The Illusion of More’s David Newhoff takes Pirate Bay founder Peter Sunde to task
If you haven’t had the opportunity to read David Newhoff’s thoughts regarding Pirate Bay founder Peter Sunde’s recent interview published on Motherboard please take the time to do so. It’s truly a must read. Sunde spent a brief time in prison in 2014 for his role in operating the notorious torrent site whose popularity spawned clones around the globe and gave rise to the well-entrenched meme that piracy was somehow morally and politically justifiable.
Sunde laments that “The internet is shit today. It’s broken. It was probably always broken, but it’s worse than ever.” But, as David so eloquently points out in his blog post,“…the thing you clearly don’t get, Peter, is that this is the Internet you helped create.”
As founder/operator of The Pirate Bay, you became a rapacious capitalist, exploiting human labor and rejecting certain legal boundaries designed to protect the rights of that labor. Marx warned against this kind of exploitation, and he was right. But in your persistent belief that technology alone—like Marx’s abolition of private property—will naturally create “equal access to everything for everybody,” you are as naive as Marx in that you forget to do the rest of the math. You fail to ask the question, “Who is going to produce the everything to which everyone is entitled equal access?” – The Illusion of More
Many think naively that studios cannot be hurt too much, because after all, you hear mostly about the movies that make hundreds of millions of dollars. But the reality for many filmmakers is that they often live on the edge, seeking financing to produce quality content, and enduring high uncertainty about whether they will be able to pay off debt and have any profit left. Given the high fixed cost of producing a quality movie, losses from piracy can be the difference between making a profit or not.
He notes that a number of “peer-reviewed” studies quantify this damage. Bottom line, like any industry, Hollywood depends on making a return on its investment to flourish. No matter what piracy apologists allege, that’s a basic economic fact. Granados also touches on the particular vulnerability faced by independent filmmakers.
Most artists struggle to make ends meet as they pursue their creative work with passion and dedication. Piracy may be tipping the next Quentin Tarantino over the financial edge into bankruptcy, and we will all lose.
As I’ve often said, audienceswon’t know what we’re missing if it isn’t made. Piracy’s damage is insidious–and for the public–somewhat invisible. Ultimately it diminishes the quantity (and quality) of film offerings consumers have to choose from.
In other piracy-related news, the pox that is Popcorn Time rears its ugly head yet again. According to Torrent Freak, a group of “developers” have launched their own community edition of the piracy platform. Not surprisingly developers responsible for the new rendition of Popcorn Time rely on well-worn justifications for their thievery:
“Popcorn Time will probably never go away, despite the efforts made by organizations such as BREIN, the MPAA and others. Instead of fighting this great software they should embrace it,” PTCE tells TF.
It appears efforts are being made to quash this new effort, but as of today the site seems to be operational. Perhaps it would be better if those who love to watch films “embrace” the notion of compensating creators for their work. Fans of Adele seem to be doing so in record fashion.
Facebook faces further European scrutiny
Not really a copyright issue, but it’s always worth paying attention to what’s going on in Europe with regard to the digital economy. With that in mind…
Max Schrems, an Austrian lawyer and privacy advocate’s battle against Facebook over data privacy concerns gained momentum in October when the European Court of Justice invalidated the safe harbor agreement between the U.S. and Europe that had allowed transfer of personal data between business entities in the U.S. and EU. With the ruling in hand, Schrems has stepped up his attack against Facebook, filing complaints with data protection authorities (DPAs) in Ireland, Belgium and Germany. He outlined his actions in a statement posted on his website:
All complaints suggest a reasonable implementation period, to allow the relevant companies to take all necessary technical and organizational steps to comply with the CJEU judgement. These options may range from moving data to Europe, encrypting data that is stored in the United States or reviewing the corporate structure. Schrems: “Users really don’t have to worry that their screens go dark, but I hope we will see serious restructuring in the background – just like Microsoft has now started to offer more secure data centers in Germany, that are supposedly not subject to US jurisdiction.”
Meanwhile, as Schrems moves forward, the EU and US are busy trying to reach an agreement on a new safe harbor pact that will offer new guidelines on data transfer between companies on both sides of the Atlantic. It’s important to note that this “safe harbor” should not be confused with the “safe harbor” found in the DMCA so often mentioned in the context of online piracy.
YouTube Red, Google’s new subscription streaming service offers consumers (and pirates) ad free content to watch (and steal).
YouTube has decided to enter the subscription streaming fray with the announcement yesterday of its new (ad-free) premium channel, YouTube Red. Despite the unfortunate choice of a name —similar to a rather notorious porn site that has both the word “red” and “tube” in its title– YouTube is hoping its new endeavor will catch some of the ad-free streaming mojo enjoyed by the popular subscription based offerings of Netflix, HULU, and Amazon Prime. And, like the others, YouTube will develop its own slate of “YouTube Originals.”
This isn’t the first time YouTube has taken steps to compete head-to-head against streaming services. Earlier this year, when it announced the launch of its subscription-based Music Key service (designed to compete with the likes of Spotify and Pandora) YouTube quickly earned reputation as a bully when indie musicians were threatened with losing access to the YouTube platform (and monetization) if they refused to agree to contract terms inferior to those offered major labels. The East Bay Express’s Sam Lefebvre wrote about YouTube’s aggressive tactics with musician Zoe Keating:
According to a transcript of the conversation provided by Keating, YouTube told the successful independent cellist and songwriter that, unless she opted in to YouTube’s new streaming service, Music Key, by signing a proposed contract without stipulation, her ability to earn ad revenue from the 9,696 videos featuring her songs, and their roughly 250,000 monthly views would be effectively revoked; her music would appear on Music Key anyway; and furthermore, YouTube would have to block her from uploading new material from her current account. —East Bay Express
YouTube Music Key remains in Beta
It’s worth noting that Music Key remains in the beta testing phase and apparently, for the moment, isn’t taking new sign ups. No firm date has been set for its public debut either. Guess all that licensing (asking permission) stuff is taking longer than expected eh?
With the announcement of its new service, charges that the company is, once again, using heavy-handed tactics against creators, been raised according to Tech Crunch. Apparently YouTube hasn’t changed its approach, despite the blowback from their smarmy Music Key negotiations with indie musicians:
YouTube made its top video creators an offer they literally couldn’t refuse, or they’d have their content disappear. Today YouTube confirmed that any “partner” creator who earns a cut of ad revenue but doesn’t agree to sign its revenue share deal for its new YouTube Red $9.99 ad-free subscription will have their videos hidden from public view on both the ad-supported and ad-free tiers. That includes videos by popular comedians, musicians, game commentators, and DIY instructors, though not the average person that uploads clips. —TechCrunch
YouTube also sticks to its script in offering sketchy details as to just how creators participating in this new service will be paid. According to the NY Times, YouTube officials implied that they were launching the service as a benefit to creators:
YouTube executives said they were introducing a subscription service in part to give a new revenue stream to the Internet-famous “creators,” the most popular of which already make millions of dollars a year in advertising revenue. —NY Times
What that really means, of course, is really more profit for YouTube. Not surprising–but lets not pretend they have an altruistic mission when it comes to motivations at company HQ.
Will YouTube eventually find success competing in the subscription marketplace with the likes of Netflix and Amazon? Perhaps–but it can be hard for a leopard to change its spots.
For the past ten years we’ve come to know YouTube as a pastiche of content, some original, some stolen, some mash-ups including porn, terrorist recruiting videos, murder videos, pirated movies and music, cute puppies….you name it, it’s there. Will the site’s faithful users take kindly to having to sign dubious contracts to upload their content?
While the site is hugely popular–and according to Digital Music News now accounts for 40% of music listening, but only 4% of music revenue–will people pay for something they’ve become accustomed to for free?
By creating its own original content, YouTube/Google moves into the world occupied by Hollywood and Television. Now one has to wonder how YouTube/Google will greet the swarms of pirates attracted to fresh content. I imagine it won’t be long before pirate sites around the globe will be offering up downloads, torrents and streams of YouTube Red content and I’m sure links to the stolen goods will be easy to find. Just use Google search…
Andrew Sampson, developer of Aurous, claims his app is legal and compares its functionality to that of Google’s search engine. Of course we all know what Google’s record has been when it comes to linking to pirated content. Sampson told Billboard:
We’re pulling content from sources that are licensed. From a legal standpoint, what we’re doing is okay. All files are streamed from legitimate sources — we don’t host anything. We only share cached results over peer-to-peer…
…There are a lot of sites saying we’re the Popcorn Time of music. That’s not accurate. We can play content from all around the web, and we use a BitTorrent-style technology to share links to content — but not that actual content itself.
The problem is that much of the content on those so-called legit sources is NOT actually licensed. There’s plenty of pirated content on YouTube (one of the sources Aurous uses). As noted in a piece by Rich McCormick in Verge.
In addition to potentially acceptable locations, such as official promotional streams and music videos, these services could also draw from sources that would upset record labels: tracks illegally uploaded to SoundCloud, for example, or leaked albums put on YouTube weeks before their street dates. Ads, too, could be stripped out by Aurous, denying labels extra cash per play.
Of course Aurous has its defenders. Predictably the Electronic Frontier Foundation got into the act with this unfortunate Tweet using the hashtag #SOPApower.
Per usual, folks at the EFF seem to believe there’s something noble in enabling online piracy. As it repeatedly demonstrates through its advocacy, the EFF’s view is that musicians don’t really have the right to earn money off their hard work.
I imagine, however, that those employed at the EFF to think up with these insightful Tweets appreciate the paychecks they earn. According to documents published on Pro Publica, in 2013 the EFF spent $3,402,997 on salaries for its 49 employees. (That averages out to nearly 70k per employee).
For the record the EFF’s total revenue in 2013 was a tidy $9,444,822. The organization’s net assets were listed over 15 million. I wonder what additional pro-artist advocacy the Content Creators Coalition could do with 15 million bucks?
Though I certainly don’t begrudge those at EFF the right to earn a decent living by Tweeting about SOPA (an act of Free Speech) plenty of musicians would undoubtedly be thrilled to earn a salary anywhere close to the EFF 70K average.
That the EFF continues to demonstrate such disdain for artists by defending a piracy app like Aurous right out of the gate isn’t surprising, but it’s also not a strategy based on public good. Rather, it’s a strategy that’s good for the tech industry–an industry built on the credo of take first, (maybe) ask permission later.
EFF’s SOPA perseveration
Because it does the bidding of the tech industry, it’s not entirely surprising to see that the EFF media team relies on raising the SOPA battle cry again and again. After all, SOPAs defeated is is generally considered the tech industry’s greatest lobbying win yet.
Let’s remember that SOPA was introduced in 2011. Last time I checked it’s 2015. Despite the fact SOPA is long dead and buried, EFF’s talking points continue to rely on SOPA as a worn out buzzword to rally the troops. I would caution the EFF powers that be to remember what happened to the boy who cried “wolf” too many times.
Ultimately there’s something unseemly in an organization that boasts net assets of over 15 million dollars working so hard to undermine artists’ (often meager) livelihoods. Taking down Aurous will NOT “break the internet.” What it will do is help protect the work of musicians so that they can earn a living wage through the legal distribution of the work.
Sandra Aistars now Clinical Professor & Senior Scholar & Director of Copyright Research & Policy of CPIP
I’d like to take a moment to thank Sandra for all her hard work on behalf on indie artists, filmmakers, musicians and more. Without her unwavering guidance these past few years, there’s no doubt in my mind that our rights as creators would have been further undermined. Working in the trenches in Washington, and being the target of anti-copyright activists online, is not an easy job, but it’s one which Sandra handed with professionalism and grace. I’m excited to see what she has planned for her new venture with George Mason University of Law and wish her all the best.
Mr.Kupferschmid seems like an excellent person to succeed Sandra. His background working on copyright issues in with both tech and creative interests make him well suited to lead the Copyright Alliance and be an influential advocate for creator’s rights in coming years:
Keith brings over two decades of experience in copyright law and policy. At SIIA, he represented and advised software and content companies on intellectual property policy, legal, and enforcement matters. He also supervised the Anti-Piracy Division, including managing anti-piracy staff, investigators and outside counsel, and working with federal and state government officials on civil and criminal piracy cases. Prior to that, he was an attorney at Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner, as well as at the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), the Copyright Office, and the US Trade Representative (USTR).
These are crucial times in the fight to protect creative rights across the spectrum and Mr. Kupferschmid promises to work on behalf of creators across the spectrum, large and small, as he tackles a number of challenging copyright issues:
I am thrilled to be the new CEO of the Copyright Alliance…. Sandra did a tremendous job building the Alliance into a respected and thoughtful organization that effectively represents the copyright interests of all types and sizes of creators and innovators. As SVP of Intellectual Property for SIIA the past 16 and a half years I worked with SIIA’s tech companies—both large and small—as well as other stakeholders in the copyright, tech, and academic communities to develop amicable solutions to complex copyright policy and enforcement issues. I hope to use my experiences in the copyright and tech arenas to further build on the strong foundation established by Sandra.
I wish him well on his new journey and am looking forward to his efforts to build more bridges with indie artists across all disciplines.
Kim Dotcom’s Court Hearing Continues
In other news, Kim Dotcom’s extradition hearing in Auckland District Court continue this week in New Zealand with Crown prosecutor, Christine Gordon who is representing the United States, wrapping up her presentation as to why New Zealand should extradite the pirate site (Megaupload) founder to the U.S. to face charges that include racketeering, copyright infringement and money laundering. Gordon focused rewards paid to top infringers:
Gordon told a judge this week that after Dotcom launched Megaupload in 2005, it grew to become so popular that each day 50 million people used the site, sucking up 4 percent of all Internet traffic.
“This was a big fraud but conducted in a fairly simple manner…
Behind the scenes, the respondents admitted their business broke the law. Sometimes they enjoyed the fact they were making their money by breaking the law,” she said. “Sometimes they worried about protection, and pondered what action they should take to, and I’m quoting here Mr. Dotcom’s words, ‘counter the justice system.” –New Zealand Herald
YouTube and some of its advertisers apparently have no problem making money off videos of the WDBJ shooting incident
When it comes to making money, management at YouTube apparently has no shame
It’s no secret that YouTube slaps advertising on pretty much anything without regard for subject matter or ownership, but making money off of last week’s on-air murder of WDBJ-TV reporter Alison Parker and her cameraman Adam Ward is a new low. A source tipped me off to the fact that a number of opportunistic (and shameless) YouTube “partners” have uploaded and monetized clips of both the station’s live broadcast and the video taken, (and uploaded to Twitter) by the deranged murderer as he executed the two journalists during a televised live-shot for the morning news.
The ads appear as sidebar ads, pre-roll ads, and overlay ads. It wouldn’t be difficult for YouTube to prevent this type of disturbing video from being uploaded in the first place, much less monetized. After all, YouTube brags about what a great job its Content ID program does keeping infringing content off the site. Why not use it to block these type of uploads? Can’t YouTube use its own technology to safeguard advertisers?
While the debate as to whether these clips are newsworthy will continue, are videos depicting the cold-blooded murder of two people really ad-worthy? Where are the advertisers in all this? Are they even aware of where their ads appear? They are culpable in this fiasco too. When ads were placed on ISIS videos advertisers several advertisers expressed their displeasure with YouTube and pledged to take action. With this latest revelation it appears their words may have simply been spin control. After all, we’ve heard time and time again how the ad industry is concerned about “brand integrity” online. Perhaps the industry should look at the consistent lack of “integrity” in YouTube’s monetization practices?
As for YouTube itself, in the past, company representatives have defended its hands-off approach. When called out for the ads on ISIS recruiting videos earlier this year a spokesman tried to justify YouTube’s approach in a statement to NBC News:
“YouTube has clear policies prohibiting content intended to incite violence, and we remove videos violating these policies when flagged by our users. We also have stringent advertising guidelines, and work to prevent ads appearing against any video once we determine that the content is not appropriate for our advertising partners,” a YouTube spokesperson said Tuesday in a statement to NBC News. YouTube videos are frequently preceded by ads that are picked at random by an algorithm. That means often neither YouTube nor the advertiser will know what ads are playing before which videos.
WDBJ Shooting videos make money for YouTube and its “Partners”
YouTube boasts its monetized videos provide “Advertiser Friendly Content”
YouTube purports to require that partner monetized videos provide “advertiser friendly content.” What exactly is that? Well, this is how YouTube explains its standards on for its “Partner Program” :
Even though content may be acceptable for YouTube under our policies, not all of it is appropriate for Google advertising. Google has principles around what we monetize that we expect our content creators who want to monetize to comply with. Advertisers also have their own standards and requirements on the type of content that meets their individual needs. [emphasis added] Learn more below about how YouTube defines “advertiser-friendly” content and how we prevent ads from serving against videos that do not meet this criteria.
In short, advertiser-friendly content is appropriate for all audiences, from our youngest to older viewers. It is content that has little to no inappropriate and/or mature content in the video stream, thumbnail, or metadata such as video title. If there may be inappropriate content, the context is usually newsworthy or comedic where the creator’s intent is to inform or entertain, and not offend or shock.
Content that YouTube considers to be inappropriate for advertising includes but is not limited to:
Sexually suggestive content, including partial nudity and sexual humor
Violence, including display of serious injury and events related to violent extremism
Inappropriate language, including harassment, profanity and vulgar language
Promotion of drugs and regulated substances, including selling, use and abuse of such items
Controversial or sensitive subjects and events, including subjects related to war, political conflicts, natural disasters and tragedies, even if graphic imagery is not shown
If any of the above describes any portion of your video, then it may not be approved for monetization. In cases where monetization is approved, your video may not be eligible for all of the ad formats we offer. YouTube reserves the right to not monetize a video, as well as suspend monetization feature on channels who repeatedly submit videos that violate our policies.
The implication here is that some sort of quality control is happening. The Partner Program information continues with this disingenuous gem:
How do we qualify content as “advertiser-friendly”?
YouTube relies on sophisticated technology and our policy enforcement processes when determining if a video is suitable for advertising. [emphasis added] We have trained systems that automatically check various features of a video – from the video title, metadata, and visual imagery – and makes a decision on how appropriate this video is for general advertising.
In conjunction with these automated checks, we also depend on our user community to flag inappropriate videos to us for our review. Depending on the nature of the policy violation, videos can be removed from the site or age-restricted. Monetization is disabled on age-restricted videos and Google will immediately stop serving ads on these videos.
Sophisticated technology? Huh? Did YouTube’s “sophisticated technology” deem video depicting the murder of two innocent people suitable? The implication here is that some sort of quality control is happening, but that’s not at all the case. Crap uploaded by “partners” (aka scammers) routinely gets monetized on YouTube by without any sort of approval process. Whether its videos for ISIS or those promoting peeping Toms, it’s only when someone flags it or publishes a story, that YouTube takes action and even then, too little, too late.
Money over morals is the YouTube mantra
Of course one of the videos (with advertising) that I saw had attracted more than 600,000 hits. Eyeballs mean money for YouTube and the partner who uploaded the video, never mind he didn’t own the rights to it. Apparently money matters more than ethics.
Where are the advertisers in all this? YouTube infers that they have their own “standards” that must be met. Do these clips showing the murder of two people on live TV qualify? Do Celebrity Cruises, Hitachi, NFL GamePass, SolarCity, Book of Mormon Musical, Sprint, Save the Children, PayPal, Honda, Flir, Claritin and other major brands really want their products slapped onto these videos?
WDBJ officials could probably get some of these videos taken down, but I imagine they probably have better things to do–like mourn their colleagues–than send DMCA notices to YouTube.
I can’t imagine what it must be like for the family and friends of these victims to know that the murder of their loved ones has become a money-making opportunity for the likes of YouTube/Google. It’s beyond shameful and there’s absolutely no excuse. YouTube needs to clean up its act and if company officials won’t make it happen, advertisers better demand better accountability.
As an indie film and broadcast journalism veteran, I'll share my perspectives on issues of interest to the creative community and beyond--Ellen Seidler
The Illusion of More’s David Newhoff takes Pirate Bay founder Peter Sunde to task
