Fair Use Rules & Copyright Law in the US Coming Under Attack from Europe in 2019
Beginning in 2019, the EU will roll out new rules for its copyright laws. This will have an impact on bloggers and their commenting audience around the world, because social media platforms doing business in the EU will have to comply with the restrictions introduced through changes to Articles 11 and 13.
Article 11 has been dubbed the "Link Tax", because links back to sources of quoted news, research papers, or artwork will carry a fee. Do you remember when YouTube didn't permit text beginning with "http://" in comments and prevented users from posting comments containing links? That's what social media platforms will likely revert to in resistance to paying the coming Link Tax.
Article 13 will also likely change the direction of information sharing on the internet. This section of the EU copyright code forces social platforms and bloggers alike to BAN content that is not original, effectively nullifying the FAIR USE doctrine. To comply, platforms hosting content, will have to implement high-maintenance, expensive scanning procedures to check their content against existing materials already online. Gizmodo author, Rhett Jones, predicts that even a branded T-shirt you're wearing in a profile pic could trigger the system to automatically pull down your own profile image.
The EU Copyright Directive changes are touted by European law-makers as "good" for copyright holders, explaining that they will benefit from the added protection and the revenue from the link tax. In fact, prohibition of Fair Use will isolate copyright holders, by eliminating the free advertising gained through link backs to their material. If quoting a news article and linking to the source becomes costly for authors, they'll simply not do it. If automatic take-down processes on platforms remove authors' content, they will just stop wasting time posting on social media platforms. The coming EU Copyright Directive changes are little more than thinly disguised surveillance and censorship mechanisms that benefit no one and set back free speech and information sharing by decades.
The End of All That's Good and Pure About the Internet
https://gizmodo.com/the-end-of-all-thats-good-and-pure-about-the-internet-1826963763
'Disastrous' copyright bill vote approved
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-44546620
Fair Use Rules & Copyright Law in the US
Fair use is a legal doctrine that promotes freedom of expression by permitting the unlicensed use of copyright-protected works in certain circumstances. Section 107 of the Copyright Act provides the statutory framework for determining whether something is a fair use and identifies certain types of uses—such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research—as examples of activities that may qualify as fair use. Section 107 calls for consideration of the following four factors in evaluating a question of fair use:
Purpose and character of the use, including whether the use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes: Courts look at how the party claiming fair use is using the copyrighted work, and are more likely to find that nonprofit educational and noncommercial uses are fair. This does not mean, however, that all nonprofit education and noncommercial uses are fair and all commercial uses are not fair; instead, courts will balance the purpose and character of the use against the other factors below. Additionally, “transformative” uses are more likely to be considered fair. Transformative uses are those that add something new, with a further purpose or different character, and do not substitute for the original use of the work.
Nature of the copyrighted work: This factor analyzes the degree to which the work that was used relates to copyright’s purpose of encouraging creative expression. Thus, using a more creative or imaginative work (such as a novel, movie, or song) is less likely to support a claim of a fair use than using a factual work (such as a technical article or news item). In addition, use of an unpublished work is less likely to be considered fair.
Amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole: Under this factor, courts look at both the quantity and quality of the copyrighted material that was used. If the use includes a large portion of the copyrighted work, fair use is less likely to be found; if the use employs only a small amount of copyrighted material, fair use is more likely. That said, some courts have found use of an entire work to be fair under certain circumstances. And in other contexts, using even a small amount of a copyrighted work was determined not to be fair because the selection was an important part—or the “heart”—of the work.
Effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work: Here, courts review whether, and to what extent, the unlicensed use harms the existing or future market for the copyright owner’s original work. In assessing this factor, courts consider whether the use is hurting the current market for the original work (for example, by displacing sales of the original) and/or whether the use could cause substantial harm if it were to become widespread.
Read more here: https://www.copyright.gov/fair-use/more-info.html
How much of someone else's work can I use without getting permission?
Under the fair use doctrine of the U.S. copyright statute, it is permissible to use limited portions of a work including quotes, for purposes such as commentary, criticism, news reporting, and scholarly reports. There are no legal rules permitting the use of a specific number of words, a certain number of musical notes, or percentage of a work. Whether a particular use qualifies as fair use depends on all the circumstances. See, Fair Use Index, and Circular 21, Reproductions of Copyrighted Works by Educators and Librarians.
Read more here: https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-fairuse.html
Legal Guide for Bloggers from the Electronic Frontier Foundation
Freedom of speech is the foundation of a functioning democracy, and Internet bullies shouldn't use the law to stifle legitimate free expression. That's why EFF created this guide, compiling a number of FAQs designed to help you understand your rights and, if necessary, defend your freedom.
Read more here: https://www.eff.org/issues/bloggers/legal
About EFF
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is the leading nonprofit organization defending civil liberties in the digital world. Founded in 1990, EFF champions user privacy, free expression, and innovation through impact litigation, policy analysis, grassroots activism, and technology development. We work to ensure that rights and freedoms are enhanced and protected as our use of technology grows.
Read more here: https://www.eff.org/about
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I predict that Europe's attempt to implement this will fail hard and hopefully we don't have idiot politicians in America doing the same. Americans are a little more concerned about having free speech than those in Europe.
I suspect there's collusion between EU politicians and US politicians. I've been watching the Senate Intelligence Committee hearings and following the transparency reports published by Google and other social media platforms. The vast majority of content take-downs have been in response to GOVERNMENT requests, i.e. nearly 10 million YT videos by Jan 2018. Additionally, section 230 of Title 47 law code encourages surveillance and censorship, while section 229 financially reward it.
Here's a fragment of the code:
(b)Policy
It is the policy of the United States—
(1)to promote the continued development of the Internet and other interactive computer services and other interactive media;
(2)to preserve the vibrant and competitive free market that presently exists for the Internet and other interactive computer services, unfettered by Federal or State regulation;
(3)to encourage the development of technologies which maximize user control over what information is received by individuals, families, and schools who use the Internet and other interactive computer services;
(4)to remove disincentives for the development and utilization of blocking and filtering technologies that empower parents to restrict their children’s access to objectionable or inappropriate online material; and
(5)to ensure vigorous enforcement of Federal criminal laws to deter and punish trafficking in obscenity, stalking, and harassment by means of computer.
47 U.S. Code § 230 - Protection for private blocking and screening of offensive material
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230
Here's another law code fragment:
(e)Cost recovery for Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act compliance
(1)Petitions authorized
A common carrier may petition the Commission to adjust charges, practices, classifications, and regulations to recover costs expended for making modifications to equipment, facilities, or services pursuant to the requirements of section 103 of the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act [47 U.S.C. 1002].
(2)Commission authority
The Commission may grant, with or without modification, a petition under paragraph (1) if the Commission determines that such costs are reasonable and that permitting recovery is consistent with the public interest. The Commission may, consistent with maintaining just and reasonable charges, practices, classifications, and regulations in connection with the provision of interstate or foreign communication by wire or radio by a common carrier, allow carriers to adjust such charges, practices, classifications, and regulations in order to carry out the purposes of this chapter.
(3)Joint board
The Commission shall convene a Federal-State joint board to recommend appropriate changes to part 36 of the Commission’s rules with respect to recovery of costs pursuant to charges, practices, classifications, and regulations under the jurisdiction of the Commission.
47 U.S. Code § 229 - Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act compliance
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/229
As do I
The first section of law there explicitly states that the goal is
That's good, do you object to that?
And
That is also good, right? I think what you don't like is this:
to remove disincentives for the development and utilization of blocking and filtering technologies that empower parents to restrict their children’s access to objectionable or inappropriate online material
What disincentives are they removing that you object to? Do you object to technology so parents can restrict children's access to the internet?
The second section does not financially reward them, it reimburses them. Better than reimbursing companies for the cost of installing mass surveillance equipment we should just stop installing that equipment.
@funbobby51 I don't object to the STATED objective of the code. Putting content control into the hands of users is important. Being able to block offensive content and chronically abusive users, like trolls, is good for the public.
What I do object to the ACTUAL use of social media platforms and user data to perform surveillance and censorship of content. The tools SUPPOSEDLY intended for personal management of content feeds have been repurposed by the government. We all know about the NSA, Five Eyes, Echelon and the thousands of government contracts awarded to scan internet traffic, private or public, on behalf of the DOD.
The reimbursement is a reward. The full text of Section 230 provides immunity to "interactive computer services", i.e. social media platforms and "information content providers", i.e. bloggers, for example, from litigation for content that is legitimately found to be illegal. The programming required to enable a user to block offensive content and users has nothing whatsoever to do with algorithms that scan content data, sort it, label it and report it, as per the law enforcement objectives stated in Section 229.
We, the people, can block without the surveillance and censorship automation on social media platforms and the internet in general.
The surveillance, data collection, storage and analysis has no value to users. However, these tools enable social platforms a means to generate a revenue stream from advertisers and researchers. So, social media platforms have a FREE MARKET incentive to build surveillance and data aggregation reporting into their platform - value added advertising for businesses. It is to their advantage to build these tools and there is no reason for the government to reimburse them for doing so, because there is already a business incentive for investing in data aggregation for the purpose of target marketing services to advertising businesses. The foundation procedures for this business object have been hijacked to facilitate law enforcement objective from the federal government - NSA, CIA, FBI, DOD, DOJ, IRS, etc.
Section 229 is all about reimbursing for law enforcement enhancements, which are not necessary in a free society. In the same way that criminals on the streets are reported to local police, mechanisms for individuals to report criminal behavior online could have been implemented, with hotlines, public education announcements and WANTED posts by police using these platforms like any other user. Online surveillance is not essential to law enforcement.
Can you think of any example when online surveillance has been exclusively attributed with preventing crime or apprehending criminals WITHOUT alerts coming from individuals?
If the product is free you are the product.
That's very good, I wouldn't want to get sued because I reposted something that turned out to be illegal. But that is for social media services to protect them from being sued because some one posted something illegal, that would put them all out of business if they were liable for every idiot thing someone posted on their site.
To your first point, absolutely! Your online behavioral data is what you give in exchange for use of the platform. That's the contractual agreement users make with service/platform. We also have the right to re-negotiate those terms, or just leave the platform. It's a somewhat different matter with ISPs and OSs. We could move to Linux or switch ISPs, but there are monopolies of providers - if we're lucky, we have 2 ISPs serving our region - and the OS options are limited too.
Here's a situation to be aware of: I run Win10. The apps it installs automatically have rights to continuously run in the background, use our cams and mics, access our pics, our account info, our contacts, docs...That's just Edge, the browser. I disabled a number of apps a few weeks ago after finding that Skype had - all on its own, transmitted 6.3 MB of data over my network over a period of 3 hours and 42 minutes within the month of August alone. I NEVER use Skype.
To your second point, bloggers, whose posts receive unlawful or offensive comments are also not liable for those comments. The way the law code is written, users have the right to decide to delete or hide comments. The way it actually works, the platforms are overriding bloggers' rights to manage comment content visibility.
Over the past couple of years, Google has been shadow banning, using spam flagging. YT channel hosts weren't aware of it, but a simple count of comments, compared to the total shown at the top of the comment section, revealed it. In any situation that I found, the comments weren't criminal or offensive. On my own comments, logged in, I would see them. Logged out, they'd be hidden. The way we're discussing now, is the way I usually write, so...?
I put a piece of cardboard over my camera, windows 10 is a virus.
Even Zuckerberg puts tape over his cam. I uses green painter's tape. Looks like a green-screen in a studio from the cam's pov. I can also see when the cam light comes on.
Yah, Win10 is a virus. Just had it reset to default and reinstall an app today. If you set to always ask for permission, you can see just how sneaky Win10 is. Mr. Gates Genocide is the virus, really.
Even this is downplaying the effects of it. See, fair use is easy to defend against this. What IS NOT easy to defend is publishing your own original works. Becouse how do you proof that it is actualy you who produced that content? Even this comment of mine would be a problem.
How can i proof i actualy wrote it, that it is a creative effort of mine? See, in the US as far as i know, you have to activly seek out a copyright if im not mistaken. Under german copyright law for example, everything is copyrighted at creation wether you want that or not. At least, if it reaches the appropriate levels of creativity, a threshhold that is very low.
This is reversing the burden of proof. I will have to proof that nobody else wrote this comment, that it is indeed my work... If you cant publish it in the first place to establish authorship, that wont be easy.
You have a point there. To defend your copyright on your own original works, your work's copyright has to be registered. If you didn't register it, you can't file a DMCA claim. But, if someone files a DMCA claim against you, and they either don't have a registered copyright, or their copyright is registered later than the time stamp on your published work, they would probably lose the case against you.
One trick that authors use is to put their manuscript into an envelope and send it through the mail to themselves. When it arrives, they don't open it. They file it as proof of date authored. That's a wise thing to do even before publishing or sending to a publishing/printing agent. I suppose an email to yourself would serve the same purpose, but the text/files in an email are public the second you send them over the internet. Email is cheaper and the risk of anyone nabbing your work is low. I still would prefer a printed hardcopy on file. Absolutely no one reads your work and it doesn't likely leave your local post office before returning to you. Another option is to have a removable drive for storing the works you want copyright protection on. There will be a timestamp on the files and if you need to take the files to court, you take the whole drive, so the timestamps do not change, as would be the case will a copy of them. You could store them on your computer and take a screenshot showing timestamp as well. For defense purposes, any of these techniques would likely be recognized in a court of law as proof of original ownership. But as you point out, to file a DMCA claim, you work must be registered.
On Steemit, because an author only has a one-week window to collect gains from a work, it's not a good platform for serious authors, working for a living. Authors cannot edit (delete text) or delete posts after 7 days. Essentially, after 7 days, Steemit effectively owns and controls your work. According to the Steemit Terms of Service, "You retain ownership of and responsibility for Content you create or own ("Your Content")", so, if you - the author - choose to delete the content, you are entitled to, but not after that payout window closes. That's contradictory. Serious authors on this platform may consider editing the text of their own posts (delete content) just before the payout window closes to manage their copyrights and that includes the rights to republish at a later date. Having an existing copy on Steemit would provoke the plagiarism bots, if you reposted the same poem or short story at a later date, for example.
"You have a point there. To defend your copyright on your own original works, your work's copyright has to be registered."
In the US maybe. DMCA is US american and only US american.
You dont need to register anything, you hold the copyright and can go after anyone who uses your work the moment you create it.
Of course you are going to have to proof that you are the author/photografer/musician/programmer in order to go after someone for that, problem is that article 13 makes the PLATTFORMS responsible and that can be very very expensive.
Now, imagine i take a picture of you, send it to you and you post it on facebook. Unless i gave you a license to publish my work, that is indeed copyright infringement and if i can proof that i took the picture i can go after you for that as it stands.
Now i could go after facebook for that. So they will have to prevent you from posting pictures you yourself took becouse how are they supposed to know that you are the one that took those pictures?
Gets even more crazy if you take a picture of say a book. You hold the copyright to that picture, but not neccessarily the copyright to the cover of said book. Even if you are the author you may not have designed the cover and as such there is a problem.
Same with pure text which can also be posted. How are theysupposed to know to what you do or dont hold the copyright?
They cant unless you take some of the steps you outlined in the beginning.And article 11 is whats often called a "linktax". Its not entirely accurate but if you show a short preview or even just use the headline, you have to pay. Some european nations did allready implement such a thing - leading to google news to end their service entirely in spain.
I know! It's insanity. It's going to send the internet back to the dark ages. No one benefits. The intention is to silence the masses, who seem to be learning far too quickly what the law-makers are doing and why they are doing it. The cost of running the surveillance and censorship protocols have already causes FB investors to drop stock. That's what happened on July 25, 2018. When the stockholders learned that to implement the protocols they asked for in the May annual general, in response to the April Congressional Hearing, they bailed within 2 hrs, even before the meeting was over. FB lost $120M in 2 hours. So, the law-makers are going to overburden big tech, if not absolutely destroy the platforms. I have a new post out that's along the same line...legislators killing the net with their regulations. This one makes their intentions crystal clear - destruction.
Five Eyes Demands More Backdoor Access to YOUR Private Data Online - Big Tech Threatened with Consequences
https://steemit.com/informationwar/@justmeagain/five-eyes-demands-more-backdoor-access-to-your-private-data-online-big-tech-threatened-with-consequences
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