
YouTube CEO says EU regulation will be bad for creators - anastalaz
https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/22/18008406/article-13-copyright-directive-youtube-susan-wojcicki-robert-kyncl
======
charlesism
So Youtube _does_ have a CEO, after all! /s

It irritates me that no article I have _ever_ read discussing Youtube's
_failings_ mentions anything about the people in charge. There have been
several articles over the past couple years pointing out Youtube's ill effects
on the world. In each case, the author makes it seem that Youtube is just a
force of nature, with nobody at the wheel.

Meanwhile, the past week I've read two article that reference Susan Wojcicki,
and neither are critical.

At least when Zuckerberg encounters the public, there's a chance someone might
give him a piece of their mind over Facebook's failings. I doubt Wojcicki ever
hears feedback from the public... nobody knows who she is.

------
pjc50
Just so we're all on the same page, this is article 13.1: [https://eur-
lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL...](https://eur-
lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:52016PC0593&rid=3)

"Information society service providers that store and provide to the public
access to large amounts of works or other subject-matter uploaded by their
users shall, in cooperation with rightholders, take measures to ensure the
functioning of agreements concluded with rightholders for the use of their
works or other subject-matter or to prevent the availability on their services
of works or other subject-matter identified by rightholders through the
cooperation with the service providers. Those measures, such as the use of
effective content recognition technologies, shall be appropriate and
proportionate. The service providers shall provide rightholders with adequate
information on the functioning and the deployment of the measures, as well as,
when relevant, adequate reporting on the recognition and use of the works and
other subject-matter."

Now, as written, that seems to be not so bad for Youtube who already have
content-ID for the rightsholders, but bad for other competing services
starting up which would have to develop it?

~~~
WC3w6pXxgGd
As written, that sounds like indecipherable garbage.

~~~
ucaetano
That's the intent. A lot of EU regulations are written in a way that could be
interpreted in almost any way, making it impossible to be 100% compliant and
leaving you at the mercy of politically-minded regulators.

~~~
sieabahlpark
First GDPR now this. Is the EU trying to become a new age China?

------
throw2016
There is already widespread censorship and suppression of dissent [1] and
content on these platforms by new 'ministry of truth' government formations
like the Atlantic Council that are completely arbitrary with no due process or
transparency.

The EFF was recently interviewed [1] and discussed some of these issues and
highlighted the importance the Santa Clara principles [2] for more transparent
operation.

It's better to have formalized mechanisms than arbitrary behind the scenes
processes these companies are running anyway with no transparency. Creators do
not benefit from lack of transparency and no due process so this sudden
concern for users on article 13 by Youtube and others without rolling out some
due process consistent with the Santa Clara principles is entirely self
serving and insincere.

[1] [https://therealnews.com/stories/social-media-purge-
silences-...](https://therealnews.com/stories/social-media-purge-silences-
alternative-media-outlets-that-had-millions-of-likes-2-2)

[2] [https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/may/09/santa-
cla...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/may/09/santa-clarita-
principles-could-help-tech-firms-with-self-regulation)

~~~
amanaplanacanal
Not sure what suppression of political content has to do with copyright. I'm
not saying that it isn't an important issue, but it's hard to see the
relevance.

------
josefresco
"YouTube has already invested more than $60 million into its Content ID
system"

That actually seems low to me, given we're talking about numbers (revenue,
users) in the billions.

~~~
knaik94
I think the fact that so little has human oversight and no direct way of
disputing with a human is probably how they can handle it.

~~~
shady-lady
Exactly. So the solution YouTube has isn't appropriate. They should invest in
a better solution even if that involves having more humans in the loop for
review/approval.

That's the true cost of their business. They'd just like to portray it as the
law being an ass rather than their solution being inadequate for the laws.

It's a clear case of "Our machines aren't humans and we don't want to have to
comply with laws that could substantially damage our payroll spend"

~~~
feri339
How would you ever manually review 400 hours of video per minute (likely much
more by now). It's just impossible. And who is to say that the human reviewers
would make no mistakes. It's not always a clear cut decision I'm guessing.

So either you have an automated and overzealous ContentID system or you limit
upload capabilities for smaller creators (which would be the death of the
internet).

Obviously the best solution would be to burden the copyright owners with
prooving that they own certain content. So just DMCA pretty much. The
copyright system is just so broken really. It only favors big content owners
and middle men.

This whole shitty EU law comes down to this: Old media/distributers were
asleep at the wheel for 20 years. Now they realize they're being replaced. So
they fight back the only big slow incumbents know how. Legislation and law
suits.

~~~
SpelingBeeChamp
> The copyright system is just so broken really. It only favors big content
> owners and middle men.

Lol no.

It favors people who create original works of authorship that are fixed in a
tangible medium of expression. Nothing more, nothing less.

It does not favor people who feel entitled to steal others' intellectual
property, and/or who try to circumvent protections.

I really enjoy making docudramas and people enjoy what I create enough that
they pay for it. That only works because of copyright.

I regularly pay the copyright office a $50 fee to register the works I create
that I believe are most likely to be infringed. I also send around a dozen
DMCA takedown notices once or twice a week. If not for the DMCA I would be
sending cease and desist letters and filing lawsuits. This is way better.

(It should be noted that the DMCA does not take away my right to sue
infringers (and win). It simply provides a simple way for me to quickly stop
unauthorized distribution of my work, which happens to be what I care about
most, as without the ability to control the distribution of my creative work I
could not even dream of making a living from it. Without the existence of
powerful tools to stop people from simply copying my work I wouldn't be making
it. Which would suck.)

> Now they realize they're being replaced. So they fight back the only big
> slow incumbents know how. Legislation and law suits.

What do you recommend? Fistfights?

~~~
feri339
> I regularly pay the copyright office a $50 fee to register the works I
> create that I believe are most likely to be infringed. I also send around a
> dozen DMCA takedown notices once or twice a week. If not for the DMCA I
> would be sending cease and desist letters and filing lawsuits. This is way
> better.

Yeah that's true. I'm saying DMCA is better than ContentID and its ilk.

Let's take a piracy example. I completely agree that DMCA-Takedowns directed
at Google should be checked and (if the claim is valid) processed. It gets
very problematic when you proactively filter uploads. Uploads should generally
be allowed by default.

> What do you recommend? Fistfights?

No. Adapt. I realize this is easier said than done. But any company today has
to constantly innovate. Never assume any given business model is save for
anything more than short to mid-term. This is easier for tech companies
because they breathe this kind of culture. But in the not-so-distant future
every company will become more like that, or not exist anymore.

~~~
shady-lady
> This is easier for tech companies because they breathe this kind of culture.

Eh, no. Tech companies have, by and large, just ignored existing legislation
thus enabling them to host mountains of content at negligible cost.

They opened the floodgates - they should deal with the water (both that which
is original & that which is stolen). They are 100% the cause of this issue and
should be 100% of the solution.

If they're not able to do that, then they should get out of the business
altogether.

Ignoring laws to lower your costs is not innovative in the slightest. Using
the excuse that the internet is a new medium is malarky. Existing rules apply.

------
vanderZwan
Part of me hopes that this mess will at least have the positive side-effect of
more people embracing copyleft practices, but I doubt it will happen.

~~~
fsloth
Maybe there will be youtube "wrapper publisher" services that cater for indie
producers by handling all the copyright management for them for a minimal fee?

------
simplysimple
YouTube's own policies are bad for creators.

~~~
rv-de
Why? (Serious question - not trolling.)

~~~
pas
It favors creators who produce many short and basicaly clickbait videos every
few days. Instead of the insightful deep dives, or the critical responses to
other creators' content.

~~~
beatgammit
Well yeah, because that's what the majority of viewers want.

------
choot
The best way to benefit from a pie isn't to turn the plate upside down but to
make and take a cut for yourself.

Afaik, this is just a way to reduce profitability of YouTube, which YouTube
will be cunningly passing down to the creators and advertisers.

~~~
mrep
By reduce profitability, do you mean increase losses because they have
literally never made money on it. Keep hammering them down and Google will
eventually shut it down.

~~~
pas
Sources please.

------
kibwen
This is rich. Every YouTube creator that I follow has at least one video whose
purpose is to rail against YouTube's mystifying demonetization policies, their
trigger-happy DMCA policies that aggressively favor major copyright holders,
and their opaque and useless litigation process. Here's one for reference:
[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bGZ_a6gL0f4](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bGZ_a6gL0f4)
. Listening to the CEO of YouTube cry "but think of the content creators!" is
about as transparently self-serving as a US politician crying "but think of
the children!"

~~~
kalcode
I don't think peoples complaints of YouTube are invalid at all.

But I think it is interesting how much credit these people that monetize
YouTube don't give google at all.

Video hosting has always been expensive comparatively. They are large files.
You tube stores multiple resolutions of your files.

YouTube hosting your video is free. You don't pay for it. These people that
are bringing in $500 - $4,000 crying that 'youtube isn't giving me all my
money' seem to also have a sense of entitlement in itself.

YouTube has a relationship with its creators. Creators get free video hosting,
a video social platform and they can earn quite a bit of money doing it.
YouTube in turns get a portion of the ad money too.

When YouTube demonetizes something they lose money too. They know their system
can hurt their bottom-line in the end.

Understanding this is a business relationship between the two entities would
probably make their attempts more professional. Maybe open a business that
represents a large sets of these YouTubers instead of each one make a video
about it. That way their collective views are significant chunk and they can
apporoach YouTube as a professional entity.

Instead they post drama videos about it.

~~~
gambler
_> Video hosting has always been expensive comparatively._

Torrents seem to be doing it perfectly fine for free.

People keep speaking about YouTube as if its main function is video storage,
while if fact the main thing they bring to the table these days is
suggestions, search and a massive pre-established audience. If there was a way
to plug into their search/suggestions/ads without giving away control of your
video files, a lot of high-earning content creators would likely to do just
that. However, there is no such option. I'm not aware of any reliable video
search outside of Google.

 _> Understanding this is a business relationship between the two entities
would probably make their attempts more professional. Maybe open a business
that represents a large sets of these YouTubers instead of each one make a
video about it._

But that's the thing. Content creators don't want a business relationship. The
promise of Web 2.0 was that there will be no editors or publishers, just a
generic UGC platforms. This idea is massively backfiring right now in all
kinds of ways.

~~~
w0m
> Torrents seem to be doing it perfectly fine for free

.. for quick 30s clips that you want to spread virally through a txt msg to my
tech-illiterate mother?

~~~
ravenstine
I'm pretty sure BitChute uses WebTorrent, although I don't know if that's for
mere hosting or just to reduce bandwidth use.

------
dvfjsdhgfv
This is even better:

> The burden of copyright proof will be too high for most independent creators
> to instantly demonstrate.

If I record a video, and YT bans it because their faulty algorithm triggered a
false alarm, how exactly the "burden of copyright proof" should be "too high"
for me?

First of all, they should prove that someone else owns the copyright. If
they're mistaken - because of copyright trolls or faulty algorithms - it
should be their burden, not the authors'.

~~~
AllegedAlec
> First of all, they should prove that someone else own the copyright. If
> they're mistaken - because of copyright trolls or faulty algorithms - it
> should be their burden, not the authors'.

That's rather optimistic; it's not a court of law.

According to the rules as written, Youtube is responsible for not taking down
the content. If they do not take down content which is actually copyrighted by
someone else, they are the ones getting huge fines. Of course they'd err on
the side of caution in this case.

~~~
Silhouette
_Of course they 'd err on the side of caution in this case._

I think this is symptomatic of an underlying problem with the increasingly
centralised Internet.

It used to be that if you wanted to share content online, you put it on your
web site and others could visit. If it was infringing someone else's copyright
and they objected, they would send a friendly message and/or legal C&D notice
to you, and you'd probably all be sensible about things.

Today, ISPs don't tend to provide everyone with some basic web hosting
allowance any more, while a tiny number of huge third party content hosts are
making staggering amounts of money from redistributing others' content as a
middleman. However, those hosts typically have no obligation to anyone to
provide this service.

So all the small creators are making themselves beholden to businesses that
see them as the tree that money grows on but are quite happy to cut off a
whole branch if there's any fruit that might be rotten rather than risk
spoiling the lot.

On top of that, a significant proportion of people are also uploading other
people's content to the hosting services, but for some reason the hosting
services get to have magic legal shields that mean they can be running
extremely lucrative business models based in no small part on turning a blind
eye to being accessories to infringement, all while offering debatable social
benefits over what we used to have instead.

So I think "erring on the side of caution" is probably understating things.
The hosting services would do almost anything to defend that legal shield and
their business model, because as things stand the hosts are basically laughing
all the way to the bank while mysteriously immune to the normal laws that
apply to you and me and while having no real obligation to the people who
provide the very content on which the hosting service depends.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
Defintermediate all the things, so someone else can reintermediate them.

The Internet has been handed over to de facto monopolies operating under a
thin pretext of competitive legitimacy.

We'll probably see antitrust action to split them up in twenty years or so, by
which time it will be too late to make a difference.

The only thing that can change this is physical server decentralisation, which
is going to rely on massive bandwidth improvements and nation-state grade
security protocols.

When I can run a personal server on a personal device and serve content to
thousands - some of whom may want to peer it, if it's interesting enough -
then we may see a genuinely free Internet.

As it is, instead of "seeing censorship as damage and routing around it", the
Internet has been seen as political damage itself, and the political system
has effectively neutered it by reducing it to yet another financialised
cultural channel.

~~~
SpelingBeeChamp
> When I can run a personal server on a personal device and serve content to
> thousands - some of whom may want to peer it, if it's interesting enough -
> then we may see a genuinely free Internet.

Uhh... you can do this right now.

Like most people you may not have the skills or equipment necessary to do so,
but 100% anyone can do this today, down to hosting their own DNS server. (And
then they can discover that it is much cheaper to pay someone else to do it
for them.)

~~~
anoncake
If you don't have the skills or equipment to do something, you literally
cannot do it.

~~~
samontar
The skill barrier is low. It’s all turnkey now with cloud platforms. Literally
just a web tutorial away. The hard part is the audience and the fact that
video hosting is expensive for individuals.

~~~
Silhouette
But depending on which "cloud platform" you're using, you're drifting back
towards centralisation again.

Possibly the most important change that my previous post alluded to was that
everyone's ISP used to bundle some basic web space in the same way that they
bundled a basic email account and ran their own Usenet server. You
automatically had a web site if you just ticked the "on" box, and you could
upload your content with a simple FTP transfer. Many ISPs provided some "my
first web site" level instructions to get you started on building things
yourself, even with the inevitable "under construction" graphic.

Sadly, those days are mostly gone. With the rise of centralised hosting
(sorry, "cloud") services, ISPs seem to have backed away from including those
kinds of secondary facilities in their typical plans, except for maybe email
addresses. And so now, it is mostly only larger organisations and the geeks
and enthusiasts who self-host in any meaningful sense, and everyone else is
hosting their basic business site on Facebook, their blog on Medium or WP,
their geek-friendly site on GitHub, their vlog on YouTube, etc.

------
knaik94
I wonder if we'll see YouTube creators push towards more
educational/documentary style videos.

------
waydowntogo
Google ignored EU so long and one day EU's lawmakers got upset.

Dear Youtube / Google / Alphabet, this mess is on your head.

------
warp_factor
what a joke. Youtube is bad for creators with their censorships//demonetiztion
for most of the time absolutely no reason.

------
IBM
>“This legislation poses a threat to both your livelihood and your ability to
share your voice with the world,” Wojcicki wrote. “And, if implemented as
proposed, Article 13 threatens hundreds of thousands of jobs, European
Creators, businesses, artists, and everyone they employ. The proposal will
force platforms, like YouTube, to prioritize content from a small number of
large companies.

I find it extremely hard to believe that an ad business that depends on scale
and a long tail of videos, would ever just limit it to videos produced by big
companies.

I'm sure they'll make do even if it passes, because they literally have no
choice.

~~~
mrep
Are you actually suggesting that Google, a company that is infamous for
shutting down products, will never shut down or limit this one?

~~~
rv-de
I keep my fingers crossed they'll shut it down. Youtube is a dysmorphic pile
of garbage with little gold nuggets here and there. A new not-ad-based
platform would be preferable - Vimeo would be a great alternative.

------
simongr3dal
They really should add "Image credit: " to the text beneath the image to
indicate that it is not an image description.

------
elejo
I don't care if it's bad for creators, I care if it's bad for users.

------
ru999gol
This is so weird why is she complaining? YouTube already has this copyright
censor system requested by Article 13 built with ContentID none of their
potential competition has, I don't think it would be hard to comply for them
and its not like they ever really cared for small content creators in the
first place. This just sounds like double speak, in reality Alphabet will be
delighted to have the EU shoot itself in the face like that, they won't
bribe/lobby the EU for its removal guaranteed.

------
dvfjsdhgfv
> The proposal will force platforms, like YouTube, to prioritize content from
> a small number of large companies.

That's orthogonal to what the Article 13 really says. If anything, it will
"force" the platforms to prioritize original content over remakes.

~~~
AllegedAlec
It's orthogonal to the intention, perhaps.

However, in implementation, it's much easier to make a few deals with large
companies, rather than to ensure that each of the tens of millions of nobodies
with 10 subscribers completely adheres to the letter of the law.

~~~
dvfjsdhgfv
All the better - it would be great if YT finally started to have some serious
competition.

~~~
AllegedAlec
How would this lead to competition? Any competition would have exactly the
same problems.

------
nkkollaw
The EU has passed this law so that it can be there waiting to be used to shut
down dissidents.

It doesn't make sense otherwise.

These are smart people. With mostly bad ideas IMHO, but smart. They know what
they're doing. This law has too many issues to be good for regular people.

~~~
simias
The EU has passed this law because of the lobbying of the record industry,
movie industry etc... There's really no need to search for some Big Brother
conspiracy theory. Maybe the law can be _abused_ that way but I doubt that's
the main motivation.

~~~
pluma
The record and movie industry? No, Europe has a different industry lobbying
these issues that Americans tend to be oblivious about: newspaper publishers.
A lot of the regulation is lifted verbatim from laws newspaper publishers
lobbied for in Germany. This is why the regulation deals with issues like
citing news stories -- a direct result of newspaper publishers going after
Google.

The content filter however seems to be the logical result of YouTube's impasse
with collecting societies like GEMA and its ilk -- not quite the equivalent of
the RIAA because of the complex legal situation surrounding its licensing
requirements (tl;dr: in some situations you can be subject to GEMA licensing
fees without actually using GEMA registered music).

In a nutshell: RIAA is infamous for going after teenagers who illegally
fileshared a few MP3s, GEMA is infamous for going after small businesses and
non-profit events for publicly playing or performing music without permission.
They're both problematic but in very different ways.

~~~
simias
I'm French and in France I can assure you that I mostly heard musicians being
very outspoken in support of the law. That's the whole "exception culturelle
française" for better or worse. France is very protectionist of its cultural
industry.

But you're right that newspaper definitely favor the law as well which is a
problem for unbiased reporting.

~~~
pluma
Yeah, hence why I mentioned GEMA and its equivalents. But the dynamics are a
fair bit different from the usual RIAA noise you hear about internationally.

