How The SMART Copyright Act Will Help Cops Avoid Accountability
from the copyright-and-cops dept
We’ve written a few times about the serious problems of the “SMART Copyright Act” from Senators Thom Tillis and Pat Leahy. However, Cory Doctorow alerts us to yet another reason why the bill is extremely problematic. As you’ll recall, the bill would allow the Copyright Office to basically designate “technical measures” that websites would have to employ in order to be protected by the DMCA. The barely hidden end-game of the copyright industry is that this would eventually lead to mandated upload filters for any website hosting user-generated content.
Of course, filters tend to be really really bad at getting stuff right. We’ve seen this over and over again with bogus Content ID issues. But, even worse, is that we’ve seen people learn how to abuse the problems with automated filters for their own advantage. And one example of that is the multiple stories we’ve had about police deliberately playing famous pop music while interacting with citizens filming them. At least some of the cops have admitted that they do this on purpose, in the belief that it will prevent these videos from going viral, as the copyright filters will stop it.
As Doctorow notes, in a world where the SMART Copyright Act becomes law, this kind of abuse to hide evidence of police overreach will become that much more difficult.
And this is important. Because while copyright system supporters hate to admit it, copyright is inherently an attack on free speech. The Supreme Court has said this attack is okay because there are certain “safety valves” like fair use built in, but so much of copyright policymaking likes to pretend that copyright has no impact on speech, and therefore does not even need to take into account the wider impact of expansive copyright laws.
I’m sure no one in either Tillis or Leahy’s office has even spent more than a second thinking about how their short-sighted copyright bill would do harm to police accountability (and, perhaps, if they have thought about it, they just don’t care), but this is exactly why rushing through bad copyright bills is so dangerous. The impact can be broad, and can violate fundamental rights of all sorts of people.
Filed Under: copyright, free speech, pat leahy, police, smart copyright, smart copyright act, thom tillis, upload filters
Comments on “How The SMART Copyright Act Will Help Cops Avoid Accountability”
“Of course, filters tend to be really really bad at getting stuff right”
It’s not even that, it’s a matter of volume as it often stated here. You can have a filter that’s 99.99999% accurate, but given a large enough data set that’s still thousands of false positives/negatives. Then, add the tendency for some people to believe the output of a computer system over and above their own eyes, it’s always going to be trouble.
“The Supreme Court has said this attack is okay because there are certain “safety valves” like fair use built in”
Which, of course, is already a problem because it’s only a defence to a legal attack. If someone hits you with false claims, it doesn’t matter if you had the fair use right if you’re out of business fighting the false claims, and the problem with ContentID et al is that you lose income with false claims even if they’re retracted because Google have to protect their own business from the effects of the same false claims.
“At least some of the cops have admitted that they do this on purpose, in the belief that it will prevent these videos from going viral, as the copyright filters will stop it.”
I knew about this before, but it’s still chilling. Cops who do nothing wrong don’t have to worry about being filmed, because they already have the evidence that they did nothing wrong. Many retail workers are filmed t make sure they aren’t stealing, but they generally don’t object because they’re not stealing and the footage can help if someone else does. If you’re pre-emptively coming up with a way to stop footage being shared because you believe that it will go viral because you’re about to do something wrong…
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It’s a much bigger problem than just that. The problem is exacerbated by judges unwillingness to recognize when a law should be unconstitutional because it doesn’t have those “safety valves” in it. This was shown perfectly in Disney vs Vidangel where Disney’s verbal arguments were literally “no one gets to decide when DRM can be broken but us”. By that interpretation the DMCA is unconstitutional on its face but the Ninth Circuit couldn’t be bothered to recognize that.
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Cops who do nothing wrong don’t have to worry about being filmed, because they already have the evidence that they did nothing wrong.
‘If you’ve done nothing wrong you have nothing to hide’ is generally a garbage argument used to excuse privacy violations against the public but when it comes to the public actions of police it’s hard to see an attempt to prevent someone recording what they are/are about to do as anything other than them knowing that they’re in the wrong and don’t want evidence of it available.
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Not just that. “Fair use” is not merely only a defense, it’s also a defense that its opponents regularly try to gut by claiming all sorts of exceptions, even when money isn’t actually being made by the alleged infringer.
What rightsholders want is the threat of a lawsuit to shame, gaslight and intimidate victims into compliance.
And to get those filters to block all self published content. When the filters cover text, photographs sound and video by imprecise matching, (Need to detect those modified versions), it becomes very hard to get anything past them.
Not a bug, but a feature.
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Bingo.
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Came here to make this point. I think Techdirt sometimes actually gives too much leeway to malicious actors, the collateral damage isn’t collateral, it’s intended.
When could the bill come up for vote?
So when do those cops get fined for playing music as a public performance without an ASCAP license?
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Often publishing the video without sound will be sufficient to show police misconduct.
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Not in every case. Lack of sound can mean lack of context. One example is an autistic adult being driven into meltdown; lack of sound means no one else can hear the loud music and confusing orders shouted by multiple cops too loudly to heard properly and obeyed. That actually got an autistic young teenager shot when he ‘refused’ to drop his ‘weapon’ of a toy lorry.
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The silent video can well be enough to alert those affected that the original with sound may be available. Also while the orders may not be heard, that multiple cops are shouting orders is often visible.
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Depends on where the camera is. Some private CCTV has sound, but can’t be panned to show the entire scene.
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Why not put subtitles?
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Or include a transcript
“I’m sure no one in either Tillis or Leahy’s office has even spent more than a second thinking about how their short-sighted copyright bill would do harm”
But I am sure the Senators are looking forward to cashing the donation check, the E-Tickets to the Oscars, being invited to hob nob with the famous, & those small cameos in the next 14 films.
Whats that phrase again???
Oh yes, I learned it from Cory…
Christ what assholes.
, and since then, in copyright cases (including cases involving knowingly false allegations of infringement), the First Amendment has been officially the exception rather than the default.
Next up...
Officer claims his pepper-spraying of a protester was “performance art” and claims copyright on viral video.
Looks like that one user claiming that this was being snuck into must pass legislation was correct
https://www.nocensorshipfilter.com/index.html