Reply To: Article 11/13 for the EU and future of the site

[onlyonepinman 18062xp 1]

I think it’s a very bad move.  I don’t think big platforms should be liable for what is hosted on their platform doing that is far more such platforms less accessible to small creators.  It’s unlikely that YouTube or Facebook will risk lawsuits and as such they will place heavy restrictions on what can be uploaded and who can upload it, or they will have algorithms that are so strict that actually very little gets through making them all but useless as platforms. If they have to pay licence fees to any and all rights holders in order to allow users to freely post content, that’s a cost that will be passed on to users. The provisions themselves will likely prove to be pointless because the tech corps are going to erro on the side of caution with a Guilty until proven innocent approach. This means it is imcumbent on you as a user to prove that what you’re uploading is NOT subject to copyright after it has been blocked. However this will require a manual review by a human and the review is not likey to be sympathetic to the uploader but will be likely to protect the hosting platform – so any subjectivity will probaby side with rights holders. Such reviews will also not be quick because social media companies simply cannot employ the number of people required to maintain such a manual review system. So while it is possible to filter out potential copyrighted material at point of upload, it is absolutely not possible to implement a system that ensures that the what could be called fair use provision are also correctly implemented. Which is why I think people are rightly worried about articles 11 & 13

Also, with regards to intent.  Even if you believe the politcians (always a foolish course of action) when they explain the intent behind something, intent in no way governs end use.  Just because the EU has a particular intention in mind, it would hardly be the first time that something passed into law had unintended consequences and clumsy, poorly worded law is more likely to facilitate such unintended consequences.  Personally I do not believe the intention is to ensure small YouTube creators are fairly remunerated by social media platforms, I think it is to protect, or try to protect, the music, TV and film industries.  Even if I am wrong, and they are (for a change) being honest, this will have unintended consequences and I have no faith at all in our politicians to reverse or ammend the directive in the future because what is there right now favours large, wealthy organisations – exactly the kind of organisations the EU is set up to serve.