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EU Copyright: Block Everything, Never Make Mistakes, but Don't Use Upload Filter

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21–30 of 266 posts

Re: EU Copyright: Block Everything, Never Make Mistakes, but Don't Use Upload Filter

#21

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

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.

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

Re: EU Copyright: Block Everything, Never Make Mistakes, but Don't Use Upload Filter

#22
post #3

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 jus…

The greatest irony is EU regulators whining about the dominance of Google, Facebook, etc, while passing regulations like this which make it impossible for anyone to compete with their ilk. Google and Facebook will have no trouble building the automated filters that are mandated by this legislation. The impact of this will be felt entirely by smaller companies with either will shut down, or, more likely, will never be founded.

Re: EU Copyright: Block Everything, Never Make Mistakes, but Don't Use Upload Filter

#23

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.

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.

Re: EU Copyright: Block Everything, Never Make Mistakes, but Don't Use Upload Filter

#24

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.

At least GDPR is intended to help actual people, instead of increasing media-holders' stranglehold over their content.

Re: EU Copyright: Block Everything, Never Make Mistakes, but Don't Use Upload Filter

#25

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

If they're serious about that, then why are they reinforcing the monopolies of the two greatest offenders, YouTube and Facebook? YouTube and Facebook already have the market dominance and engineering talent necessary to build whatever content blocking filters that are mandated by the EU's boneheaded regulations. This regulation will hurt them, sure, but the worst outcome for YouTube will be a bunch more videos that are "unavailable in your country". Same thing with Facebook -- it already shows different posts to different users based on geography; this will be merely one more criterion to filter posts on. What this will kill is all the companies that could compete with Google and Facebook. No one is going to found a media-sharing startup when even a single slip up can leave them liable for an eight or nine-figure sum.

My theory is that, despite their rhetoric, the EU is actually okay with monopolies. Monopolies are easier to extract rents from, in the forms of fines and taxes. It seems like the EU would rather have a single Facebook, a single YouTube, a single Google, etc. than many competing smaller firms.

Re: EU Copyright: Block Everything, Never Make Mistakes, but Don't Use Upload Filter

#26

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!

> 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!

There are multiple ways to create bad legislation. One is to require a specific solution, but another is to require a result that no known solution can produce.

Re: EU Copyright: Block Everything, Never Make Mistakes, but Don't Use Upload Filter

#27
post #3

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 jus…

Isn't the unspoken rule to just ignore GDPR until you're big enough and EU starts bitching at you, at which point you just pay them off and spend some resources on compliance?

Re: EU Copyright: Block Everything, Never Make Mistakes, but Don't Use Upload Filter

#28
People underestimate what a big pain in the ass internet has been for the EU bureaucrats in the last 5 years. They can't just remove users freedom in one hit, they need to do it slowly: cookie laws, gdpr, copyright. And of course they always put a little bit of "sense" in every rule. This is a classic tactic that has been used by State organizations for maybe thousands of years. You can find examples in ancient Rome, medieval cities, nazi germany, post-1917 Russia. The problem is that while modern democracies had a way to get rid of laws made using this tactic, the nations under EU's rule don't. The reason is that while you only need one good cycle of elections in one nation to get rid of a malicious national law, when it comes to getting rid of EU's rules you need multiple good cycles of elections in numerous nations, then you also need to convince a good amount of bureaucrats, and then you also have to remove the local interpretation of the EU directive. When people say that the EU is bad, it's not just because they want the vote from the stupid poors or they don't understand democracy. There are good reasons derived from political science and in favor of democracy to not accept the current way the EU impose its will on european nations. I hope this post was easy to understand.

Re: EU Copyright: Block Everything, Never Make Mistakes, but Don't Use Upload Filter

#29
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

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).

Re: EU Copyright: Block Everything, Never Make Mistakes, but Don't Use Upload Filter

#30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm fairly sure this will mean more centralization as youtube will be the only one able to comply with the laws and everyone else will be locked out.

I'm fairly certain YouTube wasn't around when I traded external HDs full of movies/tv shows with my high school friends.

And that's the problem. Piracy decentralizes easily -- it has been that way since before the internet was even common.

What these rules do is destroy user generated content. Because your external HD can hold every Hollywood blockbuster in the last five years but it's nowhere near big enough for all the user generated content on YouTube.

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