
EU Copyright: Block Everything, Never Make Mistakes, but Don't Use Upload Filter - em3rgent0rdr
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20181210/09323241194/latest-eu-copyright-proposal-block-everything-never-make-mistakes-dont-use-upload-filters.shtml
======
sjroot
Policies like this make it glaringly obvious how little our government
representatives around the world understand technology.

It almost seems malicious, or at the very least anticompetitive. Who has
access to such filtering systems already, or the resources to create one?

GRPR regulations, while I absolutely realize their necessity, have made it
difficult for me to expand my side business into the EU. This would just be
another road block for innovation.

~~~
baroffoos
I think they do understand exactly what is going on but they know that upload
filters are faulty almost always in favor of people with money. Upload filters
like ones on youtube are super biased towards taking down anything that looks
like copyrighted content but they also take out a load of legitimate content.
Its now up to the content owner to prove that their content was fair use or
that its not even the same thing as the copyrighted content.

In the end the big companies win and the individuals lose.

~~~
Zak
> _Upload filters like ones on youtube are super biased towards taking down
> anything that looks like copyrighted content_

Youtube's filter removed the audio track from a video of mine that was
_essentially silent_ to start with. There was certainly no music, TV, movie,
etc... in the background.

~~~
growt
You were obviously playing four minutes thirty-three seconds of silence by
John Cage[1] on repeat in the background! Crystal clear copyright violation!

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4%E2%80%B233%E2%80%B3](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4%E2%80%B233%E2%80%B3)

~~~
Zak
That actually came up in a now-deleted comment. Incidentally, the audio is
back now, though I made no request for review. I wonder if they periodically
rescan content when they make changes to the algorithm.

Here's the video for the curious:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCEjJhm8qYM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCEjJhm8qYM)

There _is_ someone with a financial interest in not having people watch it,
but removing the audio won't help them.

------
apexalpha
So many people here compare this to GDPR...

I can recommend everyone to just read the EU website on GDPR:
[https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/data-
protection/refo...](https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/data-
protection/reform/rules-business-and-organisations_en)

they write the official website in understandable language, in plain and
simple English, not in weird lawyer talk. They have examples for companies as
well. What to do, how to act etc..

Forming your opinion about these laws based on what the big American data
companies tell you about it is about the same as asking tobacco companies what
they think about health laws.

It really isn't that hard to just take 30 minutes and read the website from
the EU. Literally every comment here talking about 'stupid old lawmakers that
don't understand the internet' has not even read the bloody document. I've
seen Youtube comment sectioned that were better informed than HN about this.

~~~
ferongr
Is the text on that website the legally binding or not? If not then it has no
real value.

~~~
apexalpha
"Legally binding" is the wrong phrasing but this can be used to prove what
they call Legislative Intent:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legislative_intent](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legislative_intent)

------
munchbunny
I tend to put GDPR and this Copyright bill in different camps. The copyright
bill is insane. GDPR is... also a bit insane, but the hard parts shine light
on what we probably should have been doing which are now hard to do because
we've spent so long ignoring the ethical elephant in the room. GDPR is very
far from perfect, but I think it's still directionally good. The copyright
bill is just bad.

~~~
Loic
GDPR is very good in fact. If you read through it as a person, it is basically
the way we should have operated from the start. Reading it while wearing the
hat of my role in my company, I can see all the points where we are collecting
data without a well defined process and clear understanding from the end
users. It is hard to fix this, but it is for my own good as a person.

~~~
tokyodude
Can you explain to me how the deletion policies work?

If you ask for your data to be deleted does that include your address in my
contacts? Does it include your messages to me? Does it include your posts that
appeared on my feed?

In the physical world all of those would be mine. Addresses: It would be my
paper address book with your address written in it. Email: would paper letters
you sent to me that I keep in my files. Your posts in my feed would be
postcards I received from you keep in a scrapbook or shoebox.

It's not clear to me how those are handled by the GDPR and at what point
things sent digitally from you to me end being my property and no longer your
property.

~~~
belorn
I think that the best way to view the deletion policy is to imagine what would
happen if someone stole the data. If it is anything that could get you sued
over then that is data that needed to be deleted.

This will likely cover a bit more than if it was physical objects. To be fair,
most physical paper address books would not include millions/billions of
addresses, and would unlikely be stolen by accident. The only one that has
billions of paper letters are the post office which is regulated. The physical
world is not very different to GDPR if one includes the context of how many
book shelves of information is being stored on companies databases.

~~~
CWuestefeld
I don't think that's correct. A business has the right to retain records that
are necessary for them to do business. From the lawyer that advised us in
this, his call was that Order History data doesn't need to be expurgated even
though it contains the person's name and address, etc. There are any number of
business reasons dictating that we need a record of this stuff (e.g., auditing
for sales tax compliance; being able to handle customer returns in the future,
or fraud claims from the credit card processor).

------
mrmattyboy
Feels like a this would be appropriate analogy that they might be able to
understand how rediculous it is:

* Police may or may not put cameras everywhere

* Police MUST catch criminals as soon as they break the law, otherwise the police would be as accountable as the criminal.

* Policy CANNOT ever talk to, interact with or accuse non-law breaking citizens

------
sonnyblarney
It would be prudent for Wikipedia at this time to shut down service in the EU,
and simply put up a banner indicating that they can't comply with XYZ
regulation.

Regular folks in all walks of life, and also the bureaucracy would immediately
be effected. It would be a 'shock' to Europe and a powerful signal of how
vital these resources are, and the real extent they are messing with them.

Basically, everyone would become aware of the issue, in a very material way,
and get a taste for he chaos this law might imply.

Kind of like internet 'gilet jaune' as a crude metaphor.

~~~
dorgo
Afaik wikipedia has no copyright or something. So somebody would create a
read-only copy (less than 100GB, I guess), call it wikipedia2.com and everyone
would use the copy..

~~~
sonnyblarney
Very few would figure out the clone's location, and it wouldn't be able to be
updated really.

VPN's would be another solution.

But for the 99% it would be very disruptive and prove the point.

~~~
dorgo
>Very few would figure out the clone's location

For this purpose clever people invented search engines. These would detect
missing content in the original wikipedia and funnel all traffic to wikipedia
clones. Nobody would notice the difference. And no point would be proven.

------
madhadron
Another possibility: the EU is serious and wants the content farm to show ads
business model to die.

~~~
cageface
There are obviously some serious problems with ad-driven businesses on the
net. But they have also done a lot to put technology in the hands of poor
people. Any plans to replace them with paid-only services need to figure out
some way to make them available to people on very limited incomes.

~~~
nine_k
A few examples of what you are describing would be very welcome.

~~~
anonytrary
IIRC, Facebook, Twitter and Gmail don't make you pay to sign up, meaning
people who can't afford to pay end up enjoying those services for "free".

(At least, I think that's what parent was getting at, not saying I super agree
with it).

------
baxter001
As with most interesting problems, this legislation hasn't been written with a
focus on what sort of end-results are easiest to arrive at a technical
solution for. This article characterises that as 'magic wand regulating' \--
I'd hate to see an alternative where EU directives contain explicit technical
implementation guidance!

~~~
iso1337
Let's legislate that all cars must attain 150 mpg and cost less than $10,000.
The EU proposals are approaching that kind of absurdity.

~~~
gmueckl
The Renault Twizy falls into that category. You need to find a better absurd
example in the future ;).

~~~
ttoinou
It's an electric car, so no oil consumption (parent talks bout mpg)

~~~
IshKebab
There is an mpg equivalent for electric cars based on the idea that 1 US
gallon of petrol is 33.7 kWh.

~~~
marcosdumay
That's 70% of the entire energy contents of the gasoline. You don't get
anywhere near that kind of efficiency even on large electrical generators.
16.2 kWh is way more realistic.

------
amelius
I'm okay with this if the government provides me with a black box that will
tell me if content is legal or not.

~~~
AsyncAwait
That'll however require that all data uploaded with your service will have to
go via such black box, so you'll essentially perform mass surveillance for
them.

~~~
amelius
That's why I said box, and not service ;)

~~~
AsyncAwait
Well, ok, the definition of a "black box" pretty much dictates what it does
internally is not known to you, so you can never be sure what data it
does/doesn't send out.

------
netcan
" _rather than taking in the criticism and warning from knowledgeable experts,
they 're just adding in duct-taped "but this won't do x" for every complaint
where people warn what the actual impact of the rules_"

This is pretty typical of committee-planned anything, corporate or
bureaucratic. They take concerns and "address" them. As long as everything has
been addressed...

------
HumanDrivenDev
Thankfully you can fly to Zurich without stepping foot in the EU. And soon -
London.

~~~
umichguy
You will find that the Swiss comply with most EU laws, including GDPR in most
instances. And so is/has/will the UK. You really can't sit next to one of the
largest trading blocs in the world and ignore it, unless you don't intend to
do deal with them/ conduct business with them in any shape or form. Good luck
in your quest to find, freedom or whatever else you're trying to find.

------
gnarbarian
You guys might be interested in my startup. We are going to provide a
copyright content registration service as well as a vetting service for 3rd
parties to upload user posts which are then scanned against the registered
content.

~~~
nine_k
I suspect an entity like Google could offer such a service, based on its
enormous reach, compute resources, and a similar system already implemented
for YouTube.

Played right, this could offset some lost ad revenue.

~~~
Zealotux
And then suddenly, Google gets the right of life and death on almost any
content on the internet. This is dystopian enough to be believable.

------
vixen99
I wonder if the ardent pro-EU supporters on HN believe that the incompetence
and deadening hand of the EU bureaucrats only extends to GRPR regulations.

------
czardoz
With the Great Firewall in China and Regressive laws in the EU, the US feels
like the only place where users have the freedom to choose what their internet
should be. Unfortunately, they have to deal with clicking on cookie notices,
GDPR and now this.

~~~
fyfy18
By freedom, I assume you are a big supporter of the "Restoring Internet
Freedom Order" and can't wait until you can choose to add the YouTube or
Netflix packages to your internet connection for $20/mo each.

~~~
czardoz
Absolutely. No one is entitled to free content, what's wrong with paying for
Netflix/YouTube?

~~~
icebraining
Netflix is already paid.. fyfy18 is talking about paying your ISP for the
privilege of accessing Netflix.

~~~
greggyb
I paid for my car. I still have to pay for gas on a regular basis. I still
have to pay tolls on many roads and highways.

I paid for a CD once, a long time ago. I still had to pay for electricity for
the stereo. And that damn greedy electric company chose to charge me more for
listening to it when I wanted to. Sure, I could have played my music from
midnight to 6am, to take advantage of my evil utility's lower rates at night,
but I chose to listen during the day.

That utility was really evil, too. I wanted to install an electrically powered
utility in my old house. It was a dryer. But they made me go out and find some
third party to "prepare my electrical network" for the product I had already
purchased. I had to find an electrician to come and install a 240V circuit in
my house. I already pay for electricity, but they couldn't even be arsed to
come fix my wiring for me.

Don't get me wrong. I love net neutrality. But I don't think my preferences
should be enforced upon the entire population. I also hate fishing. I don't
care for tripe. But I also don't try to enforce that preference on others.

My mother barely uses the internet at her home, but she pays the same price I
do. I am a very high bandwidth user. I definitely free-ride on the average
user who consumes less bandwidth. It's not fair. I _should_ pay more. But I
don't.

~~~
icebraining
_I paid for a CD once, a long time ago. I still had to pay for electricity for
the stereo. (...)_

Irrelevant, you already pay Netflix _and_ your ISP.

A better analogy would be: I paid for a stereo, but now I have to pay for
listening to it because it's a Sony, whereas I wouldn't if it was a Philips.

 _My mother barely uses the internet at her home, but she pays the same price
I do. I am a very high bandwidth user. I definitely free-ride on the average
user who consumes less bandwidth. It 's not fair. I should pay more. But I
don't._

Also irrelevant, Net Neutrality doesn't in any way prevent ISPs from charging
for the bandwidth you consume. If they don't, it's their decision. It only
prevents them from charging more depending on where the bits go.

~~~
greggyb
> Irrelevant, you already pay Netflix and your ISP.

What did I pay my ISP for?

I can pay for cable television. I can pay extra for HBO, or not. I can only
get NFL Sunday Ticket on DirecTV. Where is the outrage?

Why is the coax that comes into my house and hooked up to my cable box less
deserving of outrage than the coax that comes into my house and connects to my
modem?

~~~
icebraining
_I can pay extra for HBO_

Exactly! You pay for HBO, like you already pay for Netflix. You don't pay a
surcharge to be allowed to pay for HBO.

~~~
greggyb
I can pay Comcast $30 for "basic cable". This brings every piece of equipment
and signal into my home necessary to watch any programming that Comcast has to
offer. There are no technical limitations, but there is some flag in Comcast's
system that indicates I am only allowed to watch the channels included in
basic cable. If I want, I can call them up and add the HBO package. With no
technical improvement, simply an update to my customer record, I can near-
instantly see this content.

I cannot purchase cable HBO without paying for basic cable. I have to pay my
cable provider a premium for the privilege of paying them for HBO. I could, of
course make a contract directly with HBO and stream, though that is theNetflix
scenario.

I have a dumb wire coming into my house. Depending on the deal I make with my
cable provider, I can have different content available by using that wire.

My internet is a dumb wire coming into my house. I can make a deal with my ISP
to have certain things possible on that wire. I have a customer record. They
block certain ports. E.g. I cannot run an email server using my connection. If
I purchase a business package, they will update my customer record to indicate
such and I get a static IP and can now send email. They are allowed to do
this.

Both of the above are about dealing with a single entity. So all of these
prices are bundled into one payment to one entity.

I can purchase or lease content. One way to do this is Netflix. Another would
be to purchase media, e.g. a Blu-ray disc. They are mere providers of content.
If I want to consume the content I need to purchase a compatible platform. If
I lease content from Netflix I need basically any computer and an internet
connection. If I purchase a Blu-ray, I need to buy a player of some sort.

When I purchase my Blu-ray player, there are license fees baked in there to
various patent-holders for the privilege of decoding that disc. It's all
bundled up into one price, though, for fees and hardware. The purchase of a
Blu-ray player is a completely different transaction with a completely
different entity than the creator of the disc. The hardware manufacturer is
under no obligation to sell me a player, but they do. They are also under no
obligation to make their hardware support multiple formats. Despite this it
was very easy to find a VHS-DVD player for a while there. I don't think anyone
offers Blu-ray and laserdisc.

When I lease my internet connection, that is a different transaction with my
ISP, a different entity than the content provider (Netflix). The ISP is under
no obligation to offer me a contract to serve all content equally to me,
though that has been a common contract for a long time.

Among the actors A, B, and C, there is no obligation on C when A and B make an
agreement. There is no obligation and should be none on my ISP when I make a
deal with Netflix. Similarly there is no obligation between Netflix and me
when I make a deal with the ISP. And similarly with the purchased content and
the hardware manufacturer.

If my ISP (who, as a matter of fact IS my cable provider) charges me like my
cable provider, that does not seem terribly unreasonable from a business
relationship perspective.

All that said, another element of argumentation is that different content
providers may subsidize their content. This is, of course, already the case.
Netflix gives ISPs streaming boxes for free to optimize delivery of content. A
subsidy doesn't have to give cash. I'm sure Google has similar boxes for
Youtube content.

Now, what of the nightmare scenario? This is where one content provider pays
an ISP to not host anyone else's content. Netflix pays Comcast to not support
Youtube. This is different than Netflix paying Comcast on behalf of its
customers (it already does in the form of its streaming boxes, which reduce
load on Comcast's network - that is very much a direct subsidy). Netflix
shouldering a cost on behalf of its customers is just a transfer, we would pay
for that in the Netflix subscription (and we do! We pay Netflix. Netflix sends
boxes to ISP for "free"? No we pay for those streaming boxes which by
definition are a subsidy to Comcast). That's fine. Netflix paying Comcast to
block a competitor's content? That's different. And if we need to deal with
it, we can. Anticompetitive behavior is already something that we have
legislation in place to prevent. And we can use that infrastructure in the
case that one actor in the market is distorting it. As we did when Intel made
exclusive deals with OEMs to block AMD out of deals. As we did when Microsoft
bundled IE for free. As has happened in many other cases.

Now, all that said, I like net neutrality. Actually, I freaking love it. I
want it very badly. It is a good thing for me. I benefit from it. But me
wanting something is an insufficient threshold for me to support it as a
policy. I would love to pay no taxes for instance. I would be better off if
most people were not allowed to drive (so long as I get to be one of the lucky
few). I would be better off if a lot of things happened, and vanishingly few
of those things are good policy. Now, before the strawman cometh, my argument
is this:

"I want" or "I receive a specific benefit" is a poor justification on its own
for a policy. Similarly "Two of us want" or "two of us receive a specific
benefit" is a bad justification. This holds for very large N (certainly more
than half of the population - see the case of 51% enslaving 49%).

I am not saying that net neutrality is the same as me paying no taxes, or the
other items I mentioned.

My argument is this:

Agreements between party A and party B should not be expected to impose
arbitrary obligations on party C. Net neutrality says exactly that: "Because I
paid Netflix for a service, Comcast is required to enter into a contract with
me to deliver that network traffic to my home"

I would be mighty miffed if Comcast forbade me from watching Netflix. Still
doesn't mean that I have the right to impose that obligation upon them.

~~~
icebraining
Of course, that "nightmare scenario" is exactly what happens; since Comcast,
like every major ISP, is also a huge content producer and distributor -
including with their cable service, and with Xfinity On Demand, which is a
direct competitor to Netflix - they are distorting the market by charging for
access to other services, just like MS did by bundling IE.

So you can make an hypothetical argument using a spherical ISP that doesn't
follow net neutrality and also doesn't own a content distribution service, but
in practice the two can't be separated.

~~~
greggyb
Where is the nightmare? Before formal net neutrality laws were enacted and
since repeal, the vast majority of ISP contracts are unlimited and unmetered.
There are instances of violations, and these have pretty much uniformly been
handled by the FTC anyway.

Again, noncompetitive behavior is covered under existing legislation. But "no
extra for Netflix because I like Netflix" is not an argument that carries
weight. Charging extra for something that incurs cost is not anticompetitive.
Comcast can distribute its own content for much cheaper if everything stays on
its backbones and doesn't require peering with other networks. Why the hell
shouldn't they be allowed to offer their product for cheaper?

Why are existing laws and regulations protecting competition insufficient?
Especially in light of FCC rulings that punish anticompetitive behavior even
in the absence of formal net neutrality laws.

------
anfogoat
A small, idiotic part of me wishes this actually passed. Let's just get this
over with as quickly as possible. Let the EU purge their bottomless need to
"save" the world and write as many regulations as they have in them, or can be
influenced into, and maybe eventually the deluge will touch enough citizens so
it becomes clear that this much concentrated power was a mistake.

It's not like this not passing will matter anyways because there'd be another
attempt, and then another, and another, ad infinitum. The EU would clearly
have passed this thing thousand times over already if it wasn't for the
pushback from its subjects, but you only get the pushback on the first couple
of attempts. Eventually, people's interest fade. They've got shit to do, can't
police their representatives each waking moment, and foolishly assume that a
representative body will honor the will of their far away constituents, should
the same matter ever again be decided on. So really, as long as there's the EU
and special interests that want this, it's pretty much a sure thing this will
eventually be passed.

With the GDPR, it seemed like the EU turned into a PR firm that mounted a
massive union wide marketing campaign but there's no such effort this time. Is
this the difference between EU's own pet projects and directives where they're
just a clueless underwriter?

