Happy halloween - Europe to introduce Article 13 - Making filming and photography in public illegal

[Andrew Reid]

If you have ever taken a photo on a street or made a video in public, the European Union is opening you up to copyright claims by - get this - the owners of advertisement posters, shop fronts and building facades, as well as GDPR privacy violation claims from the general public.

Is this the beginning of the end?!

Read the full article

[Alt Shoo]

Just freaking ridiculous. That’s all I have to say. Smfh

[AnthonyBert]

Oh boy!!!! This world is freaking me out... that feeling of freedom we think we have... Sorry I'm closing on 50 Years old, I lived through interesting decades 80' 90' and now this!!! Give it another 20 years and I think some of those old scifi movies might just be a reality.... 

[wolf33d]

What kind of joke is this? Another reason I am very happy I left Europe a few years ago for the US. I make more money, everything is more simple and this freaking law does not exist. People don't do strikes every day, and are nicer too. 
There are many things wrong in the US especially in politics and craziness (guns,...). But on a daily basis in the real world, it's far better than Europe. At least until I get shot .
And I have traveled to tons of countries and lived multiple years each on 4 different continents. 

[Nikkor]

Our psicopathic control freaks from brussel doing their thing.

[BTM_Pix]

Snapchat in 2019 

[terozzz]

I am sure this will never go through. At least in Finland, filming and photography in public places is shielded by constitution.  

[Shirozina]

It's not passed into law yet. 

[Andrew Reid]

If places like YouTube have to scan all our user-generated content for advertising billboards, it will be so arduous they will give up and become Netflix instead.

If I had to check every post and attachment on this forum for copyright, I'd simply close the forums!

It would be impossible.

That's the main danger here... That they are opening user generated stuff up to lawyers, making it risky to host it online anywhere at all.

YouTube's thoughts on this say:

"Article 13 as written threatens to shut down the ability of millions of people -- from creators like you to everyday users -- to upload content to platforms like YouTube. And it threatens to block users in the EU from viewing content that is already live on the channels of creators everywhere."

"This legislation poses a threat to both your livelihood and your ability to share your voice with the world. And, if implemented as proposed, Article 13 threatens hundreds of thousands of jobs, European creators, businesses, artists and everyone they employ."

"The proposal could force platforms, like YouTube, to allow only content from a small number of large companies. It would be too risky for platforms to host content from smaller original content creators, because the platforms would now be directly liable for that content."

https://youtube-creators.googleblog.com/2018/10/a-final-update-on-our-priorities-for.html

So in other words.. No more of this...

And certainly no more of this...

Myself and YouTube would be open to copyright claims from every single private premises filmed in that video of Berlin's streets.

Even if they continue to allow it, if they have to run everything past an automatic CONTENT ID FILTER, that scans for copyright images within the frame, there's an enormous chance of false positives or it being too draconian and strict. Vodafone advert on the street? Take-down. Poster for a film in a documentary? Blocked. And so on.

It's NUTS.

[BTM_Pix]

A conspiracy theorist might suggest that its a shot across the bows at Google, Facebook and the rest of the companies who's business would be more or less reduced to blank web pages if this ever gets enacted that the dog intends to resume wagging the tail.

The end goal is about getting those companies to pay an appropriate level of tax, regulating them in terms of financial services hosted on their platforms and of course having direct unfiltered access to their services to mine data under the pretence of anything from terrorism to using the wrong coloured bin for your recycling. 

Its not about protecting anyone's privacy, it's more about the authorities having an easier way to invade it.

Oh and helping their mates and political donors suppress stories that they have already paid hush money to stop coming out.

Like today's one in the UK with a certain billionaire, tax dodging, asset stripping gobshite.

 

[mb6079]

Ah the EU...no solution that they can't create a problem for. Never mind though, when it all goes to shit they'll find a way to blame the Russian bots.

[KC Kelly]

The upside of this might be, you are walking down the street and get filmed by a news crew. The footage gets shown on TV, you sue, and become an instant millionaire. Soccer matches anyone?

[Cliff Totten]

My God.....The Brexit concept is starting to look pretty good today! There is nothing like having 100% controll over your own contries laws! That is precious in every way.

[Allan Castle]

It is all about censorship and control. I am in the US. It is definitely happening here. Some companies are banned from Youtube, Twitter, etc. The terms of use, by these companies are very vague. They define what they mean, but don't have to tell us. They just send an email. You broke the rules.  We've banned you. Hateful speech, nudity, unpopular views, copyright, right of privacy.  Now in Europe, they are adding the treat of lawsuits from the public, advertisers, property owners. Of course the result will be that the government has the right to view, censor and stop any content that they don't like. As a small business owner, I am scared of lawsuits. I have friends who have gone out of business because of nuisance lawsuits. Even if you are right and win (years later), the costs of attorneys, time spent and the worry  can drive you out of business.

[OliKMIA]

Do you have any source about the fact "the UK wanted to work together with Europe to solve problems like digital privacy and copyright in a rational way.… but it’s difficult when your partner-government consists almost entirely of snivelling weasels." Do you mean it's good UK against bad Europe? Bit simplified no?
I did a couple of timelapse in London and it's one of the worst possible place on earth for street filming. Most of the city if own by a few Lords and every time you set up a tripod the security shows up in 2 min (courtesy of CCTV I guess) to kick you out. Even Dubai is much more relax for landscape photography.

Let's do a bit of history:
Brexit is the result of gamble lost by Cameron and won by the some of the worst populists that exist in Europe. Farage, Johnson, the daily mail, and company. Where are the £350m per week promised to the NHS?
Don't get me wrong, France has Le Pen, Italy has Salvini, Kurz in Austria and the AFD is rising in Germany.. No one is spared by this populist wave fueled by many phenomena (globalization, Syrian crisis, economic crisis, etc.) but UK is far from being the white knight in Europe (it's not what you said I know). They joined Europe in the 70s after they realized it was good for the economy. Since Thatcher, UK has been asking for "rebate" all the time with a certain success. Now the British are going to explore the "open sea" alone as Churchill said. And it's sad because the Brits are some of the best people on earth. It's a great nation with a fantastic history. Very creative and I have a lot of friends there.

Yes, there are some BS with Europe and I agree with some of your points but actually, the General Data Protection Regulation also brings some good stuff against the abuse of the GAFAs. Europe is only the sum of it's members, unfortunately many of them have opposite interests (tax dumping in Ireland and Luxembourg, financial center in the City, conservative pole in Hungary and Poland, federalism in France, etc.) and put the blame on "Brussels" which is only the headquarter of the institutions. "Europe" doesn't create BS, it comes from its members and their lobbyists in Brussels. UK is among the top for lobbyist work by the way.

[etudiant]

The old rule is 'Follow the money'.

The various members of the European Parliament all have side jobs, sinecures but often very lucrative ones, sponsored by special interest entities.

Vote correctly and keep the job, vote wrong and probably lose it. Human frailty does the rest.

The 'public interest' is easily suborned.

[Mattias Burling]

As with most similar laws, like for example GDPR, street photography and video is most likely not affected. Unless you live in a dictatorship or something.

[kye]

So, no more privately owned security cameras that can see public land?

I guess that's how you become invisible in the future - just cover yourself in brand content and be redacted from the official record!

 

[Emanuel]

Great article, Andrew : ) here's my hat from someone twice graduated in law and film (E : -)

 

[Alpicat]

Thanks Andrew for this eye opening article, didn't realise the situation was that bad. Interesting to hear about what you experienced in Berlin.

3 hours ago, Shirozina said:

It's not passed into law yet. 

It isn't yet but I've had to start preparing for it (for commercial projects) - had to redo contracts last minute before a shoot to take GDPR and article 13 stuff into account, and had to get everyone to sign again. Have to be extra careful on set now with getting release forms signed from absolutely everyone even if they're hardly visible in the background. If buildings are also considered copyrighted material, that's going to make things even harder!