Content warning Long thread/26
This was the most controversial directive in EU history, and - as experts warned at the time - there is no way to implement it without violating the GDPR, Europe's privacy law, so now it's stuck in limbo:
As critics pointed out during the EU debate, there are *so many* problems with filternets.
26/
Content warning Long thread/27
For one thing, these copyright filters are *very* expensive: remember that Google has spent *$100m* on Content ID alone, and that only does a fraction of what filternet advocates demand. Building the filternet would cost so much that only the biggest tech monopolists could afford it, which is to say, filternets are a legal requirement to keep the tech monopolists in business and prevent smaller, better platforms from ever coming into existence.
27/
Content warning Long thread/28
Filternets are also incapable of telling the difference between similar files. This is especially problematic for classical musicians, who routinely find their work blocked or demonetized by Sony Music, which claims performances of all the most important classical music compositions:
https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/08/copyfraud/#beethoven-just-wrote-music
28/
Content warning Long thread/29
Content ID can't tell the difference between your performance of "The Goldberg Variations" and Glenn Gould's. For classical musicians, the *best* case scenario is to have their online wages stolen by Sony, who fraudulently claim copyright to their recordings. The worst case scenario is that their video is blocked, their channel deleted, and their names blacklisted from ever opening another account on one of the monopoly platforms.
29/
Content warning Long thread/30
But when it comes to free expression, the role that notice-and-takedown and filternets play in the creative industries are really a sideshow. In creating a system of no-evidence-required takedowns, with no real consequences for fraudulent takedowns, these systems are huge gift to the world's worst criminals.
30/
Content warning Long thread/31
For example, "reputation management" companies help convicted rapists, murderers, and even *war criminals* purge the internet of true accounts of their crimes by claiming copyright over them:
https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/23/reputation-laundry/#dark-ops
Remember how during the covid lockdowns, scumbags marketed junk devices by claiming that they'd protect you from the virus?
31/
Content warning Long thread/32
Their products remained online, while the scientific articles warning people were speedily removed through bad copyright claims:
https://pluralistic.net/2021/10/18/labor-shortage-discourse-time/#copyfraud
Copyfraud - false copyright claims - is an extremely safe crime to commit, and it's not just quack covid remedy peddlers and war criminals who avail themselves of it. Tech giants like Adobe do not hesitate to abuse the takedown system, even when that means exposing millions of people to spyware:
https://pluralistic.net/2021/10/13/theres-an-app-for-that/#gnash
32/
Content warning Long thread/33
Dirty cops play loud, copyrighted music during confrontations with the public, in the hopes that this will trigger copyright filters on services like Youtube and Instagram and block videos of their misbehavior:
https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/10/duke-sucks/#bhpd
But even if you solved all these problems with filternets and takedown, this system would still choke on fair use and other copyright exceptions.
33/
Content warning Long thread/34
These are "fact intensive" questions that the world's top experts struggle with (as anyone who watches the Blurred Lines panel can see). There's no way we can get software to accurately determine when a use is or isn't fair.
That's a question that the entertainment industry itself is increasingly conflicted about.
34/
Content warning Long thread/35
The Blurred Lines judgment opened a floodgate to a new kind of troll - grifters who sued the record labels and their biggest stars for taking the "vibe" of songs no one ever heard of. Musicians like Ed Sheeran have been sued for millions over these alleged infringements. These suits caused the record industry to (ahem) change its tune on fair use, insisting that fair use should be broadly interpreted to protect people who made things that were similar to existing works.
35/
Content warning Long thread/36
The labels understood that if "vibe rights" became accepted law, they'd end up in the kind of hell that the rest of us enter when we try to post things online - where anything they produce can trigger takedowns, long legal battles, and millions in liability:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/08/oh-why/#two-notes-and-running
36/
