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Comment by apexalpha | Hacker News Reader

A lot of European media sees their content stolen and re-uploaded by anonymous users on YT, FB, etc... FB in particular have not responded to this and thus content creators lose a lot of views and money.

This video sums it up nicely: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7tA3NNKF0Q

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>and thus content creators lose a lot of views and money //

I think this sort of reasoning is largely fallacious. Just because people view your stuff doesn't mean that if you're successful in locking it down that they'll then pay to view it.

I feel the media companies know this and that's one reason they demand ever increasing copyright terms - to avoid older content eating in to current profits.

Just to add: Just because people view your stuff for free doesn't mean that won't entice them to pay for it later, or that they haven't already paid for it.

This isn't even about paying. People viewing videos you made on Youtube is already lost revenue, since none of the ads FB shows go to you. They only go to the person who stole your videos.

And be definition this can be seen as a loss since the viewing itself is the revenue generator.

This isn't even true with the copyright claim system, where the claimant gets all profits from youtube even if their content was only featured for 5 seconds in a 30 minute video.

However, the fact that there is a problem, does not legitimize doing something regardless of what the something is.

I haven't seen any support for the articles which actually shows the effects of the policy will be good, rather than arguments saying "it's meant to be good". Which is a fallacy that affects many politics which later end up having adverse effects.

But ultimately bureaucrats are happy whenever there is an excuse to increase bureaucratic power.

Edit: spelling

Further edit:

For the particular point you're putting out, to justify the EU policy you have to at least show that 1) those media outlets would receive all that traffic that those FB posts generated if the FB posts didn't exist in the first place, 2) that this outweighs costs from abusing that policy (claims over fair use, e.g. youtube copyright system) and content that simply will not get reshared, even if fair use and linking to the source material, out of fear of triggering the safeguards mechanism

Oh I agree that this law is shit, and a huge overreach. Like shooting a mosquito with a cannon.

I was just trying to put in perspective WHY the politicians feel the need to do this. It's mostly backlash against Facebook for years of content stealing.

Youtube and itś content ID system are actually what this law wants to introduce everywhere. While not perfect, it's still better than Facebook, which seems to be lawless on copyright.

I work at the European Parliament, and in 3 years of debate about the law not a single person or organisation has brought up people putting content from other platforms on FB as something that this supposedly addresses.

In fact, it's all about the music industry wanting higher licensing payments from YouTube: At least as much per play as e.g. Apple Music pays. They call the fact that they're not getting that today the "value gap" – THAT'S the undisputed reason/justification for this law (just google the term).

(Facebook, by the way, also has a content filter: https://www.facebook.com/help/publisher/330407020882707)

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