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Google Drive flags file only containing “1” for copyright infringement

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Re: Google Drive flags file only containing “1” for copyright infringement

#71

Post by voldacar »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #41
version_five wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there needs to be more work on open source hardware (and the associated fab capabilities to make what people want) in order to preserve computing freedom. I have no idea how to actually do this, but it feels like it should be prioritized

I agree. The only reason these "stakeholders" have any leverage at all with which to push this is the fact semiconductor fabrication currently costs billions of dollars. So while it is possible for us to make our own freedom-respecting software, freedom-respecting hardware is out of our reach. Hardware manufacturing is concentrated in the hands of few corporations and those are friendly towards the copyright industry…

You could just use FPGAs. They aren't fast, but your homegrown chips won't be either.

Re: Google Drive flags file only containing “1” for copyright infringement

#72

Post by gopher_space »

pokot0 wrote: post #68
version_five wrote: post #2

"A review cannot be requested for this restriction" ML enforcing rules is bad enough, but not allowing false positives to be corrected is ridiculous. This is why I would never consider g-suite for any business application. Otoh, I think there is a legitimate business to be made helping small businesses and individuals secure themselves against arbitrary behavior from big tech. This kind of thing can have serious cons…

I agree with you and in general the move from owning software to accessing a service has been detrimental for the end user (more costs, more problems, less control). But the restriction here is most likely just the inability to share (I would guess publicly). I don't believe it prevents you from accessing your file.

A public share might be the entire point of using a service.

Re: Google Drive flags file only containing “1” for copyright infringement

#74

Post by matheusmoreira »

josephcsible wrote: post #56
matheusmoreira wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It hurts me to even think about this. We're headed towards such a bleak future. The only solution I can think of is to kill copyright in order to save computing freedom. Otherwise our computers will eventually no longer be ours.

Do we need to kill copyright? Couldn't we just kill vigilante enforcement of it? Maybe we should make it the law that if you see a copyright violation, your only legal options are (1) nicely ask the infringer to stop voluntarily, or (2) sue.

Copyright is fundamentally a monopoly on data. The very name implies that you can restrict who can copy data, how many copies can be made. Copying data is among the most basic, fundamental computer operations. Therefore all computers are inherently capable of violating copyright, they merely need to be instructed to do so. It's the 21st century and copyright is absolute nonsense. Computers make it seem absurd by trivializing copying to the point artificial scarcity is exposed for the illusion it always was.

So in order for copyright to exist in the 21st century, it must be impossible for us to instruct computers to do anything. They must own our computers. They must ensure computers obey them so that they can make it refuse to copy data without approval. We cannot be allowed any control because we can easily subvert their business model.

So in this matter it really is us or them. Either the copyright industry loses, or we lose computing freedom and everything hackers stand for will be history. There's also the looming threat of government encryption regulation which faces the exact same problem. I say computers and the internet are jewels of humanity and too important to be compromised by these governments and stakeholders, and I'd sacrifice a thousand copyright industries to keep them alive and free.

Re: Google Drive flags file only containing “1” for copyright infringement

#75

Post by iameli »

All software has bugs; I'm not mad at all that this silly test case was flagged incorrectly. The truly infuriating part is "A review cannot be requested for this restriction."

Translation: "We have no idea if you actually own this content or not, but it would be _way too expensive_ for us to find out for sure! So you're out of luck, but don't worry — it's all worth it so we can make sure children can't stream Marvel movies from Google Drive! Thank you for your contributions to Disney+'s bottom line."

Re: Google Drive flags file only containing “1” for copyright infringement

#76

Post by foxfluff »

landemva wrote: post #60
matheusmoreira wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It hurts me to even think about this. We're headed towards such a bleak future. The only solution I can think of is to kill copyright in order to save computing freedom. Otherwise our computers will eventually no longer be ours.

The surface is larger than just copyright and includes anything the government can enforce in the name of protecting or preventing ... [children, terrorists, money laundering]. Lobbyists wondering why not slip this into appropriations bill and make MS put this in desktop.

It's also larger than that; I believe one of the biggest threats to freedom today is complexity. That's why people are so bitter at Mozilla for example, and perhaps to a lesser degree systemd. But it applies to a lot of stuff, for example everyone who complains about GPU drivers on Linux (or "Linux is not there yet" in general) complains because they feel powerless to fix the issues. I'm glad AMD is doing their part but I'd be happier if we didn't need them to.

If things weren't so complex, a small group of hackers would "shut up and hack" and fix their grievances and give the community something new to play with. Instead, we've gotten to the point where most people realize that they are too small in face of all the complexity. Then what choices do you have left? Give up, or get bitter and angry because those who have the resources to maintain a browser or Linux distro aren't doing what you want (and eventually you give up anyway because shouting into the void doesn't fix anything). One can go against the grain but they will be left in the dust; I saw lots of bitter Palemoon users who were ignored as the web moved on and sites started breaking on their increasingly outdated Firefox fork. I can't blame those users.

It's this same complexity that enables e.g. Google to just block your browser: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30051512

Open standards mean nothing if only one company on earth has the resources to implement them (and they deliberately push out others). Open standards mean nothing if they require you to implement user-hostile, freedom-disrespecting features that enable behavior like above.

Re: Google Drive flags file only containing “1” for copyright infringement

#77

Post by trhway »

blunte wrote: post #61

Ironically, it may end up being one of these "tiny" scenarios which finally does Google in. When trying to illustrate a problem or bug, one of the typically time consuming challenges is reducing the scenario to the minimal case which illustrates the problem. So thank you, @emilyldolson! Aside from an empty file, you cannot reduce this any further. It brings to light in simple terms that non-techies can understand how…

> "tiny" scenarios which finally does Google in

Danger of tiny scenarios - I expect that Google like any BigCo will try files containing only 2, 3, 7 - no bug, ok, and then push the fix like this

if (l = read(file) ; l == "1") ... else

Re: Google Drive flags file only containing “1” for copyright infringement

#78

Post by narrator »

jrockway wrote: post #7
version_five wrote: post #2

"A review cannot be requested for this restriction" ML enforcing rules is bad enough, but not allowing false positives to be corrected is ridiculous. This is why I would never consider g-suite for any business application. Otoh, I think there is a legitimate business to be made helping small businesses and individuals secure themselves against arbitrary behavior from big tech. This kind of thing can have serious cons…

How long until cloud providers are forced to scan block devices, so you can't even self-host a file erroneously flagged by the ML? (Actually, how long until this is integrated with the "security engine" in CPUs, so you can't even hide with encryption? Everyone is talking about on-device voice-recognition and CSAM recognition, but no doubt the copyright lobby is going to push hard for this as well.)

Gab.com is how to run a service that gets kicked off all cloud providers. They had to build their own bare metal infrastructure. That's right! They use zero cloud infrastructure. No AWS, etc. They even have release announcements about how they've upgraded or bought more servers so things should go faster and they can enable more features and so forth.

Re: Google Drive flags file only containing “1” for copyright infringement

#80

Post by robocat »

newsbinator wrote: post #27
friedman23 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The trial" by Kafka needs to be required reading for everyone involved in implementing systems like this.

Or "Catch-22" by Heller: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catch-22

A wonderful comedy. I presumed it was American literature, so I had avoided reading it because that isn’t a category that interests me by default, but decided to read it and I had a good laugh. Easy to pick up cheaply second hand.

I don’t really think the book is relevant to this discussion though.

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