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EU policy/Copyright 2019 and FlightGear

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Re: EU policy/Copyright 2019 and FlightGear

Postby tdammers » Wed Mar 27, 2019 11:05 am

legoboyvdlp wrote in Tue Mar 26, 2019 2:38 pm:GitHub may be particularly at risk - especially if you think about e.g. FGMEMBERS which has at least one pirated sound file and some navigraph files in its history to my knowledge. Unfortunately this legislation will almost certainly force git sites to implement some form of filtering.


The new law only concerns itself with commercial content hosting; not-for-profit platforms, even if funded by (but otherwise organizationally independent from) for-profit organisations are not required to implement any filtering (though they would still have to answer to takedown notices and such). Currently, all the feasible code hosting platforms are for-profit (github, gitlab, sourceforge, bitbucket), but I can easily imagine a service being run by an NPO, similar to how for example Debian works - commercial stakeholders "donating" money to a non-commercial project. I wouldn't be surprised to see such a platform pop up in the not-so-distant future.

legoboyvdlp wrote in Tue Mar 26, 2019 2:38 pm:However, if they implement filtering or allow responsible projects (ie flightgear and their fgaddon) to prove that they have their own filtering process etc then that shouldn't be a problem


I don't think the law would allow that. If you're a sufficiently large commercial service for sharing user-uploaded content, then you *must* implement a "reasonable" amount of upload filtering, period. The only alternative would be for the hosting platform to negotiate a deal with all the relevant rights holders organizations, paying a flat fee for being allowed to redistribute protected content. This is possible in principle for things like music, where copyright is globally organized through centralized copyright organisations, but for software, no such organisations exist, and copyright is generally negotiated with each rights holder individually.

legoboyvdlp wrote in Tue Mar 26, 2019 2:38 pm:as a worst case scenario, flightgear could host a git repository on flightgear.org - however, the problem would be securing funding for that and it would be very inconvenient as there would not be much capability for forks / pull requests etc.


This isn't super unrealistic, actually. It would require someone to donate sufficient server space and bandwidth, but the requirements are not insane. I'd estimate a couple hundred per year should go a long way.

legoboyvdlp wrote in Tue Mar 26, 2019 2:38 pm:I don't think trademarks would be problematic - isn't this more about copyrights than trademarks (especially since FlightGear is free of charge?)


The law is formulated vaguely enough to cover all forms of "protected content". And being free of charge is completely irrelevant, as long as the hosting platform is a for-profit effort. Copyright, patents, trademarks, moral rights, portrait rights, etc., could all be argued to qualify.
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Re: EU policy/Copyright 2019 and FlightGear

Postby hans05 » Thu Mar 28, 2019 7:15 pm

I do not know about other countries, but in Germany a web site is considered commercial already if there are advertisements in them. Also offering merchandise products is clearly commercial.

If I understand art. 13 correctly, the problem is that a web site has to make sure that no content that COULD be violating IP-rights is visible longer than 24h. And I understand that even specialist lawyers can often not tell right away if a content is violating IP-rights. E.g. if a flightgear person puts a link to a youtube video in which music is used that is protected: There you go!

Why the BIG fuzz: Because it is pretty much impossible to check within 24h if posted content IS violating IP-rights or not. Only solution is to have an overly restrictive upload filter or to not publish before every post is double checked with IP-specialists.

Is flightgear affected? What will happen IF EU would consider it violating art. 13? DNS-blocking? Mhh......
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Re: EU policy/Copyright 2019 and FlightGear

Postby Thorsten » Thu Mar 28, 2019 7:23 pm

E.g. if a flightgear person puts a link to a youtube video in which music is used that is protected: There you go!


I don't think so, as FG is not hosting the content - YouTube is.

Strange that we've reached a level that illegal content has become so commonplace that people seem to fear the massive changes that might occur if it is actually becoming problematic to upload it anywhere.
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Re: EU policy/Copyright 2019 and FlightGear

Postby Lydiot » Fri Mar 29, 2019 12:55 am

Thorsten wrote in Thu Mar 28, 2019 7:23 pm:Strange that we've reached a level that illegal content has become so commonplace that people seem to fear the massive changes that might occur if it is actually becoming problematic to upload it anywhere.


I agree.
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Re: EU policy/Copyright 2019 and FlightGear

Postby swampthing » Fri Mar 29, 2019 8:59 am

Well I'm sure how much it would concern Flightgear but even if you say you filter your content doesn't mean they will take your word for it and GPL content can be turned around and sold. More control is always the end game with government don't expect to to be left out.
Last edited by swampthing on Fri Mar 29, 2019 11:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: EU policy/Copyright 2019 and FlightGear

Postby Thorsten » Fri Mar 29, 2019 9:24 am

More control is always the end game with government don't expect to to be left out.


Actually, the government are the people I vote for to represent my interests and I have democratic control over - I want them to have more control over what goes on on Facebook, YouTube and other platforms which neither represent my interests nor are under my democratic control.
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Re: EU policy/Copyright 2019 and FlightGear

Postby Catalanoic » Fri Mar 29, 2019 4:27 pm

content filtering on youtube, facebook and other sites is bad and costly, mostly false positives, how can it work on other specialized and smaller websites? For example, if your wedding video appears a song that you already payed for the copyrights you can never upload it to youtube because of automatic filtering. Wikipedia will be affected too because quality come from references and only payable-sources will be availible. As said, nice policy but A11 and A13 sucks. now is the time for each EU-member to adapt their law to the EU policy, think two years from now to take effect
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Re: EU policy/Copyright 2019 and FlightGear

Postby Thorsten » Fri Mar 29, 2019 4:48 pm

content filtering on youtube, facebook and other sites is bad and costly, mostly false positives, how can it work on other specialized and smaller websites?


How do you know it's mostly false positives? Did they give you the data :?:

But generally it's a practical question - if the celebrated machine intelligence is too dumb to do the task, they have to employ humans to do it. But I do hope you're not seriously proposing to get rid of copyright legislation because it might be inconvenient for a website to reasonably enforce it?

In the general sense - should we now make shoplifting legal on the grounds that sure as hell it's hard to prosecute every case?

Wikipedia will be affected too because quality come from references and only payable-sources will be availible.


I don't believe Wikipedia is a commercial platform in the first place, and I don't think there's much illegal content to be found on Wikipedia - for scholarly purposes, I am allowed to cite whatever reference I fancy - surely you must know that - and generally any Wikipedia edit is almost immediately vetted by someone.

For example, if your wedding video appears a song that you already payed for the copyrights you can never upload it to youtube because of automatic filtering.


Did it occur to you that unless you have especially paid for video broadcast rights, you can't legally do do that?

I can't obtain rights to a song for use for myself and then use it in my movie and show it to 10.000 people for money - that's an entirely different sort of thing.

I suspect if you have a collection of rights, the way this will go is that you register the material you have bought before the upload and identify what rights you have obtained, that will be checked, and if it's okay you can proceed.
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Re: EU policy/Copyright 2019 and FlightGear

Postby Lydiot » Fri Mar 29, 2019 7:25 pm

Agree. Again.
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Re: EU policy/Copyright 2019 and FlightGear

Postby swampthing » Fri Mar 29, 2019 11:16 pm

Facebook and youtube have started censoring more for political reasons than anything, ideologies a blind person can see this ...... "Free speech as long as its the speech we agree with". This is very easy to see. Watch the way things happen as the political pendulum swings back and forth. I have a good quote for that. It should appear below my post. As far as the regulations that are being passed in the E.U..... I would say some for monetary reasons and some political. If you don't like it, leave it and get your sovereignty back.

I may have misread but at the beginning of the post you seemed concerned about this regulation and I have to ask if you really feel well represented Thorsten. I know most of us in the U.S. don't feel well represented but this is the problem when many, many unelected agency making policy. It leaves people with little to stop it. Politics can easily turn into a flame war so I'll listen and not respond. :)

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Re: EU policy/Copyright 2019 and FlightGear

Postby Thorsten » Sat Mar 30, 2019 7:00 am

Facebook and youtube have started censoring more for political reasons than anything, ideologies a blind person can see this ......


Facebook and Google/YouTube are and always have been privately owned platforms, not public infrastructure. As such, they have always had the right to censor content for whatever reasons they fancy - and retain that right. In addition, they can add terms of use which allow them to use any content you upload and any information you disclose for their own purposes largely outside your control (which is the chief reason my digital life is complicated, as I would never give Facebook or Google access to my private data, so I rely on my own (paid for) webspace and open authentication tools to get by).

Past experience has demonstrated that Google and Facebook feel responsible towards one thing and one thing only - making their shareholders happy. User data has been sold off, used in surprising ways, the algorithms have been demonstrated to favor things which engage users emotionally like hate speech and explicit violence and keep them longer on the platform so that the ad view time increases.

Whatever evil Google and Facebook may have done and do in the future, I can't really see how it would be caused by a regulation which in essence just mandates they have to make sure content is legal - they can legally do (and probably have done) plenty of censorship without any such excuse.

I may have misread but at the beginning of the post you seemed concerned about this regulation and I have to ask if you really feel well represented Thorsten.


You probably have TorstenD's post in mind (?) - I have been open-minded a few days ago and started researching, and the more I read the more I became convinced that the regulation is fundamentally a good thing.

Pretty much since the internet started, I've been providing content - under my own license and terms of use - mostly for no cost, but not free to re-use.

Since the days of napster, the business model of many platforms is:

* let users upload what they fancy
* hope that some of them provide illegal content, because that's what everyone wants for little pay and what really attracts users
* deny responsibility as a platform as you're only supplying the infrastructure, take down only what you must when notified
* enjoy the popularity

Napster would never have reached any popularity if it would have been about music people record on their own...

The net result is that my stuff is basically up for grab by everyone without my terms of use, because I can not effectively check all platforms - especially those which require membership - whether someone puts my content up there.

I am sick and tired of people expecting to make free of work which cost me hundreds of hours to create. Yet I keep running into folks which feel entitled to it and react pretty violently to the suggestion that well, for some I expect actually payment. Naturally they turn to said platforms which happen to provide what these people feel should be their right.

What about my freedom as a content creator here? Who is looking after my freedom to license work I create the way I want and helps me to enforce that license?

It's the EU who does that. It removes the burden from me to become member at every startup to look whether they might illegally host my content and puts that burden to where it belongs - whoever hosts stuff must make sure that stuff is properly licensed.

Yes - I as content creator feel well represented by the EU parliament decision. I don't think business models which rely too much on hosting illegal content till that can be proven to them should have a future.

The German paper 'Die Zeit' had a very interesting piece about that - the authors thesis was that two things which have nothing to do with each other in reality are mixed up - censorship as the front is used to argue against copyright protection. I believe that's true - no platform needs this legislation to censor, they've always had the right to do that. What they do not like is the extra effort to audit content - so they're looking for an excuse not to do it, because it costs and makes shareholders unhappy - and it ruins some business models which have been silently relying on illegal content. So by using censorship as the straw man, they're really hoping to not have to put up with the additional cost of content auditing.

And I for one am glad that has failed.
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Re: EU policy/Copyright 2019 and FlightGear

Postby Parnikkapore » Sat Mar 30, 2019 10:30 am

Alright, I'm getting out of this thread.
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Re: EU policy/Copyright 2019 and FlightGear

Postby hans05 » Sun Mar 31, 2019 12:02 pm

Thorsten wrote in Thu Mar 28, 2019 7:23 pm:
E.g. if a flightgear person puts a link to a youtube video in which music is used that is protected: There you go!


I don't think so, as FG is not hosting the content - YouTube is.


"You don't THINK so"!!!
That's part of the problem: Nobody KNOWS. We have to THINK!
This is unfortunately in German: https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/zulaessigkeit-hyperlinks-105.html
It says there: If you KNOW that you link to something illegal then your link is also illegal. With the new art. 13 I conclude that FG-web site might be obliged to check with people that have posted a link if they know whether the link target is legal or not.
Maybe that conclusion is wrong. But I bet that at the moment nobody can be sure.

Strange that we've reached a level that illegal content has become so commonplace that people seem to fear the massive changes that might occur if it is actually becoming problematic to upload it anywhere.


It has ALREADY been problematic to publish illegal content. Art. 13 does not change that the least bit! All what it changes is that content providers are no more given time to detect and then delete illegal content.

So far: You understand that content is illegal. Then you delete that.
Now: Even before you understand whether or not content is illegal or legal, you are so f...ed if you have the content published.
Future: Power/finance-elite people will more and more define and restrict what is legal --> free speech ends.

The only thing art. 13 changes is that big companies like Google, Amazon, M$ and Apple will have the money to implement their own upload filters while small content providers will not have the money for that. So art. 13 strengthens those big companies.

Watch out people: Of course Thorsten does not want other people to make money with stuff he created in countless hours of work. That is where IP-rights make sense.
BUT:
* German Telekom has the "rights" on the color Magenta (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magenta_%28Farbe%29, German :-()
* Amazon has a patent (!!) on the "brilliant" "idea" to make photos with a white back ground. (https://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/US-Patent-Amazon-laesst-sich-Fotografieren-vor-weissem-Hintergrund-schuetzen-2185784.html, German :-()

Those are two out of MANY examples of absolutely ridiculous things are now so protected that we can not use them legally any more. This is called criminalizing.

But the original question was in how far FG is affected. I dare to say: Nobody knows. We will see.....
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Re: EU policy/Copyright 2019 and FlightGear

Postby Thorsten » Sun Mar 31, 2019 12:59 pm

That's part of the problem: Nobody KNOWS. We have to THINK!


Welcome to the rule of law - we have a system with judges and courts because unlike in a dictatorship, nobody ever really knows up-front - it's usually all determined in court proceedings.

There's nothing intrinsically bad about thinking by the way....

It says there: If you KNOW that you link to something illegal then your link is also illegal. With the new art. 13 I conclude that FG-web site might be obliged to check with people that have posted a link if they know whether the link target is legal or not.


Actually that's been done now - I've reported a couple of links which clearly are not legal and they've been removed. The problem with that is?

Now: Even before you understand whether or not content is illegal or legal, you are so f...ed if you have the content published.


Yep. So that fancy car you bought for 500$ and never asked about previous ownership so the seller would not have to answer the question - you can't drive it any more.

I don't know about you - but some of us have done this for years - first check license, then work with content and publish it - and if you don't know, assume you can't use it. If you have proceeded that way, you'll be fine to continue that way.

Makes all a lot of sense to me, but of course people who like to buy cheap cars without asking questions might be inconvenienced now. Then again, the people whose cars have been stolen all the time might like the new way.

The only thing art. 13 changes is that big companies like Google, Amazon, M$ and Apple will have the money to implement their own upload filters while small content providers will not have the money for that. So art. 13 strengthens those big companies.


You think :mrgreen: - but of course if you run a relatively small operation, you can easily do by hand what's complicated if you make your money with huge numbers like YouTube. I have no issues at all checking content on my website for instance. FG has had no issue vetting content for GPL compliance (much to your previous annoyance...)

Those are two out of MANY examples of absolutely ridiculous things are now so protected that we can not use them legally any more.


Hint: Look up the difference between intellectual property and trademark. The Wiki is very clear that Telekom has registered a trademark - which legally is something different and not even part of copyright legislation. The Heise Article talks of a patent, which... is something yet different.

I know, all that legal fine print - but if you want to argue why a law is bad, you just have to look into it now and then, sorry.

Those are two out of MANY examples of absolutely ridiculous things are now so protected that we can not use them legally any more. This is called criminalizing.


If you want to argue against the specific legislations, those are two out of many examples which are absolutely ridiculous because they affect other branches of legislation and can't be used to argue here at all.
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Re: EU policy/Copyright 2019 and FlightGear

Postby FlugHund » Mon Apr 01, 2019 11:29 pm

I for myself draw a conclusion here. Once again, for IT related laws inside the EU, I think (just to add another "I think" where it should not be required) the EU lawmakers seem not able to frame a clear legal text. Clear in the sens of comprehensible to the populus. Even though that should be their job. So we just might have to wait for the first leading cases interpreting the new law and thus clearing things up.
Just like with the GDPR. At least in Germany the media dispersed unknowingness amongst the people regarding it. And since then several minor sites (including German FG forums) just stopped their services. And even worse, many businesses, small local non-IT ones, either retracted their web site or stopped their plan to even create one. Even specialised magazines and lawyers do not seem to be able to draw conclusions and give absolute instructions to avoid legal consequences for website operators. As far as I've read they all stave off people until some leading cases passing sentences.
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