YouTube CEO says new EU copyright law threatens jobs, small creators – TechCrunch



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YouTube Executive Director Susan Wojcicki today released her quarterly newsletter to creators, which contained a very harsh speech on the EU's controversial Copyright Reform Directive. Specifically, his letter related to Article 13, the so-called "memer ban", which states that any site containing a large amount of user-generated content – such as Facebook or YouTube, for example – will be responsible for removing the content that breaks the rules. copyright. Wojcicki said the way this law is written could "prevent millions of people from uploading to YouTube."

The legislation to which it refers is Article 13 of the European Union Copyright Directive in the Digital Single Market, which the European Parliament has recently voted in favor of support. The directive contains several parts, including one on the "tax on links", which gives publishers the right to apply for paid licenses when online platforms share their articles and stories.

However, YouTube is primarily interested in Article 13, which affects sites whose content is generated by users. To comply with the law, sites like YouTube should automatically scan and filter user downloads to make sure they do not violate copyright.

But today, users often express themselves by sampling, remixing and creating content using music, images and videos that would otherwise be considered copyrighted material. author. However, even if memes and parodies are protected by prior laws (in some countries), these download filters could not tell the difference between a copyright infringement and a meme – and they would block the content which should be allowed. Thus Article 13 has been baptized "prohibition of the same".

However, the wording of the legislation does not clearly indicate how the application of the rules should be applied – it is not specified, for example, that sites should use loading filters. Others think that YouTube's existing content identification system, which analyzes videos after downloading, would be enough.

YouTube, for its part, seems to believe that Article 13 will require more than the existing content identification system to be compliant.

Wojcicki writes: "Article 13, in its written form, threatens to block the ability of millions of people – creators like you to ordinary users – to import content onto platforms like YouTube. This threatens to prevent EU users from viewing content already broadcast on the channels of creators around the world. This includes YouTube's incredible video library of educational content, such as language classes, physics tutorials, and other hands-on procedures, "she explains.

The CEO also said that Article 13 would threaten "thousands of jobs", that is, those of content creators, companies and artists based in the EU.

And she warns that YouTube may have to remove content from smaller and original video creators because it would be responsible for that content, stating:

The proposal could force platforms, such as YouTube, to only allow content from a small number of large companies. It would be too risky for platforms to host content from smaller original content creators because they would now be directly responsible for this content. We are aware of the importance of equitably paying all rights holders. That's why we created Content ID and a platform to pay for all types of content owners. But the unintended consequences of Article 13 will put this ecosystem at risk.

Society wants to weigh in the wording of the law to protect its interests and those of the community of creators in the broad sense. Mr. Wojcicki stated that YouTube is committed to working with the sector to find a better way to respect the rights of copyright holders, before the text of European legislation is finalized. 39, here the end of the year.

Other changes include the increase in the number of memberships, the first

While YouTube's comments on Article 13 were the key element of today's newsletter, Wojcicki also informed the community of its priorities for 2018.

This included updating his plans to better communicate with the creators, which would have been accomplished by increasing the number of product updates and warning messages regarding changes to YouTube, including tests or more modest experiences, on the @TeamYouTube account and the creator Canal Insider, in addition to its launch of YouTube Studio, where creators can read all the news and product updates.

The company also announced that its new stream of "self-certification" video downloads, in which creators themselves describe the content of their videos for advertisers, will be rolled out more widely in 2019.

Subscriptions to newly launched channels are also expanding their deployment, with the threshold now being lowered from 100,000 to 50,000 subscribers. Meanwhile, the new Premieres feature is now available to all creators.

Other updates have been devoted to YouTube's activities in the areas of education, information and journalism, YouTube Giving charities, games and more. The full letter can be found on the YouTube blog here.

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