I just read Official EU Agencies Falsely Report More Than 550 Archive.org URLs as Terrorist Content: “At least 550 archive.org URLs were falsely identified by the EU IRU in the past week as terrorist propaganda...” and then they proceed to list some examples of asinine negligence like the major overview pages where user uploaded content will surely be linked, but also scholarly articles, or US government-produced broadcasts and reports, and more.
Official EU Agencies Falsely Report More Than 550 Archive.org URLs as Terrorist Content
This illustrates the many important, negative aspects of what this sort of legislation will do:
1. Scope creep results in attempts at ever broader interpretation of what falls under the forbidden umbrella
2. These attempts at expansion don’t cost much to the accuser and so there is always some idiot working for an organization somewhere who will attempt to include an item that does not belong.
3. Automation allows people to scan for content automatically and submit items automatically, multiplying the false accusations.
4. Lack of due process as every item challenged eventually ends in court and therefore all the efficiency gains of the digital world are suddenly lost.
5. The cost of the process is born by the host. Stricter time limits increase these costs.
Now a small number of people can provide the entire Internet Archive for millions of users but once you add these Takedown laws (because of the fear of terrorists, or the fear of copyright violators, and so on), this is no longer possible, as the same small number of people cannot comply with these requirements, or are not reimbursed for the disproportionate cost of investigating accusations.
Essentially, what happens is that these kinds of services with user uploaded content (archives, blogs, wikis, forums, social media, video hosts, and so on) are burdened with too much *processing cost* and thus we return to the “good old days” where only the media giants thrived, each supporting s host of lawyers with nothing to do but fight these shadow wars.
Yes, I also don’t want the Internet to be a cesspit of crime. At the same time, I want the efficiency gains of digitalization that allow a small number of people to provide the Internet Archive to us all, and I want to host my sites like the Campaign Wiki without having to employ censors or lawyers.
If you are faced with voting for or against such laws, consider how it is implemented and demand better legislation. For the millions of false takedown claims to be free for all is lazy legislation. It’s bad design. Demand that our law makers think harder.
#Copyright
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Requests to remove content due to copyright, government requests to remove content, and more, as published by Google – a window into the world of takedowns.
Requests to remove content due to copyright
government requests to remove content
– Alex Schroeder 2019-04-11 05:44 UTC
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New Video Shows Beverly Hills Cops Playing Beatles to Trigger Instagram Copyright Filter, by Dexter Thomas, for Vice: “Nick Simmons and Adam Holland, researchers at Lumen Database, which studies copyright takedowns on social media, noted last year that music in videos filmed at Black Lives Matter protests had repeatedly resulted in them being removed from social media sites on copyright grounds. They theorized that, while these removals seemed incidental, that copyright could be weaponized by police. … Now, we’re seeing it actually happen.”
New Video Shows Beverly Hills Cops Playing Beatles to Trigger Instagram Copyright Filter
I don’t understand why people can be in videos with clothes containing copyrighted works! I’m going to make myself a T-shirt with a limited license: no redistributing the image on Insta and friends! Like the cops playing the Beatles to press upload filters into their service. And then we’ll get into a discussion of the differences of the public display of pictures and the public performance of music and when all is said and done I’ll probably revert to my old maxim: fuck this copyright shit.
Remember Founders Copyright? 14 years, extensible by another 14 years. These days I feel even five years is too much.
But back to the cops playing the Beatles to force upload filters to take down your videos of the cops, Algorithmic Copyright Management: Background Audio, False Positives and De facto Censorship (linked above) by Nick Simmons & Adam Holland (2020) is even better: “These false positives … are the result of the unavoidable shortcomings of the algorithmic tools … it cannot successfully evaluate the larger context or determine if the use of the content was fair, a notoriously complex evaluation.”
Algorithmic Copyright Management: Background Audio, False Positives and De facto Censorship
Hahaha, following the trail of links: “The inability of Content ID to tell fair use from infringement is a feature, not a bug. It’s why 7 hours worth of lectures at a scientific symposium were wiped out when the cameras picked up some copyrighted music being played during the lunch break.” in Clever hack that will end badly: playing copyrighted music during Nazis rallies so they can't be posted to Youtube, by @pluralistic on BoingBoing (2019), linking to Youtube nukes 7 hours' worth of science symposium audio due to background music during lunch break, also by Cory Doctorow, on BoingBoing (2014).
Youtube nukes 7 hours' worth of science symposium audio due to background music during lunch break
– 2021-02-13 14:39 UTC