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@eLAWnora: The EU’s New Copyright Laws Won’t “Wreck the Internet”

April 2, 2019 Comments off

[Excellent work by Eleonora Rosati in Slate on the EU Copyright Directive.  This new legislation is important to creators around the world because it applies to the exploitation of all copyrights in Europe, not just European copyrights in Europe.]

On Tuesday, at the end of a process that lasted more than two and a half years, the European Parliament adopted the latest version of the EU Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market….

Critics have dubbed the directive a “censorship machine” that would harm free speech, impose new obligations on platforms that would be technically impossible for them to comply with, kill memes and GIFs, and ultimately “wreck the internet”….

These concerns are of course serious and need to be carefully considered, because the internet and the way it works are crucial to how we get and share information, and how we participate in culture. But it appears unlikely that this new EU law will irreparably harm the internet and our free speech online. In fact, contrary to these allegations, it makes users’ legal position safer than what is currently the case. In fact, in some cases, the directive will protect users from the risk of legal liability for sharing protected content. 

Read the post on Slate.

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The Ennui of Learned Helplessness: Article 13 and the Five Lies in YouTube’s Content ID

March 29, 2019 Comments off

youtube-logo-parody-1

According to Wired (“Don’t believe the hype: Article 13 is great news for YouTube“), YouTube is positioned to be a big winner due to the Article 13 requirement for “upload filters”.  If you’re keeping your brackets for “Most Googlely Journalist” in the post-Article 13 March Madness spin, Wired gets the three point play on this post–there are no upload filters in Article 13, so not quite sure what Wired is getting at here.  But I digress.

Wired tells us:

[Article 13’s upload filters are] likely to be disruptive, for YouTube as for everyone else. There will be mistakes, disgruntled creators and meme-posters, protests against this or that algorithmic decision. But if anyone is going to eventually benefit from this, in the long run, that is YouTube.

Leaving aside the fact that Alphabet, YouTube’s owner, would probably have enough money to invest in licensing agreements with media companies and music labels – YouTube is uniquely positioned to capitalise on the internet’s sudden need for copyright filters. The platform itself has been using a type of copyright filter, its home-brewed Content ID, for over a decade. The algorithm compares newly uploaded footage against a database of registered videos, and demonetises (or takes down) any post containing matching content [which is also not quite right–it allows the user of Content ID to elect to block or monetize, with heavy pressure to monetize and not block].

While there have been instances of manipulation and egregious mistakes, Alphabet has invested more than $100 million in Content ID’s development, and the technology is already used by more than 9,000 broadcasters, movie studios, and music producers globally. [And there it is–we’ll come back to that] A vast number of other companies – virtually, every single platform and website that does not want to fall foul of Article 13 – could soon swell the ranks of Content ID’s users. Rather than an existential threat, Article 13 could wind up being a fillip to YouTube’s finances.

First, let’s dispense with an implication of that last assertion–that YouTube would profit from ContentID by licensing Content ID to third parties.  There is absolutely no evidence that YouTube would do anything remotely like that, and even if they did, Google would likely still control who gets to put their works into ContentID in the first place.  Wired doesn’t actually say this, but a reader might get that implication.

What is more clear is that Wired asserts YouTube would have a competitive advantage over other, smaller perhaps, platforms–not like they already do as the result of Google’s illegal favoring of its own products for which it is being fined billions in Europe.  This due to the nonexistent “upload filters” that are not in the Copyright Directive (aka Article 13) but that the tech press keeps asserting are really there in one of the great gaslighting exercises of all time.

Remember–ContentID has a lot more to do with preserving YouTube’s US-based DMCA safe harbor and getting licenses for premium content (with higher advertising revenue, i.e., CPMs) than it does with some desire to do the right thing.  That sentiment arguably does not exist at Google, YouTube, Facebook or any other Silicon Valley company with the notable exception of Apple.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Wired blows past the two key facts it its own story.  First, the number of participants in ContentID:  “the technology is already used by more than 9,000 broadcasters, movie studios, and music producers globally”.

This statistic comes from YouTube itself:

Number of Content ID Users

But strangely according to a 2016 story in the New York Times:

YouTube says that about 8,000 companies and organizations have access to Content ID and that independents may get access through affiliated companies and industry groups.

That’s right–the number of users of ContentID has increased–worldwide–by 1,000 in four years.  Any idea how many new videos were uploaded to YouTube in that time?  We may not have that exact number, but we do know this again according to YouTube’s own statistics:

youtube number of views

That’s billion with a B.  So just rough justice, don’t you think that if there are that many videos being viewed on YouTube there would be more than 9,000 worldwide users of ContentID?

The other relevant fact is that Wired breathlessly repeats that YouTube spent $100,000,000 on developing Content ID.  According to Wikipedia (which I tend to believe in this case because it’s their benefactor Google), ContentID cost $60 million to develop by 2016 and as of 2018 Google had spent $100 million on the system.

Allow me to posit that $100 million for a system that can handle the volume on YouTube is chump change.  One reason that it cost so little is that it is working for purpose–it is not intended to catch everything, it is only intended to catch works by the people who sign YouTube’s chump deal or people who are “important” (in the best traditions of YouTube’s founders).

Remember this line from the 2016 NYT story?  “[I]ndependents may get access [to ContentID] through affiliated companies and industry groups.”

So you mean that some artists are more equal than others?

Exactly.

YouTube’s theory according to the NYT is that independent artists (such as five time Grammy-winner Maria Schneider who graced our pages with her groundbreaking essay on YouTube’s sleaze) are not harmed by YouTube’s “catch me if you can” DMCA shakedown because Content ID is widely available.  The implication being if those pesky artists would just use the tools YouTube provides, there would be peace in the valley with sunshine, gum drops and puppy dog tails for everyone with happiness among the subjects of the Unicorn Kings.

The clear implication is that “independents” have nothing to complain about because they can get “access” to ContentID through “affiliated companies and industry groups”.  “Affiliated” in this case means affiliated with YouTube (laughably called “partners”), and that means that the “companies and industry groups” have signed a ContentID license agreement which is essentially a nonnegotiable form contract imposed by Google.

Because Google wants to have the rights to use their IP all tied down.

Ahem.

This is another reason why Wired should not write to the Google press release.

So let’s start with what YouTube actually says about who gets ContentID:

Content ID UseAnd what are the “specific criteria” that copyright owners have to meet for their “substantial body of original material”?

qualifications content id

So that quote from YouTube’s website arguably explains why there’s only 9,000 entities that have access to Content ID on a worldwide basis across all copyright categories (assuming that’s even true).

There’s at least five lies underlying Content ID, all of which you’d miss if you didn’t have the inside baseball insight into the unnecessarily complex Content ID system–and as we know, complexity almost always hides fraud.

Lie #1: Show Me Where I Signed Your Social Contract

The first point is why should artists be required to even deal with Content ID or YouTube at all?  If an artist never consented to being on the site in the first place, why should Google be able to just exploit their work without consent?  Why shouldn’t Google have to have a contract with the artists to exploit their IP?  You know, the way you have to be approved and have a license to use Content ID.  This is a core property rights concept underlying the new Copyright Directive in Europe–we hope that the US follows suit with DMCA reform.

There is tremendous cost associated with engaging with YouTube at all whether you qualify for Content ID or  you don’t.  In fact, as the Trichordist’s Streaming Price Bible demonstrates, YouTube’s royalties are so crappy that it’s entirely possible that the total cost of doing business with YouTube exceeds any royalties you could make–because the cost of dealing with YouTube varies directly with the size of your catalog.

So why shouldn’t artists be able to just say no and keep all of their music (or other work product) off of YouTube?  Every penny spent trying to block unauthorized videos is a penny spent for YouTube’s benefit.  And why is it we have to pay for this?

The truth is that it is not at all apparent that declining the opportunity to license YouTube wouldn’t actually be more profitable than dealing with the incredibly screwed up Content ID and CMS system.

So let’s not assume that Content ID and notice and shakedown are the only possible outcomes here.

Lie #2: Using Content ID Is Not Free

Even though Google doesn’t charge for Content ID, using the system is hardly free, especially for “independents”.  In order to get “access” to Content ID, an independent artist needs to contract with a claiming company–and pay that company anywhere from 20% to 50% of their YouTube revenue.

And let’s be clear–claiming companies exist to fix YouTube’s mistakes imposed on the world due to YouTube’s legacy and highly inefficient DMCA notice and shakedown business.  Every penny spent by an artist through giving a claiming company a revenue share is a penny spent for YouTube’s benefit by an artist capitulating to the notice and shakedown onslaught.

So saying that “independents” have “access” to Content ID through a claiming company “affiliated” with YouTube is a grotesque oversimplification.  There are claiming companies that operate at the more lucrative end of the YouTube doing channel management and MCN or near-MCN business for which they may operate their own in-house advertising sales staff.

The claiming companies in reach of “independents” necessarily have to take a larger share of a smaller revenue stream in order to operate.  And here’s what they don’t do:

Block.

Why do they only monetize?  Because that’s what a revenue share means–revenue.  Using Content ID to just block videos (especially UGC) would only be available for a fee (since there’s no revenue if you block everything).  Independent artists can’t afford to pay a fee to block on YouTube so they typically will capitulate and monetize.

And who benefits from that?  YouTube.

Why would blocking require a fee for service?  If an artist just wants to bail out altogether, then that artist would set the automated controls of CMS to block worldwide.  In order to make that blocking meaningful, there would need to be a lot of manual care and feeding to account for UGC leakage through the very porous Content ID.

That would include techniques like pitch bending to use the curious speed controls on the YouTube player which seem to have one purpose–defeating Content ID.

This is what’s called a royal pain in the trade, so anyone doing that work would have to be paid for the hours and hours and hours it would take to accomplish it.  Since the artist can’t afford to pay someone else to do that work, the artist would need to do it in all their spare time.  Which of course will not be very effective or may not happen at all.

I call this the ennui of learned helplessness.

Lie #3: Artists Cannot Access Content ID

By using the word “access” when it comes to Content ID, YouTube is equivocating yet again.   If you are an independent artist and your distributor has a CMS account (and that’s a small group), do you have access to Content ID?

No.  At best, you can tell your distributor what you do and do not want monetized.  They will only devote so much time to you, however, and they won’t do the manual claiming on UGC, etc., at least not until you get some pretty significant traction on YouTube (meaning over 5,000 views or so on a particular video).

Your distributor will not allow you to get your hands on their CMS or Content ID dashboards.  There’s a good reason for this, which is that the way Google licenses Content ID there’s a good chance that the distributor (such as Tunecore or CD Baby) could never get enough seats for its particular CMS license to allow all the distributed artists to have individual access, and there’s no view in Content ID that would show one artist’s tracks without showing that user all the other artist’s tracks handled by that distributor.

Why?  Because YouTube doesn’t design the system for “independents”.

Lie #4:  Independent Songwriters are SOL

Notice YouTube never talks about independent songwriters having “access” to Content ID.    The closest that an independent songwriter comes to getting access to Content ID is if they opted into the HFA YouTube license connected to the out of court settlement of the class action against YouTube that was a companion case to Viacom v. YouTube (and which wasn’t certified as a class, but is often referred to as a class action by people wishing to avoid using the legal term “putative”).

So ask independent songwriters who opted in to the HFA license how that “access” is working out for them.

Lie #5:  Content ID Is Another Nondisplay Use of Other People’s Stuff

Google has made a subspecialty of acquiring data for one use and actually using it for other purposes–undisclosed purposes.

Remember “GOOG-411”?  This Google product was the “free” Google directory assistance (very similar to Google Voice). Former Googler (and former Yahoo!er) Marissa Meyer told  Info World years ago that GOOG-411 was not intended to be what it appeared to be:

You may have heard about our [directory assistance] 1-800-GOOG-411 service. Whether or not free 411 is a profitable business unto itself is yet to be seen. I myself am somewhat skeptical. The reason we really did it is because we need to build a great speech-to-text model … that we can use for all kinds of different things, including video search.

The speech recognition experts that we have say: If you want us to build a really robust speech model, we need a lot of phonemes, which is a syllable as spoken by a particular voice with a particular intonation. So we need a lot of people talking, saying things so that we can ultimately train off of that. … So 1-800-GOOG-411 is about that: Getting a bunch of different speech samples so that when you call up or we’re trying to get the voice out of video [such as from YouTube], we can do it with high accuracy.

That’s right–Google told you the product was doing one thing, but in actual fact it was always intended to be something entirely different.  The real action was in the background where users couldn’t see it.  If Marissa Meyer hadn’t let it slip in an interview, you might never have known.

If you have a Content ID contract, check out this language in paragraph 2:

By providing Reference Files, you grant Google a non-exclusive, royalty-free, limited license to (a) store, copy (including the right to make temporary cache and storage copies), modify or reformat, excerpt, analyze, use to create algorithms and binary representations, create ID Files and otherwise use those Reference Files, the ID Files and the associated metadata in connection with the System…

And there it is:  “otherwise use”.  Pretty broad grant of rights, eh?  You could say that “in connection with the System” is limiting, but how would you ever know what “in connection with” means?

Remember Google Books?  Ever heard of “corpus machine translation“?  Google uses the scans of the tens of millions of books it stole from authors in the background to improve its translation algorithms.  If the authors had brought their case about that, do you think the court would have been so quick to find this obviously massively commercial application a fair use?

Bevo ≠ Unicorn King

Once again, YouTube has scammed their way past artist objections such as those in Maria Schneider’s post and Irving Azoff’s open letter.  I think this is partly because the whole Content ID system is such inside baseball–once you accept the idea that requiring artists to use these legacy DMCA tools is even acceptable, which I don’t.  Reporters just don’t know what questions to ask.

Now they do.

(Some of this post previously appeared on MTP in other posts.)

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Goliath Never Learns: “Article 13” Passes European Parliament With Substantial Majority–now what?

March 26, 2019 Comments off

The European Copyright Directive (aka “Article 13”) has passed the European Parliament by a vote of 348 to 274, a substantial majority in favor of artist rights.

Final Vote Article 13

Silicon Valley interests embarrassed themselves as expected.  Throughout the legislative process, Google in particular demonstrated a yearning for mob rule and fielded well-financed fakery both online and offline as confirmed by The Times of London (“Google funds website that spams for its causes”),  several articles in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, research by David Lowery and Volker Rieck, and on MTP.

Dj_qcYOW4AAfyRy.jpg-large

YouTube was caught red-handed by FAZ funding YouTubers who created messaging adhering to the party line against Article 13 and actually managed to create a backlash by YouTubers who thought the Google tactics reeked, such as the French group Tatou:

And it must be said that in the middle of all of this mess over the Copyright Directive, Google was fined not once but twice by the European Commission for a total of over $2 billion for blatant competition law violations.  So not only was Google improperly exploiting its monopoly position commercially for which it was fined heavily, it was simultaneously exploiting its monopoly position to manipulate users for which it has yet to be punished.

Punishing Google for message manipulation is not an idle thought–Google was intentionally directing its lobbying message at children–we know this because the children of MEPs and artists told their parents that copyright was evil courtesy of YouTube.

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Another part of the disinformation campaign was Google’s flood the zone strategy using bots on social media–which is not yet proven conclusively, but is the kind of thing that people with badges are good at tracking down.  Here’s a little taste of what this bot campaign looked like.

As one journalist noted, “I’ve concluded that there are only three people in Europe objecting to Article 13, but one of them draws the avatar for 500 trillion bots.”

The typical criteria for discovering bots are attributes like follower/following totals out of sync with number of likes, such as this:

Bot 8 2-12-19 Edited

Or this:

Bot 3 1-5-19

In the words of that great philosopher Chico Marx, ya gonna believe me or your lying eyes?  If you really believe that this bot activity sprang up all by itself and had nothing to do with Google even though the bots parroted the Google line, I’m sorry–I just can’t help you.  Try searching Twitter for #article13 and see what comes back.

And then there were the coordinated attacks on MEPs through spam and telephone.  Millions of emails over the last year, the overwhelming majority of which probably did not come from Europe.   Not just mere fakery, but fakery created by a multinational corporation to further its commercial interests through a massive disinformation campaign.

And of course the main reason that the disinformation campaign was so massive is because of Google’s monopoly position in Europe–the very thing that the European Commission is fining them billions for abusing.

This is not mere speculation–Google and Facebook told MEP Helga Truepel to her face that they intended to interfere in the European legislative process, and faster than you can say Internet Research Agency, they did.

helga google interfere

It also must be said that the election campaigning by Google against the MEPs who dared to vote against Silicon Valley suggests that the EU election transparency laws may well have been violated perhaps by sitting MEPs.  These were not spontaneous actions, they were part of a calculated campaign.

Bots 14-2-19 Edited

The question now remains–what is the European Parliament prepared to do about it?  Someone needs to do something because one thing is clear, they will be back.  The illegal tactics will be even worse next time because Goliath never learns.

 

 

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An Insult to the Heart: Lobbyists Organize Big Tech Rallies in Europe

March 24, 2019 Comments off

The ghost of Edward Bernays walks the streets of the ancient capitols of Europe.  As the man who wrote the book on propaganda (literally) Bernays made a chilling observation:

The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. …We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of.

In a post-Cambridge Analytica world, the battle for humanity will be fought over the equivocation of “freedom”—the basic human freedom of expression will be coopted by the corporate freedom from regulation to profit from surveillance by machines.  It is the ad-man’s old challenge–make you think something that will kill you is actually good for you.

joecamel

Descendant of Bernays’ “Torches of Freedom” Campaign

In turning the machines loose on the humans who are their product, corporations will use tools that Bernays foreshadowed–but these “men we have never heard of” will be playing with the very foundations of democratic institutions of the nation state.  Who wins this battle is up for grabs right now and nowhere are we seeing this struggle for humanity more clearly rendered than in Europe in the battle over Article 13.

In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons…who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.

Bernays described Google some 70 years before its time.

google-android-3-gingerbread

The offspring of Joe Camel proudly displayed at the Googleplex

We should understand that the “value gap” that sparked this extraordinary lobbying effort by American multinational corporations to bring Europe to heel was symptomatic of a more fundamental sickness.  That commercial symptom could, and perhaps should, be more readily understood as a “values gap”–the perverse voyeurism of the surveillance capitalists to commoditize all that touched their networks and use artists to lure the humans whose data could be scraped, whose behavior could be monitored and eventually manipulated for even greater profit.

helga google interfere

I’d suggest that is why this struggle in Europe resonates so deeply with artists around the world.  It’s not just the commercial insult.  It’s not the metaphorical Room 101 app where the winning answer is 2+2=5.

It is an insult to humanity.  It is an insult to the heart.

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What’s Good for the Goose: Europe for Creators Asks for Equal Time on YouTube for Their Pro-Article 13 Messages — Artist Rights Watch

March 19, 2019 Comments off

In case you had any doubts, YouTube’s antics in pushing its messaging on copyright reform in Europe should dispel the idea that it is a neutral platform.

When safe harbors for companies like YouTube were created in the US and in Europe 20 years ago, it was with the idea of providing a little latitude to reasonable people acting reasonably on the condition of being a neutral platform–for not creating an app for Room 101 where 2+2=5.

Not only is YouTube not a neutral platform, but YouTube and its parent Google are using YouTube to do the very thing with public discourse that Google is being prosecuted for with commercial transactions–using its monopoly position to crowd out competition.

This press release from Europe for Creators sums it up with this statement to YouTube: “You advocate freedom of expression but what we have seen is a media service dedicated to the promotion of its own views, based on false information and scare tactics.”

A cautionary tale for artist advocates around the world.

PRESS RELEASE

Brussels, 15 March 2019

Europe For Creators is asking YouTube for access to the same tools YT has used to promote its own messages on the EU’s copyright directive and article 13. The request is to allow Europe For Creators to message YouTubers and place banner ads on YouTube’s network, in the same way YT has done.

An open letter has been sent by Europe For Creators, a coalition of professional organisations of writers, musicians, producers, comedians, films makers coming from all over Europe and representing 12 million jobs across the European cultural and creative sectors. YouTube’s behaviour in using its own network and advertising has been the subject of much debate about the platform’s dominance.

Read the full letter below and on Article13.org.
An Open Letter to Susan Wojcicki, CEO of YouTube

Dear Ms Wojcicki,

After almost three years’ worth of in-depth examinations and negotiations involving the three EU Institutions, 28 Member States, 751 MEPs, and thousands of experts and stakeholders, the European Parliament is about to take a formal decision on the directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market.

The aim of one of the main provisions of this directive – Article 13 – is to ensure that platforms such as YouTube fairly compensate the creators whose works are made available through their services. In other words, to play fair and respect the creators who made YouTube what it is today.

We believe that the Copyright Directive will create a level playing field for the European Digital Single Market, with fair and equal rules for all.

There is ample public debate around this directive and your right to defend your position, as a concerned party, is not in question. Indeed, the positions you have taken in the media or through your own videos against Article 13 are well known and nourish the public debate.

However, since the European Parliament voted overwhelmingly on Sept. 12 to approve its version of the Copyright Directive, YouTube has been actively using its own services to influence public opinion, often with misleading or false information.

You have taken advantage of your considerable influence over 1.8 billion monthly users as the biggest media entity in the world to:

  • Circulate your own message to video makers and YouTubers
  • Create a uniquely formatted page, similar to SaveYourInternet, on Youtube.com
  • Create a portal comprising all videos defending your position on Article 13
  • Run banners, pop-ups and push notifications on YouTube defending your point of view and directing traffic to your unique YouTube.com webpage

This is unprecedented and raises ethical questions.

Moreover, YouTube enabled the propagation of misinformation – such as the claims that Article 13 would lead to the shutting down of YouTube channels, kill European startups, put an end to memes and gifs and harm freedom of speech. In other words: change the Internet as we know it. Such scaremongering deliberately ignores the special protections provided in the text and misleads public opinion.

It interferes with the democratic and balanced debate that all European citizens are entitled to. We believe it is totally unfair and unacceptable that your service, which dominates the online market, is exclusively used as a media service to promote your own commercial interests in a debate over European legislation.

You advocate freedom of expression but what we have seen is a media service dedicated to the promotion of its own views, based on false information and scare tactics.

We believe in pluralism and open, democratic debate. We believe our views also need to be voiced to your audience. That is what freedom of speech is all about.

This is why we are asking you to let us, over the week of March 18-24:

  • send a message to the same YouTubers so we can share with them our vision of article 13 – the one we promote on our website, www.article13.org.
  • publish banner ads on YouTube as you did for the “saveyourinternet” campaign

Acting as a media service requires responsibility and accountability to ensure democratic debate.

Best regards,

EUROPE FOR CREATORS

About Europe For Creators:
A gathering of professional organisations of writers, musicians, producers, comedians, films makers coming from all over Europe…. We represent some 12 million jobs across the European cultural and creative sectors. We are people, not bots. And we are protesting against the false divide that has been put between citizens and us.

About IMPALA:
IMPALA – IMPALA is the European association of independent music companies. Its mission is to grow the independent music sector, return more value to artists, promote cultural diversity and entrepreneurship, improve political access and modernise perceptions of the music sector.

 

 

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Le Tatou’s Excellent Explainer on YouTube’s Role in Article 13 Lobbying–from @TatouProd

March 18, 2019 Comments off

“What no one tells you about Article 13”

As we’ve read in recent reporting from Europe, Google’s Susan Wojcicki has been twisting arms among their “YouTubers” to put out videos not only opposing Article 13, but also using the Google party line.

Now that’s starting to backfire because Ms Susan doesn’t really understand how this treating the artist like they’re stupid thing always does.  Think about it–can you imagine Lucian Grange telling Taylor Swift, “Yo, Tay Tay, I need some help on Universal’s latest antitrust review so you can help Universal look cool and make me a video that toes the corporate line?”

Ah, no.  That would never, never happen.  Not only would it never happen, it would probably backfire.

Enter Le Tatou, who are significant YouTube stars in French.  They produced a very thoughtful and articulate (face it–these guys are YouTube stars who actually know stuff, like how to actually research an issue and present it to the public–if you’re wondering why, try applying to a French university some time).

Their Article 13 explainer demonstrates how YouTube has tried to manipulate YouTubers and deceive the public.  The video is in French with English subtitles and you really should take the time to watch the whole thing.

It’s also really funny.

 

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“Purchased Protest” Bombshell: Germany’s FAZ News Uncovers The Seamy Underbelly of Google’s Article 13 Lobbying

March 16, 2019 Comments off

 

 

The usual suspects got caught again.  And you can’t have the usual suspects without Keyser Söze.

 writing in the top German paper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung has uncovered the financial link between YouTubers in the paid service of Google to “protest” in favor of the multinational monopolist’s interests in the European Copyright Directive (aka “Article 13”).

In his story filed today “Gekaufter Protest?” or “Purchased Protest?”, van Lijnden’s reporting has turned up what appears to be proof positive that Google’s interference lobbying has sunk to new depths of depravity (translation courtesy of Google Translate, courtesy of Google Books):

According to research by this newspaper, several German Youtubers have been offered money by an interest group that appears under the name “Create Refresh” to position themselves in videos against Article 13 of the copyright reform, which is particularly relevant for the video platform. “I am writing for financial support available to content creators who want to protest against Article 13. Be it a video, memes or graphics – we are open to suggestions, “says Mirko Drotschmann, who trades on Youtube as “mrwissen2go “and has about 900,000 subscribers.

Similar offers have been received by the Clixoom Science & Fiction channels (over 500,000 subscribers), Pietsmiet (more than 2.3 million subscribers) and Jana Riva (around 50,000 subscribers). The latter were promised €2,000 for a critical opinion on Article 13. All four emphasize the finding that they have not responded to the offer and have wondered very much about it, as such attempts to collect money would otherwise be almost non-existent and money would be offered only for the promotion of products.

Google’s interference lobbying should come as no surprise.  As MTP readers will recall, German Member of the European Parliament Helga Truepel was threatened with interference lobbying by Google’s lawyers during a trade mission to Silicon Valley:

helga google interfere

 

MTP readers will also recall the humiliating failure of the pro-Google lobbying effort to turn out any actual humans to protest in advance of prior votes.  I warned at the time not to underestimate Google’s ability to deliver protesters–one only need remember how the homes of Germans who opted out of Google Street View were mysteriously egged by “protesters” all in one night who also hung signs on their target homes stating “Google is Cool”.

The opposition to Article 13 is organizing a protest for March 23 and claims to have a number of cities in Europe targeted, mostly in Poland and Germany (two countries where Google has invested heavily in their academic missionary outposts for a decade or more).  The efforts may be aided by the general waive of protests about a host of social issues sweeping Europe, not to mention a large Brexit protest scheduled for March 23–coincidentally.  It may be possible to create the impression that one protest is about another topic altogether, particularly if the propagandist shows pictures of a protest in a wide shot that has no readable protest signs in frame.

Still, the logistics of getting protesters from one stronghold to a weaker outpost at a particular date and time was striking challenge given the geography.  Van Lijnden addresses how Google’s lobbyists rose to the challenge in the FAZ article:

[T]he protest is financially supported: Under the name of “EDRI” [the European Digital Rights lobby shop] numerous net political NGOs has offered…to bear the travel and hotel costs of people who want to lobby in personal talks with the deputies of the European Parliament. According to EDRI, a budget of €15,000 is available, two-thirds of which would be provided by the Open Society Foundation founded by George Soros and one third by the industry association “Copyright 4 Creativity”.  [MTP readers will have seen that bunch before back in 2015.]

The latter is also one of the supporters of “Create Refresh” and is led by Caroline De Cock, also managing director of the Brussels-based lobbying company “N-square”. Its clients include Google which as a parent company of Youtube would be hit hard by the reform. Such indirect lines from Silicon Valley to the aggravation and whipping of the protest can also be drawn elsewhere, such as the “Center for Democracy and Technology”, which is also listed as a supporter of “Create Refresh” and “Save your internet” and led by Nuala O’Connor, the former lawyer of Google subsidiary DoubleClick.

We wrote about the N-Square group back in 2015:

While Google itself is not a member of Copyright 4 Creativity, the organization is run by a long-time Brussels lobbyist whose firm represents Google, and even a cursory look at the Copyright 4 Creativity materials reveals some of the same rhetoric we have heard for years from the Google-funded anti-artist crowd.  This, of course, is how the astroturf game is played.

“Purchased Protest?” is extraordinarily brave reporting by FAZ given the level of hostility that Google has ginned up in Europe through its interference lobbying efforts rivaled only by Russian bot farmers and Cambridge Analytica–if not inspired by them.  Ahem.  Vlad would be proud.

Bots 14-2-19 Edited

This isn’t the first time that a major newspaper has caught Google and its YouTube subsidiary faking an Article 13 protest or stirring the contagion pot complete with bots and Russomania.  And of course David Lowery and Volker Rieck have done important work in exposing the rot.

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But it’s the first time that Google money has been linked to YouTube “creators” engaging in lobbying efforts to assist Google’s political goals, attacking Google’s political enemies and supporting Google’s political allies–all of which smacks of electioneering requiring compliance with Europe’s election transparency laws.

And of course there’s no one who knows more about where to find individuals likely to carry Google’s water, knowingly or unknowingly, than the one company in the world that knows what you’re thinking before you do.  Unbridled snooping by the pervy Google data scientists produces unimaginable benefits when that information is turned to political profit.

The first rate reporting in these bombshell revelations are all the more reason why the European law enforcement authorities need to open a criminal investigation into the whole mess.  As van Lijnden concludes:

[Big Tech’s attempt] to buy critical voices in the channel that is relevant to the debate highlights the manipulative methods that have fueled or even generated parts of the protest.

Can I get an “amen”?

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