1 00:00:04,400 --> 00:00:07,800 Speaker 1: Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 2 00:00:12,119 --> 00:00:14,760 Speaker 1: Hey there, and Welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 3 00:00:14,880 --> 00:00:17,840 Speaker 1: Joathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with iHeart Radio and 4 00:00:17,880 --> 00:00:20,439 Speaker 1: I love all things tech, and the other day it 5 00:00:20,520 --> 00:00:23,680 Speaker 1: did a high level overview of copyright and fair use 6 00:00:24,000 --> 00:00:28,160 Speaker 1: to things that can be confusing to people in general 7 00:00:28,200 --> 00:00:31,600 Speaker 1: and people on the Internet in particular. Today we're going 8 00:00:31,640 --> 00:00:34,559 Speaker 1: to continue that and talk about some legislation in the 9 00:00:34,600 --> 00:00:39,200 Speaker 1: United States that ties into intellectual property rights and copyright 10 00:00:39,320 --> 00:00:44,240 Speaker 1: and why things are so ridiculously complicated and in some 11 00:00:44,320 --> 00:00:47,839 Speaker 1: cases extreme. Now. Towards the end of the last episode, 12 00:00:47,880 --> 00:00:51,480 Speaker 1: I mentioned a video by Tom Scott who explains copyright 13 00:00:51,560 --> 00:00:54,800 Speaker 1: in general and YouTube's solution to copyright issues in particular, 14 00:00:55,520 --> 00:00:58,920 Speaker 1: and we will definitely come back to that to talk 15 00:00:59,000 --> 00:01:01,920 Speaker 1: more about it. But it is good to get into 16 00:01:01,960 --> 00:01:05,240 Speaker 1: a bit more background on stuff. So early on in 17 00:01:05,280 --> 00:01:08,200 Speaker 1: the days of YouTube, there was a real problem of 18 00:01:08,240 --> 00:01:11,880 Speaker 1: people uploading videos that did not belong to them, which 19 00:01:12,160 --> 00:01:14,959 Speaker 1: honestly is still a thing that happens today, but now 20 00:01:15,000 --> 00:01:17,480 Speaker 1: there are various tools to handle it, and back then 21 00:01:18,280 --> 00:01:20,600 Speaker 1: there weren't. It was a different story in the early 22 00:01:20,680 --> 00:01:24,160 Speaker 1: days of YouTube. YouTube launched in two thousand five, and 23 00:01:24,200 --> 00:01:27,640 Speaker 1: at the time it was not part of Google's empire. 24 00:01:27,920 --> 00:01:31,880 Speaker 1: Google would actually purchase YouTube in October of two thousand six, 25 00:01:32,880 --> 00:01:35,120 Speaker 1: and in fact, it wasn't even the earliest platform that 26 00:01:35,160 --> 00:01:38,600 Speaker 1: allowed users to upload videos. Video had launched in two 27 00:01:38,600 --> 00:01:41,640 Speaker 1: thousand four. But YouTube had a couple of things going 28 00:01:41,680 --> 00:01:43,840 Speaker 1: for it, one of them being that it was fairly 29 00:01:43,880 --> 00:01:48,480 Speaker 1: easy to embed YouTube videos onto other pages. So if 30 00:01:48,520 --> 00:01:52,160 Speaker 1: you were creating like a blog and you wanted to 31 00:01:52,240 --> 00:01:55,880 Speaker 1: include a video on a blog entry, you could upload 32 00:01:55,920 --> 00:01:58,720 Speaker 1: the video to YouTube and then use an embettable player 33 00:01:59,160 --> 00:02:01,440 Speaker 1: and put that in your blog page and folks could 34 00:02:01,480 --> 00:02:04,080 Speaker 1: see it. This was a huge help if you were 35 00:02:04,160 --> 00:02:07,120 Speaker 1: using a blog hosting site that otherwise wouldn't be able 36 00:02:07,160 --> 00:02:10,640 Speaker 1: to host your video. Toward the end of two thousand five, 37 00:02:10,880 --> 00:02:14,320 Speaker 1: users uploaded copies of a video that Chris Parnell and 38 00:02:14,320 --> 00:02:19,840 Speaker 1: Andy Samberg of Saturday Night Live had made, called Lazy Sunday. 39 00:02:19,919 --> 00:02:24,680 Speaker 1: The video went viral, but NBC, which had ownership rights 40 00:02:24,720 --> 00:02:28,280 Speaker 1: to the video, didn't really want folks watching it on 41 00:02:28,600 --> 00:02:32,480 Speaker 1: other platforms. NBC had its own website and would much 42 00:02:32,560 --> 00:02:36,080 Speaker 1: rather people go there to watch videos because that's where 43 00:02:36,160 --> 00:02:39,640 Speaker 1: NBC could serve up ads and generate revenue from user visits. 44 00:02:40,120 --> 00:02:43,360 Speaker 1: But with the video popping up all over YouTube, NBC 45 00:02:43,440 --> 00:02:47,200 Speaker 1: didn't have that kind of control or ability to monetize it, 46 00:02:47,560 --> 00:02:51,400 Speaker 1: and so the huge and extremely well established media company 47 00:02:51,680 --> 00:02:54,240 Speaker 1: reached out to YouTube to make sure that the platform 48 00:02:54,240 --> 00:02:57,839 Speaker 1: would take down the videos, which YouTube did, and then 49 00:02:58,000 --> 00:03:02,200 Speaker 1: other people uploaded it. YouTube would take those videos down too, 50 00:03:02,960 --> 00:03:08,160 Speaker 1: and rents and repeat. Now, we know people upload videos 51 00:03:08,200 --> 00:03:10,680 Speaker 1: to YouTube at a rate that's far too fast for 52 00:03:10,760 --> 00:03:15,000 Speaker 1: anyone to review them before they go up. Right like 53 00:03:15,120 --> 00:03:18,240 Speaker 1: these days, it's more than a hundred hours of content 54 00:03:18,320 --> 00:03:22,080 Speaker 1: that are uploaded every single minute. You literally cannot have 55 00:03:22,480 --> 00:03:25,240 Speaker 1: enough people to review all the content going up on 56 00:03:25,280 --> 00:03:29,079 Speaker 1: YouTube to make sure that you know it all fits standards. 57 00:03:29,160 --> 00:03:31,160 Speaker 1: This is kind of stuff that shakes out over time. 58 00:03:31,400 --> 00:03:35,240 Speaker 1: So YouTube's general policy was that it would wait to 59 00:03:35,360 --> 00:03:39,880 Speaker 1: be told about a video that was violating copyright by 60 00:03:39,880 --> 00:03:42,960 Speaker 1: the copyright holder, and then after receiving a d m 61 00:03:43,040 --> 00:03:46,440 Speaker 1: c A takedown notice, would go and take down the video. 62 00:03:46,480 --> 00:03:48,600 Speaker 1: More about the d m c A in a second. Now, 63 00:03:48,760 --> 00:03:52,320 Speaker 1: YouTube included language in its user interface that urged users 64 00:03:52,400 --> 00:03:55,600 Speaker 1: not to upload stuff that they didn't actually own, So 65 00:03:55,640 --> 00:03:59,240 Speaker 1: you weren't supposed to upload any material that was copyrighted, 66 00:03:59,640 --> 00:04:02,760 Speaker 1: or rather any material that you personally did not hold 67 00:04:02,960 --> 00:04:06,760 Speaker 1: the copyright for. But users could choose to ignore this. 68 00:04:07,120 --> 00:04:10,560 Speaker 1: Some users might have, you know, been pretty ignorant about 69 00:04:10,560 --> 00:04:12,640 Speaker 1: the issues of copyrights, so they were doing it without 70 00:04:12,680 --> 00:04:16,600 Speaker 1: really understanding. But others might have known, but they just 71 00:04:16,680 --> 00:04:20,920 Speaker 1: you know, I didn't care, so they just went ahead 72 00:04:21,000 --> 00:04:25,120 Speaker 1: and uploaded it anyway. I mean, NBC is a big company, right, 73 00:04:25,200 --> 00:04:27,880 Speaker 1: and the video is a funny video, and YouTube is 74 00:04:27,920 --> 00:04:30,680 Speaker 1: where a lot of people were gathering and you could 75 00:04:30,680 --> 00:04:33,479 Speaker 1: get a lot of views over on YouTube. You could 76 00:04:33,560 --> 00:04:37,080 Speaker 1: upload it and suddenly that video goes viral and so 77 00:04:37,160 --> 00:04:40,720 Speaker 1: many people are watching your YouTube channel. But here's another complication. 78 00:04:40,800 --> 00:04:44,000 Speaker 1: YouTube did not introduce ads until the summer of two 79 00:04:44,040 --> 00:04:47,479 Speaker 1: thousand six. So this meant that YouTube users back in 80 00:04:47,480 --> 00:04:51,640 Speaker 1: two thousand five, we're not monetizing their videos because there 81 00:04:51,680 --> 00:04:54,320 Speaker 1: was no way to do that, at least not through 82 00:04:54,360 --> 00:04:58,720 Speaker 1: YouTube directly. I guess you could conceivably get noticed if 83 00:04:58,720 --> 00:05:02,800 Speaker 1: you were uploading interest ing or innovative videos, and you 84 00:05:02,920 --> 00:05:05,000 Speaker 1: might land a gig that way, Like it could be 85 00:05:05,040 --> 00:05:08,920 Speaker 1: almost like an audition or a demo reel. But there 86 00:05:09,000 --> 00:05:12,520 Speaker 1: wasn't really a way to make money directly off of 87 00:05:12,560 --> 00:05:14,600 Speaker 1: YouTube in those days, so it wasn't as though people 88 00:05:14,600 --> 00:05:18,200 Speaker 1: were uploading an NBC owned video and then they were 89 00:05:18,240 --> 00:05:21,599 Speaker 1: making money off of that. So at least there's that right. 90 00:05:21,680 --> 00:05:24,800 Speaker 1: Even though the video went viral and got a million views, 91 00:05:25,560 --> 00:05:28,560 Speaker 1: there was no monetization, so the person who uploaded it 92 00:05:28,600 --> 00:05:32,240 Speaker 1: wasn't like, you know, stealing money or anything like that. 93 00:05:32,680 --> 00:05:34,960 Speaker 1: But as we learned in the last episode, you don't 94 00:05:35,040 --> 00:05:37,320 Speaker 1: have to monetize something for it to be an example 95 00:05:37,320 --> 00:05:40,560 Speaker 1: of copyright infringement. If I took a video that was 96 00:05:40,640 --> 00:05:44,480 Speaker 1: owned by someone else and I duplicated it and uploaded 97 00:05:44,520 --> 00:05:47,080 Speaker 1: it to YouTube, and even if I had all the 98 00:05:47,160 --> 00:05:51,120 Speaker 1: ads turned off for that video, it's still copyright infringement, 99 00:05:51,160 --> 00:05:53,920 Speaker 1: even if I'm not making any money off of it. Heck, 100 00:05:53,960 --> 00:05:57,839 Speaker 1: it's still copyright infringement even if no one ever sees 101 00:05:57,960 --> 00:06:01,159 Speaker 1: that I uploaded the video. I don't have the permission 102 00:06:01,160 --> 00:06:04,480 Speaker 1: to copy and distribute the content, period, so it doesn't 103 00:06:04,520 --> 00:06:06,960 Speaker 1: matter if folks see it or not, or if I 104 00:06:07,040 --> 00:06:10,680 Speaker 1: make money off of it or not. Anyway, NBC was 105 00:06:10,760 --> 00:06:13,560 Speaker 1: totally within the company's legal rights as the owner of 106 00:06:13,600 --> 00:06:16,720 Speaker 1: that I p to demand that YouTube take down the videos, 107 00:06:17,040 --> 00:06:22,599 Speaker 1: and YouTube complied again and again. YouTube complied because of 108 00:06:22,640 --> 00:06:26,120 Speaker 1: something called the Digital Millennium Copyright Act or d m 109 00:06:26,200 --> 00:06:29,120 Speaker 1: c A. And in the last episode I talked about 110 00:06:29,200 --> 00:06:33,800 Speaker 1: laws that extended term limits of copyright repeatedly. Remember the 111 00:06:33,800 --> 00:06:37,920 Speaker 1: original term for copyright protection was fourteen years, and then 112 00:06:37,920 --> 00:06:40,520 Speaker 1: there was an option to renew for a second fourteen 113 00:06:40,600 --> 00:06:43,480 Speaker 1: year term, which would give you twenty eight years of 114 00:06:43,520 --> 00:06:48,719 Speaker 1: protection total. The US government expanded this repeatedly, and today 115 00:06:48,920 --> 00:06:52,200 Speaker 1: the rule is that copyright will last the lifetime of 116 00:06:52,240 --> 00:06:57,000 Speaker 1: the author plus an additional seventy years, or for works 117 00:06:57,000 --> 00:07:00,560 Speaker 1: that are owned by you know, corporations work for higher work. 118 00:07:00,680 --> 00:07:04,360 Speaker 1: In other words, copyright lasts from the year of publication 119 00:07:04,720 --> 00:07:08,559 Speaker 1: plus ninety five years, or it lasts from the date 120 00:07:08,760 --> 00:07:14,160 Speaker 1: of creation plus one hundred twenty years, whichever expires first. 121 00:07:14,160 --> 00:07:17,520 Speaker 1: Because keep in mind, creation and publication are two different things. 122 00:07:18,000 --> 00:07:21,080 Speaker 1: Like someone might have written a book in nineteen seventy 123 00:07:21,520 --> 00:07:26,200 Speaker 1: that didn't see publication until In that case, you would 124 00:07:26,240 --> 00:07:28,800 Speaker 1: look and say, all right, well, we're gonna go from 125 00:07:28,920 --> 00:07:31,960 Speaker 1: the date of creation plus one hundred twenty years, because 126 00:07:31,960 --> 00:07:36,160 Speaker 1: that expires first. Those are big changes, no doubt about it, 127 00:07:36,240 --> 00:07:38,880 Speaker 1: to copyright law. I mean they were huge. They really 128 00:07:38,920 --> 00:07:41,840 Speaker 1: push back the date of when copyrighted works are going 129 00:07:41,880 --> 00:07:44,840 Speaker 1: to enter the public domain, at which point anyone can 130 00:07:44,880 --> 00:07:48,240 Speaker 1: make copies and distribute the works without penalty. But we 131 00:07:48,360 --> 00:07:51,120 Speaker 1: covered that in the last episode. So let's talk about 132 00:07:51,120 --> 00:07:54,920 Speaker 1: the Digital Millennium Copyright Act or d m c A. 133 00:07:55,760 --> 00:08:00,480 Speaker 1: So in the nineteen nineties, the technological landscape was changing quickly, 134 00:08:00,760 --> 00:08:03,520 Speaker 1: and with it, the ability to copy and distribute media 135 00:08:03,800 --> 00:08:08,320 Speaker 1: was also changing. While in previous decades, publishers and creators 136 00:08:08,320 --> 00:08:12,520 Speaker 1: really only had to worry about large entities potentially copying 137 00:08:12,560 --> 00:08:17,240 Speaker 1: stuff on a large scale, more recent technologies began to 138 00:08:17,280 --> 00:08:20,800 Speaker 1: make this a possibility for the average person. Now, media 139 00:08:20,880 --> 00:08:25,840 Speaker 1: companies were worried that a single person might, say, purchase 140 00:08:25,920 --> 00:08:29,960 Speaker 1: an album on compact disc, then they might rip that 141 00:08:30,080 --> 00:08:33,080 Speaker 1: disc and copy all the music files to a computer. 142 00:08:33,600 --> 00:08:36,400 Speaker 1: Then they might actually use a CD drive and burnable 143 00:08:36,440 --> 00:08:38,839 Speaker 1: c d s, and they might put blank CDs into 144 00:08:38,880 --> 00:08:42,599 Speaker 1: that drive and then you know, put the ripped files 145 00:08:42,640 --> 00:08:47,720 Speaker 1: onto the CD just thus duplicating CDs pretty easily and 146 00:08:48,000 --> 00:08:50,720 Speaker 1: relatively quickly. I mean it was fairly slow, but you 147 00:08:50,720 --> 00:08:54,319 Speaker 1: could actually get drives that could hold multiple blank CDs 148 00:08:54,360 --> 00:08:57,520 Speaker 1: and burn to all of them simultaneously, thus speeding up 149 00:08:57,600 --> 00:09:00,920 Speaker 1: the process. Then you might go and dis review those 150 00:09:01,000 --> 00:09:03,520 Speaker 1: burned c d s, or you might even sell them 151 00:09:03,559 --> 00:09:05,760 Speaker 1: to folks at a you know, a rate lower than 152 00:09:05,800 --> 00:09:07,800 Speaker 1: what they would pay if they went to the music store. 153 00:09:08,400 --> 00:09:12,080 Speaker 1: And that meant that now there was the potential for 154 00:09:12,120 --> 00:09:15,360 Speaker 1: an average person who had access to, you know, a 155 00:09:15,360 --> 00:09:20,520 Speaker 1: decent computer two, you know, commit copyright infringement on a 156 00:09:20,600 --> 00:09:24,360 Speaker 1: On a slightly larger scale, entertainment companies viewed this as 157 00:09:24,360 --> 00:09:28,800 Speaker 1: a potential existential threat, particularly the music industry in the 158 00:09:28,800 --> 00:09:31,839 Speaker 1: early days, because really, you know, we've got to keep 159 00:09:31,840 --> 00:09:35,920 Speaker 1: in mind, we're still talking about relatively small files and 160 00:09:36,000 --> 00:09:38,280 Speaker 1: the grand scheme of things, and music files like raw 161 00:09:38,360 --> 00:09:41,360 Speaker 1: audio files are pretty big, but they're not as big 162 00:09:41,400 --> 00:09:48,079 Speaker 1: as like a you know, uncompressed high resolution digital movie file. 163 00:09:48,520 --> 00:09:51,040 Speaker 1: And here's the funny thing. We would see the music 164 00:09:51,080 --> 00:09:55,280 Speaker 1: industry overreact to this in a way that had massive blowback, 165 00:09:55,920 --> 00:09:59,640 Speaker 1: and yet other industries would follow very similar pathways when 166 00:09:59,679 --> 00:10:03,719 Speaker 1: they faced a comparative scenario themselves a little later on. So, 167 00:10:03,800 --> 00:10:07,840 Speaker 1: to paraphrase the great comedian Peter cook. We learned from 168 00:10:07,880 --> 00:10:12,000 Speaker 1: our mistakes and we can repeat them almost exactly. The 169 00:10:12,080 --> 00:10:14,600 Speaker 1: d m c A itself was the U S law 170 00:10:14,840 --> 00:10:17,280 Speaker 1: that was meant to bring the US in alignment with 171 00:10:17,400 --> 00:10:23,680 Speaker 1: the World Intellectual Property Organization Copyright Treaty. World Intellectual Property 172 00:10:23,760 --> 00:10:28,120 Speaker 1: Organization or WIPEOH is an organization that tries to align 173 00:10:28,240 --> 00:10:35,040 Speaker 1: copyright across different borders. This particular treaty was really necessary 174 00:10:35,080 --> 00:10:38,520 Speaker 1: because copyright law is already pretty complicated within a single 175 00:10:38,600 --> 00:10:41,800 Speaker 1: country like the US. Now, as you can imagine, it 176 00:10:41,840 --> 00:10:44,840 Speaker 1: gets way more complicated when you start comparing it against 177 00:10:45,240 --> 00:10:48,800 Speaker 1: other countries. So, like what happens if you have a 178 00:10:48,840 --> 00:10:51,760 Speaker 1: work that was created in the United States, like the 179 00:10:51,840 --> 00:10:56,920 Speaker 1: cartoons Steamboat Willie. Steamboat Willy by US law receives ninety 180 00:10:57,000 --> 00:11:00,480 Speaker 1: five years of copyright protection when it's all said and done. 181 00:11:00,960 --> 00:11:05,160 Speaker 1: But over in some other countries copyright protection doesn't last 182 00:11:05,200 --> 00:11:08,480 Speaker 1: that long. So does that mean that Steamboat Willie would 183 00:11:08,520 --> 00:11:11,719 Speaker 1: be in the public domain over in that country? I mean, 184 00:11:11,760 --> 00:11:15,080 Speaker 1: the copyright is registered in the United States, But how 185 00:11:15,120 --> 00:11:19,400 Speaker 1: does that How does that work in other countries? How 186 00:11:19,400 --> 00:11:23,040 Speaker 1: do other countries recognize that? Anyway? The Whiteoat, as it were, 187 00:11:23,559 --> 00:11:27,960 Speaker 1: is the organization that helps get parody among countries. This 188 00:11:28,080 --> 00:11:32,360 Speaker 1: particular act focused on the new challenges of the digital age. 189 00:11:33,160 --> 00:11:37,440 Speaker 1: One thing that the treaty and then consequently the d 190 00:11:37,640 --> 00:11:42,000 Speaker 1: m c A focused on was anti circumvention tools for 191 00:11:42,120 --> 00:11:47,600 Speaker 1: copyright protection. So they were looking at the fact that 192 00:11:48,400 --> 00:11:51,280 Speaker 1: companies were trying to put in protections to prevent people 193 00:11:51,360 --> 00:11:55,240 Speaker 1: from copying stuff without permission. Typically, this was in a 194 00:11:55,320 --> 00:12:00,120 Speaker 1: category we would call DRM, or digital rights management. In 195 00:12:00,120 --> 00:12:03,440 Speaker 1: case you're not familiar with DRM, it's typically some sort 196 00:12:03,440 --> 00:12:06,960 Speaker 1: of protective measure in place that restricts or limits the 197 00:12:07,000 --> 00:12:09,440 Speaker 1: ability of a consumer to make a copy of a 198 00:12:09,480 --> 00:12:12,720 Speaker 1: piece of digital media. There are a lot of different 199 00:12:12,720 --> 00:12:16,559 Speaker 1: ways the companies have created DRM, and some of them 200 00:12:16,559 --> 00:12:19,920 Speaker 1: are truly awful. Let's talk about Sony for a second, 201 00:12:19,960 --> 00:12:23,520 Speaker 1: because this one was a doozy. In the mid two thousand's, 202 00:12:23,559 --> 00:12:27,640 Speaker 1: Sony was the target of some pretty massive criticism because 203 00:12:27,679 --> 00:12:32,280 Speaker 1: the company had implemented copy protection measures on compact discs 204 00:12:32,400 --> 00:12:35,920 Speaker 1: under the Sony BMG music label. And if you were 205 00:12:36,040 --> 00:12:39,440 Speaker 1: to take one of those compact discs and you were 206 00:12:39,480 --> 00:12:42,199 Speaker 1: to put it into the optical drive of a computer, 207 00:12:42,600 --> 00:12:45,719 Speaker 1: because by the way computers back then, most of them 208 00:12:45,720 --> 00:12:49,560 Speaker 1: had optical drives. Well anyway, the boot sequence once the 209 00:12:49,640 --> 00:12:53,400 Speaker 1: disc went into the drive would initiate an installation of 210 00:12:53,480 --> 00:12:58,120 Speaker 1: two pieces of software that were meant to act as DRM. 211 00:12:58,280 --> 00:13:01,360 Speaker 1: But what these pieces of software did was they altered 212 00:13:01,520 --> 00:13:05,360 Speaker 1: your computers operating system so that it wouldn't let you 213 00:13:05,520 --> 00:13:10,120 Speaker 1: copy the c D bam take that would be music 214 00:13:10,160 --> 00:13:15,800 Speaker 1: pirate except um oh. The programs also turned out it 215 00:13:15,840 --> 00:13:19,880 Speaker 1: could facilitate malware that could create backdoor access to your computer, 216 00:13:20,280 --> 00:13:25,520 Speaker 1: giving hackers potentially the remote control to your PC. Whoop 217 00:13:25,600 --> 00:13:29,000 Speaker 1: see daisy. They also were tracking lots of activity. They 218 00:13:29,000 --> 00:13:31,360 Speaker 1: were essentially looking to see what you were listening to 219 00:13:31,600 --> 00:13:33,920 Speaker 1: and how frequently you listened to it. It was a 220 00:13:33,920 --> 00:13:37,199 Speaker 1: big breach of privacy. So how many c d s 221 00:13:37,559 --> 00:13:40,520 Speaker 1: actually had this kind of DRM on it. It was 222 00:13:40,600 --> 00:13:46,079 Speaker 1: somewhere north of twenty million c ds. And the programs 223 00:13:46,120 --> 00:13:48,720 Speaker 1: that the CD installed on your machine were really hard 224 00:13:48,760 --> 00:13:52,560 Speaker 1: to identify and hard to remove, which made it much 225 00:13:52,760 --> 00:13:56,240 Speaker 1: much worse. And also the programs appeared to have some 226 00:13:56,320 --> 00:14:01,800 Speaker 1: code that was lifted from other software, which means ironically 227 00:14:02,240 --> 00:14:07,760 Speaker 1: that the copy protection software was itself infringing on someone 228 00:14:07,800 --> 00:14:11,680 Speaker 1: else's copyright. Sony would end up getting sued in several 229 00:14:11,720 --> 00:14:15,440 Speaker 1: class action lawsuits and eventually backtracked on its approach to 230 00:14:15,480 --> 00:14:18,800 Speaker 1: copy protection in two thousand and seven. But yeah, that 231 00:14:18,880 --> 00:14:24,680 Speaker 1: was a particularly egregious approach to DRM. Not all DRM 232 00:14:24,760 --> 00:14:28,320 Speaker 1: schemes were harmful to this degree, but all of them 233 00:14:28,760 --> 00:14:34,240 Speaker 1: did represent problems. See, while fair use isn't always easy 234 00:14:34,320 --> 00:14:37,840 Speaker 1: to establish, as I mentioned in the last episode, fair 235 00:14:37,960 --> 00:14:42,240 Speaker 1: use is still a thing. You still can make fair 236 00:14:42,360 --> 00:14:46,960 Speaker 1: use out of copyrighted material, but if companies put limitations 237 00:14:47,000 --> 00:14:51,120 Speaker 1: on how you can access or copy works, the ner 238 00:14:51,120 --> 00:14:55,840 Speaker 1: ability to make fair use of a copyrighted work is impacted. 239 00:14:56,160 --> 00:14:59,200 Speaker 1: You technically have the right to do something, but you 240 00:14:59,280 --> 00:15:03,320 Speaker 1: don't have any way to actually do it. When Congress 241 00:15:03,360 --> 00:15:05,960 Speaker 1: was drafting the d m c A, they acknowledged that 242 00:15:06,000 --> 00:15:10,240 Speaker 1: this was a problem, and they did it anyway. This 243 00:15:10,320 --> 00:15:13,960 Speaker 1: meant that even if your use of copyrighted work was 244 00:15:14,080 --> 00:15:19,120 Speaker 1: fair use. So let's say that you took uh some music, 245 00:15:20,000 --> 00:15:23,200 Speaker 1: you took some copyrighted music, and you did a critique 246 00:15:23,400 --> 00:15:27,280 Speaker 1: where you were explaining the structure of the song. You 247 00:15:27,320 --> 00:15:31,120 Speaker 1: were criticizing the use of music and lyrics like it 248 00:15:31,160 --> 00:15:35,200 Speaker 1: was a legit academic approach to treating the music but 249 00:15:35,280 --> 00:15:39,800 Speaker 1: you had to use the original work itself. Let's say 250 00:15:39,800 --> 00:15:43,600 Speaker 1: that it also meant you had to circumvent copy protection 251 00:15:43,800 --> 00:15:46,880 Speaker 1: on that digital work to do it. Well, the the 252 00:15:47,640 --> 00:15:50,840 Speaker 1: use was fair, right, it falls under fair use, but 253 00:15:50,880 --> 00:15:53,560 Speaker 1: you would still get in trouble for actually circumventing the 254 00:15:53,560 --> 00:15:57,200 Speaker 1: copy protection. This is kind of like saying, hey, I 255 00:15:57,240 --> 00:16:00,240 Speaker 1: got this stuff. It's behind this locked door over here. 256 00:16:00,720 --> 00:16:04,760 Speaker 1: You are totally free to use that stuff. There's only 257 00:16:04,760 --> 00:16:07,720 Speaker 1: one problem. The only way to get to the stuff 258 00:16:07,880 --> 00:16:10,960 Speaker 1: is if you commit breaking and entering, which by the way, 259 00:16:11,040 --> 00:16:13,200 Speaker 1: is a crime. But you're still free to use the 260 00:16:13,240 --> 00:16:15,800 Speaker 1: stuff as long as you can get to it. But 261 00:16:15,840 --> 00:16:17,480 Speaker 1: if you get to it, it shows that you've broken 262 00:16:17,520 --> 00:16:19,760 Speaker 1: the law. So have fun. Now you might be able 263 00:16:19,800 --> 00:16:21,920 Speaker 1: to tell I am not a big fan of this 264 00:16:21,960 --> 00:16:24,520 Speaker 1: part of the d m c A, or most copy 265 00:16:24,560 --> 00:16:27,280 Speaker 1: protection schemes for that matter. I find that a lot 266 00:16:27,320 --> 00:16:31,760 Speaker 1: of copy protection ends up causing more harm to legitimate 267 00:16:31,800 --> 00:16:37,200 Speaker 1: customers and consumers than it does to discourage piracy. If anything, 268 00:16:38,040 --> 00:16:44,280 Speaker 1: copy protection often encourages people to use piracy because part 269 00:16:44,320 --> 00:16:49,000 Speaker 1: of piracy typically means stripping away d r M, and 270 00:16:49,040 --> 00:16:52,240 Speaker 1: it may be that someone wants a copy of you know, 271 00:16:52,280 --> 00:16:54,960 Speaker 1: a piece of media that doesn't have DRM on it, 272 00:16:55,360 --> 00:16:58,080 Speaker 1: not because they just want to free copy or that 273 00:16:58,160 --> 00:17:01,160 Speaker 1: they want to distribute it or anything that they might 274 00:17:01,160 --> 00:17:04,000 Speaker 1: just want it because there's no hassle there. They don't 275 00:17:04,040 --> 00:17:06,760 Speaker 1: have to deal with the problems of dr M. There 276 00:17:06,760 --> 00:17:11,680 Speaker 1: are other issues about copyright that DRM totally interferes with. 277 00:17:12,080 --> 00:17:14,359 Speaker 1: One is that you do have the right to make 278 00:17:14,520 --> 00:17:19,080 Speaker 1: backups for your own personal use. If you have an album, 279 00:17:19,119 --> 00:17:22,040 Speaker 1: like an old vinyl record album, and you wanted to 280 00:17:22,080 --> 00:17:25,040 Speaker 1: back that up to cassette tape back in the day, 281 00:17:25,480 --> 00:17:27,800 Speaker 1: you totally could do that as long as as long 282 00:17:27,840 --> 00:17:29,880 Speaker 1: as it was for your personal use, so that way, 283 00:17:30,119 --> 00:17:33,760 Speaker 1: if something were to happen, like you were to you know, 284 00:17:33,840 --> 00:17:36,679 Speaker 1: the the record was to be damaged or destroyed in 285 00:17:36,720 --> 00:17:40,159 Speaker 1: some way, you would have a backup. That's fine. You 286 00:17:40,160 --> 00:17:43,320 Speaker 1: were allowed to make those things, but DRM made it 287 00:17:43,480 --> 00:17:47,159 Speaker 1: harder or sometimes impossible to do that, So again it 288 00:17:47,240 --> 00:17:50,479 Speaker 1: was a protection that was infringing upon the rights of 289 00:17:50,840 --> 00:17:54,080 Speaker 1: the user. Another important part of d M c A 290 00:17:54,640 --> 00:17:58,600 Speaker 1: is a section that guarantees safe harbor to service providers, 291 00:17:58,840 --> 00:18:00,879 Speaker 1: which was originally can it or to be things like 292 00:18:00,960 --> 00:18:04,880 Speaker 1: I s p S Internet service providers. This provision makes 293 00:18:04,920 --> 00:18:07,400 Speaker 1: it clear that an I s P is not at 294 00:18:07,440 --> 00:18:10,399 Speaker 1: fault for the stuff that people on that I s 295 00:18:10,440 --> 00:18:13,600 Speaker 1: P are actually doing. So, in other words, if I'm 296 00:18:13,640 --> 00:18:17,720 Speaker 1: logging onto the Internet via earth Link and then I'm 297 00:18:17,760 --> 00:18:21,639 Speaker 1: pirating I don't know all of Poison's greatest hits, earth 298 00:18:21,720 --> 00:18:25,880 Speaker 1: Link isn't liable for the crime that I am committing. 299 00:18:26,240 --> 00:18:29,199 Speaker 1: The Safe Harbor had its own provisions in that the 300 00:18:29,240 --> 00:18:31,919 Speaker 1: provider would have to be unaware of my activity. So 301 00:18:31,960 --> 00:18:34,480 Speaker 1: in other words, if they knew about it, they should 302 00:18:34,560 --> 00:18:36,720 Speaker 1: stop it, but if they don't know about it, they're 303 00:18:36,720 --> 00:18:38,879 Speaker 1: not at fault. And also they have to have a 304 00:18:38,920 --> 00:18:42,159 Speaker 1: copyright policy in place. They are also supposed to have 305 00:18:42,280 --> 00:18:45,520 Speaker 1: a representative that's sort of a point of contact for 306 00:18:46,320 --> 00:18:50,040 Speaker 1: media companies to to reach in case of an issue 307 00:18:50,080 --> 00:18:54,240 Speaker 1: of copyright infringement that happens across that network. So the 308 00:18:54,320 --> 00:18:57,280 Speaker 1: I s P would react if notified that I was 309 00:18:57,359 --> 00:18:59,040 Speaker 1: up to no good, and as long as it did that, 310 00:18:59,280 --> 00:19:02,600 Speaker 1: then safe Harbor applies. This would later be extended to 311 00:19:02,760 --> 00:19:06,960 Speaker 1: web platforms like YouTube. More on YouTube later in this episode. 312 00:19:07,480 --> 00:19:11,320 Speaker 1: There were some other provisions that helped layout exceptions and 313 00:19:11,400 --> 00:19:14,600 Speaker 1: such for special cases, like when someone needs to do 314 00:19:14,920 --> 00:19:17,560 Speaker 1: computer maintenance, and so they might need to make copies 315 00:19:17,600 --> 00:19:21,440 Speaker 1: of software in the process, so that way during the maintenance, 316 00:19:21,520 --> 00:19:24,520 Speaker 1: if if they had to wipe a computer, they could 317 00:19:24,760 --> 00:19:28,400 Speaker 1: reinstall software. Those sort of exceptions were put into the law. 318 00:19:29,000 --> 00:19:31,720 Speaker 1: There's also a section in the d m c A 319 00:19:31,720 --> 00:19:36,280 Speaker 1: about boat holes as in ships, as in vessels, and 320 00:19:36,320 --> 00:19:38,960 Speaker 1: I am not kidding. Title five of the d m 321 00:19:39,000 --> 00:19:42,359 Speaker 1: c A is the Vessel Hull Design Protection Act. And 322 00:19:42,400 --> 00:19:45,919 Speaker 1: you might say, what the heck is this just you know, 323 00:19:46,400 --> 00:19:49,320 Speaker 1: pork that's been added onto an act. Was where we're 324 00:19:49,400 --> 00:19:53,080 Speaker 1: big boats getting all up on Congress. It actually was 325 00:19:53,160 --> 00:19:57,520 Speaker 1: because at that point, boat hole designs were not covered 326 00:19:57,560 --> 00:20:00,280 Speaker 1: under copyright law. They were considered part of the form 327 00:20:00,280 --> 00:20:03,800 Speaker 1: and function of boats, so they couldn't they couldn't qualify 328 00:20:03,880 --> 00:20:08,080 Speaker 1: for copyright. However, designers wanted a way to protect their 329 00:20:08,119 --> 00:20:11,880 Speaker 1: designs from just being copied without their permission. So this 330 00:20:11,960 --> 00:20:15,400 Speaker 1: was kind of a way of building in some protection. Now, 331 00:20:15,440 --> 00:20:18,040 Speaker 1: when we come back, I'll talk about some instances in 332 00:20:18,080 --> 00:20:21,520 Speaker 1: which companies went a little bit ham when they went 333 00:20:21,560 --> 00:20:23,879 Speaker 1: after people who seemed to be in flagrant violation of 334 00:20:23,920 --> 00:20:29,080 Speaker 1: copyright laws, and how a few different websites truly wreaked 335 00:20:29,160 --> 00:20:34,159 Speaker 1: havoc and change the way companies viewed the protection of 336 00:20:34,200 --> 00:20:45,959 Speaker 1: intellectual property forever. But first let's take a quick break. Okay, 337 00:20:46,000 --> 00:20:48,840 Speaker 1: so the d M c A was really becoming a 338 00:20:48,920 --> 00:20:52,040 Speaker 1: thing because of the technology of c ds and computers 339 00:20:52,080 --> 00:20:55,640 Speaker 1: that could rip music tracks off of c ds. That 340 00:20:55,800 --> 00:20:58,760 Speaker 1: was really the big going concern in the mid nineties. 341 00:20:58,920 --> 00:21:02,360 Speaker 1: That was more of a of a thing than digital 342 00:21:02,400 --> 00:21:05,520 Speaker 1: files were in general. But by the late nineties we 343 00:21:05,560 --> 00:21:09,840 Speaker 1: saw something that would make copying CDs seem tame by comparison. 344 00:21:10,119 --> 00:21:12,760 Speaker 1: We saw the rise of peer to peer file sharing 345 00:21:12,800 --> 00:21:16,919 Speaker 1: networks and later of torrents. Now, first let's clear up 346 00:21:16,960 --> 00:21:19,919 Speaker 1: the fact that peer to peer networks and infect torrents 347 00:21:19,960 --> 00:21:22,840 Speaker 1: aren't necessarily a bad thing. They could be used for 348 00:21:22,880 --> 00:21:26,640 Speaker 1: all sorts of legitimate purposes. I'll do a quick breakdown 349 00:21:26,760 --> 00:21:29,040 Speaker 1: of what peer to peer networks are and how they work. 350 00:21:29,400 --> 00:21:31,880 Speaker 1: And it helps if we start with the standard sort 351 00:21:31,920 --> 00:21:34,320 Speaker 1: of networks that we think of when we're talking about 352 00:21:34,320 --> 00:21:38,800 Speaker 1: the Internet. So when you use, say, um, a web browser, 353 00:21:39,119 --> 00:21:41,920 Speaker 1: and you're using your web browser to access a web page, 354 00:21:42,359 --> 00:21:45,240 Speaker 1: what's kind of happening on the back end is that 355 00:21:45,320 --> 00:21:50,240 Speaker 1: your computer sends a request up through your internet service provider. 356 00:21:50,640 --> 00:21:53,919 Speaker 1: That request goes through routers which direct the request to 357 00:21:53,960 --> 00:21:57,239 Speaker 1: the proper web server that's hosting the web page you 358 00:21:57,280 --> 00:22:01,280 Speaker 1: want to visit. The web server response to that request 359 00:22:01,600 --> 00:22:05,479 Speaker 1: and sends back the respective web page data to your 360 00:22:05,520 --> 00:22:08,280 Speaker 1: web browser, which then displays it as a web page. 361 00:22:08,560 --> 00:22:10,080 Speaker 1: So you can kind of think of this system as 362 00:22:10,160 --> 00:22:13,720 Speaker 1: being made up of clients, which would be your computer, or, 363 00:22:14,320 --> 00:22:18,600 Speaker 1: more appropriately, in this example, your web browser and servers. 364 00:22:18,920 --> 00:22:22,280 Speaker 1: These are the computers that actually host the data that 365 00:22:22,480 --> 00:22:25,119 Speaker 1: you get to see on your computer now and appear 366 00:22:25,200 --> 00:22:28,240 Speaker 1: to peer network. Every computer that's part of that network 367 00:22:28,440 --> 00:22:31,560 Speaker 1: is an equal or a peer to every other computer 368 00:22:31,760 --> 00:22:36,080 Speaker 1: on that network. Each computer provides data and resources to 369 00:22:36,240 --> 00:22:39,840 Speaker 1: the network. Computer is connected to this network can easily 370 00:22:39,920 --> 00:22:42,560 Speaker 1: share the data they have stored on them with all 371 00:22:42,600 --> 00:22:46,600 Speaker 1: the other computers on that same network. And typically to 372 00:22:46,720 --> 00:22:49,320 Speaker 1: use a peer to peer network, you would download and 373 00:22:49,359 --> 00:22:53,040 Speaker 1: install some software that lets you connect to the network itself. 374 00:22:53,720 --> 00:22:57,640 Speaker 1: Usually you can designate a specific folder on your computer 375 00:22:58,040 --> 00:23:01,600 Speaker 1: as the place where you both download and share files, 376 00:23:01,960 --> 00:23:05,240 Speaker 1: which keeps the rest of your computer sequestered from the 377 00:23:05,280 --> 00:23:08,920 Speaker 1: peer to peer network, so you're not just sharing everything 378 00:23:09,560 --> 00:23:12,720 Speaker 1: peer to peer networks can be used for tons of stuff, 379 00:23:12,760 --> 00:23:16,240 Speaker 1: from harnessing the computational resources of a large group of 380 00:23:16,240 --> 00:23:20,520 Speaker 1: computers in order to tackle you know, tough computer problems 381 00:23:20,920 --> 00:23:24,160 Speaker 1: all the way to distributing software quickly through the network. 382 00:23:24,760 --> 00:23:27,680 Speaker 1: But the thing that the entertainment industry in general and 383 00:23:27,720 --> 00:23:31,640 Speaker 1: the music industry in particular was focusing on was how 384 00:23:31,680 --> 00:23:35,400 Speaker 1: it could facilitate piracy. In the late nineties, we saw 385 00:23:35,440 --> 00:23:39,680 Speaker 1: the rise of products like Napster and Khaza and lime 386 00:23:39,720 --> 00:23:44,800 Speaker 1: wire and many many others. Napster was the pioneer in 387 00:23:44,840 --> 00:23:48,600 Speaker 1: this space. It was a peer to peer networking software 388 00:23:49,119 --> 00:23:53,560 Speaker 1: and people were using it largely to pirate music. People 389 00:23:53,560 --> 00:23:57,080 Speaker 1: would rip songs from c d s and convert the 390 00:23:57,080 --> 00:24:01,320 Speaker 1: audio files into compressed formats like MP three because raw 391 00:24:01,359 --> 00:24:03,880 Speaker 1: audio files were just so big and broadband speeds were 392 00:24:03,920 --> 00:24:08,480 Speaker 1: not super advanced back in the mid nineties. So then 393 00:24:08,560 --> 00:24:11,760 Speaker 1: these compressed files they would store on a shared drive, 394 00:24:12,200 --> 00:24:15,040 Speaker 1: they would PLoP onto the peer to peer networks, and 395 00:24:15,080 --> 00:24:17,280 Speaker 1: then they would start building out their own collections. They 396 00:24:17,280 --> 00:24:19,640 Speaker 1: would offer up the stuff they had and they would 397 00:24:19,640 --> 00:24:22,920 Speaker 1: add to their collections from you know, other computers that 398 00:24:22,960 --> 00:24:26,600 Speaker 1: were on the network. These services allowed people to search 399 00:24:26,640 --> 00:24:30,760 Speaker 1: out rare bootlegs and other recordings that you couldn't just buy, 400 00:24:30,800 --> 00:24:35,280 Speaker 1: like stuff that wasn't available commercially. However, it also allowed 401 00:24:35,400 --> 00:24:38,679 Speaker 1: people to download tons of music that you could, in 402 00:24:38,800 --> 00:24:42,760 Speaker 1: theory purchase, but you know, you just opted to download 403 00:24:42,800 --> 00:24:46,479 Speaker 1: them for free, so people pirated music like crazy. This 404 00:24:46,560 --> 00:24:50,720 Speaker 1: was also an era where malware was running rampant because 405 00:24:51,040 --> 00:24:54,439 Speaker 1: a lot of people could upload or share malware on 406 00:24:54,520 --> 00:24:59,240 Speaker 1: their computers that posed as if it were say a 407 00:24:59,359 --> 00:25:02,639 Speaker 1: music five l or a software package for like a 408 00:25:02,720 --> 00:25:06,600 Speaker 1: game or something. So this was also a buyer beware, 409 00:25:06,400 --> 00:25:10,679 Speaker 1: or rather pirate beware era where there was a chance 410 00:25:11,160 --> 00:25:13,760 Speaker 1: that that you know, the song you were about to 411 00:25:13,800 --> 00:25:17,639 Speaker 1: download was in fact, you know, a virus or some 412 00:25:17,680 --> 00:25:21,800 Speaker 1: other form of malware. Now, some people went so wild, 413 00:25:22,200 --> 00:25:26,800 Speaker 1: so crazy, they went hug wild in fact, over downloading 414 00:25:26,880 --> 00:25:30,640 Speaker 1: music that places like colleges and universities began to ban 415 00:25:30,880 --> 00:25:35,680 Speaker 1: access to Napster simply because the Internet traffic from all 416 00:25:35,720 --> 00:25:39,399 Speaker 1: the downloading was clogging things up. So this wasn't because 417 00:25:39,800 --> 00:25:43,520 Speaker 1: colleges and universities were necessarily being contacted by you know, 418 00:25:43,600 --> 00:25:47,600 Speaker 1: big record labels or anything. It was more like, hey, 419 00:25:48,560 --> 00:25:51,879 Speaker 1: no one can send an email because everyone over at 420 00:25:51,880 --> 00:25:55,520 Speaker 1: five cap of five is downloading the new Britney Spears album. 421 00:25:55,600 --> 00:25:59,399 Speaker 1: So they started to shut down access to it. Napster 422 00:25:59,720 --> 00:26:03,040 Speaker 1: lawn in nine, but by two thousand it had become 423 00:26:03,080 --> 00:26:07,480 Speaker 1: the target of numerous lawsuits, with various acts like Metallica 424 00:26:07,560 --> 00:26:12,040 Speaker 1: and music labels and music label industry organizations like the 425 00:26:12,160 --> 00:26:15,199 Speaker 1: r I double A all going after the service. The 426 00:26:15,320 --> 00:26:18,639 Speaker 1: argument was that the service was overwhelmingly being used as 427 00:26:18,680 --> 00:26:21,680 Speaker 1: a way to pirate music on a large scale, and 428 00:26:21,880 --> 00:26:24,240 Speaker 1: it was a pretty big scale. Napster had something like 429 00:26:24,320 --> 00:26:28,919 Speaker 1: eighty million users at one point. Napster took cases all 430 00:26:29,000 --> 00:26:30,680 Speaker 1: the way up to the U. S. Court of Appeals 431 00:26:30,680 --> 00:26:34,199 Speaker 1: for the Ninth Circuit. They kept appealing the judgments and 432 00:26:34,200 --> 00:26:37,760 Speaker 1: they were trying to argue that the underlying service wasn't 433 00:26:37,800 --> 00:26:42,040 Speaker 1: tied directly to music piracy, and the court agreed that 434 00:26:42,119 --> 00:26:46,000 Speaker 1: there were valid and legal ways to use Napster, that 435 00:26:46,680 --> 00:26:53,240 Speaker 1: the way Napster distributed information on its own wasn't necessarily illegal. However, 436 00:26:54,000 --> 00:26:59,199 Speaker 1: the vast majority of traffic across Napster was illegal, so 437 00:26:59,240 --> 00:27:02,679 Speaker 1: the court order that Napster developed a system to curtail 438 00:27:03,240 --> 00:27:06,879 Speaker 1: the rampant piracy and Napster really couldn't do that. The 439 00:27:06,960 --> 00:27:09,600 Speaker 1: problem was such a big one the company just didn't 440 00:27:09,600 --> 00:27:12,800 Speaker 1: have the means to tackle it, So Napster shut down 441 00:27:12,840 --> 00:27:15,800 Speaker 1: in two thousand one. Now you could argue that if 442 00:27:15,800 --> 00:27:18,600 Speaker 1: a company is told, hey, you got to get a 443 00:27:18,600 --> 00:27:20,720 Speaker 1: handle on this, and the company says, well, we gotta 444 00:27:20,720 --> 00:27:22,520 Speaker 1: shut down because we can't get a handle on it, 445 00:27:22,920 --> 00:27:26,200 Speaker 1: that there was a legitimate problem. That doesn't take away 446 00:27:26,240 --> 00:27:29,480 Speaker 1: from the fact that the underlying technology that made Napster 447 00:27:29,560 --> 00:27:34,840 Speaker 1: work has nothing, you know, inherently to do with piracy. 448 00:27:34,880 --> 00:27:38,199 Speaker 1: It can be used for that, but it's not the No, 449 00:27:38,400 --> 00:27:41,640 Speaker 1: that's not the purpose of the tech. But it's kind 450 00:27:41,640 --> 00:27:45,439 Speaker 1: of hard to argue against the practical results of the 451 00:27:45,520 --> 00:27:49,800 Speaker 1: use of that technology. And lots of other services similar 452 00:27:49,840 --> 00:27:53,680 Speaker 1: to Napster popped up like they essentially became really popular 453 00:27:53,720 --> 00:27:57,960 Speaker 1: after Napster went away, so piracy was still going like gangbusters. 454 00:27:58,480 --> 00:28:01,239 Speaker 1: Perhaps one of the biggest reason was that, you know, 455 00:28:01,400 --> 00:28:04,199 Speaker 1: there was such a problem with piracy was that it 456 00:28:04,280 --> 00:28:07,920 Speaker 1: was legitimately difficult for music lovers to find and purchase 457 00:28:08,160 --> 00:28:13,399 Speaker 1: digital music online. There weren't really any viable alternatives to 458 00:28:13,560 --> 00:28:16,920 Speaker 1: just stealing it. I mean, some companies were offering up 459 00:28:17,040 --> 00:28:20,720 Speaker 1: limited access to their catalogs through their own digital storefronts, 460 00:28:21,280 --> 00:28:24,639 Speaker 1: but not very many people were offering up digital downloads 461 00:28:24,680 --> 00:28:27,920 Speaker 1: for purchase. It was not easy to find or buy 462 00:28:28,000 --> 00:28:32,440 Speaker 1: stuff when Apple launched iTunes in two thousand one. At 463 00:28:32,440 --> 00:28:35,439 Speaker 1: that time, iTunes was just a way to rip music 464 00:28:35,480 --> 00:28:38,760 Speaker 1: tracks from c d s and have a digital collection 465 00:28:38,800 --> 00:28:42,680 Speaker 1: of music on your Apple computer or your iPod or whatever. 466 00:28:43,000 --> 00:28:46,479 Speaker 1: But you could not purchase digital songs through iTunes at 467 00:28:46,560 --> 00:28:49,520 Speaker 1: all when it launched. It wasn't until two thousand three 468 00:28:49,920 --> 00:28:53,840 Speaker 1: that the iTunes music store actually came online, so in 469 00:28:53,880 --> 00:28:57,720 Speaker 1: the absence of a legitimate way to purchase music, folks 470 00:28:57,760 --> 00:29:00,880 Speaker 1: turned to illegal means to get it. Now, does this 471 00:29:00,960 --> 00:29:03,800 Speaker 1: mean that if there had been legal ways to buy 472 00:29:04,040 --> 00:29:07,600 Speaker 1: music easily, that piracy wouldn't have been a problem at all. 473 00:29:08,240 --> 00:29:11,480 Speaker 1: Probably not. I'm sure that there had been plenty of 474 00:29:11,480 --> 00:29:13,360 Speaker 1: people who would still want to try and just get 475 00:29:13,360 --> 00:29:15,760 Speaker 1: stuff for free rather than pay for it, But I 476 00:29:15,800 --> 00:29:18,360 Speaker 1: bet that piracy wouldn't have been as large of a 477 00:29:18,400 --> 00:29:22,440 Speaker 1: problem as it was. The music industry would after numerous 478 00:29:22,480 --> 00:29:26,280 Speaker 1: cases of people who had downloaded songs, often coupling their 479 00:29:26,360 --> 00:29:31,640 Speaker 1: lawsuits with demands for enormous sums and damages. The goals 480 00:29:31,640 --> 00:29:35,400 Speaker 1: seemed to be not to recapture lost revenue, but to 481 00:29:35,520 --> 00:29:39,000 Speaker 1: scare the ever love and heck out of would be pirates. 482 00:29:39,440 --> 00:29:43,240 Speaker 1: The lawsuits were making examples of people and the message 483 00:29:43,280 --> 00:29:47,600 Speaker 1: was you do not want this to happen to you. 484 00:29:47,600 --> 00:29:50,120 Speaker 1: You see what it's doing to this person, so you 485 00:29:50,200 --> 00:29:54,880 Speaker 1: better not steal any music bucko. So, for example, the 486 00:29:54,920 --> 00:29:58,120 Speaker 1: Recording Industry Association of America the r I double A, 487 00:29:59,200 --> 00:30:02,760 Speaker 1: they sued more were than eighteen thousand individuals in the 488 00:30:02,760 --> 00:30:06,320 Speaker 1: mid two thousand's for illegally sharing music, and in some 489 00:30:06,400 --> 00:30:12,840 Speaker 1: cases they sawt truly astronomical damages in that in that endeavor. 490 00:30:13,320 --> 00:30:15,600 Speaker 1: So in one case, the r I Double A sought 491 00:30:15,760 --> 00:30:20,240 Speaker 1: one point five million dollars and damages against a woman 492 00:30:20,400 --> 00:30:23,719 Speaker 1: that the organization said had downloaded and distributed more than 493 00:30:23,800 --> 00:30:29,480 Speaker 1: seventeen hundred songs. Now the lawsuit only included twenty four 494 00:30:29,920 --> 00:30:32,880 Speaker 1: songs in it, and they were asking for damages of 495 00:30:32,960 --> 00:30:37,240 Speaker 1: one and a half million dollars. This was just one case. 496 00:30:38,000 --> 00:30:41,320 Speaker 1: By the way, the woman lost that case. She appealed it, 497 00:30:41,440 --> 00:30:45,560 Speaker 1: she refused to take a settlement out of court, and 498 00:30:45,800 --> 00:30:49,160 Speaker 1: she lost the case multiple times. UM, I actually don't 499 00:30:49,200 --> 00:30:51,760 Speaker 1: know what the current status is of that case, because 500 00:30:51,760 --> 00:30:55,760 Speaker 1: the last I had heard, she had planned on declaring bankruptcy, 501 00:30:55,920 --> 00:30:58,920 Speaker 1: which would get her out of the need to to pay. 502 00:30:59,680 --> 00:31:01,880 Speaker 1: The amount that was being asked for at that point 503 00:31:01,920 --> 00:31:05,040 Speaker 1: was more than two thousand dollars. There were thousands of 504 00:31:05,040 --> 00:31:07,760 Speaker 1: these types of cases, and most of them were settled 505 00:31:07,800 --> 00:31:10,520 Speaker 1: out of court. They didn't actually go to trial. But 506 00:31:10,600 --> 00:31:14,280 Speaker 1: it was a really effective intimidation tactic, and it was 507 00:31:14,320 --> 00:31:18,440 Speaker 1: one that was based largely on faulty logic. So what 508 00:31:18,480 --> 00:31:21,760 Speaker 1: do I mean by that, Well, the way the entertainment industry, 509 00:31:21,880 --> 00:31:25,360 Speaker 1: and it's not just the music labels, the the film 510 00:31:25,400 --> 00:31:28,440 Speaker 1: industry and television industry would do the same thing. The 511 00:31:28,480 --> 00:31:31,120 Speaker 1: way they would figure out, you know, how much how 512 00:31:31,240 --> 00:31:34,200 Speaker 1: much damage is they would ask for was essentially based 513 00:31:34,240 --> 00:31:36,920 Speaker 1: on the idea that really doesn't hold water when you 514 00:31:36,960 --> 00:31:40,280 Speaker 1: look into it, and that idea is that each pirated 515 00:31:40,360 --> 00:31:44,360 Speaker 1: copy of a piece of media represents a lost sale. So, 516 00:31:44,400 --> 00:31:47,240 Speaker 1: in other words, the argument is that if people had 517 00:31:47,320 --> 00:31:50,920 Speaker 1: not stolen things, then those same people would have gone 518 00:31:50,920 --> 00:31:55,640 Speaker 1: and bought a legitimate copy. So in other words, every download, 519 00:31:56,120 --> 00:32:00,000 Speaker 1: every illegal download, represents a lost sale and lost revenue. 520 00:32:00,240 --> 00:32:03,840 Speaker 1: But that's just not necessarily true. It's possible that someone 521 00:32:03,920 --> 00:32:07,560 Speaker 1: might download a piece of media just out of curiosity alone, 522 00:32:08,000 --> 00:32:10,800 Speaker 1: and they have no real desire to own it. That 523 00:32:10,920 --> 00:32:14,560 Speaker 1: kind of person would perhaps never have bought a copy 524 00:32:14,640 --> 00:32:17,160 Speaker 1: of the media at all. They would have just gone without. 525 00:32:17,760 --> 00:32:20,800 Speaker 1: And because we're talking about digital files here, you're not 526 00:32:20,880 --> 00:32:23,840 Speaker 1: looking at the physical loss of a product. It's not 527 00:32:23,880 --> 00:32:26,720 Speaker 1: like going into a store and shoplifting, you know, c 528 00:32:26,920 --> 00:32:29,480 Speaker 1: d s or something. If you did that, while the store, 529 00:32:29,760 --> 00:32:31,360 Speaker 1: you know, would be out those c d s, it 530 00:32:31,400 --> 00:32:34,320 Speaker 1: wouldn't be able to sell any that those specific CDs 531 00:32:34,320 --> 00:32:37,840 Speaker 1: because they would just have been stolen. Digital files, however, 532 00:32:38,280 --> 00:32:40,240 Speaker 1: those are things you just copy. You can make an 533 00:32:40,240 --> 00:32:43,160 Speaker 1: infinite number of copies of digital files, or at least, 534 00:32:43,560 --> 00:32:47,200 Speaker 1: you know, effectively infinite. Obviously you're limited by however much 535 00:32:47,200 --> 00:32:49,600 Speaker 1: storage space you have, but you get the idea. There's 536 00:32:49,600 --> 00:32:54,120 Speaker 1: no scarcity to digital files. So it's a different matter. 537 00:32:54,680 --> 00:32:58,560 Speaker 1: Even the US Government Accountability Office found that the formulas 538 00:32:58,680 --> 00:33:02,160 Speaker 1: that the entertainment industry were using when they were trying 539 00:33:02,200 --> 00:33:05,959 Speaker 1: to make claims of damages just were not supportable. So 540 00:33:06,000 --> 00:33:09,440 Speaker 1: it's not that piracy has no effect on sales. It 541 00:33:09,880 --> 00:33:13,160 Speaker 1: definitely has some effect on sales. But it's more that 542 00:33:13,240 --> 00:33:17,360 Speaker 1: you can't quantify what that effect on sales is. And 543 00:33:17,360 --> 00:33:20,600 Speaker 1: if you can't quantify it, then you can't really assign 544 00:33:20,760 --> 00:33:24,000 Speaker 1: a value to losses because it's impossible to say what 545 00:33:24,080 --> 00:33:27,560 Speaker 1: the losses were. But for several years in the two 546 00:33:27,560 --> 00:33:31,040 Speaker 1: thousands that didn't matter. The r I, double A and 547 00:33:31,120 --> 00:33:34,480 Speaker 1: other organizations tried to crack them on piracy hard, and 548 00:33:34,520 --> 00:33:38,000 Speaker 1: the industry as a whole earned a pretty ugly reputation 549 00:33:38,040 --> 00:33:41,520 Speaker 1: as a result. The courts often found in the favor 550 00:33:42,120 --> 00:33:44,920 Speaker 1: of industry, but it meant that, like everyone was looking 551 00:33:44,960 --> 00:33:47,800 Speaker 1: at these companies and saying, what the heck are you doing. 552 00:33:47,840 --> 00:33:52,160 Speaker 1: You're going after, you know, regular people and demanding these 553 00:33:52,240 --> 00:33:56,680 Speaker 1: astronomical damages. What's really interesting to me is that the 554 00:33:56,760 --> 00:34:01,120 Speaker 1: solution for piracy wasn't really in these gratuitous lawsuits and damages. 555 00:34:01,160 --> 00:34:04,080 Speaker 1: People were still pirrating stuff, it's just that you know 556 00:34:04,120 --> 00:34:06,320 Speaker 1: they were doing so running the risk of being one 557 00:34:06,360 --> 00:34:09,040 Speaker 1: of the examples that would be brought up in a 558 00:34:09,040 --> 00:34:12,640 Speaker 1: court case. And the solution wasn't even in working with 559 00:34:12,719 --> 00:34:16,920 Speaker 1: online stores like iTunes, though that did change things quite 560 00:34:16,960 --> 00:34:19,920 Speaker 1: a bit. The solution was really the method of delivery 561 00:34:20,040 --> 00:34:25,480 Speaker 1: gradually shifting from downloads to streaming, and this was facilitated 562 00:34:25,480 --> 00:34:28,640 Speaker 1: by the rise of the smartphone and the improvement of 563 00:34:28,680 --> 00:34:33,640 Speaker 1: wireless technologies. Why would you pirate music when practically every 564 00:34:33,680 --> 00:34:37,640 Speaker 1: song you have ever heard is available on some streaming platform. 565 00:34:38,239 --> 00:34:41,439 Speaker 1: Lots of them are even ad supported and otherwise free 566 00:34:41,480 --> 00:34:43,480 Speaker 1: to use, so you don't even have to pay a 567 00:34:43,480 --> 00:34:46,120 Speaker 1: subscription to them, so you can listen to these songs 568 00:34:46,160 --> 00:34:49,480 Speaker 1: whenever you like, as long as you have an Internet connection. 569 00:34:50,120 --> 00:34:53,360 Speaker 1: That is what helped pull back music piracy, and the 570 00:34:53,400 --> 00:34:58,520 Speaker 1: fact that the access to the content suddenly became way 571 00:34:58,640 --> 00:35:02,680 Speaker 1: easier and there was no reason to run the risk 572 00:35:02,760 --> 00:35:07,239 Speaker 1: of being an example. But the improvements in broadband connectivity 573 00:35:08,000 --> 00:35:10,320 Speaker 1: would bring with it the chance for people to download 574 00:35:10,360 --> 00:35:13,160 Speaker 1: not just music, but also stuff like TV shows and 575 00:35:13,239 --> 00:35:16,720 Speaker 1: movies and video games. These groups didn't have to worry 576 00:35:16,800 --> 00:35:18,880 Speaker 1: as much in the early days. I mean, video games 577 00:35:19,000 --> 00:35:21,000 Speaker 1: kind of did, but they were starting to get so 578 00:35:21,000 --> 00:35:25,120 Speaker 1: sophisticated that the you know, the cutting edge video games 579 00:35:25,120 --> 00:35:27,760 Speaker 1: of the time were so big most people just didn't 580 00:35:27,760 --> 00:35:29,800 Speaker 1: have the band whip to download them in a reasonable 581 00:35:29,800 --> 00:35:33,640 Speaker 1: amount of time, so they weren't really considerations. However, once 582 00:35:33,680 --> 00:35:37,320 Speaker 1: broadband started catching up that changed. Now, the music industry 583 00:35:37,360 --> 00:35:39,759 Speaker 1: had already gone through this whole process, and you would 584 00:35:39,760 --> 00:35:41,719 Speaker 1: think that these other industries would have looked at that 585 00:35:41,960 --> 00:35:44,960 Speaker 1: and said, all right, well, what worked, what didn't work, 586 00:35:45,360 --> 00:35:48,480 Speaker 1: and will follow best practices, But really they mostly doubled 587 00:35:48,520 --> 00:35:51,000 Speaker 1: down on going the same route that the music industry 588 00:35:51,040 --> 00:35:54,120 Speaker 1: did with pretty similar results. So it's hard to feel 589 00:35:54,200 --> 00:35:58,759 Speaker 1: much sympathy for these multibillion dollar media companies versus the 590 00:35:58,800 --> 00:36:02,240 Speaker 1: individuals who made downloaded a copy of X Men origins 591 00:36:02,239 --> 00:36:07,520 Speaker 1: Wolverine without permission. Companies began lobbying US Congress to once 592 00:36:07,560 --> 00:36:11,759 Speaker 1: again create more legislation that would impose harsher penalties on 593 00:36:11,920 --> 00:36:16,520 Speaker 1: people illegally downloading content, and more importantly, on ways to 594 00:36:16,680 --> 00:36:20,920 Speaker 1: prevent sites that were facilitating these kinds of downloads. The 595 00:36:20,960 --> 00:36:24,200 Speaker 1: Pirate Bay, a site that specialized in serving as sort 596 00:36:24,200 --> 00:36:27,480 Speaker 1: of a database or almost like a Yellow Pages of 597 00:36:27,560 --> 00:36:31,480 Speaker 1: torrent files of various types of media, was constantly in 598 00:36:31,520 --> 00:36:34,120 Speaker 1: the news at this time, and the global nature of 599 00:36:34,120 --> 00:36:37,520 Speaker 1: the Internet meant that sites like the Pirate Bay, which 600 00:36:37,560 --> 00:36:41,239 Speaker 1: was founded in Sweden, which last I checked, is not 601 00:36:41,360 --> 00:36:44,160 Speaker 1: in the United States. It meant that they were beyond 602 00:36:44,160 --> 00:36:47,600 Speaker 1: the jurisdiction of the US. So you have these big 603 00:36:47,719 --> 00:36:50,759 Speaker 1: US based media companies that really wanted to have a 604 00:36:50,800 --> 00:36:54,239 Speaker 1: way to shut down this foreign service, and there just 605 00:36:54,320 --> 00:36:57,600 Speaker 1: weren't many options. It wasn't like they could target a 606 00:36:57,680 --> 00:36:59,920 Speaker 1: YouTube that's based in the United States and make the 607 00:37:00,080 --> 00:37:03,760 Speaker 1: man's you know. They could try and target a Swedish company, 608 00:37:03,840 --> 00:37:05,480 Speaker 1: but that company is saying like, ha ha, you have 609 00:37:05,520 --> 00:37:08,840 Speaker 1: no power here, be gone with you. Moreover, the Pirate 610 00:37:08,840 --> 00:37:11,680 Speaker 1: Bay was just one example, and now the possibility of 611 00:37:11,719 --> 00:37:13,960 Speaker 1: companies in different parts of the world allowing for the 612 00:37:14,080 --> 00:37:17,840 Speaker 1: mass piracy of various types of media was once again 613 00:37:17,920 --> 00:37:22,320 Speaker 1: seen as an existential threat. You could make a pretty 614 00:37:22,320 --> 00:37:26,600 Speaker 1: convincing argument that the history of modern media is a 615 00:37:26,640 --> 00:37:30,960 Speaker 1: series of the industry reacting to something as an existential threat, 616 00:37:31,640 --> 00:37:34,440 Speaker 1: because that's kind of what we see here in the 617 00:37:34,520 --> 00:37:37,440 Speaker 1: United States. What we saw is a consequence of this 618 00:37:37,600 --> 00:37:41,200 Speaker 1: was the proposal of two different but very similar pieces 619 00:37:41,239 --> 00:37:44,000 Speaker 1: of legislation, one in the House of Representatives and one 620 00:37:44,040 --> 00:37:46,840 Speaker 1: in the U S. Senate. There was the Stop Online 621 00:37:46,840 --> 00:37:49,880 Speaker 1: Piracy Act or SOPA, that was the Senate one, and 622 00:37:49,920 --> 00:37:53,080 Speaker 1: there was the Protect I p Act or PIPPA, which 623 00:37:53,080 --> 00:37:55,399 Speaker 1: was the House of Representatives one. Both of those were 624 00:37:55,400 --> 00:37:59,960 Speaker 1: being written around, and the intended purpose of these proposed 625 00:38:00,120 --> 00:38:04,040 Speaker 1: acts was to act as protection for I P holders 626 00:38:04,120 --> 00:38:08,840 Speaker 1: in the United States from the nefarious doings of overseas entities. 627 00:38:09,239 --> 00:38:13,680 Speaker 1: But the solutions were pretty drastic, including the possibility that 628 00:38:14,440 --> 00:38:18,120 Speaker 1: you know, these companies could force governments or or demand 629 00:38:18,160 --> 00:38:21,680 Speaker 1: for governments to order US based I s p s 630 00:38:21,920 --> 00:38:25,280 Speaker 1: to cut off all access to certain sites. In other words, 631 00:38:25,320 --> 00:38:28,680 Speaker 1: to tell US based I s p s, hey don't 632 00:38:28,719 --> 00:38:32,520 Speaker 1: allow any U r l s from these domains to 633 00:38:32,600 --> 00:38:35,280 Speaker 1: be accessible in the United States. So, in other words, 634 00:38:35,560 --> 00:38:38,440 Speaker 1: there would be parts of the Internet that US citizens 635 00:38:38,440 --> 00:38:42,200 Speaker 1: would not be allowed to access, at least not legally 636 00:38:42,280 --> 00:38:45,120 Speaker 1: and not without the aid of something like a VPN 637 00:38:45,200 --> 00:38:49,200 Speaker 1: located in another country. Critics pointed out that this approach 638 00:38:49,280 --> 00:38:53,440 Speaker 1: would have massive consequences with regard to free speech, and 639 00:38:53,480 --> 00:38:57,360 Speaker 1: beyond that, applying the rules would be difficult and uneven. 640 00:38:57,920 --> 00:39:00,799 Speaker 1: People envisioned a scenario in which U S I s 641 00:39:00,840 --> 00:39:03,360 Speaker 1: p s would have to block access to an entire 642 00:39:03,440 --> 00:39:07,759 Speaker 1: domain because of potentially what one blogger posted on a 643 00:39:07,800 --> 00:39:11,600 Speaker 1: single blog that was located on that domain. So this 644 00:39:11,680 --> 00:39:14,719 Speaker 1: was like a nuclear option that would potentially affect far 645 00:39:14,840 --> 00:39:18,080 Speaker 1: more you know, innocent people than it would for those 646 00:39:18,080 --> 00:39:22,080 Speaker 1: who were actually perpetrating the alleged crimes. A large collection 647 00:39:22,080 --> 00:39:25,320 Speaker 1: of web based companies help protests in early two thousand twelve, 648 00:39:25,880 --> 00:39:30,000 Speaker 1: using a blackout on their web pages to inform visitors 649 00:39:30,080 --> 00:39:33,520 Speaker 1: of the issue and essentially going dark, and the results 650 00:39:33,520 --> 00:39:37,240 Speaker 1: were dramatic. Politicians who had previously expressed support for either 651 00:39:37,320 --> 00:39:42,440 Speaker 1: PIPPA or SOPA abruptly reversed course, including people who had 652 00:39:42,480 --> 00:39:45,600 Speaker 1: sponsored the bills in the first place. So the two 653 00:39:45,600 --> 00:39:52,000 Speaker 1: pieces of legislation were withdrawn from being voted upon the floor. Now, 654 00:39:52,520 --> 00:39:55,560 Speaker 1: the reason they were withdrawn is because if Congress had 655 00:39:55,600 --> 00:39:59,520 Speaker 1: held a vote and the legislation was voted down, that 656 00:39:59,520 --> 00:40:01,680 Speaker 1: would be pretty much the end of that. But by 657 00:40:01,719 --> 00:40:05,880 Speaker 1: removing the bills from consideration, the authors of the bills 658 00:40:06,000 --> 00:40:08,200 Speaker 1: and their supporters would have some time to work on 659 00:40:08,239 --> 00:40:11,800 Speaker 1: it further and potentially reintroduce the bill at a later 660 00:40:11,920 --> 00:40:16,800 Speaker 1: date once the political climate changed. So far that hasn't happened. 661 00:40:17,120 --> 00:40:19,160 Speaker 1: But when we come back, I'll spend some time talking 662 00:40:19,200 --> 00:40:22,640 Speaker 1: a little bit more about copyright and YouTube's specific approach 663 00:40:22,960 --> 00:40:27,439 Speaker 1: to handling copyright claims. But first, let's take another quick 664 00:40:27,480 --> 00:40:37,799 Speaker 1: break Okay, let's talk about YouTube and copyright now. As 665 00:40:37,840 --> 00:40:41,160 Speaker 1: I mentioned, YouTube has a long history with copyright issues, 666 00:40:41,480 --> 00:40:45,040 Speaker 1: and for a while, the general approach was that company 667 00:40:45,200 --> 00:40:48,360 Speaker 1: would claim a copyright ownership of some or all of 668 00:40:48,400 --> 00:40:51,440 Speaker 1: the content that was in a YouTube video, and they 669 00:40:51,480 --> 00:40:54,320 Speaker 1: would send a d m C A takedown notice to YouTube, 670 00:40:54,760 --> 00:40:59,399 Speaker 1: which then would typically take down the video in question. Uh, 671 00:40:59,440 --> 00:41:02,360 Speaker 1: the user or owner of the channel would get a 672 00:41:02,400 --> 00:41:05,520 Speaker 1: copyright strike against them, and if you've got three strikes, 673 00:41:05,800 --> 00:41:08,280 Speaker 1: the channel would get wiped, the account would be deleted, 674 00:41:08,320 --> 00:41:13,120 Speaker 1: all those videos would be removed. Now, ideally, each d 675 00:41:13,480 --> 00:41:17,080 Speaker 1: m C A claim would go through a thorough review 676 00:41:17,239 --> 00:41:20,360 Speaker 1: by some other party to make sure that the claim 677 00:41:20,440 --> 00:41:24,440 Speaker 1: was legitimate. You have to verify that the claimant actually 678 00:41:24,520 --> 00:41:27,440 Speaker 1: holds the rights to the i P in question. You 679 00:41:27,480 --> 00:41:30,600 Speaker 1: have to determine if the use of any material falls 680 00:41:30,680 --> 00:41:34,160 Speaker 1: under the category of fair use, which means that the 681 00:41:34,200 --> 00:41:37,360 Speaker 1: inclusion of that material in the video would need to 682 00:41:37,400 --> 00:41:41,240 Speaker 1: be proven to be you know, legitimate. And YouTube built 683 00:41:41,320 --> 00:41:44,000 Speaker 1: in systems that would let channel owners dispute d m 684 00:41:44,080 --> 00:41:48,440 Speaker 1: C A takedown charges, essentially pushing the matter into arbitration 685 00:41:48,520 --> 00:41:51,200 Speaker 1: that would then ultimately have to go to court. So 686 00:41:52,440 --> 00:41:55,480 Speaker 1: quick overview. Let's say I put up a video. Let's 687 00:41:55,480 --> 00:41:57,840 Speaker 1: say I've got some material in there in the video 688 00:41:57,920 --> 00:42:01,200 Speaker 1: that belongs to someone else, and I get a d 689 00:42:01,280 --> 00:42:03,440 Speaker 1: m C A takedown notice, so YouTube has taken the 690 00:42:03,520 --> 00:42:06,239 Speaker 1: video down. I get a copyright strike against me. I 691 00:42:06,280 --> 00:42:11,080 Speaker 1: decide to dispute this YouTube sends that back to the 692 00:42:11,160 --> 00:42:16,040 Speaker 1: copyright holder, who if they don't respond, then YouTube just 693 00:42:16,160 --> 00:42:19,160 Speaker 1: lifts it and the video comes back online. But if 694 00:42:19,200 --> 00:42:22,000 Speaker 1: they do respond, then essentially the next step is you 695 00:42:22,080 --> 00:42:25,480 Speaker 1: go to court over it. So it wasn't like a 696 00:42:25,680 --> 00:42:29,759 Speaker 1: super awesome thing for the individual because court cases are 697 00:42:29,880 --> 00:42:35,400 Speaker 1: incredibly expensive um and there were some court cases around 698 00:42:35,480 --> 00:42:39,480 Speaker 1: videos containing copyrighted material that helped establish the law around it. So, 699 00:42:39,560 --> 00:42:42,479 Speaker 1: for example, in two thousand eight, a U. S. Court 700 00:42:42,600 --> 00:42:45,680 Speaker 1: ruled that copyright holders couldn't just send a d m 701 00:42:45,719 --> 00:42:48,759 Speaker 1: C a takedown notice unless they first determined that the 702 00:42:48,880 --> 00:42:52,000 Speaker 1: use of the material in the video in question fell 703 00:42:52,080 --> 00:42:55,120 Speaker 1: under a fair use scenario. Because if it is fair use, 704 00:42:55,520 --> 00:42:57,920 Speaker 1: the copyright holder is not supposed to send out the 705 00:42:57,960 --> 00:43:02,200 Speaker 1: takedown notice. The key raise there is they're not supposed to. 706 00:43:02,600 --> 00:43:07,439 Speaker 1: It doesn't mean that they necessarily held back flash forward though, 707 00:43:07,719 --> 00:43:10,160 Speaker 1: Google acquired YouTube in two thousand and six, and then 708 00:43:10,200 --> 00:43:12,920 Speaker 1: by two thousand seven started to develop a system that 709 00:43:13,000 --> 00:43:16,920 Speaker 1: acted sort of like a digital finger printing system for companies. 710 00:43:17,320 --> 00:43:21,080 Speaker 1: So it's a system that could scan videos that have 711 00:43:21,160 --> 00:43:24,439 Speaker 1: been uploaded to YouTube and look for patterns in those 712 00:43:24,520 --> 00:43:29,040 Speaker 1: videos that matched a database of copyrighted material owned by 713 00:43:29,239 --> 00:43:33,319 Speaker 1: you know, each individual large media company. So if there 714 00:43:33,360 --> 00:43:37,799 Speaker 1: were a match, well, then you would get a notification saying, hey, 715 00:43:37,800 --> 00:43:41,279 Speaker 1: you've got this possible case of someone making use of 716 00:43:41,280 --> 00:43:45,279 Speaker 1: your copyrighted material without your permission, and then you could 717 00:43:45,280 --> 00:43:49,480 Speaker 1: flag the video. Following that the owner of the I 718 00:43:49,640 --> 00:43:52,839 Speaker 1: P and question so big media company, in other words, 719 00:43:53,400 --> 00:43:56,080 Speaker 1: would have a few options. They could choose to block 720 00:43:56,160 --> 00:43:59,319 Speaker 1: the video completely, which just made it unreachable, or they 721 00:43:59,320 --> 00:44:02,320 Speaker 1: could choose to add advertisements to the video, or to 722 00:44:02,520 --> 00:44:06,640 Speaker 1: co opt existing advertisements and claim the revenue generated by 723 00:44:06,640 --> 00:44:09,600 Speaker 1: the ads for itself. So in other words, yeah, you 724 00:44:09,600 --> 00:44:12,040 Speaker 1: can keep your video up. We're going to collect any 725 00:44:12,120 --> 00:44:15,040 Speaker 1: money that's generated from the fact that you have this 726 00:44:15,200 --> 00:44:19,239 Speaker 1: video there. This was originally called video identification, but later 727 00:44:19,280 --> 00:44:22,760 Speaker 1: became known as Content i D. In two thousand eleven, 728 00:44:22,800 --> 00:44:26,040 Speaker 1: the system went into effect in earnest, and the result 729 00:44:26,160 --> 00:44:29,600 Speaker 1: was that content owners could get revenue from videos that 730 00:44:29,719 --> 00:44:33,120 Speaker 1: included their content, or they could order the videos to 731 00:44:33,120 --> 00:44:35,880 Speaker 1: be totally removed, but that seemed to be slightly less prevalent. 732 00:44:36,040 --> 00:44:39,480 Speaker 1: It does still happen occasionally, but more often than not 733 00:44:39,560 --> 00:44:41,720 Speaker 1: people just say no, I'm just happy to take the money. 734 00:44:42,160 --> 00:44:46,080 Speaker 1: This approach automates stuff. It removes any human review process, 735 00:44:46,080 --> 00:44:48,880 Speaker 1: which also means that no one is really checking to 736 00:44:48,920 --> 00:44:51,919 Speaker 1: make sure that the flagged video is actually infringing upon 737 00:44:52,000 --> 00:44:55,040 Speaker 1: copyright or that it's not a case of fair use. 738 00:44:55,440 --> 00:44:59,160 Speaker 1: So it falls on the channel owner to dispute claims 739 00:44:59,239 --> 00:45:02,960 Speaker 1: and to push for reviews. Meanwhile, if you do get 740 00:45:03,040 --> 00:45:05,720 Speaker 1: hit with enough flags, you might find your whole channel 741 00:45:05,760 --> 00:45:08,919 Speaker 1: shut down and once again, want to refer to Tom 742 00:45:09,040 --> 00:45:13,040 Speaker 1: Scott's great video on this subject, titled YouTube's Copyright System 743 00:45:13,200 --> 00:45:17,480 Speaker 1: Isn't Broken, The World's is. Scott gives a personal example 744 00:45:17,560 --> 00:45:21,120 Speaker 1: of a time when the content I D system totally failed. 745 00:45:21,520 --> 00:45:25,000 Speaker 1: So Scott is an independent creator with an impressive following 746 00:45:25,040 --> 00:45:28,920 Speaker 1: of more than three point eight million subscribers. He uploaded 747 00:45:28,920 --> 00:45:32,040 Speaker 1: a video to YouTube and a TV company in Thailand 748 00:45:32,320 --> 00:45:36,600 Speaker 1: took that video incorporated it into a Thai television show 749 00:45:36,640 --> 00:45:41,799 Speaker 1: without asking Scott's permission, and then subsequently uploaded that television 750 00:45:42,000 --> 00:45:45,680 Speaker 1: show episode to YouTube, which is pretty brazen, but what 751 00:45:45,760 --> 00:45:49,800 Speaker 1: happened next was even more so. The company then flagged 752 00:45:49,880 --> 00:45:54,120 Speaker 1: Scott's original video. See content idea as a tool that's 753 00:45:54,160 --> 00:45:58,680 Speaker 1: really only available to big, established media companies. The average 754 00:45:58,680 --> 00:46:02,480 Speaker 1: person does not have access to content i D. So 755 00:46:02,560 --> 00:46:06,080 Speaker 1: this TV company used its access to content i D 756 00:46:06,320 --> 00:46:10,440 Speaker 1: to flag Scott's original video. In other words, the video 757 00:46:10,680 --> 00:46:15,920 Speaker 1: he had made uploaded, and then they subsequently stole and used. 758 00:46:16,520 --> 00:46:19,239 Speaker 1: Scott says it took quite a lot of time to 759 00:46:19,320 --> 00:46:21,480 Speaker 1: sort it all out and to establish that the video 760 00:46:21,680 --> 00:46:24,920 Speaker 1: was in fact his original work, and then it was 761 00:46:24,960 --> 00:46:29,560 Speaker 1: the Tie company that was in violation of copyright, not Scott. Now, 762 00:46:29,600 --> 00:46:32,640 Speaker 1: content i D is a tool that can be revoked, 763 00:46:32,680 --> 00:46:35,799 Speaker 1: so if a company abuses it, there's a chance that 764 00:46:35,880 --> 00:46:39,280 Speaker 1: YouTube will remove the company's access to content i D. 765 00:46:39,920 --> 00:46:43,000 Speaker 1: Tom Scott himself says in that video that he doesn't 766 00:46:43,000 --> 00:46:46,200 Speaker 1: know if that Tie company still has access to content 767 00:46:46,280 --> 00:46:49,080 Speaker 1: i D or not, but it is a pretty clear 768 00:46:49,840 --> 00:46:53,120 Speaker 1: case where he was very much the one who was 769 00:46:53,200 --> 00:46:57,319 Speaker 1: being the victim of abuse that this Tie company was 770 00:46:57,360 --> 00:47:00,600 Speaker 1: abusing the content i D tool in the worst way. 771 00:47:01,520 --> 00:47:04,200 Speaker 1: That being said, Scott also points out that content i 772 00:47:04,320 --> 00:47:08,520 Speaker 1: D works around issues that otherwise would have pretty bleak results. 773 00:47:08,560 --> 00:47:11,400 Speaker 1: So because of content i D, a video can stay 774 00:47:11,480 --> 00:47:14,719 Speaker 1: up even if it is making what would otherwise be 775 00:47:14,760 --> 00:47:18,040 Speaker 1: considered illegal use of someone else's i P. It's just 776 00:47:18,160 --> 00:47:20,520 Speaker 1: that this someone else would be the one to benefit 777 00:47:20,600 --> 00:47:24,160 Speaker 1: and monetize that video. So for the vast majority of 778 00:47:24,200 --> 00:47:27,080 Speaker 1: YouTube users this isn't really that big of a deal 779 00:47:27,120 --> 00:47:30,239 Speaker 1: because most of them aren't YouTube partners. Most of them 780 00:47:30,280 --> 00:47:34,480 Speaker 1: are not monetizing videos in the first place. For creators 781 00:47:34,520 --> 00:47:38,600 Speaker 1: who are monetizing their videos, such as big time let's 782 00:47:38,640 --> 00:47:42,600 Speaker 1: play gamers or movie critics or you know, things like that, 783 00:47:43,280 --> 00:47:46,360 Speaker 1: it's still very much an issue it if the work 784 00:47:46,400 --> 00:47:50,120 Speaker 1: that they're doing does fall under fair use, they have 785 00:47:50,200 --> 00:47:53,080 Speaker 1: to appeal to try and get flagged videos unflagged and 786 00:47:53,120 --> 00:47:57,120 Speaker 1: to return monetization to their own channels. Another point that 787 00:47:57,160 --> 00:48:00,960 Speaker 1: Scott makes is that YouTube's policies can change, and they 788 00:48:00,960 --> 00:48:05,120 Speaker 1: have changed, often without any real notice, and the consequences 789 00:48:05,160 --> 00:48:08,960 Speaker 1: of those changes can result in massive headaches for channel 790 00:48:09,040 --> 00:48:12,920 Speaker 1: owners and for individual users. So, in other words, just 791 00:48:13,040 --> 00:48:16,920 Speaker 1: because YouTube's policies are one way today doesn't mean you 792 00:48:16,960 --> 00:48:20,680 Speaker 1: can count on them being that same way tomorrow. That 793 00:48:20,719 --> 00:48:25,239 Speaker 1: could change the whole game. Let's start wrapping all this up. 794 00:48:25,840 --> 00:48:28,400 Speaker 1: The history of copyright in the United States has largely 795 00:48:28,440 --> 00:48:33,440 Speaker 1: been one of big consolidated media companies using their substantial 796 00:48:33,520 --> 00:48:38,360 Speaker 1: influence to extend copyright protections and restrict the parameters of 797 00:48:38,440 --> 00:48:42,120 Speaker 1: fair use, and to seek out harsher punishments for people 798 00:48:42,600 --> 00:48:46,799 Speaker 1: and companies that violate the law. It appears as though 799 00:48:46,840 --> 00:48:49,279 Speaker 1: we've at least reached a point where companies are no 800 00:48:49,320 --> 00:48:53,160 Speaker 1: longer going to push for longer copyright terms. So it 801 00:48:53,239 --> 00:48:57,480 Speaker 1: really does seem that Steamboat Willie will in fact finally 802 00:48:57,719 --> 00:49:01,680 Speaker 1: enter public domain in twenty twenty four. Why aren't we 803 00:49:01,680 --> 00:49:05,440 Speaker 1: seeing yet another push to extend copyright terms. It's largely 804 00:49:05,480 --> 00:49:09,560 Speaker 1: because public sentiment is very much against it, and ultimately 805 00:49:09,960 --> 00:49:12,759 Speaker 1: politicians do have to depend upon people voting for them 806 00:49:12,800 --> 00:49:15,480 Speaker 1: to stay in power. Doesn't really matter how much money 807 00:49:15,480 --> 00:49:18,719 Speaker 1: lobbyists drop on them. Ultimately they do have to worry 808 00:49:18,760 --> 00:49:21,880 Speaker 1: about that, and the lobbies have largely thrown in the 809 00:49:21,920 --> 00:49:25,840 Speaker 1: towel on trying to extend copyright terms. Their money is 810 00:49:25,880 --> 00:49:29,200 Speaker 1: better spent at trying to create legislation that makes it 811 00:49:29,239 --> 00:49:33,120 Speaker 1: harder for people to share content without permission. That's not 812 00:49:33,200 --> 00:49:37,000 Speaker 1: necessarily a great thing either. Those laws frequently have unintended 813 00:49:37,000 --> 00:49:41,160 Speaker 1: consequences and they place unfair restrictions on legal rights. But 814 00:49:41,400 --> 00:49:44,960 Speaker 1: you know it's it is shifting the issue a little bit, 815 00:49:45,280 --> 00:49:48,560 Speaker 1: so we're not likely to see copyright terms get extended 816 00:49:48,600 --> 00:49:52,960 Speaker 1: again anytime soon. It's just incredibly unpopular. There are actual 817 00:49:53,080 --> 00:49:57,400 Speaker 1: movements to try and reduce the term limits on copyrights 818 00:49:57,480 --> 00:49:59,920 Speaker 1: rather than to extend them, to kind of roll the 819 00:50:00,160 --> 00:50:02,479 Speaker 1: back a bit and to allow things to enter into 820 00:50:02,480 --> 00:50:06,400 Speaker 1: public domain earlier. Tom Scott and his video also talks 821 00:50:06,440 --> 00:50:10,360 Speaker 1: about the move to try and get small claims case 822 00:50:10,400 --> 00:50:14,799 Speaker 1: courts that would handle things like copyright issues so that 823 00:50:14,880 --> 00:50:17,160 Speaker 1: the average person would have a better chance of being 824 00:50:17,200 --> 00:50:21,239 Speaker 1: able to pursue a claim of fair use and not 825 00:50:21,680 --> 00:50:27,399 Speaker 1: have it be financial burden to do so. Um, that's 826 00:50:27,440 --> 00:50:30,080 Speaker 1: the thing. Even if you are in the right, even 827 00:50:30,120 --> 00:50:35,839 Speaker 1: if your use of copyrighted material falls under fair use, 828 00:50:36,800 --> 00:50:39,120 Speaker 1: you still may have to go to court in order 829 00:50:39,120 --> 00:50:42,239 Speaker 1: to actually prove that, and it can be so expensive 830 00:50:42,560 --> 00:50:48,120 Speaker 1: that it could ruin you financially. And yeah, you might 831 00:50:48,360 --> 00:50:50,719 Speaker 1: be legally in the right, and you might get the 832 00:50:50,800 --> 00:50:53,640 Speaker 1: judgment you wanted, but you'd still have to pay all 833 00:50:53,680 --> 00:50:56,120 Speaker 1: that money to do it. You know, you're not going 834 00:50:56,160 --> 00:51:00,680 Speaker 1: to get a reward for it other than like, oh yeah, 835 00:51:00,719 --> 00:51:03,759 Speaker 1: it turns out you didn't break the law. That's not 836 00:51:03,880 --> 00:51:06,839 Speaker 1: much of a reward, right, Like, you would still owe 837 00:51:06,840 --> 00:51:09,080 Speaker 1: all that money for the court cases. And that's the 838 00:51:09,160 --> 00:51:12,759 Speaker 1: real crime here. I was figuratively speaking. It's the real 839 00:51:12,800 --> 00:51:19,360 Speaker 1: crime here because it disincentivizes people from pursuing their actual 840 00:51:19,520 --> 00:51:26,239 Speaker 1: rights because the system favors these big corporations that have 841 00:51:26,440 --> 00:51:30,280 Speaker 1: the money to burn, and you know, worst case scenario 842 00:51:30,480 --> 00:51:33,759 Speaker 1: for most of them, they'll settle out of court rather 843 00:51:33,800 --> 00:51:37,239 Speaker 1: than pursue an expensive legal case that they might not win. 844 00:51:37,960 --> 00:51:41,799 Speaker 1: But that's that's small potatoes compared to what it is 845 00:51:41,880 --> 00:51:45,640 Speaker 1: for the individual. So yeah, I agree with Tom Scott. 846 00:51:45,800 --> 00:51:49,080 Speaker 1: I do agree that the world's copyright system is broken 847 00:51:49,160 --> 00:51:54,080 Speaker 1: because it was designed for a world where large publishers, 848 00:51:54,560 --> 00:51:57,919 Speaker 1: or way back in the day, large book printers, we're 849 00:51:57,960 --> 00:52:00,880 Speaker 1: trying to carve out a place for themselves and not 850 00:52:01,040 --> 00:52:05,600 Speaker 1: have the competition unfairly copy works that they had access to. 851 00:52:06,640 --> 00:52:09,080 Speaker 1: And now it's being applied to individuals and it just 852 00:52:09,239 --> 00:52:13,440 Speaker 1: is not a good fit. So that's this full discussion 853 00:52:13,480 --> 00:52:18,759 Speaker 1: about copyright, fair use and the related issues around it. 854 00:52:18,840 --> 00:52:20,880 Speaker 1: Clearly there's a lot more we could go into. I 855 00:52:20,880 --> 00:52:26,080 Speaker 1: didn't touch trademark law at all. That gets into more complications. Um, 856 00:52:26,160 --> 00:52:29,720 Speaker 1: and there are other you know, there are other subtle 857 00:52:29,800 --> 00:52:33,000 Speaker 1: things that we could really dive into, like the ethics 858 00:52:33,040 --> 00:52:36,520 Speaker 1: of piracy. Uh. I think in most cases it's not ethical, 859 00:52:36,640 --> 00:52:39,640 Speaker 1: But at the same time, it could get very frustrating 860 00:52:39,680 --> 00:52:43,920 Speaker 1: for someone if let's say there's a region lock where 861 00:52:44,760 --> 00:52:47,880 Speaker 1: you want to access to a certain type of material, 862 00:52:48,400 --> 00:52:51,319 Speaker 1: you are fully committed to purchasing it. You would buy 863 00:52:51,320 --> 00:52:53,000 Speaker 1: it in a heartbeat if there were a way to 864 00:52:53,040 --> 00:52:56,160 Speaker 1: do so, but because of the region lock, you don't 865 00:52:56,160 --> 00:52:59,480 Speaker 1: have that opportunity. I could see people turning to piracy 866 00:52:59,520 --> 00:53:03,239 Speaker 1: for that, not as a thing that's morally right. I mean, 867 00:53:03,320 --> 00:53:05,799 Speaker 1: just because something exists doesn't mean you have a right 868 00:53:05,880 --> 00:53:11,040 Speaker 1: to access it, but because there's no other option. Uh. 869 00:53:11,360 --> 00:53:14,319 Speaker 1: I've felt that way about there's a British series I 870 00:53:14,360 --> 00:53:17,080 Speaker 1: absolutely love. There is no way for me to get 871 00:53:17,120 --> 00:53:20,719 Speaker 1: it here in the United States legally. Now I have 872 00:53:20,880 --> 00:53:27,359 Speaker 1: not downloaded it illegally, I have not accessed it, you know, illegally. UM. 873 00:53:27,400 --> 00:53:29,360 Speaker 1: I keep looking to see if there's ever going to 874 00:53:29,440 --> 00:53:32,200 Speaker 1: be a US version that I can purchase, because I'll 875 00:53:32,200 --> 00:53:34,760 Speaker 1: do it in a heartbeat. But I can certainly understand 876 00:53:34,800 --> 00:53:38,759 Speaker 1: why someone who likes something like that would go to 877 00:53:38,840 --> 00:53:42,640 Speaker 1: those links because there are no other options. And as 878 00:53:42,680 --> 00:53:44,719 Speaker 1: it turns out, if you create options for people to 879 00:53:44,760 --> 00:53:50,400 Speaker 1: get stuff legally, people get stuff legally. Uh. One of 880 00:53:50,400 --> 00:53:53,360 Speaker 1: the biggest issues that feeds into piracy is just a 881 00:53:53,480 --> 00:53:57,279 Speaker 1: lack of access, which is pretty easy to fix. Enough 882 00:53:57,320 --> 00:54:00,000 Speaker 1: of that soap bucks, I am going to climb down 883 00:54:00,000 --> 00:54:02,000 Speaker 1: in or else I might fall off. I hope you 884 00:54:02,120 --> 00:54:06,319 Speaker 1: enjoyed these episodes about copyright and technology and how it's 885 00:54:06,320 --> 00:54:10,440 Speaker 1: all messy, messy, messy. If you have suggestions for things 886 00:54:10,480 --> 00:54:12,520 Speaker 1: I should cover in future episodes of tech Stuff, be 887 00:54:12,600 --> 00:54:14,400 Speaker 1: sure to reach out. The best way to do that 888 00:54:14,520 --> 00:54:17,120 Speaker 1: is on Twitter handle for the show It's tech Stuff 889 00:54:17,280 --> 00:54:21,439 Speaker 1: hs W and I'll talk to you again really soon. 890 00:54:22,560 --> 00:54:29,640 Speaker 1: Y Text Stuff is an I Heart Radio production. For 891 00:54:29,719 --> 00:54:32,719 Speaker 1: more podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit the I Heart 892 00:54:32,760 --> 00:54:35,960 Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your 893 00:54:36,000 --> 00:54:36,680 Speaker 1: favorite shows.