Copyright bots and classical musicians are fighting online. The bots are winning.; The Washington Post, May 21, 2020

Michael Andor Brodeur , The Washington Post

; Copyright bots and classical musicians are fighting online. The bots are winning.

"“We built these systems around the presumption that everybody is either: A, a pirate, or B, should be a copyright expert,” Rose says.

As it stands, the relationship between classical musicians and copyright bots is a study in contradictions, as newborn technologies police music that has been with us for centuries and individual musicians battle back against the indifference of massive corporations.

But this unhealthy dynamic also presents a consequential conundrum in terms of how the arts engage with social media as they grow more and more dependent on each other."

Europe's Copyright Reforms Are More Than (Just) A Boring Policy Change; NPR, September 27, 2018

Andrew Flanagan, NPR; Europe's Copyright Reforms Are More Than (Just) A Boring Policy Change

"In the "Information Wants To Be Free" corner, you have advocates like Cory Doctorow, who is of the opinion that regulations on the Internet can have a stifling effect on freedom of expression. They want to preserve the web "as a place where we can fight the other fights" like "inequality, antitrust, race and gender, speech and democratic legitimacy," as Doctorow put it in a recent podcast. (Doctorow obliquely references a 2004 copyright dispute around Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land," which Guthrie, in an unconfirmed statement, said he didn't "give a dern" if others performed.) Doctorow's point is that creativity is best when it's unanchored from profit motive, and thus available to be copied freely. (Doctorow himself walks the walk, making his novels available for no charge.) James Rhodes' recent experience with music that wasn't even protected by copyright isn't exactly encouraging in this regard.

Meanwhile, some copyright holders are very much interested in being paid for their creations. Lisa Alter, a visiting professor at Yale Law School and practicing attorney who specializes in music copyright, tells NPR: "Obviously, whenever there's something new, there will be a period of time where systems are worked out and glitches, but I don't see those insurmountable in the year 2018." As to situations like the one Rhodes experienced with his Bach video? "Could there ever be a erroneous takedown? Sure, but then you let them know and they should put it back up," she says. "But I don't see it being an epidemic. And the technology will get better, the filtering system will improve."

New Guidelines For Tech Companies To Be Transparent, Accountable On Censoring User Content; Intellectual Property Watch, May 7, 2018,

Intellectual Property Watch; New Guidelines For Tech Companies To Be Transparent, Accountable On Censoring User Content

"The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) called on Facebook, Google, and other social media companies today to publicly report how many user posts they take down, provide users with detailed explanations about takedowns, and implement appeals policies to boost accountability.

EFF, ACLU of Northern California, Center for Democracy & Technology, New America’s Open Technology Institute, and a group of academic experts and free expression advocates today released the Santa Clara Principles, a set of minimum standards for tech companies to augment and strengthen their content moderation policies. The plain language, detailed guidelines call for disclosing not just how and why platforms are removing content, but how much speech is being censored. The principles are being released in conjunction with the second edition of the Content Moderation and Removal at Scale conference. Work on the principles began during the first conference, held in Santa Clara, California, in February.

“Our goal is to ensure that enforcement of content guidelines is fair, transparent, proportional, and respectful of users’ rights,” said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Nate Cardozo."