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Comment by mutagen | Hacker News Reader

I thought it was fairly clear that this was not a DMCA takedown but part of an automated process by Soundcloud, similar to YouTube's Content ID [1], that attempts to identify copyrighted content and preemptively block it rather than wait for DMCA takedown notices from copyright holders.

So I was disheartened when I got the takedown, and even more so when I looked through the guidelines for disputing an automatic match and found that I faced a presumption of guilt.

The scary part of this system, which you touch on, is that there is no clear procedure for contesting public domain audio and recourse for ensuring that mistakes get corrected. It circumvents the DMCA entirely by choice of Soundcloud, presumably to build a monetization model that generates revenue for copyright holders that opt into their system, similar to YouTube.

[1] https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2797370?hl=en

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I guess it's clear, and he never mentions DMCA by name. I'm just confused why the author isn't more pointedly calling out Soundcloud for circumventing DMCA on behalf of (alleged) copyright holders. The DMCA, for all its faults, at least has some token protection for end-users. For someone whose job is primary copyright activist for the EFF, this guy is cutting Soundcloud an awful lot of slack for what are anti-creative, anti-cultural, and anti-social policies.

I mean look at this:

>I’m sure my particular uploading situation will work out fine. SoundCloud is full of smart people, and this automated match will get cleared up in days, if not hours.

So, what... nothing to see here, then? Is he trying to get his job at Soundcloud back? What bootlicking horseshit is this? It is not copyright activism.

Hey there, OP here.

These are good questions, though I disagree with the characterization here. Like: I don't think anybody's circumventing the DMCA, so much as tacking on additional measures not required by law. Anybody who's doing algorithmic enforcement, including YouTube and newly Vimeo, is in the same boat; in large part it's the result of negotiations with media partners who demand it in exchange for access to content. So, they're doing something separate from what the law requires (in addition to what the law requires) in order to satisfy partners... not really circumvention.

BUT it sucks. And it especially sucks when it's done in a way that doesn't respect users. And I've written about that lots, though not so much in this particular piece.

Sites have all kinds of "guidelines", and some of them are offensive and others aren't as much. Vimeo used to prohibit video gameplay uploads, for example; that's probably not something I'd campaign on.

I probably should have put an extra sentence at the end to explain what I mean by the line you quoted, but I guess I didn't think people would read it as "bootlicking horseshit." In fact, I'm sorry to say I think you've read it exactly backwards.

I meant to emphasize: the issue is not my particular upload of Apollo 13 audio, which is obviously also available from a million other places. If you read the thing and think it's about my complaining that this particular audio is taken down, that gives SoundCloud WAY too easy an out: they just comply with their own policies, maybe expedite the process for a (1) former employee who (2) works in copyright policy and (3) got the dispute to the top of Hacker News, and then they can wipe their hands of it.

No, making this issue about any one piece of content, my own included, misses the forest for the trees. I am mad, and I will stay mad even once SoundCloud's reasonable employees doing their job flick a switch and reinstate my upload. I don't want other people to feel like they can relax once my upload is back in place. It will be back in place, but what we need is systemic improvements to eradicate the creeping permissions culture.

>I don't think anybody's circumventing the DMCA, so much as tacking on additional measures not required by law. Anybody who's doing algorithmic enforcement, including YouTube and newly Vimeo, is in the same boat; in large part it's the result of negotiations with media partners who demand it in exchange for access to content. So, they're doing something separate from what the law requires (in addition to what the law requires) in order to satisfy partners... not really circumvention.

To me, it seems that these hosting providers have traded safe harbor under the law, for safe harbor under contract with their media partners, in exchange for content. In so doing, they enable those partners to send what effectively amounts to takedown spam, where under the DMCA regime they'd open themselves to a lawsuit if they didn't conduct due diligence.

How is that not circumvention?

Excuse the tone of my posts here: I'm very perplexed. I get that you're upset, but you seem to be completely ignoring, and here even dismissing, the underlying cause for your spurious takedown notice.

Ok, I think I see what's going on here.

DMCA says: if you want to have a safe harbor, these are the basic things you have to do. You have to name an agent, take notices, takedown promptly, have a repeat infringer policy, etc. If you don't do those things, you lose your safe harbor.

SoundCloud does all those things, so they get the safe harbor.

The additional systems they have chosen to put in place are just that, additional. Adhering to DMCA is not required (though you don't get the safe harbor if you don't) and it's not a ceiling on what kinds of arrangements companies can make with each other.

But again, you're right that it's the thing that burned me here, and I think they merit a lot more scrutiny than they get, and I'm trying to lead that scrutiny more in other places. Prohibiting additional measures would also tangle up other site "guidelines" like the Vimeo one I mentioned, or even YouTube's ability to do content matching and revenue splitting.

You've identified a really key problem though, that those additional rules, whether offensive or inoffensive, are made completely at the discretion of online services and generally without input from users.

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