[mcv]

I fear this may end up being the end of full Youtube access for Europeans. Youtube must either have a license with all possible rights holders, which is everybody, or content uploaded by Europeans must be checked by impossible filters, and I suppose content uploaded from elsewhere must be checked by those same filters before it can be shown to Europeans. So basically we're only going to get corporate content from Youtube.

A small consolation is that it may also kill Facebook in the EU, giving more room for smaller, open source, distributed social networks like Diaspora, Mastodon and Friendica. If it's true that this only holds for profit-driven sites, as someone claimed in an earlier discussion about this.

[onion2k]

YouTube will be fine. It's big enough to implement enough tech that they can say they're doing what they can. In fact, they've probably had enough there for years.

Most content hosting startups are likely to be too small to need to implement any tech at all, so they're fine as well for now.

The problem is that now it's practically impossible for a startup to scale up. The route to an exit for any startup hosting content and serving the EU is effectively closed, which is going to make raising impossible, which in turn will make developing a solution impossible. This law cements YouTube as the market leader in a way that no one can really challenge. They've been handed a de facto monopoly. That's the problem.

[cbetti]

Queue a slew of off the shelf rights management systems start-ups can bolt into their platforms as they scale. VC uncertainty probably stems from unclear law, not from technical challenges.

[riffraff]

I too think there will be a lot of people producing whitelabel contentId clones. I mean, it's a potentially good business. But it won't be easy to do, as people will still need to convince copyright holders to play with it, much like it took decades for something like spotify to emerge.

Anyway: the law will stay unclear for years, won't it?

This is a directive, which means each EU country will need to implement it through a local law, and then they will still be free to implement it the way they want it (unlike GDPR, which is a regulation).

[ocdtrekkie]

Copyright holders want this to work (as a repeal of the directive would be a far, far worse scenario), and will likely be more than willing to work with anyone who aims to make it work.

[riffraff]

well yeah, but do they want it bad enough that I can go to all of the licensers and tell them "give me all your content for a small cost so I can fingerprint it and build a content identifier" ?

Old businesses have shown time and again they are unable to understand what's good for them if it moves from the way it was always done (some, at least).

[Bombthecat]

I won't be surprised that we will find out in five years that Google and Facebook supported this law (under the table)

[rum3]

I am almost certain this is true. But hopefully it will backfire and decentralized alternatives will become more popular than these big monopolies.

[swarnie_]

> YouTube will be fine. It's big enough to implement enough tech that they can say they're doing what they can. In fact, they've probably had enough there for years.

Youtube can't even proactively moderate its platform now, its always moving after a media outlet writes a hit piece. Even when they do react their solutions are ham-fisted at best.

I'm starting to think these companies (youtube/facebook ect) are simply too large and traditional economies of scale don't actually work in the way they do for non-tech businesses.

[ocdtrekkie]

The tech industry has long treated scaling as an inherent good and positive goal. And that's money backed, for sure. But I increasingly believe scale is causing problems that technology can't fix. Communities too large to be moderated by groups of humans become problematic, and I'd even argue networks and platforms at large scale become easy to exploit and manipulate from a security standpoint as well.

A small curated app store has quality apps published by humans. A giant app store trends towards being full of malware. The larger a platform becomes, the easier it is taken advantage of by bad actors.

[nkkollaw]

Can Europeans avoid their content being ~~censored~~ filtered by using a VPN?

[onion2k]

Can Europeans avoid their content being ~~censored~~ filtered by using a VPN?

I suspect content hosting companies will let anyone upload anything but only make the content visible to people in countries that allow it. A VPN won't help. The directive isn't saying "An American uploaded this so it's fine for everyone to see." It's saying "The original version of this is owned by someone else so no one in the EU can watch this derivative work." Who uploaded it doesn't actually matter.

[nkkollaw]

Thank you.

How will the EU enforce that? Will they obscure any website that don't implement filters?

[rum3]

The website will be liable for the copyright infringement as if they would have uploaded the material themselves if they do not implement a good filter whatever that is.

[mises]

It seems as though they would have a hard time doing this. If the website is based in America, they can't take it down. They probably can't extradite either; the rule is typically that it has to be illegal in both nations.

How can they enforce this?

[anc84]

No, pretending to be from somewhere else will not change politics or the filtering for all Europeans.

[nkkollaw]

OK, so any content that wasn't filtered isn't allowed in the EU?

For instance, if in India an Indian uploads a video to a website that doesn't implement EU-compliant filters, that video will get blocked?

How will the EU enforce that? Will they obscure any website that don't implement filters?

I haven't followed the whole thing closely, sorry--but any help in understanding would be appreciated.

[zamadatix]

You've got multiple questions going on here:

- How internally hosted content is enforced

- How externally hosted content is enforced

- Would a VPN would help

.

Internally operated content: Fines to the company distributing the content (e.g. Google operates in the EU and if YouTube was not found to be compliant they would be fined).

Externally operated content: Not really sure, the EU doesn't have a "great firewall".

Would a VPN help: Using a VPN to upload your video to YouTube as if you were Canadian will not change that YouTube cannot show illegal content in the EU. The question posed by the law isn't "who uploaded it" it's "what is in it". Using a VPN to view videos as if you were Canadian would naturally allow you to see things blocked in the EU.

[kuroikyu]

It will circumvent the issue - with a chance of VPNs being banned in the future if this method becomes mainstream - but it won't change politics and will force the issue on everyone not savvy enough to find a way around it.

[AnonymousPlanet]

YouTube will probably be fine, like others have commented.

I'm more concerned about geo blocking by smaller sites. Especially GitHub. It will probably also mean the end of EU access to Reddit.

Basically every smaller site that allows upload of user content will face 1) dealing with legal uncertainty 2) buy content screening packages from Google, Microsoft etc. or 3) give usage statistics a hard look and implement geo blocking.

[ocdtrekkie]

Reddit and YouTube both do not want the increased liability, and hence want you to think of this like it is the end of the world, because it may cost them money. It's unlikely either business would actually exit the EU over it, because that's a lot of money and users to leave off the table. In addition, exiting the EU makes space in the EU market for new competitors to arise... who might become large enough to venture out into the global stage.

I think it's unlikely either site would leave the EU, but if it did, I'd be glad for the increased competition it might give rise to.

[nkkollaw]

As you can see from Facebook's stock price, Facebook will not be killed by this directive. https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/FB/

[aequitas]

> So basically we're only going to get corporate content from Youtube.

Indeed, I foresee our current internet content supply to converge to what's currently available on television, ie: a very few good shows, but majorly common denominator low quality productions. I hate what television has turned into. Where channels like Discovery would have interesting content now it's only storage wars and other formulaic pulp. Especially the lasts years there has been an emergence of very good independent Youtube creators focusing on niche topics. I really enjoy those videos. But with this change, where will they go to get their audience and income?

[raulgalera]

Agreed. Even Netflix nowadays feels like just another traditional TV channel.

[jonathanstrange]

Impossible filters are no problem for Google. They already use them. Smaller companies and private sites will have problems, though.

[mcv]

Yeah, Google filters, but they work very poorly. Many misses and false positives.

[ninedays]

YouTube will be fine IMHO. I think it makes it insanely hard for any new company to compete against them unless the technology to detect copyright materials suddenly becomes a commodity and/or becomes relatively inexpensive (which I don't believe).

[imtringued]

Actually even if they get a license with every possible rights holder the rights holder may decide to not allow the video on youtube which again means upload filters.

[_ph_]

It will be rather the opposite. Facebook will be able to comply or afford to pay for the damages, smaller networks can't afford the legal risks and will go offline.