Copyright Holders Still Don't Support EU's Already Awful Upload Filter Proposal; Demand It Be Made Worse
from the never-ending dept
As we discussed, over the weekend, France and Germany agreed to a deal to get the EU Copyright Directive moving forward again, specifically around Article 13. The problem was that the “deal” made Article 13 ridiculously bad. It removed all safe harbors, except for the tiniest of new internet platforms, and removed any requirement for copyright holders to actually help internet platforms by identifying what was infringing. It was utter nonsense. And, as we noted, even that wasn’t good enough for MEP Axel Voss, the main member of the EU Parliament leading the charge on the EU Copyright Directive. He insisted that no safe harbor for platforms was acceptable at all.
And now the various legacy copyright holders are backing him up on this. As they have before, the movie/TV/sports industry associations have sent a laughable letter insisting they need more.
The undersigned representatives of European producers, broadcasters, and distributors/publishers of film and audiovisual content urgently call upon the EU legislators to reconsider the direction of travel on the proposed Copyright in the DSM Directive. The current version of the proposed Directive does not in any way fulfill the Commission?s stated policy goals: it does not create the promised new rights for us as content producers, broadcasters and distributors/publishers, and it undermines the rights we already have. In short, the proposed Directive is not fit for purpose.
We strongly oppose the notion that a Directive must be agreed at any price ? particularly not at the price of grave harm to our sector. We respectfully call for a responsible political and legislative approach to avoid a worst-case outcome that would curtail investment in the European film and audiovisual sector, undermine its competitiveness and strengthen already powerful platforms ? outcomes directly contrary to the Commission?s stated policy goals.
Nearly everything stated here is ridiculous. First of all, these very same groups sent a letter in December saying the exact opposite. No, really.
Here they are in December:
The initial goal of Article 13 was to codify the existing case-law in a way that would enable right holders to better control the exploitation of their content vis a vis certain OCSSPs which currently wrongfully claim they benefit from the liability privilege of Article 14 ECD.
Got that. No changes. No new rights. Codify existing case law to enable rights holders to have more control. Yet, here’s their latest letter:
The current version of the proposed Directive does not in any way fulfill the Commission?s stated policy goals: it does not create the promised new rights for us as content producers, broadcasters and distributors/publishers
The “promised” new rights? The very same rights you insisted, just a month and a half ago, were not what the law was intended to do?
If it hasn’t become clear by now, these groups will say literally anything if it means getting what they want (i.e., money from Google).
The letter goes on to make a bunch of other wild claims:
More than two years later, the targeted approach and intended balance is completely gone. Fearmongering campaigns funded by powerful stakeholders have led to watered-down provisions on key issues, in particular with regard to Article 13. The proposed texts under discussion do not create any benefit for producers, broadcasters and distributors/publishers of film and audiovisual content and even undermine our existing rights by absolving online content sharing platforms from liability beyond current legislation and case law. This has a direct and harmful effect on the very rights that are the cornerstone of our financing and distribution models and will negatively impact our current enforcement efforts.
This is utter nonsense, and so disconnected from reality that I’m wondering if this is purely a negotiating gambit. The current version of Article 13 is weighted so far in favor of legacy copyright industries and their demands to be gatekeepers and to make the internet into a “licensed-only” content realm, that’s it is complete nonsense to suggest that it has no benefit to those industries. I mean, yes, the current Article 13 will do tremendous harm to content producers — but by making the internet less open and free and useful. Furthermore, there is literally nothing in Article 13 that absolves online platforms from liability beyond current legislation and case law. Literally nothing. Indeed, it only serves to add tremendous liability to every such platform. Even the minor “safe harbor” only exists for tiny, brand new platforms and still requires a level of responsiveness to complaints well beyond existing law.
I remain at a loss as to what their negotiating strategy here is other than going for absolute broke in demanding not just that the internet that we know it be wrecked, but that the EU salt the earth behind it as well.
And, they’re not the only ones. Just as I thought I was done with this post, the record labels put out a similar nonsensical letter.
Despite our constant commitment in the last two years to finding a viable solution, and having proposed many positive alternatives, the text ? as currently drafted and on the table ? no longer meets these objectives, not only in respect of any one article, but as a whole. As rightsholders we are not able to support it or the impact it will have on the European creative sector.
We appreciate the efforts made by several parties to attempt to achieve a good compromise in the long negotiations of recent months. Nevertheless, the outcome of these negotiations in several of the Council discussions has been to produce a text which contains elements which fundamentally go against copyright principles enshrined in EU and international copyright law.
Far from levelling the playing field, the proposed approach would cause serious harm by not only failing to meet its objectives, but actually risking leaving European producers, distributors and creators worse off.
Once again, I’m left a bit speechless by this, as the existing draft of Article 13 is the kind of thing that these guys would normally be salivating over. But if they want to blow up the entire thing because they want all the marbles, well, so be it.
Meanwhile, others are complaining as well. German entertainment giant Bertelsmann (who, way back in the day, was actually one of the more forward thinking of the old line entertainment companies — until they fired that management team) is also whining about how the law doesn’t go far enough. From Spiegel, translated via Google (random aside: perhaps Google should charge news sites for the benefit of these free translations…)
This emerges from a document which the group distributes to individual parliamentarians and which is available to SPIEGEL. It is a so-called non-paper, an unofficial document without a letterhead and without a signature. It states unequivocally: “We see in the directive as a whole no longer the originally intended and we advocated strengthening the right holders and creatives”.
[….]
According to the Bertelsmann paper, article 13 “as discussed now contains loopholes for the platform operators, which is why the group rejects it” completely “. “All in all,” it continues, “with the adoption of the EU Copyright Directive, there are more disadvantages than advantages for us.”
Amusingly, even though this is basically the exact same stance that Axel Voss himself stated earlier this week, now he’s frustrated with Bertelsmann as well:
Axel Voss of the CDU, the rapporteur in the European Parliament, is also dissatisfied with the current compromise proposal of the Romanian Presidency on Article 13 because he is not strict enough on the issue of liability. Nevertheless, Voss considers Bertelsmann’s approach to be “extremely counterproductive”.
In short, we remain in a situation where basically everyone dislikes the current draft of Article 13, though for vastly different (and often conflicting) reasons. The whole process is a mess and even the people who hate Article 13 for being too easy on platforms (which is not even close to true) don’t seem to agree on the reasons why they hate it.
Perhaps it’s time for Voss and others to admit the obvious: Article 13 was and is a bad idea in any form, and it’s time to drop it entirely.
Filed Under: article 13, copyright, eu, eu copyright directive, intermediary liability, safe harbors
Comments on “Copyright Holders Still Don't Support EU's Already Awful Upload Filter Proposal; Demand It Be Made Worse”
Official Techdirt drinking game, doods: take a shot every time Mike uses the word "laughable."
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So long as people/groups keep tossing out laughably bad/dishonest/insane claims/statements/arguments…
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cRiTiCiSm oF mIkE iSnT aLLoWeD. sOrRy.
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Seriously? That got flagged?
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I didn’t flag it myself, but you could argue it’s off-topic. I think, given what’s been happening in a certain massively commented article, readers are a bit more free with the flag trigger today.
Also Prinny doesn’t do himself any favors with his adopted quirk in terms of being not annoying.
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I take it you’ve never played Disgaea? (It makes sense in context, once you understand where the name comes from.)
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This comment section is not Disgaea.
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Lighten up.
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Do you realize who you’re talking to?
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Seriously, the stick shoved up my ass has a stick shoved up its ass.
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I have played Disgaea. That doesn’t make it less annoying.
Re: Re: Re: Re:Well I didn’t flag him.
I think he’s equally charming and annoying. Which puts him heads and shoulders above the usual dregs round here.
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Wait, what? It doesn’t look flagged to me, dood! Do flagged posts get hellbanned on here or something?
Translation: Our sector uber alles, and screw everyone else! We can harm you all you want, peasants, but don’t you dare place even the slightest scratch on our paint job.
'We wanted to stick 6 daggers in your back, but settled for 12'
We appreciate the efforts made by several parties to attempt to achieve a good compromise in the long negotiations of recent months.
Ah yes, the good old political ‘compromise’, where one party gets everything and the other party gets nothing except the chance to hear the other side whine about how they were shafted because they only got everything, rather than absolutely everything, and/or listen to the other side boast about how ‘generous’ they were.
Tipping their hand...
It may be that the first letter was the spin and this one the truth. How can we be sure that Voss didn’t promise them new rights and he couldn’t deliver which is why they huffed and puffed about the first draft sent to the council in December?
Simply put
They’ll cannibalize themselves. The copyright monopolists, I mean. They will destroy any chances of even slim win for themselves because they’re looking for a jackpot.
And that’s good because it means we’ll keep the Internet free and open. Plus, any MEP who will support it in the final vote, won’t get another go at being the MEP because people will never forget and will always remember.
I think that’s, generally speaking, all that the content industries are after: new rights. Rights that they didn’t have before, and for balance’s sake, for good reason.
Rights and responsibilities go hand in hand. I’ve been of the opinion that the quality of any legislation depends on how much of a balance there is between the two. In this case, all of the rights are going to the publishers and all of the responsibilities are falling on the edge providers. This is the "compromise" Mike speaks of.
The fact that I said publishers and not content creators above is not an accident. For the same reason that the above quote doesn’t include artists, the creators are going to end up getting screwed on this one just as badly as the site operators, regardless of what they think or whose side they’re on. It’s always the foot soldiers and civilians that are the biggest casualty in any conflict.Those calling the shots are never in harms way.
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Many creators set up publishing companies to ensure that they and they alone profit from their work. Some are even content to make less money in exchange for not making money for the big publishers.
Of course when I did that the major networks and the big publishers just plagiarized me, which I can also prove because I knew to register my material before ever letting anyone else read it. Not that people would acknowledge something as provable as the sunrise.
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I’ve seen sunrises before. I’ve never seen you offer any proof of anything.
Hell, I’ve never even seen proof that you could pass a Turing test.
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Plagiarism of copyrighted work is already against the law, so I don’t see why you’d need anything like section 13 to go after them if you can prove it.
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So where is the proof?
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So the major networks and big publishers plagiarized you but you’d rather blame pirates.
Again, your rants make no sense, but it’s a good reflection of the brain cells copyright-types have to rub together.
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"which I can also prove"
You keep saying that, but we never see any proof. Therefore, we have to assume you’re lying.
"Not that people would acknowledge something as provable as the sunrise."
I’ve seen sunrises, I’ve never seen the crap that you failed to shovel. That’s the difference.
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"…does not create the promised new rights…"
The problem is that these are not rights – they are powers…the difference matters.
Where will the copyright holders sell their product(s) after having destroyed the Internet – brick and mortar? LOL, stupid luddites.
Problem Solved
Just ban copyrighted material from the internet. Might actually make it better.
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What would be left, as everything is copyrighted, even your emails?
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An unused, zen-like empty space containing the echoes of past content creators screaming in anguish.
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Otherwise known as “the space between Blue’s ears where his brain should be”.
Re: Re: Re:2 Problem Solved
I don’t think insults make anyone (the poster or Masnick) look good.
If he wants to be a high-level journalist he should act like one. Some of his stories are quite fascinating. At his best he has a great site, but at his worst, he does not.
Re: Re: Re:3 Problem Solved
The part where you fucked up is where yo I assumed this was a journalism site and not a blog site. So sorry, please try again.
Re: Re: Re:4 Problem Solved
Didn’t Mike recently raise money with the phrase “I support journalism”? Was I dreaming that. I sent him a lot of money to support journalism, now you say he was lying? I want my money back!
Re: Re: Re:5 Problem Solved
Womp womp.
Re: Re: Re:5 CREAM
Receipt please bitch. But we all know you aint got shit.
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Just ban [copyright holder organizations] from the internet.
FTFY.
sick
I am so sick of all that. Thank you for writing this article. It’s almost unbearable how Axel Voss and his followers are ruining the EU.
Copyright isn’t "legacy," but rather ownership of one’s creative works. Piracy is theft of that work and it costs creators a ton, even if not a single downloader wouldn’t have purchased, due to the value of the mailing list that is generated by the piracy, putting money directly in the pockets of the pirates. Mailing lists can be way more valuable than the work themselves btw.
A "free and open" internet that enables mass theft needs to be closed down, and will be. Piracy costs jobs, tax revenue, and puts money in the hands of criminals who then con the audience first into thinking they were the creators of the material, or had something to do with its creation, and again when they use that lie to sell seminars, premium products, etc.
This site sure posts a lot of articles in favor of doing nothing to stop piracy.
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Please go and grind a few levels in reading comprehension. In the phrase "legacy copyright industries," the adjective "legacy" is not modifying the word "copyright", but rather the word "industries", which is also the target of the word "copyright". Legacy copyright industries are industries dependent on an outdated business model, which abuse copyright to stave off competition so they don’t have to put forth the time, effort and money required to adapt.
This site posts a lot of articles in favor of doing nothing to increase collateral damage in the name of stopping piracy. Which is a good thing, since the amount of collateral damage we’re already seeing is far too high.
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Piracy has its own collateral damage, such as confusing the public about the name of the author, using "pirated" works to market scams, theft of mailing lists, etc.
Stopping piracy can be done without any more collateral damage than that involved in stopping child porn.
The basic debate here is whether or not the internet status quo is more important than protecting creators of artistic (and technical or other) works. Even law firm advertising is protected. Would a personal-injury lawyer like to see their ad copy plagiarized by a competing firm? That’s another consequence of a "free and open internet" or abolishing copyright.
I’d agree that counter-notification processes should be as vigorous as takedown, and there should be a presumption of innocence to a certain extent. With my own works that were pirated, I was not so much concerned about an individual e-mailing another, but when it was being mass-marketed to the point that anyone could find the copies, that was the tipping-point. Take away the advertising and promotion of piracy, through centralized torrent sites or whatever, and 99 percent of the problem goes away.
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Piracy has its own collateral damage, such as confusing the public about the name of the author, using "pirated" works to market scams, theft of mailing lists, etc.
Congratulations, you learned how to confuse plagiarism with copyright infringement. Again.
Stopping piracy can be done without any more collateral damage than that involved in stopping child porn.
You seem to think stopping child porn is an exact science with very little error rate and collateral damage. It’s not. In fact, it’s precisely because a wrongful accusation of child porn is so damaging to someone that forensics in that regard are much more careful in their approach, completely unlike the reckless scattershot methods used by copyright enforcement.
I’ll grant you one thing, though – in cases where the FBI used dubious tech or loopholes to chase child porn cases, and the judges called them out on it – the FBI pulled back and failed to prosecute all the way through. Just like Prenda Law, Malibu Media, and plenty of other copyright enforcers did when their bluffs were called. So if you think the child porn approach is going to be better off for you you’re sadly mistaken.
Also, collateral damage of suing children is how copyright enforcement makes most of their money, so don’t count on them being willing to give up that meal ticket.
The basic debate here is whether or not the internet status quo is more important than protecting creators of artistic (and technical or other) works.
When your "protection" relies on destroying basic infrastructure other non-pirating businesses run on, and requiring everybody else to jump through fire hoops because you think you’re not rich enough?
Yeah, give me a moment to look for the world’s smallest violin for you…
Would a personal-injury lawyer like to see their ad copy plagiarized by a competing firm?
That’s when the lawyer has a case to sue, dimwit.
I’d agree that counter-notification processes should be as vigorous as takedown, and there should be a presumption of innocence to a certain extent.
No, you don’t. You argue that IP address evidence is enough to charge some random sucker. Your presumption of evidence is a joke.
mass-marketed
I thought the point of piracy was to get shit for free. What’s this marketing junk?
Take away the advertising and promotion of piracy
And Spain will still whine for Google News to come back.
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"Piracy has its own collateral damage, such as confusing the public about the name of the author, using "pirated" works to market scams, theft of mailing lists, etc."
Piracy also has a definition, which does not include the plagiarism and fraud that you just described.
You seem very angry about things that have nothing to do with piracy, perhaps that’s why you’re constantly wrong?
"Stopping piracy can be done without any more collateral damage than that involved in stopping child porn."
No, it really can’t. Also – did you know that child porn still exists on the internet? Not on the open web, of course, but those porn rings that are occasionally been caught have been operating. So, what you’re saying is that you want piracy to be driven underground where it’s more difficult to detect and account for.
"Take away the advertising and promotion of piracy, through centralized torrent sites or whatever, and 99 percent of the problem goes away"
WHat a shame you’d rather kill the web for everybody else rather than learn how to harness the advertising and promotion for yourself, huh? Hell, if only you had something to sell rather than a list of people to spam…
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I’m a lawyer. I advertise. Plagiarism of ad copy by a competitor would not bother me, so long as it complied with applicable regulations on advertising by the state Bar. That said, I would be surprised if anyone bothered.
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I’m a lawyer. I advertise. Plagiarism of ad copy by a competitor would not bother me, so long as it complied with applicable regulations on advertising by the state Bar. That said, I would be surprised if anyone bothered.
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I’m sure that’s what was meant, but, semantically, how would one know that? What should I look for in a hypothetical reading-comprehension document? I don’t see why it can’t legitimately mean either of "legacy-copyright industries" or "legacy copyright-industries".
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It’s not difficult if you look at the context. Context is everything!
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I thought we had established that context doesn’t matter for some people when they have an axe to grind. ¯(ツ)/¯
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Unless you have sold those copyrights to one of the legacy publishers, who are the ones trying to shutdown the Internet, or at least ensure that only they can approve something for publication, while gaining the copyright.
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I started my own publishing company to prevent others from profiting from my work, so the big publishers (and Hollywood) just plagiarized it instead. Distribution is king.
Not everyone plays with those companies people here seem to hate. Every dollar ever made off my work has gone to me, except for that which went to internet companies.
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I started my own publishing company to prevent others from profiting from my work, so the big publishers (and Hollywood) just plagiarized it instead.
So… how are pirates to blame here?
except for that which went to internet companies
You literally just said big publishers and Hollywood plagiarized your work. How are Internet companies to blame?
Could you at least stay internally consistent within the same rant?
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"I started my own publishing company to prevent others from profiting from my work, so the big publishers (and Hollywood) just plagiarized it instead. "
Which would not be prevented by what you’re supporting here.
In actual fact, what you are supporting would make it impossible for anyone other than those big publishers to distribute your work, even you.
"Distribution is king."
Yes, so why do you support shutting down the most effective form of distribution and placing everything in the hands of a few corporate gatekeepers?
"Every dollar ever made off my work has gone to me, except for that which went to internet companies."
Bullshit, unless you provide proof that you’re not just a delusional failure.
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And what would you propose be put in its place?
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I don’t believe the internet will shut down just because piracy was stopped.
It survived having to stop child porn without "breaking." Same can be done for piracy.
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So, still ignoring where everyone has told you why that argument is both false and laughable?
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Determining whether something is child pron is MUCH easier then determining whether something is copyright infringment.
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I’ll add to that as the mentally impaired such as the above still don’t get it – child porn is an utterly black and white issue. If you have it, it’s illegal – end of story. There is no excuse, no fair use right, no copyright ownership or licencing issues. If you have it, you’re a criminal.
Compare to the situation that we’re actually talking about, where everything is a grey issue and the same file can be infringing or legal depending on location and context. It’s a vastly more complex situation, and anyone can tell that the scammer above is full of shit and does not understand what he’s demanding.
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Other than the obvious difference between child pornography and copyright infringement, you miss another significant difference between the two: context.
A pornographic image of a child is exactly what it is, nothing more or less. It requires no other context to understand. Copyright infringement, on the other hand, has layers of context that must be understood before you can truly declare an act of infringement to be illegal:
And while I bet other readers here could provide similar questions, I trust my point has been made: Infringement is not always a “black-and-white” issue. Hell, I used a quote from A Man for All Seasons without the permission of anyone associated with the film’s copyright on another article earlier this week. It was a small part of the copyrighted work as a whole, and I had a specific context in mind when I used that quote (namely, to imply that someone willing to cut down all the laws in pursuit of a criminal may one day be pursued as a criminal themselves). But in the end, without context, it was a willful act of copyright infringement.
And therein lies the issue with assuming copyright infringment is the same thing as child porn: To make them the same, all context must be removed from infringement. Only then can copyright infringement be spotted with the same ease as child porn and infringers punished with the same ease as child pornographers. Under a “zero tolerance” copyright enforcement scheme, my using the Man for All Seasons quote would be on the same level as someone getting a copy of an ebook off The Pirate Bay — after all, both acts are technically copyright infringement.
Have you quoted any movies or TV shows in your online correspondence lately?
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What planet are you visiting from, and just how much time elapsed during your journey?
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Mailing lists are extremely valuable. Each downloader is a name on that list that has a fixed value. To say that "piracy doesn’t cause lost sales" ignores this.
One of my pirated works was in a genre where the mailing list of customers was worth about $3 each, if not more, because that list had a 5-10 percent response rate for much more expensive products/services tied to the book. Those "premium" services were, in my view, a huge ripoff, and many who wound up purchasing them due to the marketing from pirate websites eventually screamed bloody murder that they were scanned. I was providing the same information for $10 to $30 an e-book but was obliterated by this "new business model" that targeted "whales," and used MY work to do it, only people didn’t know it was MY work because the title of the book, the cover art, and the name of the author had been changed.
Sue the pirate? Let’s just say the last name of the pirate was one that people generally didn’t sue. Other pirates were based in Russia (or claimed to be) and almost impossible to sue.
This was outright THEFT of my work, my audience, my revenue, the whole thing, and we’re not talking a small amount of money. Concurrently, the people who stole my work would disparage me and hide behind Section 230. This resulted in a world where people who defame others and steal their work (I’m NOT the only one this happened to) got rich while those who created the work got screwed. Of course, this chased many decent creators out of the space and left it for the scammers, while their targets (like me) moved on.
Now I write films and TV pilots that are currently being shopped to that "evil" entertainment industry, some of whom also plagiarized my work. You’ve seen my work on television (and in bestselling books which also plagiarized me), but you wouldn’t even know it was mine. Fortunately, my audience included some very rich and very powerful patrons who now front my work so I don’t have to deal with all this internet crap. That’s what the internet is reduced to with piracy: ignore the masses, find a few patrons who see through all that crap, and partner up with them.
This isn’t about me. My talent or ability to make money have not gone anywhere. Dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of authors have had this happen due to the organized piracy and "bay" websites, which gave the pirates both revenue and extremely valuable mailing lists, and which gave the public scams which harmed them not only financially, but which inflicted far greater harm through what became bad or stale advice. The audience saw the pirates as experts and trusted them, just like they once trusted Milli Vanilli to sing live. Do you know who the two real singers in Milli Vanilli were? Exactly.
I could have become very wealthy by exploiting the mailing list the same way the pirates did, and chose not to. The pirates made it so that only a scammer could thrive through marketing expensive offerings, when I was offering the same thing in a very inexpensive e-book. In addition to pirated works, the pirates would include their own "books," which were designed to collect valuable mailing lists, and allow those books to be "stolen" when in fact they were ads they WANTED stolen. "Steal" their work and their ad reached a potential whale; steal MY work and the only revenue I was aiming for was gone.
All the snark in the world won’t invalidate me, my work, or the impact of piracy on that work. My "legacy" is set, ironically because of the pirates having spread my work so thoroughly across the globe that over ONE HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE have read it. That number is not an exaggeration. I do not care who believes me. I cloak not to protect myself, but to protect the idiots who would inevitably wind up sued or getting visits from the police after being misled by what they read on a Section-230 protected internet, not even realize they were being set up to be sued by the very lawyers who would profit from defending them.
I’ll spare the names of the lawyers for now, but….you all have NO CLUE what’s going on. If people want to call me libelous names as an alias I don’t really care. Even if they knew who I was they could just pretend even the most convincing evidence proves nothing. These are not the people who butter my bread. This audience is just a symptom of the stupidity in the world at large, where people use cynicism to judge others and seem to live by the Groucho Marx theory that any club which would have them as a member is not worth joining. Say nothing and you prove nothing, say something and you must be a liar because you are trying too hard to prove something. They call that a "double bind."
I did not set up this site nor start this discussion on piracy. Much of what I write about is "legacy" to me because it happened in the past and I moved on from it years ago. I can’t change the internet, and anyone who wants to get rich usually just has to drop their ethics to do so. They could do any number of things. Writers are ARTISTS, however, and piracy was a gut check for that. I was faced with the very odd situation of the very pirates who cost me money spreading my work to literally the entire world. That’s not me trying to "sell" anyone on anything, it’s just what happened to my work.
Those who are skeptical need not believe me. This has happened to hundreds of other authors. I see Article 11/13 and zero-tolerance for piracy as benefitting not just creators, but their audience, particularly since pirates change attribution and mislead the public in very dangerous ways. If you read a book on military strategy, you’re going to want the author’s name to be the general who actually fought the war, rather than the one who never served for a day and just plagiarized their work.
Perhaps Masnick is write, and one day my true audience (which runs in the nine figures) will flood me with money or whatever. My guess is I won’t live long enough to see that day, but once I’m no longer here, it is very likely the whole truth will out (Hollywood already has the story ready to go once I’m gone), and my estate will become very rich. If so, that will be because of "legacy copyright."
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*right (for the language trolls)
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One of my pirated works was in a genre where the mailing list of customers was worth about $3 each, if not more, because that list had a 5-10 percent response rate for much more expensive products/services tied to the book.
Not for nothing, but with the economics you describe, um, why the fuck didn’t you give away your own book in exchange for signing up for your mailing list and just clean up with all that cash. If each name is worth $3, giving away your own work in exchange for an email would net you a much more massive mailing list.
If you respond that you’d be competing against these others, well, that’s silly. Because if these people were truly worth that much and got enough value from your works and add-on products, they’d obviously be much more interested in the "authentic" and "official" versions of the product, so you’d have a huge leg up on any so-called "pirates" who couldn’t produce you to vouch for the works.
So… forgive me if I don’t see what you’re complaining about. You seem to now be admitting that the problem here was YOU misunderstanding the business model of your own industry. And then blaming everyone else.
Re: Re: Re: over ONE HUNDRED MILLION excuses!
Hey Jhon hows that FBI, state, local, investigative journalism, cyber-ninja lawyer, selfhelp book, rock band, movie producer thing going? Cause it sound like you’re an incel because your dick don’t work.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Objection: asserts facts not in existence.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Hoo boy! Strap yourselves in, boys and girls, because this is a lot of bullshit to wade through…
Mailing lists are extremely valuable. Each downloader is a name on that list that has a fixed value. To say that "piracy doesn’t cause lost sales" ignores this.
Did… a mailing list kick sand in your face when you were a kid? Modern sites and pirates don’t use mailing lists.
One of my pirated works was in a genre where the mailing list of customers was worth about $3 each, if not more, because that list had a 5-10 percent response rate for much more expensive products/services tied to the book. Those "premium" services were, in my view, a huge ripoff, and many who wound up purchasing them due to the marketing from pirate websites eventually screamed bloody murder that they were scanned. I was providing the same information for $10 to $30 an e-book but was obliterated by this "new business model" that targeted "whales," and used MY work to do it, only people didn’t know it was MY work because the title of the book, the cover art, and the name of the author had been changed.
Okay… you literally provided services you yourself considered a ripoff. Is it that surprising your readers subsequently were angry that they were ripped off?
Also, if the names and cover art and title were changed, why would that make people want to download your work if it wasn’t under a recognizable name? And if it was under someone else’s name that people recognized and widely pirated… why would that scenario be any better? Why would I feel happy looking for Ariana Grande songs but all I got were Harry Potter audiobooks? Why would “whales”, who are by definition people with money to burn, be on pirate sites, which everyone says are only frequented by nerds living in their parents’ basement who have no money to begin with?
This story of yours makes absolutely no fucking sense!
Sue the pirate? Let’s just say the last name of the pirate was one that people generally didn’t sue.
Oh, so he’s someone with a significant reputation and committed an actual offense of criminal copyright infringement. Good, charge him in court and ruin him with the ensuing scandal. Next!
Other pirates were based in Russia (or claimed to be) and almost impossible to sue.
Were you selling to Russians? Did you have a distributor in Russia managing distribution of your works?
If you weren’t taking money from Russians at all how does your sudden… new situation of continuing to not take money from them affect you in the slightest?
This was outright THEFT of my work, my audience, my revenue, the whole thing, and we’re not talking a small amount of money.
Which nobody has ever heard of! Look, if you’re going to continue to gloat about how much you used to have, and refuse to explain how any of that exists – nobody is going to believe you. No media would publish your account, no credible judge would hear your case. Bitching on a small website is not going to change this.
Concurrently, the people who stole my work would disparage me and hide behind Section 230.
Section 230 doesn’t protect users. It protects websites. Individuals can still be sued for defamation. How does Section 230 even apply?
This resulted in a world where people who defame others and steal their work (I’m NOT the only one this happened to) got rich while those who created the work got screwed. Of course, this chased many decent creators out of the space and left it for the scammers, while their targets (like me) moved on.
Wonderful, more names you’ll refuse to cite. How many people have you even named? Grindr guy? Russian trade secrets guy? (In the case of the latter, once again, trade secrets are not equivalent to copyright infringement OR plagiarism, and any lawyer who mixes those up is a terrible lawyer.)
Now I write films and TV pilots that are currently being shopped to that "evil" entertainment industry, some of whom also plagiarized my work. You’ve seen my work on television (and in bestselling books which also plagiarized me), but you wouldn’t even know it was mine.
Translation for “Don’t hold your breath for any proof or citations”.
Fortunately, my audience included some very rich and very powerful patrons who now front my work so I don’t have to deal with all this internet crap. That’s what the internet is reduced to with piracy: ignore the masses, find a few patrons who see through all that crap, and partner up with them.
So let’s review – you lost your audience, your revenue, your reputation, you can’t do shit because any mention of your real name is the equivalent of the Second Coming for you – and somehow you managed to get rich and powerful patrons to fund yourself to the ranks of millionaires.
And you somehow still can’t afford to litigate against individual pirates on a local level, or pursue a legitimate case against the plagiarism you (allegedly) had.
…The flying fuck?
This isn’t about me. My talent or ability to make money have not gone anywhere. Dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of authors have had this happen due to the organized piracy and "bay" websites, which gave the pirates both revenue and extremely valuable mailing lists
Let’s go over this again. Pirates don’t have mailing lists! Pirates do the equivalent of leaving a bag of infinite CDs out in the open with a request to take one. Mailing lists leave evidence trails. Who the hell wants that?
and which gave the public scams which harmed them not only financially, but which inflicted far greater harm through what became bad or stale advice. The audience saw the pirates as experts and trusted them, just like they once trusted Milli Vanilli to sing live. Do you know who the two real singers in Milli Vanilli were? Exactly.
So the pirates stole your e-book advice, copied it word for word, republished it using different covers and names and credits… and scammed the public. Using the exact same words.
Did you just admit that your advice was either shit or literally a con job?
I could have become very wealthy by exploiting the mailing list the same way the pirates did, and chose not to. The pirates made it so that only a scammer could thrive through marketing expensive offerings, when I was offering the same thing in a very inexpensive e-book
10 to 30 bucks with extra premium options that you yourself referred to as a ripoff is now considered “very inexpensive”? And if the scammer offered the exact same thing at a higher price… then how is he getting people to pay more for it?
In addition to pirated works, the pirates would include their own "books," which were designed to collect valuable mailing lists, and allow those books to be "stolen" when in fact they were ads they WANTED stolen. "Steal" their work and their ad reached a potential whale; steal MY work and the only revenue I was aiming for was gone.
There we go with this mystical mailing list-dependent method of piracy again…
All the snark in the world won’t invalidate me, my work, or the impact of piracy on that work. My "legacy" is set, ironically because of the pirates having spread my work so thoroughly across the globe that over ONE HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE have read it. That number is not an exaggeration.
Okay… where are you getting those stats? If pirates were giving the books away for free all you have are… downloads? Seeds? How do you arrive at the conclusion that less than one percent of the planet’s population is reading this? Because of the publishers who plagiarized your work? In that case, how do you not have a case to fight in court?
I do not care who believes me. I cloak not to protect myself, but to protect the idiots who would inevitably wind up sued or getting visits from the police after being misled by what they read on a Section-230 protected internet, not even realize they were being set up to be sued by the very lawyers who would profit from defending them.
How? You just said that you chose not to pursue the plagiarism case because the names behind it were too powerful – and now suddenly you’re powerful enough to chase… anonymous commenters? Just because they hurt the feelings of somebody else anonymous? WHAT?
I’ll spare the names of the lawyers for now, but….you all have NO CLUE what’s going on.
Oh, this is the part where you think all of us are lawyers, isn’t it…
If people want to call me libelous names as an alias I don’t really care.
But still enough to call them idiots, unsubtly suggest that he has lawyers at the ready, spend time writing a whopping short story in response…
Even if they knew who I was they could just pretend even the most convincing evidence proves nothing. These are not the people who butter my bread. This audience is just a symptom of the stupidity in the world at large, where people use cynicism to judge others and seem to live by the Groucho Marx theory that any club which would have them as a member is not worth joining. Say nothing and you prove nothing, say something and you must be a liar because you are trying too hard to prove something. They call that a "double bind.”
Yes, we get it! Having to prove shit you say makes you miserable, geez! I’d actually love for you to bring this to the courts because the media is going to have a field day about the case of the author who refused to say who he was.
_I did not set up this site nor start this discussion on piracy. Much of what I write about is "legacy" to me because it happened in the past and I moved on from it years ago.
I can’t change the internet, and anyone who wants to get rich usually just has to drop their ethics to do so. They could do any number of things. Writers are ARTISTS, however, and piracy was a gut check for that. I was faced with the very odd situation of the very pirates who cost me money spreading my work to literally the entire world. That’s not me trying to "sell" anyone on anything, it’s just what happened to my work._
He said, after writing a short story about his completely uncitationed background.
Those who are skeptical need not believe me. This has happened to hundreds of other authors. I see Article 11/13 and zero-tolerance for piracy as benefitting not just creators, but their audience, particularly since pirates change attribution and mislead the public in very dangerous ways. If you read a book on military strategy, you’re going to want the author’s name to be the general who actually fought the war, rather than the one who never served for a day and just plagiarized their work.
Going for the triple strikes on misunderstanding what piracy and plagiarism are, I see.
Perhaps Masnick is write, and one day my true audience (which runs in the nine figures) will flood me with money or whatever. My guess is I won’t live long enough to see that day, but once I’m no longer here, it is very likely the whole truth will out (Hollywood already has the story ready to go once I’m gone), and my estate will become very rich. If so, that will be because of "legacy copyright.”
Once again… your own claims state that Hollywood plagiarized your work. You think Hollywood is going to release a story about how they allegedly defrauded one of the greatest writers of our time, and open themselves up to scrutiny and backlash. Never mind the fact that you’re entrusting your biopic to the very same organization you’ve said, on multiple occasions, to have plagiarized your work. You do know that Pixar’s Coco was a movie, right?
As for the estate, I’m sure all the ladies will be falling over themselves to have offspring with the guy who speaks about “beta-bashing” and disparages #MeToo.
You know, if you were that great of a writer, why didn’t you help Hollywood with another episode of movie, instead of ranting on a site you claim has no audience, is staffed by idiots, is under multiple police investigations, and could never, EVER influence national policy like SOPA? How’s that John Steele defense fund coming along, bro?
Article 13 voted!
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
Bravo to you sir for braving that morass of shit that Jhon boy spewed.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
While it’s irrelevant here — especially because I don’t believe a word of that stupid sob story about mailing lists — I recall at least one case in which an individual who posted information online was able to be shielded by 47 USC 230 by claiming that they had not originated it, they were merely the first person to post it online. Perhaps someone else remembers this and can fill in the details or correct me?
Re: Re: Re: Re:
" Each downloader is a name on that list that has a fixed value."
What colour is the sky on your planet?
Oh yeah, I forgot – you’re a scam artist whose quick rich scheme books failed and you want to destroy the rest of human culture so that you can get back the mailing list you used to defraud people.
"Perhaps Masnick is write, and one day my true audience (which runs in the nine figures) will flood me with money or whatever."
You claim to be an author, and you can neither proofread your own sentences nor comprehend what other people have written?
No wonder you’re such a miserable failure. I mean the rest of your rambling nonsense is barely coherent and I can see why you failed as an author, but that sentence does sum it up.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
1 million e-mail addresses costs somewhere between $150 and $175 on the darkweb which means each address carries a value of $0.00015 to $0.000175, and as I’ve also mentioned earlier is that a mailing list is not covered by copyright.
Also, using e-mail spam to flog products usually means that the products isn’t very good. I’ve yet to see a spam e-mail containing a promotion for a product that I would considering buying even if my faculties where severely impaired.
And as usual you misrepresent what people are saying. NOBODY is saying that "piracy doesn’t cause lost sales", what they are saying is that "one download doesn’t equal a lost sale".
The thing about zero-tolerance is that there are no wiggle room for transformative works, fair use and the like. It kills the ability to directly express your creativity to others.
The public will definitely not benefit from this, because for the public to benefit from something the action taken should make things easier to use, cheaper to buy and produce more choice.
Re: Re: Re:
Dude, my dad works at Nintendo, too.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
To be fair, he didn’t say where in those nine figures the decimal point is located. I’m guessing somewhere between the first and second digits.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Pics or it didn’t happen. If you want to be heard, start with some proof of your assertions.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
They’re a dishonest troll, at this point I’m certain that they’ll never provide evidence, whether that’s because it simply doesn’t exist, or because it would show just how dishonest, and how utterly unsupported, their numerous claims are.
Mind, they could prove me wrong and provide evidence showing that they are in fact as spectacularly famous/wealthy/sucessful as they claim to be. Just as likely, the sun could set in the north, and be polka-dotted when it rose in the SW at 1:72 am the next day, but I wouldn’t bet on either happening.
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
I agree. I like asking them for proof, precisely because they will never provide it.
Re: Re: Re:4 Re:
Fair enough, I’ve done similar in the past myself.
As long as sheeple keep giving their money to the movie studios (esp. Hollywood) and the recording industry, they’ll keep using their obscene wealth to buy off lawmakers and have them steal our basic human rights from us.
You want your rights back? Keep your money in your pocket.
Re: Re:
"You want your rights back? Keep your money in your pocket."
I doubt that, by its self, will get your rights back and the police will just take your money.
Re: Re:
People "give" (spend) their money on copyrightholders (not always big studios) because they GET value (entertainment) in return.
Re: Re: Re:
Like the premium stuff you privately admitted was a ripoff and a scam? That value?
stephen.hutcheson@gmail.com
I watched a movie last week; I checked it out from the library, so the publisher didn’t get a penny, of which they shared none of it with the creator. The library has my e-mail address, but they don’t share it with spammers and they forget what I checked out when I return it.
I visited a used-bookstore and bought a couple of books. The bookseller didn’t forward a penny to the publisher, who wouldn’t have shared it with the creator anyway. My e-mail address wasn’t involved, to the great sorrow and economic loss of all spammers everywhere.
And I watched a TV show today. Shocking as it may seem, I didn’t pay anything for it, and the creators got their share, which amounted to nothing at all. The TV doesn’t have my e-mail address and cannot give it to spammers.
Friends are getting together to make music this weekend. There’ll be a recording, probably. It will be free to listen to; the recording will be distributed without cost or restriction, and since no money will be collected, nothing will go to the creators. The organizers communicate by e-mail, but don’t give their friends’ e-mail addresses to spammers.
ALL OF THIS IS CONSIDERED PERFECTLY LEGAL AND HARMLESS.
I read a book last night. I downloaded it off the net, from Project Gutenberg, and the publisher didn’t get a penny, of which they shared none of it with the creator. Gutenberg has my e-mail address because I’m a contributor, but you don’t log in to download, so they don’t know who downloaded the book and couldn’t give the e-mail address to a spammer if they wanted to.
Oh, and there was another book that I bought from a used-bookstore, from an internet website. The bookstore didn’t forward a penny to the publisher, who forwarded none of that to the creator. The transaction didn’t involve e-mail addresses or spammers.
ALL OF THIS IS CONSIDERED PERFECTLY LEGAL AND HARMLESS.
However, giving personal information (like e-mail addresses) to other people is generally considered very harmful, and is illegal in some places. Spamming is the single most harmful, and most widely-considered-harmful, activity in real life (telephone) and online. If we’re looking for a problem to solve, spam is the problem. IF spam can be prevented without nuking the earth from orbit, then the techniques might be used on other, infinitely less harmful and infinitely more socially acceptable activities might be worth considering. UNTIL spam is eliminated, there’s no point in even looking at any other online problem.
Re: self-doxxing
Umm… did you accidentally put the wrong thing in the wrong box?
Re: stephen.hutcheson@gmail.com
AOL used to ban not only SPAM but even opt-in e-mail lists or even just using your account for business purposes, while they competed in the same arena with their own information (say cooking advice, etc.). This caused business to migrate to the web when AOL could have become the entire internet.
Fast-forward to 2006 or whenever and Twitter builds its entire business on letting people "spam" (promote) through their accounts.
Re: Re: Re:
I am not that steve guy and we shouldn’t conclude the other person is since they might have just been sending an e-mail to that person.
Re: Re: stephen.hutcheson@gmail.com
"Fast-forward to 2006 or whenever and Twitter builds its entire business on letting people "spam" (promote) through their accounts."
So… you don’t know what "spam" means? (HInt: Twitter doesn’t spam people)
Re: stephen.hutcheson@gmail.com
Funnily enough, spammers got your e-mail and name now, Stephen.
Copyrights for individuals...
Copyrights were setup for individuals…NOT CORPS..
And even the individuals.. are getting more then they deserve..BECAUSE, that person DIED, and the family setup a corp to control his GOOD/SERVICES to be paid for 100 years after he DIED..
Technology has a life expectancy.. no greater then 5 years, but they want it forever.
Even the music/movie industry, has one also, but in the end they are still CLAIMING right to movies they make $1 from. The interesting thing is those ALIVE now, had little to NOTHING to do with the original..
If you could claim Money from your great great grand dad, and the work he did, for 100 years after…WOW, talk about social security..
Re: Copyrights for individuals...
There were corporations who owned copyrights back in the 1700s. Rights can be assigned.
Copyrights were intended to prevent those who did not create something or buy the rights from profiting off the work (unless licensed).
Re: Re: Copyrights for individuals...
I do not remember paying royalties to Sir Isaac Newton so that I could take those math and physics classes. How on earth will he ever be able to create again?
Re: Re: Copyrights for individuals...
This is entirely false. Copyright, at its core, exists to provide incentive for the creation of new works. The idea of locking down everything holding a Copyright and forcing licensing fees for any type of access at all is very new.
Re: Re: Re: Copyrights for individuals...
Well, yes and no. It is explicitly stated in the original copyrights that exclusive licences, etc. are what it’s meant to provide. The only thing that’s new recently is the idea that the copyright should last nearly a century after the death of the author, and also the obsession with trying to control every conceivable use that the copyright holder would have just needed to accept as inevitable before digital distribution.
Actual history of copyright
http://historyofcopyright.org/pb/wp_ff342f50/wp_ff342f50.html
The right, under either Queen Anne or the revolting cross-pond colonies, was available to the original author (creator) OR to the (possibly corporate) publisher.
Most of my own creative work has been software or the documentation thereof, which was "work for hire" copyrighted and distributed by some corporation. That’s very common in many media and genres: including music, scientific research, light fiction. The vast majority of work that was not "work for hire" still gets implicitly abandoned to the corporate publisher.
Re: Actual history of copyright
I’m not aware of any implicit abandonement of copyright (here in Germany). That’s why I plaster the source code of the in house software with copyright notices including my name, in the absence of any copyright assignment in the company. There was no objection on the managers side and it also came up once. I guess I could even release it as free software, but I’d rather do this after negotiation with the managers and for most parts but basic infrastructure it would entail some work to make it generally useful. (I give back to upstream as much as possible, though)
Re: Re: Actual history of copyright
I am unaware of any ‘implicit abandonment’ in the US either. If you are an employee in the US, your output in the course of your duties is automatically a work for hire, explicitly in law, in absence of a contract that specifies otherwise. Many employment contracts will also cede either all outside work the employee does, or restrict itself to all outside work that is related to the employees primary duties. But none of this is "implicit abandonment".
The only concept he might be referencing is how works for hire operated under the old, pre-1976 copyright act. At the time it was easy to declare freelance work to work for hire. Much work for hire contract language wrongly still references that old system. Work for hire or copyright assignment from a freelance worker is now only legal established through explicit contract, not implicit action.
And there I thought I could spend a few hours with sleep, and directly the copyright abusers strike again! It’s Friday, so a leisure day at work. Time to ramp up the volume to the MEP mailboxes.
project gutenberg is an archive of public domain works, its not piracy to
download books from there .
Librarys buy books and dvds from publishers ,they get paid at least once.
It seems the publishers want no safe harbours, no fair use, maybe all websites will need a license from big music companys, film companys,getty images etc if they all any users to upload any content at all.
They want all websites to be like cable tv, all content must be licensed .
Or this is all a scheme just to make google pay more for music and video
content.Who cares if it puts 1000,s of small websites out of business ,
and blocks free speech on the internet .
Re: Not an 'or' scenario
They want all websites to be like cable tv, all content must be licensed . Or this is all a scheme just to make google pay more for music and video content.Who cares if it puts 1000,s of small websites out of business , and blocks free speech on the internet .
It’s both. They want the internet turned into a broadcast medium where only a handful of gatekeepers(like themselves) rule and the only allowed use is paid use, and they want Google to pay them piles of money because they’re greedy fools.
Re: Re: Not an 'or' scenario
Or because they want to bankrupt Google, or rather Alphabet and eliminate YouTube.
Re: Re: Re: Not an 'or' scenario
FYI, saying ridiculously stupid shit probably isn’t helping your cause, bud…
Re: Re: Re: Not an 'or' scenario
Or because they want to bankrupt Google, or rather Alphabet and eliminate YouTube.
If that were the case, why draft legislation that creates a burden that Google can actually handle, but nobody else can, thereby locking Google in as the only game in town?
Re: Re: Re:2 Not an 'or' scenario
Unintended consequences?
These entities are often caught out because they don’t think their cunning plan all the way through. For example – the music industry demanding that Apple include DRM on music but then finding that it made Apple the only legit game in town for a majority of legal users. A trick so good that the publishing industry repeated the mistake and started whining that their self-imposed DRM lock in had given Amazon too much power.
It wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest that the people demanding this are doing in to try and punish Google, without realising how much extra power they’d be actually consolidating in Google’s hands.
Re: Re: Re:2 Not an 'or' scenario
Because they are changing the law so having identified infringing content once, any further upload opens the site up to a damage claim. Note they do not supply the full work, so having notified someone over one part of the work, they will jump on them if a different part appears on the site.
Re: Re: Re:3 Not an 'or' scenario
Forgot, the filter are being extended to cover video images, and if the can get away with it text and scripts. It is not just audio that will be filtered.
Re: Re: Re:4 Not an 'or' scenario
I’ve read what you’ve said a number of times now, and my only response is … "What?"
Can you try again, and please explain how anything you’ve said answers:
"Why draft legislation that creates a burden that Google can actually handle, but nobody else can, thereby locking Google in as the only game in town?"
Re: Re: Re:5 Not an 'or' scenario
The law is being expanded into areas not yet covered by filters. It does not require specific identification of infringing or infringed works. It is a stay-down system, and any mistakes or failures will be punished. It has potential booby traps, like knowledge of the film infringed on could also mean take down any stills.
It has the potential of being used as a magic law, in hat infringement of out material is easy to spot, so why did the site not spot it without our help, or after we notified them that they had infringing content on their site; without us being specific about what was infringed and what was infringing.
That is the legacy industries want a law that is almost impossible to comply with, except to publish via their services.
Re: Re: Re:6
…I’m sorry, you must be high, can you repeat that so sober people can understand it?
Re: Re: Re:7 Re:
I believe the point they’re trying to make is that the parasites are gambling that the system they’re trying to put in place will be impossible enough to comply with that even a large company like Google won’t be able to do so, such that the only avenue to publish will once more be with the previous gatekeepers since obviously they’ll know exactly who owns what and as such won’t have to worry about claims against them.
Re: Re: Re:8 Re:
This would be an actually functioning plan if not for the fact that we already know the gatekeepers are actually pretty shit at that test, too…
Re: Re: Re:6 Not an 'or' scenario
I’m still having trouble understanding your point. I think you’re against the articles?