyrighted image, according to the new EU Copyright Directive, in the near future, if nothing is been done to remove those images and prevent uploads, XenForo may be facing an avarage of at least 134 974 copyright violations. That would be enough to shut down the whole XenForo Community and its services ...Right?

Maybe I'm drawing premature conclusions, causing unnecessary panic, but I'm curious what the XenForo developers and moderators have to say on this. So far none of them have participated into the discussion, probably because of the uncertainty of situation, which is understandable, but the situation is no longer uncertain since last week the directive passed and it's only a matter of time that becomes a law in the EU digital market. That being said I still have some hopes that the EU Council would reject it, so I guess we would have to wait for this month's final say before we continue with this discussion.
 
Why would you assume that every member is would break xenforo T&C and also break the law?
The every member part is just an avarage estimate. Not all members post copyrighted images, but if a member posts more than one, that makes up for the rest. Look at it as a thought experiment where if XenForo wants to continue its services in the EU digital market then it will have to comply with their copyright rules of filtering copyrighted material, hence preventing copyright infringements.
 
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