
Scribd taking down the Mueller Report is the future the EU has voted for - tareqak
https://qz.com/1599975/scribd-taking-down-the-mueller-report-is-what-eu-article-13-looks-like/
======
gruez
>A spokeswoman for the company says that “a leading global publisher” released
the report as a book, fooling Scribd’s systems into thinking the report was
owned by the publisher

Seems like the problem here is ContentID systems where large corporations are
assumed to be owners of whatever they published, even if they published it
later. The sad thing is that this is done by the platform and not through the
legal system, so the companies making false claims don't get punished for it.

~~~
mirimir
I wonder if said book included a false copyright claim.

Is falsely claiming copyright for US government publications a federal crime?
That'd be a trip.

~~~
gruez
That's the thing though, the publisher hasn't made any explicit copyright
claims or issued any takedown requests, so they didn't do anything wrong. All
of the actions taken were done proactively by the platform.

~~~
mirimir
I don't know that. Do you?

I took a look at editions of the report available for pre-order on Amazon. But
there were several, and I didn't want to look at them all. I don't see any
copyright claim in the Scribner edition.

And to be clear, I'm not arguing that the publisher requested the takedown.
I'm just curious whether there's a copyright claim on the title page.

~~~
gruez
[deleted]

~~~
mirimir
Again, I'm not talking about what the publisher said or didn't say to Scribd.
I'm talking about what appears on the title page of the book.

------
stupidthrottle
The real tragedy is that even after having a new generation born and grown up
entirely digitally and connected, we _still_ can’t rethink copyright into
something which actually makes sense based on the world we now live in.

~~~
andjd
The notion that everything that can be digitalized should be free is a
pernicious notion and trivializes the effort creators put into their work.
Journalists, musicians, authors, and artists deserve to be able to make a
living from their work, and they can't do that if their work is distributed
for free.

~~~
rdlecler1
Maybe they just need a new business model. Google gives away plenty for free
and they’re doing fine.

~~~
bhhaskin
Google gives nothing away for free. If you're not paying for it, you're the
product.

~~~
Iolaum
You can still be the product even if you are paying for it. Take smart TVs for
example that monetize their customers post purchase.

------
EvilTerran
> The company identified 32 copies of the document, all of which were removed
> and then reinstated

> A separate request Quartz made to reinstate its own versions of the document
> was resolved 17 minutes after we sent it, seemingly after an employee
> review.

I... don't see the problem here? Sure, it'd be better if their detector never
got it wrong, but in the absence of the Sufficiently Advanced Technology that
would require, a speedy manual review process is the best anyone's got.

~~~
gizmo686
>a speedy manual review process is the best anyone's got.

This is a policy choice. We could not have copyright, and just leave the
documents up.

We could give platforms immunity, and enforce copyright by going after the
individuals who uploaded without the rights to do so.

We could give platforms immunity, but require them to respect court orders to
remove specific copyright documents.

We could give platforms immunity, but require them to remove copywrote conent
when notified. (A la DMCA)

We could give platforms immunity, require them to remove copywrote content,
and require them restore content on a counter-claim and defer the dispute to
the courts.

What we are doing is requiring, by policy, platforms to proactivly remove
copywrote material but making no policy requirements against over-removal. If
we are seeing the best possible implementation of this policy, then maybe it
is simply a bad policy.

~~~
schoen
> copywrote

The past participle of "copyright" is "copyrighted" (note that it's derived
from "right" rather than "write").

------
Iv
The stupid mess that are the copyright laws today is something the US has
voted for and imposed to the rest of the world. Funny US only wakes up when EU
forces companies to follow the same rules as users.

Had the rule of law been applied equally to companies and individuals, youtube
could never have existed as it is now. Solve the root of the damn problems.
Fix the copyright laws.

~~~
hyperman1
Wrong, unfortunately. Copyright was dreamed up in medieval Europe, to protect
manual copyists from fast copying by printing presses. The USA had a very
relaxed way with copyright enforcement, until enough local culture was
created. Europe was furious at the time but couldn't do much. Basically China
today is doing to the USA what the USA did to Europe. And what parts of Europe
did to other parts of Europe, for much the same reasons.

Copyright is a mess, but not one concocted by the USA.

~~~
Iv
Original copyright laws were 21 years since first publication and made a lot
of sense in a time when copies were costly to make.

They became increasingly stupid, going in the wrong direction long time after
copies were basically free and this was because of American right holder's
lobbying efforts.

I am well aware that places like Hollywood started as havens with lax
enforcement of IPs. They seem to have forgotten that though and have been
pushing very hard for destroying the kind of environment that made them
possible.

------
kwhitefoot
This isn't a good example of what is wrong because Scribd appear to have acted
very well and swiftly rectified the 'mistake'. If anything people could use
this case as an argument for saying that the EU directive can work.

~~~
Malician
The Mueller Report is about as famous as you can get. That it can get taken
down is proof of how messed up the system is; that it was put back up is not
proof that, say, a unique, legal work you or I create would be put back up
with the same speed.

------
sinuhe69
The most stupid thing about the EU upload filter is it came only to effect
because the Sweden delegation have pressed the wrong buttons!

------
reneberlin
Why not upload somewhere else? 'Embedding a document in a webpage'? seems a
nobrainer,

Everybodys free - no one needs scribd in the first place to publish or
republish.

Blog about what happend there and go on.

The web isn't meant to centralize stuff on specific hosts, controlled by
corporations.

------
HocusLocus
Funny, though it shouldn't be,

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmTWhvWgST0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmTWhvWgST0)

------
fock
Oh yeah, Scribd was this company, SEOing publicly available talks and then
putting a paywall in front, while also consistently top-ranking in google-
searches for _ehm_ copies of copyrighted work.

The EU-copyright directive might be not that great, but neither are greedy
companies, embarking on shady, criminal or antidemocratic ventures under the
banner of "we are progress, everybody loves us". Not sure what hinders
distribution of the report on NYT/WaPo-frontpages if it's not copyrighted?!?
Or hosting it on a Russian Onion Server like it's done for years (to come w/o
a real copyright reform)?

------
algaeontoast
For those who are curious why software companies and startups do NOT flourish
in the EU - this is why.

------
KorematsuFred
When you trust government servants and politicians to keep internet "free"
this is bound to happen.

------
rimliu
And the reason for that report is the present that USA voted for in 2016.

------
justinzollars
Europe is irrelevant. By 2050 it's estimated that Europe will only account for
9% of the global GDP [1]. Down from 15% today. China will account for 20% of
the GDP and India 15% by 2050.

I can not understand the Hacker News focus on European law given its declining
prospects.

1\. [https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/issues/economy/the-world-
in-2050.h...](https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/issues/economy/the-world-in-2050.html)

~~~
trophycase
> Europe is irrelevant.

15% of global GDP today, as you say, and considered the best place in the
world to live by most measure.

> I can not understand the Hacker News focus on European law given its
> declining prospects. Europe is irrelevant.

I'd wager that a large percentage of users of this forum who are not from the
US are from Europe.

~~~
justinzollars
Meh. My money is in emerging markets. Not European malaise. Maybe its a great
place to retire - but it certainly isn't leading the world in technology
output. Where is your Amazon? Where is your Alibaba?

It does not exist.

~~~
Symbiote
Where is your good quality food, vacation days, leaving-work-at-five-o'clock,
unlimited sick leave, parental leave, social mobility, and happiness and life
satisfaction?

"For me, Europe is more than just a single market. More than money, more than
the euro. It was always about values." — President Jean-Claude Juncker, 2017
State of the Union Address.

