
Sony Finally Admits It Doesn’t Own Bach - raleighm
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/09/sony-finally-admits-it-doesnt-own-bach-and-it-only-took-public-pressure
======
lysp
The major issue in this is not the bot/automated process that initially
flagged the video (although I don't agree with that either).

The primary issue is that the appeal process was rejected. This shows that
either all appeals are rejected outright or the person who was physically
responsible for checking it didn't read the appeal or view the video.

I'm not sure how anyone could reasonably assume "this is me personally
performing a 300yo song" \- either by reading the appeal notes or viewing the
video could assume that it breached copyright.

This is why there needs to be damages / fines for all incorrect appeal
rejections. Because if there's no penalty for getting it wrong, there is no
motivation for a company to actually do anything about it.

If it costs them $1000 - $10,000 for getting it wrong, it will be more cost
effective for them to pay someone $20/h to double check before rejecting an
appeal.

~~~
eitland
Somebody presented the idea here on HN the other day about $1 fines - both for
individuals and for the music copyright abusers.

The nice thing about this IMO is 1$ is a small amount for me and you, but for
a big corporation like sony this will cost them thousands every time it gets
invoked (because legal will probably get involved).

Of course it needs to be slightly more advanced I guess but it would be a good
start.

~~~
nialv7
This is probably a good idea, but it's not really implementable. Google isn't
a law enforcement entity, so they are probably not in a position to fine
anyone.

And IANAL, but charging for claims is probably not allowed by DMCA.

~~~
divbyzer0
Google can ban youtubers for breaching a threshold of community guidelines.

Apply the same to process to incorrect flagging of copyrighted content. Break
the rules, prevent Sony from uploading for a day or two (or some other
functionality).

This will never be implemented because there is a symbiosis between a mega
content creator and an advertising company.

Sanctioning a producer like Sony would be a sanction against google itself.

I'm afraid the little people will have to suck it up.

~~~
acct1771
Or, decentralize, and stop being controlled.

~~~
divbyzer0
I agree. I'm going to give Mastodon a try.

[https://mastodon.social/about](https://mastodon.social/about)

------
gesman
"...And if a takedown notice is wrong, a counter-notice can be sent by someone
explaining that they own the work or that it’s not infringement..."

I think "if a takedown notice is wrong" \- counternotice need to be sent back
with a mandatory bill to pay to compensate for effort of receiving party to
prove that takedown notice is invalid. This will curb down this BS practice of
frivolous opportunistic notices.

~~~
clhodapp
That's true of the American legal system as a whole. It generally seems to
ignore the cost to the victim of dealing with the legal system...

~~~
bluGill
There is no good solution to that problem. Loser pays is even worse as you
have to risk the loss if you incorrectly lose in court.

~~~
clhodapp
Loser or taxpayer pays, based on the judgement of the court?

~~~
bluGill
That means I as a taxpayer lose when someone screws up.

~~~
clhodapp
Some of the time, yeah. It seems a lot better for all of us to front theses
costs of government operation rather than foisting all of that cost onto
people who were unlucky enough to be wronged or wrongly sued, by no fault of
their own.

------
makecheck
Technical solutions to this seem to be hindered by issues that affect other
secure systems, such as: how do you _know_ who first published something
(trusted/reliable time stamping servers?), and how do you know it’s the same
content?

As such, I suspect the best system is “hire a bunch of humans to check”. And
that’s expensive, which is fine because it _should be_. These companies try to
_completely decimate_ online publications just because it _might_ infringe on
their precious properties, and that _needs_ to be a massive cost to deter
frivolous takedown notices.

It’s kind of amazing that sites so rapidly reached the point of just insta-
killing potentially infringing content with no evidence. That has surely
crushed some up-and-coming artists who probably said “screw it” after having
their platform taken out from under them by mistake.

------
johnhenry
The key take away that I get from this article:

"How many more ways do we need to say that copyright bots and filters don’t
work? That mandating them, as the European Union is poised to do, is dangerous
and shortsighted?"

~~~
Asooka
That is assuming that false positives for small artists are something that the
big EU publishers worry about. They don't. Destroying the public domain and
indie works is acceptable collateral damage for the politicians and a desired
secondary effect for the publishers. The copyright filters will work exactly
as designed.

~~~
johnhenry
I'm not assuming that the publishers worry about this -- I'm saying we should.

------
adrr
I don't understand why companies aren't being charged with perjury for putting
false information on a takedown form. Prosecute a few of them, and the problem
will fix itself.

~~~
mirimir
Maybe not perjury, because DCMA takedown requests aren't sworn testimony. But
this case isn't even about DCMA. It's just Facebooks takedown service to avoid
DCMA invocation.

I'm not even sure who the victim would sue here. Facebook or Sony? Both, I
guess, and let them sort it out ;) And yes, maybe in small claims court.

~~~
tinus_hn
The law states you have to include a statement like this in the letter:

 _Under penalty of perjury I certify that the information contained in the
notification is both true and accurate, and I have the authority to act on
behalf of the owner of the copyright(s) involved._

If you don’t it should be dismissed outright.

~~~
mirimir
Thanks. Didn't know that. But then, how does this apply to takedowns handled
by Facebook etc? From what I've read, they aren't actually DMCA takedowns.

------
Lazeb
Isn't it kind of crazy how such a huge company can be so outlandish that it
requires the general public and a musician with enough following to question
such absurdity to force a human response?

~~~
mirimir
That's reminiscent of issues re Google nuking accounts.

~~~
Lio
What gets me about when giant corporations such as Sony or others absurdly
overreach like this is that they never publicly say sorry.

Just saying “sorry the process got confused, of course we don’t own the works
of Bach” would go a long way.

------
CWuestefeld
This seems perverse in the context of the copyright legislation being
discussed in the EU today.

On one hand, rights holders can indiscriminately send out takedown notices to
any they suspect of infringing, and the burden is then placed on the poster to
prove that it's OK. On the other hand, sites will be required to police all
posts, just in case something infringing is posted.

So #1 - it's OK for the rights holders' bots to be inaccurate, but sites will
be punished if theirs are.

and #2 - all responsibilities accrue away from the rightsholders. They get all
the rights, but have none of the responsibility or burden for (accurately)
watching over those rights.

------
mirimir
As EFF notes, this is great for him, but horrible generally, in that chances
of success against jerks will likely be low.

Also, I wonder about speculation that Sony might have owned copyright for the
score that he played.

~~~
zeta0134
I don't think I want to live with a legal system that claims that my
performance (as a human player) of someone else's sheet music is somehow bound
by copyright. I draw that line at recorded performances, wherein, say, the
orchestra might have reproduction rights to their recording of a public domain
work.

I think if the law is any more strict, things like covers wouldn't be able to
exist legally, and looooots of genuinely entertaining small-time youtube
entertainers that develop their talents by singing or playing covers would
suddenly be under legal fire. Even a complete novice can sing along to
something on the radio, so trying to claim that they shouldn't be allowed to
do so fails my smell test.

~~~
wool_gather
Covers exist because of intra-music-industry rules: so-called "mechanical
licensing". Arrangements and original compositions are very much subject to
copyright...so this is the world you're living in, I'm afraid.

~~~
mirimir
OK, but does the copyright for a score or an arrangement apply to just the
thing itself (as in a file or printout) or also to music performed using that
score or arrangement?

~~~
aidenn0
That's complicated, but here's my layman's understanding.

If you write down an original song in a score, then you have copyright for
that song, including performances of that song. This is actually true for any
time an original song is first placed in a fixed medium, so if you record a
song but don't write it down, then the rules are the same.

If you make a novel arrangement for a public domain song, then you have
copyright for that specific arrangement, including performances of that song.

If you transcribe a public domain song, then you may have copyright for that
transcription (so if someone were to photocopy it, it may infringe), but you
do not get any copyright to songs performed from that transcription.

Radio play of a song pays a fee to the owner of the writer's copyright, but
not the performer of a song, so David Paich & Jeff Porcaro (or whomever paid
them for ownership of the rights) are getting money every time Wheezer's cover
of "Africa" plays on the radio, while Wheezer does not get money.

------
crazygringo
I've actually been really curious, does anyone know what kind of algorithm
they use to detect similarities?

From what I've read of the tech behind Shazam/SoundHound, I was under the
impression that the kind of audio fingerprints produced and indexed relied on
the waveform/FFT and rhythmic input being identical, and that a band doing a
really accurate cover would never trigger a match because it would be totally
different in a million tiny details, the details used for the actual
fingerprinting.

But clearly that's not the case here. No two pianists play perfectly alike, so
what kind of algorithm is robust enough to match the underlying composition as
opposed to the execution of it?

~~~
Footkerchief
There's got to be some fudge factor in algorithms used by e.g. Shazam -- an
FFT of a microphone recording is never going to be strictly identical to the
FFT of the source material.

------
shmerl
This just demonstrates how absurd automatic filtering is. It simply equals
blind censorship. Usage or presumption of guilt is a common pattern in
copyright abuse, from such takedown methods to DRM and other copyright
inspired censorship garbage.

------
dang
Earlier thread on this:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17923138](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17923138)

------
liftbigweights
So we went from small copyright violators being able to steal without
repercussion to large copyright violators being able to steal without
repercussions.

Social media went from one extreme to another. Now the big corporations can
exploit social media to rob and steal.

This is exactly what it is. Theft by sony and other large companies. Since
social media doesn't punish sony and large corporations for abusing the
copyright claim system, they will abuse it.

Small copyright violators get suspended if they continue to abuse the system.
Each social media platform has a threshold after which your account is banned.
Why are corporations not held to the same standard?

If sony knowingly and willingly makes false claims X number of times, then
their account should be banned and they should be prevented from making
claims. Otherwise, they will claim everything since there are no consequences.

It's sad how social media went from user/people centric to corporate centric
in such a short time. Youtube is no longer "you"tube, it's "CNN/HBO/SNL/Late
Night Show"tube now.

~~~
kevin_b_er
Everything will devolve to control by rich and powerful unless the public acts
to check it.

------
fcbrooklyn
Is there any reason this can't be done in reverse? (IANAL) Perhaps a small
orchestra can put a bunch of stuff online, with copyright of their
performance, and then issue takedown notices on all of Sony's versions.

~~~
mirimir
Interesting. So what does happen with dueling takedown requests? Do first
movers always have the advantage?

~~~
fcbrooklyn
I'm not sure (not a lawyer). In theory, both request should be squashed, and I
think there's a serious penalty for knowingly issuing a bullshit request, but
i've never heard of the big guys being sanctioned, perhaps they lean on the
excuse that their automated tools generate false positives. So you need to put
up the content, and then point crappy automated tools at the big boys, maybe.
I'm not gonna do it, but if someone who knew what they were doing managed to
generate a ton of takedowns at the large providers, in a legally safe manner,
it might at least prove a point and generate some press.

------
Jian-Yang
But will they give Bach all the lost revenue due to takedowns?

~~~
dest
Is this sarcasm?

~~~
acct1771
What if I told you...there was an app on the market...

~~~
dest
Bach died in 1750.

------
gnu8
Sony must be brought sternly to account for this fiasco. The penalty for this
type of mistake should be costly enough that it will never happen again. If
the United States will not update the DMCA to sharply penalize false copyright
claims, perhaps North Korea should step in and address the situation.

------
trumped
Hopefully the fine will teach them a lesson?

~~~
logifail
Who's getting fined, and by whom?

~~~
nandemo
No one. That's the joke.

------
giancarlostoro
Not sure why the link to Sony disagreeing that they don't own copyright to
Bach links to a tweet by Jeff Bezos.

