We are on a blockchain.
Things posted on Steem are basically permanent. Things can be hidden behind a smokescreen or made difficult to access.
But if you post anything, whether it be some racy, taboo subject, or threats, or you plagiarize something, it will be on the Steem blockchain. It's public. And permanent.
This means that Steem is not YouTube.
Source: Fair use logos and Pixbay.com Public domain.
If you do something on YouTube that violates their terms of use, your video will be removed. If your audio is violating a copyright, then the audio will be muted.
The same thing happens with Google's search engines. Pirated and illegal content is often removed from search results.
This is due to takedown notices
Major media publishers and music studios have the resources to police the web. We joked 20 or more years ago about the Internet police on the Information Superhighway.
The police are here! They police content "sharing" in which people upload exact copies of copyrighted material.
So, too, on Steem. If there are unlicensed pictures and plagiarized stories on Steem, the police will come knock on our door. The content owners will start to sit up and pay attention to Steem in a negative way if they see their intellectual property here.
But Takedown notices cannot work on Steem. Yay! Right?
The blockchain cannot lie. Once posted, the content will stay in the database, in the cloud, on the blockchain. So in effect, any illegal content that is posted to Steem will never be able to be removed.
That means we could be in trouble.
If a takedown notice cannot be served to any of the operators, and there is no "[email protected]" to write to, how will the publishers treat it? Will they:
- Get an account on Steem to downvote/flag the content they don't like?
- Sue Steemit, Inc. and its founders?
- Sue the anonymous Steemian who posted the offending content?
- Sue our upstream providers and server hosting companies?
- Sue all witnesses?
We definitely need some kind of liaison for the media to contact. Do we have a media or legal point of contact for copyright and licensing problems?
I found out that Steemit, Inc. does have such a contact. It's on the Terms of Service (TOS) for steemit.com:
20.Copyright Complaints
Steemit respects the intellectual property of others by not reading infringed content from the Steem blockchain. If you believe that your work has been copied in a way that constitutes copyright infringement, you may notify Steemit’ s Designated Agent by contacting:
Please see 17 U.S.C. §512(c)(3) for the requirements of a proper notification. You should note that if you knowingly misrepresent in your notification that the material or activity is infringing, you may be liable for any damages, including costs and attorneys’ fees, incurred by Steemit or the alleged infringer, as the result of Steemit’s relying upon such misrepresentation in removing or disabling access to the material or activity claimed to be infringing.
Furthermore, the TOS also says that users "will not"
17.1.2. Use our Services to pay for, support or otherwise engage in any illegal activities, including, but not limited to illegal gambling, fraud, money- laundering, or terrorist activities.
(I would say that copyright infringement should be added to 17.1.2, as it is a common illegal activity that @cheetah and @steemcleaners see everyday.)
However, this TOS only helps out Steemit, Inc. The information that can be operationally hidden on steemit.com is viewable using other technical means.
A court may not find that this is sufficient. In fact, just hiding the content on Steemit.com may not be sufficient for certain types of legal issues. I am thinking about certain decency laws, hate speech laws, religious freedom laws, domestic abuse laws, espionage laws, and prohibited speech laws that are found in numerous countries around the world.
But the designers of the Steem blockchain knew of this
The people who developed Steem knew or should have known the potential for abusing a blockchain. Anyone with a sufficiently anonymous account and criminal mischief in mind can publish things that cannot be unpublished.
For now, the blockchain is not really able to hold images and videos. This means that all potentially disgusting or illegal photos and videos are being stored on external hosts. In other words, the text is in the blockchain, while the images are separate. A takedown notice for media content can be carried out.
Whew!
So what we need to consider is any offending text that is in the blockchain. Right now, @cheetah bot is doing a pretty good job at finding offending web-accessible textual plagiarism. It doesn't cover other types of offending content.
This post of mine is just a bit of an explainer. Steemians are putting in place ideas to keep the junk off the system. I'd like to help in a particular way.
Last week, I began a plan to offer fellow Steemians a way to post stock images on Steem, legally, and with a bonus:
I would like to help out the Steem Photographers and Artists. These men and women have got some great and wonderful original content. So I want to see if Steem Photographers would be interested in making more Steem with Stock Photos and Images? There is a sign-up bonus for artists!
The plan is to have a Stock Photos website and a bot to find non-free images. Bloggers and photographers, please check it out!
There are many existing sites that allow users to post royalty- and reference-free. It is just so common place for people to search Google images.
At the end of the day, stock images supplement an idea in written form. They help visualize the content, and in turn engages the reader's brain in different ways. If stock images are being posted without text, why post? What is the value-added element of that post?
A tune can be catchy, but the lyrics make it compelling.
My substantive reply is to supplement the other: it is also one of confusion.
Huh? I say, huh?
Where did that question come from? I have not proposed the posting of stock images without text!
I am talking about posting a textual blog and then adding some stock photos or images. This represents well over 80% of major posts on Steem or virtually any blogging platform. You must misunderstand the basics of my proposal, so I cannot fathom an answer. Please re-read my posts on this topic and ask again. The links are listed here and at my @uruiamme blog page.
So, maybe it's just the pizza, but I am feeling some pretty unhappy vibes.
Take a look around Steemit. A big crowd are established bloggers. But many of the offenders are newcomers are grabbing YouTube videos or stock photos and posting with no text. They don't care if they have one post yielding $5 or ten yielding $.50. Net positive either way unless the citizens of Steemit with scruples take a stand. On that point, you and I agree.
My point was merely that there are several established sources of royalty- and reference-free photos that the community can use. Sure, they are limited on selection, but you can usually find what you need.
I went through some of your posts and what you are proposing. First, your articles seem a bit Doomsday-ish, but of course they do, you are trying to establish a case for the the need for your proposed stock images platform.
I have seen your royalty schemes, and understand that you want to develop another stream of income for artists (but also yourself). I think that is great, and your idea is innovation piggybacking off the need for copyright protection.
And though I am suffering from a pizza-induced stupor, I am not stupid. I stand by what I said, that is, that there are plenty of ways for Steemers to stay copyright-safe. Your proposed solution is not the only way, it is another way, one that I hope is successful and enables you to reach all of your goals.
But yeah, I think we can stack hands on the problems that exist. I support you 100% in creating a channel with which to keep Steemers out of trouble.
In my line of work, it's like the people who think that they have a hard drive in their computer, they are an IT expert. They then second-guess everything you do.
Creating a way to focus more on the content creation to minimize corner-cutting: bueno in my book. That is why you have my 100% support in your plan.
How did you get 10 upvotes in the first 5 minutes of your reply, including @good-karma, who is a top witness?
Good question. I have been bouncing around making comments on posts I find interesting. Steemit. Kolaches. Content stealing.
I have noticed that the upvotes happen on some comments, and not on others. I am new to Steemit, so I don't really know.
I am just a dude who ate too much pizza and can't sleep lol
I will upvote for your insomnia!! LOL.
But dude... You are being trailed somehow by 9 people as a 36 Rep guy. How did you do that? Do you know any of these people?
You have no idea how you make a comment and that many people upvote it immediately?
Your comments are worth $2.21. That's crazy.
I know. If I thought my comments were worth that much, I would set up a psychic hotline lol
Is this a pro bono service? @uriamme
This will work if Steemit makes the Google level human & machine investment to enforce copyright.
Your service @uruiamme is useful for images that we would like to sell. A caveat though:
• Facebook & Instagram images are Facebook domain. I anticipate Steemit moving in that direction as well.
• YouTube shares revenue has the option for the proven original content creator to share revenue with the content user or plagiarist.
• ### Who owns images posted on @steemit? @ned @andrarchy @zurvanic @sneak
@Steemcleaners & @Cheetah do not pick up even wholesale cut & paste. I'm willing to help monitor that from the text side, with appropriate renumeration, of course.
#steemthought #legal #drm
The service will not be without costs. Searching for copyrighted images costs about $0.01 per search in large quantities. The website to host images, the coding to write the software, and the administration of it will incur fees for the development team.
You are encouraged to join as a potential user or as an image provider. If someone is interested as an investor, these matters will need to be discussed.
For the time being, there is only a concept and an urgency to come clean.
As for YouTube itself, I don't know if it is profitable or not. But it is my understanding that Stock Image companies indeed are.
YouTube is profitable for both content creators & Google. @uruiamme
• A basic Google image search shows whether an image is free to use or not.
• Purging spam & copyright infringement would work better with a ramped up AI & human @cheetah, @twitterbot & @steemcleaners.
• With Getty & ShutterStock, what is the USP of your image project?
• How will you monetize images submitted to you which have already been shared on Facebook? Without Facebook claiming its pound of flesh?
I will recommend @clitdias, who shoots nature in Dubai to join as an image provider.
#photography #startup
I have not found this to be true.
Facebook: not a problem. It is non-exclusive.
Also, you said this:
what do you mean by USP?
• A filtered Google Image search will indicate whether an image is licensed or not. Google calls it usage rights.
• USP: unique selling propisition
• On Facebook:
the unique selling position should be obvious.
For Steemians, we love other Steemians and Steemian products and services.
With my proposed stock image site, I would enable Steem photogs to make Steem currency directly. For the Steemian blogger, there is an innate trust of other Steemians who produce artwork. And as a Steemian project, my site would have significant advantage over any stock photo site. Furthermore, the "cheetah" style bot will be pointing people to my site.
In other words.... it will be sufficiently unique to acquire new users daily.
And as for Facebook licensing, I am not interested in your diversion.
Here's why: It's irrelevant
Facebook is not where real professional photographers post their work. That is plain and simple. Facebook is full of junk, and no one is interested in licensing junk for their blog anyway. There may be a news story periodically, but the bloggers needing those images can usually get by with fair use of those kinds of images.
So who cares about the Facebook TOS?
Not the billion users who post photos on it every day. And certainly not me.
All the very best with your project, @uruiamme
Your expertise on this issue is vastly superior to mine, sir.
Yet, there was a question posed to me on images in one of my posts. 😊
What do you think about this image? @uruiamme
It looks great. I think you are channeling a parody there. I saw the post elsewhere and laughed.
Now if this has been borrowed or produced by someone else, take it down. The main thing to be careful of is the incorporation of other people's work with your own. Very few licenses include the "derivative" usage in which you may derive a new image from their work.
So if it's at all derived from someone else's work, be careful to look at licenses.
But when you create a parody, most of the time you have decades of "fair use" court rulings on your side. I am thinking of US jurisprudence. When posting here from another country... I don't know.
Parodies and comedy sketches, when they incorporate copyrighted material, are usually safe. But the sad thing is that courts (and lawyer fees) can get involved. Here in the US and most of the West, making fun of a major political figure is widely construed as legal and common. It is a pillar of free speech to lampoon political matters, so to criticize that cartoon, a lawsuit would need to resort to claiming an egregious error in decency or fraud to attack it.
Not my post, image or parody, @uruiamme to take down. 😊
Is one man's fair use is another business' derived content?
No.
Derivative works need to be licensed unless the derivative work is a parody or commercially worthless commentary on the original work.
So the rules are the same for everyone (n.b. they are in the same locale).
But if you derive a work from Coca-cola's logo ... and you are a soft drink manufacturer trying to mimic them for gain, you are going to be pilloried in court.
If you derive your work from Coca-cola's logo and you are making fun of the product or the logo or the company, whether you manufacture soda or not... it is legal to do so under fair use. (No competitor in their right mind would attempt it due to court battles, but they should theoretically win.)
The concept of making money from posting attracts so many bots and spammers, understandably. For now focusing on curating by not only upvoting and commenting but also flagging when necessary is essential in keeping the system free from crap as much as possible. It'll only get worse when this get's mainstream though....
Flagging is a big hullabaloo. Even the mention of it for copyright infringement reasons is difficult. I am proposing a bot to do the "boilerplate" commenting and downvoting, simply because doing so as a real person gets into unnecessary debates over how downvotes should and should not be used.
That's a good idea, we could support steemit artists by sending steem for their work. Keep us updated.
Yes! I'd like to be on the @stockphotos system right now. I hate making my own images for my blogs. I am just not the "artist" type.
I do wish people kept their integrity and didn't bother with such bs, YT is mad with their copyright bots :D
The evidence is clear, unfortunately. People are just copy-pasting and swiping other content to make a quick follow. YouTube was supposed to be people (You) posting themselves on the web (Tube). Steem is supposed to be people... posting things about themselves. We have the same problem for the same reasons.
The problem on Steem is actually going to be more acute. Everyone sees immediately how much money is being made... YouTube is harder to make money on without a big following.
I love this idea.
Such as? Maybe I'm just being dense, but what other examples of "offending text" aside from plagiarism would need to be removed?
Spam, scams, dangerous links to malware etc. I'm sure there are others just can't think of them right now.
The scams are going to be an interesting one. But thankfully, a lot of Steemians are going to be real wise real quick. A recent notorious scamster showed up on the scene about the same time I got onto Steem. He was downvoted quickly... His post wasn't even past 7 days, so it was knocked down to nothing.
https://steemit.com/introduceyourself/@matttrainer/steemit-based-reality-game-announced-usd10-million-prize-pool
Bye, bye, scammer. The parodies of him did well, however.
https://steemit.com/steemit/@whatamidoing/join-us-and-play-a-game-that-can-bring-in-usd1-billion-dollars LOL
Divorce disputes. Barbra Streisand effect lawsuits. Legal battles that deal with minors, pornography, and libel. State secrets. Proscribed speech in countries where naziism or holocaust denial are illegal. Trade secrets. Military secrets. Espionage.
Basically, whatever the elite Judges and Courts can think up and order people around to do. If those courts are tried to a military dictatorship, then the will of the State, which leads to debtors prison and other nasty things. If the courts are tied to a police state, then the police can be ordered to lock people up until the content is removed or the prison sentence is served.
The MPAA is notorious for making it illegal to share keys and/or share info on how to bypass video encryption schemes.
Technically a hard fork could be used to removed content from the blockchain. It would still exist on the old blockchain though so as long as a copy of that chain exists it exists. It would not show up on sites following the majority chain though. It would take the agreement of nearly all the witnesses to do this though so it would have to be something major.
Bingo. So problem ... solved? Sounds like the system might make it hard to do this.
Is that why we call it a hard fork?
No it's called a hard fork because it is not backwards compatible. Older versions of the software are forked off the network. A soft fork is backwards compatible.
Hard forks only become hard to do when there is disagreement on what the developers added and/or misinformation. Hard fork 17 on steemit would be one such attempt that failed when the witnesses were against all the changes the devs wanted. Bitcoin core/blockstream and their censorship spreading lies that the chain would surely split if the block size were increased would be a good example of misinformation and FUD spreading preventing a simple hard fork for years.
That is one of the reason why we have to be really careful in what we post, not only using copyright images; but what we post it here stays forever and we cannot take back what we posted, isn't it @uruiamme ?
upvoted
Thanks! There is very few things that will likely be removed from the blockchain. Technically, it can happen during a hardfork. But that will be exceedingly rare. You can edit posts, but the original will still exist.
Yeah, that is why when we post here we have to be very aware that it is likely going to stay forever until probably an EMP strike and there is no more power in the world.