how will this effect loverslab?

[winny257]

18 minutes ago, Grey Cloud said:

No offence to Jazzman but in this country we say 'there is no fool like an old fool' 

no offense, Jazzman has long been my girlfriend, how do one say, older men are more faithful as a young grasshopper. 

[guk]

6 hours ago, DoctaSax said:

Well, it's the uploaders who do the uploading, isn't it. Seems pretty fair to me that they are the ones accountable for what they do.

 

It's easy to point at Google/Youtube and Facebook, say they're the bad guys, and that all this is only aimed at them. Nobody sheds a tear. What worries me is the precedent. It's absolutely impossible for any hosting site to verify and guarantee the legitimacy of every piece of content uploaded by pepole who aren't on staff. Images, video, text or code can come from anywhere, and unless the copying is entirely obviously illegitimate at a glance, you just don't know until somebody who does reports it to you.

 

 

The platforms earn all the money though.

And the way things work right now, the mentioned creative freelancers, journalists etc. have absolutely no chance to police these platforms, let alone reporting and bringing each case to the courts.

 

So your thesis already fails at the inital problem: The copyright for these people only exists on paper - unlike for the entertainment industry, they got the DMCA and can occupy lawyer departments for that.

This law aims to change that, by giving the responsibility for user-generated content directly to the social media platforms.

 

 

And FYI - the anti-article-13 faction had most of the airtime here in Germany, both in the state media as well as in the independent press. That's also how the sentiments could grow so strong beyond the closed filter bubbles.

The outcome of the law turned out different though, mind you against the interest of some of the most powerful corporations in the world today. How this will impact the european elections this week is yet to be seen, though i'm fairly confident that most people have different, more serious issues on the agenda (example: Fridays for Future).

[DoctaSax]

6 minutes ago, guk said:

The platforms earn all the money though.

And the way things work right now, the mentioned creative freelancers, journalists etc. have absolutely no chance to police these platforms, let alone reporting and bringing each case to the courts.

 

So your thesis already fails at the inital problem: The copyright for these people only exists on paper - unlike for the entertainment industry, they got the DMCA and can occupy lawyer departments for that.

This law aims to change that, by giving the responsibility for user-generated content directly to the social media platforms. 

By the same token, the platforms can't effectively police themselves either, when thousands of users upload content everyday. There's a lot of talk about using filters but atm I don't see how those can work properly. What's on the table is being able to be sued before you even know a particular upload is questionable. This is why I fear the precedent: sooner or later the case will be made that it's only fair smaller platforms share the same accountability. Including sites like this.

 

[guk]

19 hours ago, DoctaSax said:

By the same token, the platforms can't effectively police themselves either, when thousands of users upload content everyday. There's a lot of talk about using filters but atm I don't see how those can work properly. What's on the table is being able to be sued before you even know a particular upload is questionable. This is why I fear the precedent: sooner or later the case will be made that it's only fair smaller platforms share the same accountability. Including sites like this.

 

They can, and they already do that.

 

The law clearly speaks about licenses, the obligation to obtain them, and demands adequate technical measures that this works as an actual mechanism.

There also is the precedence with the german GEMA system, which may have been the blueprint for that. You can read the details in the wiki link; basically it works as a copyright enforcement system for artists in the music branch. Everyone who wants to use copyrighted material from GEMA members can do so by paying for a license, and the GEMA collects and distributes this money to the artists. The license starts with the sound carriers bought by end customers (vinyl, tape, CD back in the days), radio- and TV stations, and finally also any digital media.

 

Now there was the case that Youtube refused to pay for these licenses for several years, so any videos featuring GEMA-protected music were simply not accessible to browsers with a german IP address. Eventually they gave in, started paying the licenses, and now everyone profits.

 

So if this works with the GEMA on Youtube, it's also going to work in other areas. Like news articles copied by Facebook, and all that.

And to answer the OP question - Loverslab would not be affected by this law anyways, because it is not a "for-profit online content sharing service provider". Even if the USA would adopt this law in a similar fashion.

 

 

And yes the legit concerns by dozens or hundreds of experts have been heard, so have been the ten thousands of protesters. The latter have mostly been mobilized by hysterical campaigns started by Youtube itself though ("the end of free speech").

Try to see it from the other side - the service union ver.di claiming to represent a hundred thousand independent artists in Germany alone, the journalist union, entire branches being threatened in their existence because companies like Facebook (455 billion USD market value in 2018) or Google (755 billion USD) are shamelessly profiting by theft of their material.

 

And of course you are very welcome to answer my initial request in this thread - if you know better solutions for this issue, then tell us.

[DoctaSax]

39 minutes ago, guk said:

There also is the precedence with the german GEMA system, which may have been the blueprint for that. You can read the details in the wiki link; basically it works as a copyright enforcement system for artists in the music branch.

From the link, all I can tell is that GEMA is a PRO like any other. European PROs are not so much an enforcement system, but private enforcers granted a monopoly by government, with very dubious payout practices and the ability to collect money for all artists, including the ones who haven't even given them permission to do so and will never see a cut. They bury just about everybody in society they can think of in paperwork and fees, and those fees can increase drastically on a whim. I haven't heard of one PRO so far that is reasonable towards the public or fair to the artists in whose name they operate.

 

From the wiki page you link, GEMA is no exception: it charged kindergartens for singing children's songs, multiplied its tariffs for clubs from one year to the next and bases those on venue size (maximum potential income instead of actual income). It has entirely unclear and unfair payout percentages, and even major music conglomerates like Sony think GEMA's too greedy when it comes to dealing with Youtube over the right to broadcast official music videos, costing Sony millions.

A rock musician only gets 10% of what GEMA collects in his name. Let that sink in. Perhaps so many artists wouldn't be so poor if they were represented by someone else?

 

As long as groups like this are the ones who collect the dough from YouTube or anywhere else, I fear those independent artists you champion can only hope to receive a tiny fraction of their due. You ask for solutions, I say: start with these guys. They undermine the artists' POV in the copyright debate whenever they pull one of their stupid stunts. And when these groups are doing their lobbying, saying the artists aren't nearly being paid enough, they also know all too well what they're talking about: they only have to look at their own books to see where the money's disappearing into. To top it all off, artists have to pay membership fees to these organizations for both the right and duty to be ripped off. It's unbelievable, and sadly, it's the same story all over Europe and elsewhere.

 

Yes, Youtube has money. Yes, artists don't get enough. I don't see how reversing copyright enforcement principles will change anything about that. At best, it'll make it so that videos are more easily blocked on YT, generating no licensing fees. It's more likely the PROs think they'll get more by suing for damages instead. Hence the reversal of culpability: before, it was the users, who have no money. Now it's YT, who does. Simple as that. By the same token that artists can't be expected to trawl over YT detecting any possible infraction, any legal action waged against YT will most likely be brought by the PROs. No doubt they'll crow it's a rousing victory for artists if they win.

1 hour ago, guk said:

Now there was the case that Youtube refused to pay for these licenses for several years, so any videos featuring GEMA-protected music were simply not accessible to browsers with a german IP address. Eventually they gave in, started paying the licenses, and now everyone profits. 

It was a negotiation over the renewal of their licensing contract, not refusing to pay a state tax or something. Most likely GEMA was simply demanding too much - other PROs managed to have a deal with YT, why not them. They ended up settling on an 'undisclosed sum', always convenient.

 

Either way, enough about the money. The issue for me, as I said already, is the legal precedent where a site owner is accountable for copyright infractions committed by site members before they are even notified of the infraction. Filters only take you so far, there will always be things slipping through the net, and before you know it you're up to your neck in legal fees over something someone else did. For anyone who isn't YouTube, that means closing up shop. I'm not at all pacified to think this'll only affect the giants.

[CodyR4]

Thank fuck I’m an American. Sorry dude, that’s really really shitty, move to America man. 

[ToJKa]

Dunno about that... Which hurts longer? Being shot or being ran over by a truck?

?

[iJaVaFx]

On 3/26/2019 at 7:32 PM, Ernest Lemmingway said:

Suddenly I'm glad to be an American again.

MERICA!!

[winny257]

19 hours ago, iJaVaFx said:

MERICA!!

lol, also in America is not all gold what shines!
also there human rights are curtailed.
I for my part do not want to live there, 4 weeks holiday yes, but forever there, nope. 
I would this miss. 

Spoiler

 

[MrEsturk]

On 5/22/2019 at 9:06 AM, ToJKa said:

Dunno about that... Which hurts longer? Being shot or being ran over by a truck?

Don't join a gang or use the road as a sidewalk and you'll be fine?

 

1 hour ago, winny257 said:

I would this miss. 

Eh, you could try visiting during Mardi Gras in one of the cities were it is a big like New Orleans. Granted the women showboating their bodies there won't be as classy as the ones in the pictures you showed.

[iJaVaFx]

3 hours ago, winny257 said:

lol, also in America is not all gold what shines!
also there human rights are curtailed.
I for my part do not want to live there, 4 weeks holiday yes, but forever there, nope. 
I would this miss. 

  Hide contents

 

American mentality is still one of the best lol, i'm not hating on other contry i'm just thrilled by those facts.

[winny257]

10 hours ago, iJaVaFx said:

American mentality is still one of the best lol, i'm not hating on other contry i'm just thrilled by those facts.

Oops, Sorry, it should not hit you, I have replied to the wrong post.
2 Posts over your, was intended for @CodyR4, he wrote "move to America man".
it was simple to funny.

 

But to come back again to the point, not everyone can resettle to America.
the immigration laws are more than people friendly, a human without money, no chance. if I have a lot of money "a few million", then maybe.
But there are many more factors the one immigration influence.
in Germany is an immigration much easier, it is enough to be a war refugee, very few immigrants are sent back.

[iJaVaFx]

4 hours ago, winny257 said:

Oops, Sorry, it should not hit you, I have replied to the wrong post.
2 Posts over your, was intended for @CodyR4, he wrote "move to America man".
it was simple to funny.

 

But to come back again to the point, not everyone can resettle to America.
the immigration laws are more than people friendly, a human without money, no chance. if I have a lot of money "a few million", then maybe.
But there are many more factors the one immigration influence.
in Germany is an immigration much easier, it is enough to be a war refugee, very few immigrants are sent back.

lol, if you speak german good for you, but i'm not sure their all bilingual over there  what is good about germany compare to other place ?? 

[Jazzman]

1 hour ago, iJaVaFx said:

lol, if you speak german good for you, but i'm not sure their all bilingual over there  what is good about germany compare to other place ?? 

Well, as a Latin-American I'd say it's their education system. They, at least, don't need an X on the map to find the Ukraine, or Jamaica for that matter.

And, as the great Spanish philosopher Ortega y Gasset once has pointed to - to understand modern philosophy one has to learn German first. True dat.

 

But let's wait and see what winny has to say...

[guk]

On 5/17/2019 at 3:56 AM, DoctaSax said:

From the link, all I can tell (...)

Your entire post is basically just a collection of factoids and false statements.

 

On 5/17/2019 at 3:56 AM, DoctaSax said:

it charged kindergartens for singing children's songs

This is plain and simple wrong, and the wiki link doesn't even say that.

 

The case was about photocopies of sheet music, more precisely about those copyrights held by the collecting company VG Musikedition, who tasked the GEMA to represent them in that matter. The kindergartens didn't agree on the batch payment nor on the obligation to document each copied song individually, so the bavarian ministery of family affairs mediated, and all involved parties agreed on a lump sum to be paid from the communal budgets.

 

So neither the kids were charged for singing, nor did the kindergartens or parents pay a single cent for anything. And the initially demanded license (56€ for 500 copies) is effectively nothing for a local budget.

This is exactly the information you can find on the wiki page, and on the provided links there.

 

So wether you like it or not, this is a simple legal procedure like in any constitutional state. I.e. - much ado about nothing.

 

On 5/17/2019 at 3:56 AM, DoctaSax said:

multiplied its tariffs for clubs from one year to the next

This is also wrong. There was a reform of the tariffs (which the GEMA was asked for to simplify things) and as a result, some would see a 1000% increase of fees or more.

However, this also goes into a whole different topic: About many major night clubs having stated wrong visitor numbers for years just to minimize the license fees (which is called fraud FYI). And frankly this sounds like a joke when a club has to pay 30,000€ per year for GEMA fees when they earn that sum in admissions and grotesquely overpriced drinks a single night. So it's not just one side to be accused of greediness, obviously.

 

On 5/17/2019 at 3:56 AM, DoctaSax said:

It has entirely unclear and unfair payout percentages

(...)

A rock musician only gets 10% of what GEMA collects in his name.

(...)

Perhaps so many artists wouldn't be so poor if they were represented by someone else?

And again wrong.

 

The actually legit complaint here is that the GEMA has different categories of membership and music genres, and this system appears highly intransparent. There are 3 tiers of membership with different fees and payout, and there is a general differentiation in Germany between entertainment- and so called "serious" music (E- und U-Musik). The latter being responsible for the fact that a rights owner of classical music gets up to eight times as much royalties collected compared to a rock musician, but he does not get paid 10% of what's being collected in his name. This quoted statement by Ole Seelenmeyer is also apparently not present on the german wikipedia page, because it is false.

 

Fact is also: That many compositors died impoverished, while their music was played up and down in concert halls and radio stations across the world, because they did not have a collecting company to represent and enforce their rights for them. Meanwhile many artists can make a decent living by doing their thing while the GEMA collects the royalties; the exact business practices and how fair/transparent they are is a different question.

 

On 5/17/2019 at 3:56 AM, DoctaSax said:

You ask for solutions, I say: start with these guys.

Alright, now give me a fucking break.

 

Your solution to the topic at hand - is to NOT solve the problem at all, but instead remove the existing system that (despite all valid criticism) already works for the music branch for 100 years?

 

Let that sink in. A true milestone of logical thought on this forum.

 

 

---------------------------

 

 

Well the internet is still largely a wild west area, where the most ruthless company takes it all. After all there aren't laws to regulate many important questions, so now you have gigantic, unprecedented monopolies doing whatever they want, and manipulating the masses with all kinds of bullshit. The anti-article 13 campaigns where initiated by Youtube, after all. And i'm just going to mention the keywords: Cambridge Analytica, AggregateIQ, Trump, Brexit.

 

Though same like with the GDPR, at least the EU parliament is willing to fix these things and bring the legal status up to date.

Their only problem: they have very little to no public relations management, meaning that they rarely communicate a decision process, or even advertise to the voters to get a positive reception. So right now it's mostly the demagogues with the help of Facebook and Youtube having the prerogative of interpretation, and this very thread is a sad testament.

 

Bottom line: Effectively this is not so much about the video licenses, but about an attempt to limit the power of those companies, who so far have had catastrophic consequences for our democracies and societies as a whole.

 

[winny257]

4 hours ago, Jazzman said:

Well, as a Latin-American I'd say it's their education system. They, at least, don't need an X on the map to find the Ukraine, or Jamaica for that matter.

And, as the great Spanish philosopher Ortega y Gasset once has pointed to - to understand modern philosophy one has to learn German first. True dat.

 

But let's wait and see what winny has to say...

Jazzman not quite, there are Turks here who have been living in Germany for 30 years or more, they do not speak a word of German, but her children and grandchildren, who were born in Germany, "already".
in America, it is a basic precondition perfect to speak English, I have no chance.
if I were to relocate to another country, then my first choice would be, Brazil or Argentina, because there my money is worth something. 

[KoolHndLuke]

1 hour ago, winny257 said:

it is a basic precondition perfect to speak English

Or Spanish, lol. "Elija la opción dos para español por favor". There are people that have lived here most of their lives and still don't speak English. We adapt. And last I checked those Turks usually have some pretty good hash. Also, German immigration laws must have changed since I last studied them. 

[DoctaSax]

2 hours ago, guk said:

The kindergartens didn't agree on the batch payment nor on the obligation to document each copied song individually, so the bavarian ministery of family affairs mediated, and all involved parties agreed on a lump sum to be paid from the communal budgets.

 

So neither the kids were charged for singing, nor did the kindergartens or parents pay a single cent for anything. And the initially demanded license (56€ for 500 copies) is effectively nothing for a local budget.

The same budget's supposed to pay for other education costs too. Nearly 300K total for children songs in Bavaria alone: you can build a good school for it. 56 euros for 500 copies actually was a pretty steep price - I don't imagine you know what little schools have to work with, after all other expenses.

 

If I jumped the gun on seeing that, so be it. It's somewhat similar to the time ASCAP threatened the girl scouts in the US for singing songs around camp fires, so it easily fell in a pattern of shameless extortion for me. I live in Belgium, we have SABAM, which charged libraries for organizing small events where volunteers would read books out loud to children: it's a performance, pay up. Nonsense like that is an embarrassment for the artist side in the copyright debate.

 

Quote

There was a reform of the tariffs (which the GEMA was asked for to simplify things) and as a result, some would see a 1000% increase of fees or more.
However, this also goes into a whole different topic: About many major night clubs having stated wrong visitor numbers for years just to minimize the license fees (which is called fraud FYI). A nd frankly this sounds like a joke when a club has to pay 30,000€ per year for GEMA fees when they earn that sum in admissions and grotesquely overpriced drinks a single night.

 

I don't go out much anymore, but never knew too many clubs like that. And just because some clubs commit fraud, doesn't mean you get to 'simplify' things to a point where you suddenly multiply your fees by 5 or 10 overnight for clubs that perhaps, maybe, aren't fraudulent. Politicians politely asked or begged them to remain reasonable, but couldn't just tell them: it's not a government department. Their change in payout division a couple of years back was also without consulting its membership, contrary to its charter, and although this has been decried, that change has remained in effect for years now. No accountability to its members either: GEMA's the only game in town, after all. So who are they accountable to, if anybody?

 

Quote

there is a general differentiation in Germany betwee n entertainment- and so called "serious" m usic (E- und U-Musik). The latter being responsible for the fact that a rights owner of classical music gets up to eight times as much royalties collected compared to a rock musician

 

And this clearly disenfranchises the musicians who bring in the most money in favor of those who bring in the least. This would not happen if GEMA didn't have a monopoly granted by a government that allows this in some bizarre attempt at cultural protectionism straight out of the 1950s: classical music and schlagers good, nigger music not so much...

 

Quote

Your solution to the topic at hand - is to NOT solve the problem at all, but instead remove the existing system that (despite all valid criticism) already works for the music branch for 100 years?

 

Since many musicians aren't getting paid their due and all are unclear what their due even should be, don't tell me that this system works. Demands for more transparancy from GEMA have gone unheeded for years. SABAM in Belgium was at one point 200 million euros in arrears when it came to paying out its members. They're a national joke over here, but people have to keep paying them regardless. Just another factoid, I suppose, but put a few of them together and an obvious pattern emerges. Similar criticism has existed toward all European PROs for a long, long time, and nothing changes.

 

The topic at hand, I thought, was that artists complain they're not getting enough from being played on sites like YouTube. Again, I'm unclear what a reversal of culpability in terms of copyright enforcement changes anything about solving the money issue, unless the plan is to invest in litigation instead of licensing. You can't have both.

 

If not, it seems entirely reasonable to me that if artists aren't getting enough money from these sources, the people speaking for them oughta have a good look at the PROs who have been collecting it, and will continue to do so. Given their track record, it's not too much of a stretch to suggest they clean up their act too. Either open the market so that competition forces better payout, or continue as a state monopoly with proper regulation and accountability. Either of them is fine by me.

 

Quote

Well the internet is still largely a wild west area, where the most ruthless company takes it all. After all there aren't laws to regulate many important questions, so now you have gigantic, unprecedented monopolies doing whatever they want, and manipulating the masses with all kinds of bullshit.

 

So the best way of dealing with them, is reverting copyright enforcement principles so that only gigantic companies can risk the additional liability, making sure it's all enforced by... ruthless monopolies doing whatever they want.

 

Quote

Cambridge Analytica , AggregateIQ , Trump, Brexit

Data mining and big sites influencing the political process is hardly going to be kept in check through copyright enforcement. It's just not the issue.

[worik]

5 hours ago, KoolHndLuke said:

Also, German immigration laws must have changed since I last studied them. 

Speaking for the whole EU, they change them twice a day. Everywhere. To give the impression that "they" do something to achieve "whatever" (<= replace at will).

This "new law" is valid until the next judge reminds them (again and again) of the fundamental laws, that all humans have rights and not just "some humans".

Repeat from start.

It's basically a farce to keep the rassists and morons happy that their elected ones know what they are doing.

 

Unfortunately, you can apply the same logic safely to almost all disputed issues.

That's the result when a political election is not about "Who does the best job for me?" but more about "Who is the least piece of shit on this list to fuck up even more?"

[winny257]

6 hours ago, KoolHndLuke said:

Or Spanish, lol. "Elija la opción dos para español por favor". There are people that have lived here most of their lives and still don't speak English. We adapt. And last I checked those Turks usually have some pretty good hash. Also, German immigration laws must have changed since I last studied them. 

I always thought the swearing-in ceremony from an immigrant to a US citizen, would always be in English.
this ceremony is always duty for one immigrant.
sorry in german

 

https://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/usa-einbuergerung-am-nationalfeiertag-zeremonien-im-ganzen-land-a-1216507.html

 

https://www.bpb.de/gesellschaft/migration/laenderprofile/143980/einwanderungspolitik

[KoolHndLuke]

2 hours ago, winny257 said:

this ceremony is always duty for one immigrant.

Yeah, for those that are here legally. So many people living in the U.S. speak Spanish that it has become the unofficial second language. Well, here in my state anyway. I live in a border state, so the Spanish speaking population is more prevalent. Most are bilingual, but many are not. I'm not really complaining, more just stating a fact.

[KoolHndLuke]

8 hours ago, DoctaSax said:

So the best way of dealing with them, is reverting copyright enforcement principles so that only gigantic companies can risk the additional liability, making sure it's all enforced by... ruthless monopolies doing whatever they want.

I mean your not wrong, but convincing enough people to use alternatives is damn near impossible because all their friends use them. Shifting the responsibility to the monopolies is a great way to cement them in place and help them squeeze out all potential competition. Maybe that's what this is really about? Google, YT and others may play the part of the injured party due to policies like this publicly, while privately they know it would benefit them greatly. Like someone said, they already have more than enough money for legal fees and to settle disputes for "undisclosed" amounts of money. Stuff like this always boils down to a few getting richer while fucking the little people in the process. And I do agree that LL and other small sites will be dragged into it sooner or later.

[KoolHndLuke]

30 minutes ago, Alkpaz said:

Meanwhile, our city came up with a solution besides a border fence on a freakin flood plain. (El Rio Grande) but it was knocked down by state officials. 

https://www.kgns.tv/content/news/Bill-that-would-have-funded-Bulkhead-Project-dies-in-Texas-Senate-510378761.html

You can't propose anything to the state that makes sense! They want a wall!

[worik]

59 minutes ago, KoolHndLuke said:

You can't propose anything to the state that makes sense! They want a wall!

Nice meme. Of course it will work! Sure! It is known!

Walls have always been the greatest idea in history

Spoiler

?

 

[winny257]

55 minutes ago, KoolHndLuke said:

You can't propose anything to the state that makes sense! They want a wall!

Spoiler

 

it existed in the past and it will always stay, it means "Einigeln", protect yourself from the outside world. 

Spoiler