Online Worlds With User-Generated Content Like VRChat, Roblox & Second Life Threatened by Upcoming EU Regulation, Says EFF's Cory Doctorow

VRChat avatars based on copyrighted content

UPDATE, June 20: The EU has approved this copyright policy by a single vote. Here's what happens next.

The EFF has an important post from Cory Doctorow on a pending update to the EU Copyright Directive, set for vote on June 20 or 21. For reasons he explains there, any Internet platform that allows the publication of user-generated content is about to be hit by a massive, potentially devastating regulation -- and yes, that includes virtual worlds like VRChat, Sansar, Second Life, and any others where users can publish content they create or download to the world, i.e. the company's servers:

"Under Article 13, companies that allow user-generated content of ANY KIND would have to design some kind of machine-learning-based censorship system that used catalogs of known copyrighted works to check user submissions for copyright violations," as Cory explains to me. "Google spent $60 million developing the ContentID filter system that is only capable of analyzing audio-tracks of video." 

But Google just created that for YouTube videos -- the filter challenge for online games and worlds is even greater: "That means that everything from choreography to bitmaps to 3D meshes to music and moving images would have to be filtered by games companies; no one has ever tried to build this kind of filter, but the starting price is $60 million, so expect the cost to be upwards of that."

And no, it doesn't matter that VRChat and most other games are based in the US. As Cory explains:

"The EU has treaties with most of the world that allow for civil judgments to be collected in some circumstances; it's likely that future trade-deals with the EU (like the recently completed EU-Canada trade deal) would require that trading partners allow EU companies to sue and collect judgments under the EU Copyright Directive. That means that even non-EU companies could be forced to comply with these rules. 

"But even if a company could set up its headquarters outside of the EU and any nations that have treaties that allow EU companies to collect copyright judgments, those companies would not be able to establish sales/support offices in the EU, their executives would face civil and possibly criminal sanctions if they visited the EU, and they would be at risk of losing their ability to receive payments from EU customers."

There's even a social problem with this update if it goes into effect:

"[T]his is a boon for griefers," Cory argues. "Since the rule has no penalties for abuse, griefers could claim copyright over public domain works, works that others had created, etc, and block other players from using them -- you could upload every military insignia, the logo of a rival clan, etc." (And as any content creator in Second Life knows, the DMCA rules are often used for just this kind of abuse.)

If you're in the EU, there's still time to take action, though, says Cory Doctorow: "The vote is on June 20. You can contact your MEP using this form: https://saveyourinternet.eu/ "

Comments

[Darling]

Another good reason not to use platforms that force you to put your content on their servers.
The real problem is, this will put an undue burden on smaller companies that do so.
It will only help the companies that can afford to pay for those systems. Like Microsoft or facebook.
More than likely the only ones that will survive would be programs like Altapace VR and facebook spaces.
or you can use software that does not force you to put your content on their servers.
Like high fidelity or janusVR. janusVR is probably the best of the two.
high fidelity is preparing their own draconian censorship, I mean content protection system.

[irihapeti]

is always interesting what comes to pass

i would suggest to the keeper Cory Doctorow and other keepers who believe similarly, that in regard to other peoples' stuff the real world has arrived on your doorstep. I would also suggest that you look for guidance on how a library is built and maintained when it does include the works of others.

I would not sign this petition.

quite simply, this law is about us the builders, carpenters and artists and our works. Our works, not the keepers. We will decide now with whom we share our stuff. Us. Not you keeper. We will decide to put a price on our stuff or not as we choose. We. Not you keeper. We will decide to give our stuff to the common good for the enlightenment of humanity as you keeper, often put it. We will decide this for ourselves. No matter how humble or grand our works may be. We. Not you keeper. Nor anyone else.

the library that respects and honors our choices freely made, will get our stuff. Those that do not respect us will not. Our future and the futures of many millions are dependent on the librarian's respect for us as people, as the world ever more quickly moves from manual labour and servitude toward labour of the mind and the creative produce that comes from this. Respect we have always gotten in the real world from the librarians since the beginning times.

unlike a librarian, the keeper has no respect for us. You take our stuff, our works, our very creativity, no matter how humble or grand these are, without our consent to build your digital citadels for your own enrichment, status, personal adulation and self-gratification.

For the Enlightenment of Humanity. How noble of you keeper. How glorious you are keeper. Hallelujah. Not.

who would understand any of this? Who would know the difference between the librarian and the keeper? Who would know how to build and maintain the Great Library? Who would know why we the millions of creatives now and the many more to come, will gladly and willingly give our stuff to the Great Library and why we would do so? Who would know how to maintain the Great Library and manage this fairly for all our benefit.

i know such a man. I met him once. On an island claimed by another. A man, a king, a god even to some, sitting with his feet entombed in a rock. A rock he turned into a log with a touch on which we then sat side by side unencumbered. Each of us quietly contemplating what his destiny would be. After a time he stood and freely walked away, on his journey toward his destiny. A journey which has not been easy for him. A journey which has lead him to his destiny which is now upon him.

[Darling]

You have always had the ability to control who can see or use your works.
By choosing where you publish it.
If you want to stick with the library analogy.
It will raise the cost of running those libraries.
More cost, less libraries.
You end up with less choice.
This cost will have to be made up for somehow.
More than likely it will be passed on to the customer or you.
This will only reduce the number of customers that are willing to buy your artwork.
You'll have less choice on what library to put it in.
Maybe what choices you have left don't see your artwork as part of their business model.
Meaning you might be left with no choice at all.
And for those that just enjoy the creative process and want to share with others.
The costs associated with this might make it impossible.

[Darianknight]

Because clearly Content ID for YouTube works flawlessly.

The EU cannot enforce such a rule by default because they are demanding an impossible requirement to remain compliant. It's akin to saying: In order to remain compliant, every company must create a time machine and preventively kill Hitler.

The easiest way to defeat such a measure is to remind them how much YouTube content ID cost in R&D (billions) and also remind them it just barely works with videos if at all.

To create an all-knowing AI Content ID for literally every work that exists in every conceivable form... Good luck with that. Especially for the paltry suggested price of $60 million.

If anything, this measure shows how out of touch they are with reality, throwing around high-tech terms as solutions and demands without comprehending how they work or the actual feasibility.

[Han Held]

These kinds of laws can't be looked at through a tech-biased lens. This isn't a technical problem; it's a social one.

They have no intention on enforcing this "fairly" -that would be impossible. What it is intended to do is to drive out smaller businesses who cannot afford (cash wise or resource wise) to jump through these kinds of hoops.

Google will handle this just fine, as will Linden Lab; YOUR garage-based start-up? Not so much.

And remember ...that is by design. You're not going to "tech" you way out of this, because technological solutions miss the point.

[Amanda]

Government regulation is nearly always designed to help the current large corporations in their field to keep out upstarts. Government regulation is a necessary evil. The only question is how much is necessary. Politicians and established corporations will always want more because it's a source of power and control.

[Galen in Sansar]

@Darling: I think people should not assume that the High Fidelity company is somehow protected from IP rights violation claims just because content won't always be on their servers. The fact is that HiFi is still tied together by one set of software from one company. And that company wants to do account management. And manage the economy. And verify content authenticity. And so on. Where stuff gets stored is immaterial to lawyers, who will only be interested in whom they can punish. Expect HiFi to be targeted just like all the others.

[madeline blackbart]

I could definitely see this being used for griefing and anti-competitive practices in virtual worlds.The current US copyright laws have historically speaking been used for such a thing in second life. One PROVEN documented case is when someone DMCA'd Belleza's mesh bodies. The owners of Belleza highered a lawyer and it turned out the DMCA had been filed under the name of someone who had never even HEARD of second life before and the whole DMCA was false. It was literally done for the purpose of removing that body from the market in the hopes that brand would not fight back. This tactic was successfully used on more then a few mesh bodies/body parts BTW. Ones I can think of off hand (though I'm sure there were more) are Phatazz, Banned body, and Wowmeh...all of whom were DMCA'd, taken off the market and were never put back on the market again because there owner for one reason or another did not want to get into a legal battle over it. It basically almost wreaked real havoc in the mesh body/body part market in SL. And all this happened when the person had to file those DMCA's MANUALLY. NO DOUBT if this was automated you could take down entire sections of online markets in open world/sandbox games like SL EASILY because many people who get these claims against them will give up before fighting back because they feel powerless with no legal expertise, no money/time, and often have a fear of having to expose their RL identities.

[Clara Seller]

This is the future. Even if it's snuffed out now, like a cockroach, it will crawl out of the cracks some place else. When you look at e-Estonia and the project NEOM, you can get a glimpse of what is in store for you. There is really no where to run because it looks like all of the puppets are holding hands and dancing together for this one.

Consolidation is being served.

[sirhc desantis]

Interesting this. Might be left hand not knowing its even a hand.

https://www.ip.mpg.de/fileadmin/ipmpg/content/stellungnahmen/Answers_Article_13_2017_Hilty_Moscon-rev-18_9.pdf

(Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition)

Well I might have contacted an MEP but the only relevant one there is a tory. I wouldn't cross the road to widdle on them if they were on fire let alone think one capable of any rationality.

[Joe Nickence (Joey1058)]

This particular ruling is a boon for content creators, particularly, the Japanese. Using VR Chat as an example, much of what I see there is fan based avatar usage. Characters that have been ripped mostly from games, and many that are quite recognizable. In this sole example, I totally understand the desire to curtail this practice. At some point in the future, there will be players that will come into their game and discover that everything they have installed is gone. This is unavoidable. Reuploading the items will only flag the players for disciplinary actions. At this point, the game developers and the site hosts need to come up with a way to help the players either licence the content affordably, or point a direction to self creation and/or free content.

[Emily]

It's a stupid regulation and rule to began with. Most of this is NOT protecting users and of course with the issue of creativity at stake, it will punish users who are fans of certain genres.

It's not unavoidable. Many game-companies and shows thrive off of their fans creating content which, in return, helps advertise their product and get more people accessed to it. By screwing over your fanbase you are not only essential messing up your business relations with your customers, but your also de-promoting your own project by creating such a hazard.

As for VR Chat there is 0 monetary gain for people uploading ripped off avatars and although I despise folks who do this (create your own version of an avatar by scratch, not modding an existing one) there is no profit to be gained and, it takes away freedom of expression and speech from like-minded fans who share the same interests and or platforms.

The entire issue of this, unfortunately, is because more and more businesses and companies are using the internet as an e-commerce where originally, it was used as a form of communication. And with e-commerce, you get idiots in law who sign-in crappy laws by a generation of unsuspecting or technologically idiotic people who, at the end of the day AREN'T these players and don't have to be subjected to these type of irrational laws. The same issue why bitcoins were created as soon as the mainstream found out then legislation started passing crappy laws about bitcoin usuage because it makes some $$$ and citing foolishness like terrorism and crap as the reason. Thankfully, there are other e-commerce monetary chains besides bitcoin, so joke on them.

DMCA also only applies to USA and parts of EU. It does not apply to other countries such as Russia, India, China, etc.

How about EU come out of baby-sitting mode over the use of the internet and stop allowing its legislation and government to dictate what is good and not good for its users? It's totalitarian government monitoring at its finest and sadly even companies believe their on the same level now. That's why TOR and Freenet were created quite some time ago in the event of internet censorship which, ridiculously some of you support. All this is just pro-company crap while you throw the very body of users who help forward the internet to where it is today under the bus. Not the dude sitting back in his office during the 90's and 80's wanting to be a soccer-dad. I'm talking about the very users that were using the net back in AOL days.

As for those on Second-Life. Get your own legitimate website, and SELL your assets through vendors like Google-Play or something like that instead of relying on Second-Life's engine where, everything is conveniently stored on a SL SERVER. In order to even use the product they have to purchase it through the store. Don't QQ and whine about copyright when your not even taking the correct legal steps to protect and bring income in from your home-made renditions. No way in hell would I allow a third-party middle man like SL to have direct access and storage to all my assets like that. And that, in the event your locked out of your account you are screwed. That's just plain stupid and idiotic. Why would you middle-man your own assets?

Its also because of copyright fear-mongering users on SL that the issue of the Red System was a problem back in 2015. Ended up being the guy selling the so-called copyright system was a irl CON-ARTIST looking to access into people's second-life accounts using the script that he made in the "copyright vendor protection" to get people's credit-card information and their personal information, which would have been identity theft and so many gullible creators fell for it. I and others had to go in, onto this guys e-land, and break open his deception and bring the truth out about the guy that those creators were all duped into believing. I don't regret being involved in busting this guy. He ended up exposed and had to return back to his PROBATION that he violated from several other fraud crimes he committed irl, so he wasn't supposed to have access to a machine at all. All that over a couple of meshes, shapes, and colors that aren't even worth a measly $15 dollars on an actual and real PROFESSIONAL vending market. Their user-based level, at best.

Your not selling these to companies, because a certain quality has to be meet. Your selling these to other users aka customers who decide if they want your product or not. I have seen from moderate to poor products at best.