
France proposes upload filter law, “forgets” user rights - gnomewascool
https://juliareda.eu/2019/12/french_uploadfilter_law/
======
dane-pgp
"Rightsholders, unlike what the directive says, do not have to justify their
initial requests to block content, but only have to respond once a user
challenges the blocking of one of their uploads."

I wonder if the law will allow for any penalties or restrictions against a
rightsholder who "mistakenly" claims that every piece of user-uploaded media
on a website is infringing their copyright.

Presumably a rightsholder could be a company (or individual) based anywhere in
the world, and therefore would face no legal risk in making such "mistakes".
(A creative lawyer might attempt to use fraud or "hacking" laws against such a
rightsholder, but might have difficulty bringing them to court).

Some of the rightsholder's claims may even be completely valid, meaning that
the hosting website couldn't afford to just disregard all their claims.

~~~
progval
> I wonder if the law will allow for any penalties or restrictions against a
> rightsholder who "mistakenly" claims that every piece of user-uploaded media
> on a website is infringing their copyright.

It does not mention any. (ref: mostly page 31 of
[https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/content/download/16062/162304...](https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/content/download/16062/162304/version/1/file/plf_mice1927829L_cm_5.12.2019.pdf)
, and also other relevant sections found by looking for the words
"téléversé"/"téléverser", which mean "upload")

~~~
MayeulC
Then, couldn't you pose as a copyright owner and submit a takedown request on
these legislators' personal or official content? Let them have a taste of
their own medecine.

I wonder how a politician that supported the initiative would react if they
had their campaign videos systematically taken offline?

~~~
pferde
You would just be adding headaches to the PR drones working for that
politician. I doubt the politician himself would ever know about it happening.

These people are usually behind several layers of separation from real world.

~~~
hithereagain
Don't give up already ;-)

------
PeterStuer
As an example of what can happen under regimes where 'right holders' are
disproportional advantaged over content creators:

A third party rights management provider just copyright claimed seemingly any
Youtube video that contained any soundparts that were also found in one of
their client's videos.

Now their clients are often very small content creators such as people posting
videos of their Twitch game playing streams to YouTube as a VoD archive.

Now imagine that this one gamestreamer client of theirs plays a game that
contains a cutscene (as most games do). Now every other gamestreamer with
YouTube archives will find every video that had them playing that game
copyright striked, as the cutscenes from the game played where ofc identical
to those cutscenes in the other guys video. This really happened [1], and
resulting in those types of channels now having to manually dispute the
demonetization on each and every one of their videos in their (sometimes very
extensive) catalogues.

The very small company in question, Illustrated Sound Music, claims it was
just a 'mistake', and yes, in most cases they will not gain more than a few
pennies per video as apparently most of the stuff they hit has just a handful
of views, but pennies per video from millions and millions of videos add up to
a nice sum.

[1] [https://gamingph.com/2019/12/youtubers-hit-by-false-
copyrigh...](https://gamingph.com/2019/12/youtubers-hit-by-false-copyright-
claim-by-illustrated-sound-music/)

------
tomaszs
The "block and ask later" method seems valid for copyright owners. But for
users it is essencially just "block". Not only because relevancy will be lower
after some days pass. But mostly because algorythms will not show such content
to people. Because it didn't receive any signals for several days makes it to
be considered uninteresting.

For funny memes it is not a big deal, but for social and political discourse
it is devaststing.

And it is already known copyright laws are used by media companies to control
the narrative. For example when a politician says something people can find
not right. Should a media company sympathasing with him, be able to wipe out
the very existance of the situation?

Because this is actually what media companies will be to do. Wipe out parts of
reality they dont like people to remember or know.

Actually it looks like politics made a deal with business. And it is something
to oppose against.

~~~
raverbashing
> but for social and political discourse it is devaststing.

Sounds good. Just copyright strike the content of the party proposing this

~~~
hrktb
Most “serious” parties and companies want this. They want power, and that’s
sheer power, as long as they get to control it.

It’s like the poor guy encouraging tax cuts because one day he’ll be rich and
don’t want to keep his money when he’ll finally make it out.

~~~
raverbashing
I am aware of this, but the bigger parties also fail to realize how this can
backfire on them.

(Which is the opposite of the poor guy situation)

------
doh
This is an unfortunate law that was passed quite hastily and will bring a lot
of challenges to the market. Even my company operates in this space, we were
trying to convince politicians not to adopt it. We failed, as you can see.

We built a product [0] that introduces a balanced approach to the legislation
where it actually considers all 3 sides (creators/uploader, rightsholders and
platforms) and made it free of charge to all (we make money through licensing
revenue carried through the system). We still wish that the legislation didn't
pass, but at least we are hoping to level the playing field for everyone.

[0] [https://pex.com/attribution-engine.html](https://pex.com/attribution-
engine.html)

------
ronilan
Copyright is not as important to society as Silicon Valley wants everyone to
believe. It a property issue and not even a critical one. Most of the problems
around it can be solved with money.

The collateral damage caused by this lawyer infused, never ending “copyright
war”, though is real.

Not worth one good man.

Edit: I’m a “creator”. Never been “corporate”. I had my work “cloned”.

~~~
youeseh
Copyright is pretty important to the artists, academic publishing, and the
entertainment industry, no?

~~~
jachee
Only if they care about money.

Banksy isn't likely to sue anyone.

~~~
FPGAhacker
I can't tell if you are making a joke or not.

[https://www.artsy.net/news/artsy-editorial-banksy-sued-
itali...](https://www.artsy.net/news/artsy-editorial-banksy-sued-italian-
company-making-unauthorized-merchandise)

~~~
jachee
Copyright is a corporate concern. Pest Control are corporate, and care about
money.

They're _not_ Banksy direct.

------
derefr
> The title of the proposed law gives a glimpse into the mindset of French
> legislators, presenting the enforcement of copyright laws in the interest of
> private entertainment companies as a matter of asserting France’s “cultural
> sovereignty”. It frames Article 17 as a means to support the European
> entertainment industry in its conflicts with American tech companies. Users’
> interests are at best an afterthought in this struggle for “cultural
> sovereignty”.

I would imagine that the legislators of France and other EU countries are
fairly accustomed to seeing through the lens of
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geographical_indications_and_t...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geographical_indications_and_traditional_specialities_in_the_European_Union)
protections, and tend to apply that mindset to other "trade protection"
issues.

In a sense, someone sharing a French-copyrighted work on Facebook with the
source+watermarks stripped, _is_ doing something kind of similar to an
American winemaker who labels a sparkling wine they've produced as e.g. "Napa
Champagne".... but in another sense, no, that's an awful analogy.

~~~
bonzini
It's awful indeed. As a European citizen I am very much in favor of
geographical marking of specialties (and I don't see why that wouldn't be
beneficial to US agriculture either), but certainly do not extend that opinion
to upload filters. Or dropping daylight savings time for that matter.

------
user5994461
It's not quite as bad as she makes it look like.

France already has laws covering exceptions like caricatures and quotations.
That's why it's not detailed in the new article, it already exists.

The most interesting part of the PDF might be the article 17, section 4. In
summary, platforms MUST provide a way for both users and copyright holders to
handle complaints and -the important part- they MUST be reviewed by a human.
This is gonna be fun for Google and co that want to automate everything with
machine learning.

~~~
rs23296008n1
Review by a human might not help if the human is being scripted like a bot.

Line 5 of script: Look at reply. Count the number of vowels on first line.
Line 6 of script: now say, "we have reviewed your reply."

~~~
user5994461
Humans introduce entropy in the system and might actually review cases once in
a while, unlike a bot.

Outside of script, rejected claims that had "azertyuiop" as copyright owner,
although it had the right amount of vowels.

~~~
rs23296008n1
To expand:

Plenty of call centers operate scripts that respond not much better than how I
outlined it. The trick is to get out of the script as soon as you can find and
trigger the escape clause.

My concern with companies like Google is that you can easily get yourself into
a bizarre situation. Whereas with other systems you just need to escape the
script to get to a human review, Google and similar structures mean you often
need to find the escape from the escape from the escape. This is why people
appeal on twitter rather than through google's own systems. (Yes there are
exceptions)

The hope with putting humans into the loop is valid but I'm not convinced its
the full answer. The overall attitude/culture of the environment they operate
in is still important.

At least with putting people into the process those people can add their own
attitude/culture. This is the saving grace however slim.

I'm hopeful but not convinced.

~~~
user5994461
Same as you, just hopeful it will break the vicious cycle.

Google and co are trying very hard to have no support process and no support
staff. Automating everything instead.

If and when they're forced to have a full support structure, it's a major
change like a Trojan horse. Even if they're following a stupid script, they're
not going to sit idle all days, they're going to actually review some cases,
maybe read them in full sometimes.

~~~
rs23296008n1
Look at my parent comment as an example. There is no way for me to find out
why it is now at -1 and frankly, the humans who made the decision are not
obliged to comment.

So the comment will disappear with no understanding why. No learning is
possible.

Human involvement didn't help here.

QED

~~~
user5994461
All of that because there wasn't a law and a process forcing them to review
and explain the decision :p

Joking aside. I think you got downvoted because your comment is demeaning
toward support and the example is over the top. Humans are not mindless robots
who follow instructions to the letter, even if (especially if) formally
instructed to count vowels in the message.

~~~
rs23296008n1
I've spoken to many call center staff who quite explicitly had no permission
to deviate from a script. They were audio recorded to guarantee compliance.
I'm not the one demeaning anyone.

"This call will be recorded for quality and training purposes"

Quality = making sure no one gets too far or deviates off script. Training =
who to blame and who to make an example of.

HN often forgets that people who have swam at the bottom don't have the same
rose colored glasses. I've seen some pretty harsh environments and plenty
definitely script humans like bots.

The counting vowels example sounds over the top but its only over the top
because you think its absurd. It _seems_ absurd because you don't see it as a
delay loop. But that is exactly what it is. Here's a real example of a delay
when someone needs to resolve an issue that is trivial but the organisation
doesn't want it commonly used: Put the person on hold. Wait 2 minutes. Resume
the call. Say you've consulted your line manager. Etc.

Don't shoot the guy who reminds the world this has happened and is still
happening. People as bots is a thing that is already happening.

~~~
user5994461
If they're audio recorded, it means it's possible to get hold of a human on
the phone, so miles ahead of Google support.

I know shitty support and shitty jobs, I haven't always worked in tech and I
am not in the valley. Yet people as bots is progress over the current level of
support from big tech companies.

------
deogeo
Every time you buy media legally, you fund these kinds of laws. Not only are
media conglomerates not our friends, they are openly hostile to the rights the
growing IP laws have not yet robbed us of.

~~~
briandear
Every time you steal media, you defund the creators.

~~~
sgc
When many people copy media (not take it away from someone), they do it
because it is not worth 100x-1000x the amount the creator receives to them.
Many, if not most or virtually all those people would be willing to pay a more
reasonable price without the draconian war enacted by "publishers", who now,
in the age of the internet, bring little more than a gate rather than actual
distribution. It is certainly more complex than "pay any price, accept any
consequence, or you are evil". A strong correlate to this is the fact that
many content creators, despite entering into agreements with publishing
houses, really could not care less about piracy. The modern history of piracy,
legislative creep, and enforcement has been a battle between consumers and
publishers, not artists.

------
gnomewascool
The title is a bit click-baity, but I'm not sure whether it's sufficiently bad
to "editorialise"[0] the title.

The context is the French implementation of the EU copyright directive (the
one that contained Articles "11" and "13" (though the numbering was later
changed)).

[0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

~~~
lidHanteyk
The title is like a headline that I would expect from a professional left-wing
publisher, though; it doesn't seem unreasonable at all, and I'm not sure what
it could be changed to since the author is a politician and this is basically
a political speech that focuses on the topics brought up by the title.

------
Mirioron
Remember when EU politicians said that Article 17 (was known as article 13)
won't result in upload filters? I remember.

This is yet another example of EU politicians lying to the voters.

------
mirimir
This is all so depressing.

If we had sites where content couldn't be blocked, all this angst about
blocking would just be lulz.

And it's not even hard. Torrenting and streaming through VPN services still
work well enough. We just need implementations at mass market scale. Some of
those cryptocurrency whales ought to get on it.

~~~
mirimir
Belated edit: I recall in the mid-late 90s that the internet was headed toward
P2P, mix networks, and other noncommercial stuff. We got Usenet newsgroups,
Cypherpunk/Mixmaster remailers, Freenet, Tor, Napster, BitTorrent, etc.

But now we've gone commercial/centralized again. Like AOL/Prodigy reborn. And
worse than that, we have smartphones designed to neutralize privacy and foster
dependency on commercial bullshit. More like game systems than PCs.

Sure, there's cool stuff like IPFS and Signal. But mostly it's all so
depressing.

~~~
BlueTemplar
"Protocols, Not Platforms: A Technological Approach to Free Speech
(knightcolumbia.org)" :

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20841059](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20841059)

~~~
mirimir
Thanks, interesting stuff.

> I've said this 1000 times, but garbage like Facebook or Twitter could be
> replaced overnight by a protocol. There is really zero reason it couldn't be
> built from existing distributed tooling, be secure and just as useful
> without lizard people getting in the way. -- scottlocklin

But there's nothing about privacy, and the only comment that mentions "censor"
is in favor.

~~~
BlueTemplar
RTFA ? (I linked the HN discussion because criticism is always good to have.)

------
bcheung
I couldn't really find the core arguments of the article. I wasn't really sure
what it is was arguing for or against or what the exact laws are that we
should be concerned about. Can someone elaborate?

~~~
tehabe
the European Union (EU) enacted a copyright directive this year, this
directive has to be implemented in national law by the EU member states. Part
of this copyright directive is that platforms are liable for copyright
infringement of their users unless they take measures to prevent those. they
are also provisions in the directive which were supposed to keep user's right
in check.

Now the French government put forward a bill in the French Parliament to
implement this directive. It seems to be a bill which favors the rightsholders
above else, which was to be expected because France was one of the biggest
proponents of this part of the directive.

------
cft
If the EU firewalls itself, it will make it easier for the rest of the world.
To many aggressive laws claiming foreign jurisdictions.

