How about we don't burn anybody or anything instead we can hold a radio drama
We could call it uprising of the downtrodden and hold it at Brooklyn Commons performance space on Thursday, September 17th
We'll do set decoration at 5 p.m. Walk through the scenes at 6 and begin our drama at 7 Brooklyn Commons
Yeah, that's where WBA I radio is 388 Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn for more information. Check out
WBAI.org
And
It's just about 7 o'clock you're listening to radio station WBA I in New York
time for off the hook
But if they could they would
I
I
And
The very good evening everybody the program is off the hook Emmanuel Wilson here with you on this Wednesday evening joined tonight by Mike
Good evening, Kyle
Rob T firefly good evening and Bernie s
Greetings from Philadelphia. I can't hear Kyle. Yeah, I couldn't hear him either because somebody turned down the dial for Kyle's microphone
Okay, I say say hello again Kyle
Hello everyone, yeah, he hit the microphone too, so definitely coming through now
Okay, great, and we have all kinds of important things to talk about
Including including the
Big piece of news involving our particular adventure last week, which is now over. Well, it's it's sort of wrote over
As you recall we were talking about the the ink splotch controversy how trunk archive came after us wanting
$714 because we used an ink splotch that they thought was theirs
and
You look very confused. There's a phone ringing somewhere around here, but it's not a phone
Our listeners can call us on so I don't know. It's what I'm hearing get it out of your head
I hear all kinds of things. I'm trying to block out and yet you just have to do that around this place
Yes, so the ink splotch controversy where trunk archive came after us for
For for using something that they didn't even control themselves. It was hilarious
It was it was an amazing story, but it's over now because they contacted us and said we're not gonna pursue this any further
You know not much of a surprise really considering all the bad publicity. They got as a result of that
basically, they had a computer go through and
And search all kinds of images online and match things up and I heard that I heard a beep
Is that the elevator arriving? It's that loud. Really? I don't know if you were dinging
I thought we were supposed to put such noise
That one before that's a that's a new one. Anyway, so the
The whole thing is is is over, but it's not really over because they continue to operate with impunity
They continue to intimidate people. They continue to send out these letters
to
two individuals who use bits of art and under fair use
and in in many many cases
People feel the the easiest thing to do is just pay up
Otherwise, they might have to invest in lawyers or they might wind up having to pay a lot more and
it's really unfair and
unhealthy
I'd like to think that by publicizing this last week we
We got this practice out to a lot of other people that might not have known about it. Otherwise
The fight continues. Well, we'll talk about it later on as well
Maybe specific ways that that you can get involved
But it's good that that's over good that that particular little adventure is behind us, but I'm sure there are many more to come
and
We'll be talking about those here on on the radio as they happen Bernie any thoughts
Yes, there's some good news
Also on that front. There was a really good victory by the electronic frontier foundation, which we'll be talking about later in the show
in favor of
Their use in these DMCA cases, so we'll we'll explore this further, but there's two good pieces of news this week on on that story
Okay
Anything else that we're not going to talk about later on the show that people want to want to focus on that's a very
Oddly phrased question. Okay. Well, I'll take your criticism and
That's how I'm gonna get out of you next week is make a fair
Next weekend once again
we will be
in attendance with the 2600 van and make a fair is in need of
Volunteers, so if you want to be a volunteer first of all
This is one way you can attend maker fair for free. It's taking place in Queens at the
The Hall of Science right where the World's Fair once took place
if you go to
make a fair comm that's m a k e r f a i r e comm slash
New York
2015 that's new dash York dash 2015 slash traveler dash program
you'll get all the details as to how you can participate you can become a
traveler and
And basically what that means is you volunteer for a couple of hours, and you get free admission
to the
To the festivities it really is an incredible experience Kyle
I know we've been there a couple of times actually a bunch of times
Yeah, this will be our third or fourth year with the van and and and selling probably in the same location
If you've seen us there before we'll probably be in the vicinity and it is a lot of fun
We're we're planning we we're experienced now. We've been a couple times. So we're planning all kinds of stuff. I think we'll have our regular
soundscape
Blaring and all kinds of new merchandise and and cool
2600 related things
Offer that will offer and share with everyone and just in general
Taking it all in will be a part of this incredible fair
which really is a
unique event in in the sense that it's it's sort of I
don't know bringing back that old country fair feel or or even like a
Even now like a medieval fair, but it's
Definitely injected with a lot of high-tech
There's definitely some medieval aspects to it. I recognize that Bernie. I know you've been to a couple of these things
Yeah, there's
These folks that walk around in in really retro technology gear. There's a certain genre for this. I bet Rob would remember the name
The name escapes me but there's folks that like are really into like old-style technology and
Creating contraptions that look like Rube Goldberg things. So what's the name of that? Somebody help me?
You're you're thinking of steampunk. I believe where it's a retro looking sort of Jules Verne era fantasy type stuff
There's also a lot of cyberpunk stuff where it's, you know
Very futuristic and streamlined and all kinds of things like all kinds of wearable things all kinds of awesome creative things
awesome creative things
all right, it's definitely the like coalescing of many different cultures and
performing arts scientific stuff all of that kind of mashed into one and you really can't expose yourself to a heck of a lot of
interesting projects
You name it
you could probably find something around that area of interest and a lot of people excited about to and
Maker Faire takes place on the 26th and 27th, which is Saturday and Sunday
Not this Saturday and Sunday coming up with the one after that and as we mentioned
They are they are in need of volunteers
And if you volunteer is we get if you just volunteer for a four-hour shift you get a day pass to Maker Faire
You get a t-shirt you get a
Passport a traveler passport that sounds awfully familiar, doesn't it?
They have other perks for eight to ten hour shifts and five hour shifts and all kinds of things like that
It's open to participation all different age groups as well certain
Requirements if you're under a certain age, but you can still participate
Go to makerfaire.com slash training dash module dash one and you can start the whole whole process. Yes, Rob
Yeah
the whole event is just a very
It takes place pretty much where creativity and technology meet in all sorts of ways in all sorts of fashions
And I highly recommend it. Oh and also we're going to be giving away tickets next week
So that's that's sort of a tradition we have around here excellent and bring you know
It there's a whole lot to do bring the whole family. It is a really family and
huge age range represented and and a lot of
teaching and learning going on and there's also plenty of
Concessions and stuff you need food or anything like that. You will be taken care of this is amazing what they turn the the science
Hall of Science into really just a massive hacker space
What I find to be
the most interesting part of all this is just all the kids running around and being creative and building things and and playing with things and
And you know, I don't think I have seen I believe I said this before but I don't think I've seen a single kid crying at
Makerfaire ever not once I've seen a couple of adults crying because their kids are just going too fast for them
but no, the kids are really happy running around being being children as as
Children often aren't in this country and it's just really really healthy to see and
It kind of leads into something else that I want to focus on
I'm sure we all want to focus on it's it's actually a headline today and that's the kid in, Texas
Name of Ahmed Muhammad who is in the headlines because he had the audacity to come into school
With a clock that he built
This is this is exactly the type of person
Who would come to Makerfaire who would come to a hope conference who is is a maker or a hacker whatever you want to call
him, he's somebody that
That builds things that is scientific
well, unfortunately, he also happens to be Muslim and in Texas that is a hazard because when you show up with a
Device that you built even if it is only a clock
It and and your skin happens to be brown and your religion happens to be Muslim all
Kinds of things hit the fan and that's exactly what happened down there
School officials questioned Ahmed about the device why he brought it to school
Ahmed was then handcuffed for his safety and for the safety of the officers. I don't know what that even means
He was taken to a juvenile detention center and then later released to his parents the follow-up
investigation
according to Irving police chief Larry Boyd
Revealed the device apparently was a homemade experiment and there's no evidence to support the perception. He intended to create alarm
They had a news conference today, this is really kind of hilarious they
He he basically
Touted the outstanding relationship he's had with the Muslim community in Irvine Irving rather
He said he talked to members of the Muslim community this morning and plans to meet with Ahmed's father later today
At some point Barack Obama got involved and invited the kid to the White House
Asked and here's of course the million-dollar question asked up to teens religious beliefs factored into his arrest
Boyd said the reaction would have been the same under any circumstances. Okay show of hands who here believes that I don't see any hands
No hands at all
Go ahead. I don't believe it. But I mean this tendency for the police to overreact to everything
And you know, especially when the the children are not white Christians
It's just insane. Like look, I don't know anything about bombs unlike a lot of
People that I know like I never built bombs for fun growing up, you know
Plenty of people did and turned into perfectly happy productive adults who never hurt anyone
But but I as it happens didn't whatever but even I know that in order to build a bomb you need like explosive material
You don't just have a circuit board by itself. That's not a bomb
Wait, you know people who built bombs as kids that grew up to be nice happy healthy adults
I don't did I miss that social people build like pipe bombs and other little not like big bombs
But little thing little explode II things you talk about blowing up a firecracker or something like that
No, they don't really build that though. You just sort of like that. Well Bernie might know some people that
It's not the end of the world if you're the right, you know skin color and all this stuff. Uh-huh
Well Bernie any thoughts on building explosives?
You
Know this used to be a time-honored tradition back in the day, you know decades ago
I have a couple of uncles that used to like to blow things up safely and I used to live in the countryside where people
Like to blow stumps out of the ground for fun and and you know, no harm came from it
it was just good old playing around with physics nobody gets hurt and
You know, that's just not accepted anymore. And it's a it's a shame. I think it it
That's where I think builds respect for for the loss of physics frankly, but you know, I'd like to ask
Anybody would know the answer to this question if designing building and demonstrating an electronic device like an LED clock
Constitutes
Protected speech and also at what point does the ignorance of poorly trained law enforcement officials?
No longer protect them and their agencies from civil rights violation lawsuits under the good faith exception
After the arrest people who've done nothing wrong
Yeah, and you know, we're talking about explosives and I should point out explosives absolutely nothing to do with this story
We're only talking about that because well, they the people overreacted
Basically brought that up and we're talking about law enforcement. It's not just law enforcement
It's it's the the teachers at the school too
I think his English teacher is the one who called the cops because they didn't understand just what it was
He was doing and they of course feared what he might be doing and and the fact that they didn't understand is key here
Um, there's an actual quote in the article from one of the authority figures saying it looks like a movie bomb
Which if anyone knows anything about bombs you you probably one of those things
You know is probably not that every bomb looks like a movie bomb, but but you know
This this kid made a clock a circuit board some lights
maybe a display on it to tell you what time it was and he brought it into school because he wanted to show his
friends his teachers whoever and
That is something very precious to any budding nerd
If it weren't for my ability to tinker with stuff and show it off when it succeeded, you know
I I wouldn't have half the technical ability
I grew up to have and the fact that this kid is being has been persecuted for it dragged out in handcuffs in front of
his friends
in and
Basically had had his name plastered all over the internet as this as this threat just because he happens to be
Both curious and brown. It's it's a it's shameful. It's truly shameful
Absolutely, and you know one thing I am kind of heartened by is looking at the mass media here. It's almost universally
Condemning what happened to this kid? I wasn't really expecting that I was expecting
To see a bunch of people saying yeah, what do you expect in this day and age?
How was he thinking why is he building a clock in the first place? What's he really up to I was expecting to see I'm
Sure, that's out there, but it's not out there nearly as as dominantly as I feared
Yeah
I mean definitely kudos to I think was the Dallas News who was the first to report this story and I think really set the
tone for the future coverage
Who had the good sense to notice that this story is completely absurd?
Had the good sense to not take the claims of the police and the school administrators
Seriously because they are not serious claims and and I think we're in large part responsible for the the tone of the
coverage and and the reaction of the public to follow
Yeah, and let's just go over that really quickly and then we're going to move on here. Basically Ahmed's clock
Was hardly his most elaborate creation according to the story in the Dallas News
He said he threw it together in about 20 minutes before bedtime on Sunday a circuit board and power supply wired to a digital display
All strapped inside a case with a tiger hologram on the front
He showed it to his engineering teacher first thing Monday morning didn't quite get the reaction. He'd hoped for he was like
That's really nice. I would advise you not to show it to any other teachers
So he knew he knew right away. This is not gonna fly that this is the kind of attitude we have down here
He kept the clock inside his school bag in English class, but the teacher complained
When the alarm beeped in the middle of a lesson
Yeah
Ahmed brought his invention up to show her afterward. Yes. She brought it on herself. She complained about it
She was like it looks like a bomb. I told her it doesn't look like a bomb to me and
You know, we're experts on bombs people like us, you know, he might know that
The teacher kept the clock. Okay, if you thought it was a bomb, why in God's name would he keep it?
You know, you throw it out the window or something
All right when the principal and a police officer pulled Ahmed out of six period he
Suspected he wouldn't get it back. They led Ahmed into a room where four other police officers waited
He said an officer he'd never seen before leaned back in his chair and remarked. Yep. That's who I thought it was
Now just think about that statement right there, you know a cop that he doesn't even know
Saying that because of the way this kid looks that's the one he thought it was that pretty much wraps up the whole story
Right there. Wait the question the 14 year old kid by himself
Well, there were there were three other cops there. So but no, they were like responsible adults
And I don't count the school staff as responsible here with all the irresponsible things
These people in Texas did this this doesn't surprise me that they would have a kid in there without
Legal representation of any sort. I mean, that's just I mean, it's it's it's
No, it's certainly less insane than a lot of other things they did
But this is like what I thought a rule that police officers actually knew about and sometimes followed I guess I was wrong
Illustrates their level of carelessness pretty pretty well, I mean, yeah
This story has blown up like the bomb they feared they had under their their their noses
Ahmed felt suddenly conscious of his brown skin and his name one of the most common in the Muslim religion
But the police kept him busy with questions the bell rang at least twice
He said while the officer searched his belongings and questions his intentions the principal threatened to expel him if he didn't make a written statement
They were like so you tried to make a bomb. I told him no, I was trying to make a clock
In fact, he succeeded in making a clock
I believe he said it looks like a movie bomb to me
Which tells you the kind of movies they watch and the level of their intelligence
Ahmed never claimed his device was anything but a clock said police spokesman James McClellan and police have no reason to think it was
dangerous, but
They still didn't believe he was giving them the full story. They said that they thought he was
Pretending it was a bomb. They were the ones basically saying it was a bomb, but they they were about to charge him with with
Creating a hoax bomb, which is apparently a thing
Anyway, when the story blew up as as happens on stories like this blow up
Reason kind of came in like the tide and swept all these idiots away. Well, they're still there unfortunately, but
He is
Being given the recognition he deserves
And hopefully his life will change for the for the better. We're laughing at this because there are so many funny elements
It's nothing funny about doing this to a kid about
Traumatizing him and and putting him through hell and it can be the kind of thing that you don't get through and that it's up
to us it's up to people like us to make sure this doesn't happen in our community and
And and I think with with healthy activities
It'll happen less Rob. Yeah, um sanity did prevail in this particular case and the kid was lucky
Um, I I first started seeing a you know, ridiculous, you know reactions to how ridiculous this was coming from people in the hacker communities
People in the maker communities, but it began to spread to the mainstream
He got a nice tweet from I understand Hillary Clinton the president tweeted at him the Raspberry Pi
Foundation tweeted at him saying, you know, we have some scary looking hardware. We'd like to send you
There was a hashtag called I stand with Ahmed
On Twitter and people were posting posting pictures of themselves with wall clocks and things going how scary am I now?
But he his family actually ended up starting a Twitter for him
Just because that's where a lot of this reaction was
So the Twitter account if you're interested in following them is I stand with Ahmed. That's I stand with a H MED
There's gonna be a lot more wall clocks being made in the next few weeks. I think and
I'm sure Ahmed will be teaching people exactly how to do that. So Wow
Joining us now on the phone is
Senior staff attorney for electronic frontier foundation Mitch Stoltz Mitch. Are you there?
I'm here. Good evening. You've been listening in on some of this conversation here. Is it any of this surprise you I
Can't say that it does sadly I mean this
You neither neither the apparent
Targeting of maybe a
Child named Muhammad or a the
Sort of deep and and
sort of scary misunderstanding of a love for tinkering and and
The purposes of
piece of technology that the first thing that
the police or school administrators would jump to would be something that they saw in a movie rather than say
something that they saw at the local hackerspace or in a
Book of projects. Yes that Ahmed and others might have been following
But that's it. That's a very good point that their their frame of reference is so limited as limited to mass media
And and second-rate entertainment and that's basically what what they make their decisions based upon
rather than actually learning something themselves going down as you say to hackerspaces and and
Figuring out what people are actually doing the constructive things maybe learning a bit about technology themselves
That would definitely make a huge difference. Don't you think I
Do and that you know that
I think a challenge for for a lot of us is to you know, educate mainstream culture and
Sort of help maybe dissolve that fear and not have that be the people's you know people's first conclusions
Absolutely, yes, go ahead Bernie. I
Just wanted to say to the police officer who arrested this 14 year old kid for bringing an LED clock
Is he with us school and said it looks like and no
No, I just want to say if he's listening, I would like to say to everybody who knows him and him himself
When you said it looked like a movie bomb
I think this cop looks like a movie cop as in those
Keystone cop movies where the cops are just complete idiots and don't know what they're doing. That's what he looks like to me
Well, hopefully he's listening and has heard that particular little like critique there and will respond in kind
but Mitch
We have some
Something of yours to talk about I understand that
There was a big win for fair use at the Electronic Frontier Foundation was in the middle of this week
That's right the the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals out here in San Francisco
That's the federal appeals court for a lot of the far western states
Ruled yesterday in a case that well
We've been working on for eight years and that's the lens versus Universal Music or better known as the dancing baby case
Yeah, not with it. Could you tell us what exactly the dancing baby is all about?
Sure, so this was a mom Stephanie lens who posted a
Short video on YouTube back in
2007 of
Her two small children dancing on the kitchen floor and in the background you hear playing the song. Let's go crazy by Prince
Universal Music which at the time was Prince's record label
Sent a takedown notice to YouTube
Asked them to take that down and accusing it of being a copyright infringement
Now Ms. Lund had put the video up there mainly to show her family
little video of her children
It was it was public and and and they you know, the it had the music in it, but it was
pretty obviously not a
full reproduction of the song or a very high quality reproduction of the song or a
Place that anyone would go just to hear the song and avoid paying for it
Those those were all pretty obvious to the to the average observer and and and and which means that the video was fair use
Means that it's something that falls into the the broad flexible
Exclusion from copyright law, which is which is vitally important to
all communication on the Internet because
because everything
Almost nearly I won't say everything but nearly everything on the Internet any any thing that's the slightest bit creative is probably
Automatically copyrighted. This is an important point to remember is copyright
Is automatic it doesn't require
Registration or an application it applies automatically to any
creative work and that means that
almost any transmission of
creative work is
Except for the fair use doctrine. It's it's it's nominally copyright infringement. Fair use is really important and
So it's really important that
People take it into account before they they sort of let fly with accusations of copyright infringement
The accusations are powerful because they're easy right the Digital Millennium Copyright Act
Sets out this procedure that YouTube and many other
content platforms
Follow where you basically fill out a web form or send an email and apply as saying I you know
This material is copyright infringing and the platform will take it down because that protects them against lawsuit
It's it's in a sense very easy. And that means it's very easy to abuse
Miss lens and with
EFF and some others acting as her as her legal team filed suit against Universal Music
Saying that they they misused the DMCA when they took down her video. They should have
Taken a look at the video and concluded that it was fair use and they should have incorporated fair use
Into their process now the appeals court yesterday
And this has been a long time coming. The appeals court said yes
Before you send takedown notices you have to consider fair use
Good they had not been doing that before
No, that wasn't it wasn't clear the there was a lower court decision that was a bit equivocal on that point
But the the on appeal the appeals court said very unequivocally
You know
There there are no fair use can be tricky there are there are there are difficult cases whether something is fair use or not
There are also easy cases. We think this was an easy case
but
Either you're hard. You have to think about it before you fire off a takedown notice
Now Mitch one thing that we've seen is that a lot of these takedown notices are sent not by humans at all
But by robots and they don't even let alone consider fair use they oftentimes don't even actually
Identify the work in question correctly is are there gonna be any penalties for entities that?
violate this procedure
So the law provides for a penalty in this case was really about what you know, how much it does
Company like a content company or a sort of a DMCA
Agent company or
One of these groups how much do they how much do they have to do and the court did say, you know
We're not outlawing
robo takedowns
but
They have to consider fair use somehow
That probably means that almost that that certainly means that there needs to be some human review in the closed cases
you know if it's you know a complete verbatim copy of
music video off of
You know on our on artists website or something like that
Probably, you know that that that's likely infringing, you know absent some other evidence of fair use
So that may be an easy case and you know a few seconds in the background of something
That's also an easy case. This was an easy case a family video a video of a toddler easy case
Those
You know one way or you know one way or another they may not require that much human review
Close cases are going to and they're gonna have to make a judgment call and the court said, you know
Companies like Universal Music can make judgment calls, but they have to put in the effort
Now it says easy case, but this has been going on for eight years now that baby's probably almost a teenager now
Yeah
Yeah, that's the nature of litigation that it's been through it's been through many twists and turns and the end the case is not over
There's there's a really kind of a number of places. It might go from here
but that was
Yeah, you know, I think I think all sides saw this is an important issue and an issue going going far beyond, you know
a mom and her toddler
This really has implications for
the misusing copyright for censorship this has implications for political videos and
remix videos and journalism
and all sorts of things where
Copyright claims make a really easy way to make something disappear at least temporarily it's tempting to do that again say
a
sharp political commentary in the middle of a campaign
Send you know, fill out one web form and the video will disappear for a minimum of two weeks
Which could be you know, really damaging if it's in the middle of a political campaign. Yeah, absolutely
Bernie, I believe you had a question
Sorry, we have a delay here Bernie. Did you have a question?
Um, yeah, um Mitch what happened what would happen if a similar case arose now in the
Internet circuit a so-called easy case like you just cited
and a company like a
Universal Music or some other big copyright behemoth if they if they just sent a
threat or a takedown notice and
Completely ignored the obvious fair use
implications
Mm-hmm. What would what would happen to them? What or would they just be able to do it again with impunity?
Well, they could be sued for damages and that's what this case was was about now
You it's still not it's still not if that hasn't been determined yet what those damages are in this case
The court said that this could be nominal damages which is which is essentially a small fine that
vindicates someone's rights
but in some cases, you know, for example in the example I gave or maybe a
Political video done at a critical time like there may be actual money harm involved in which case a company that sending a
Careless takedown notice like there's a malicious takedown notice really
Could actually be liable for significant money damages
Mitch I had a question about about
Just how many cases like this from your perspective you think maybe would be affected or are being
Currently looked at right now and and what is the impact of the ruling against this kind of flawed logic?
What's that going to be in the short term here? Is that gonna affect a lot of cases?
This issue actually doesn't go to court very much. There's actually very few cases
You know, we're going to be as far as actual court decisions about this
which is part of why this case has taken so long and and and really just been do you get such a
Sort of sort of deep and involved case was was because it's treading a lot of new ground
Where is it where this?
Law and where this principle really has an effect. It's not so much in court
it's in the everyday decisions of
major entertainment companies and
Content platforms and users
Knowing what the rules are. Hopefully people will be less afraid to post their personal expression
that might use
pieces of pieces of other people's work in a fair use way a
Creative or critical way or educational way that there's various sort of flavors of fair use
that and
Hopefully and this is I think really what will happen is is that the the in-house lawyers at?
Places like Universal Music, you know and the movie studios TV studios
You know the folks who are really sending out millions of take-down notices
Are gonna overhaul their procedures a little bit and they're gonna keep using software, right?
There's still going to be there's still going to be the automated scanning. There's gonna be take-down bots, right?
That's but but I think they're gonna they're gonna use a bit more human review now and that's gonna make a big difference
Yeah
and in addition to that
That kind of social attitude that it works to kind of educate and evangelize actually a healthy thought process around this. That's fantastic
Yeah, I had a question
Mitch you mentioned YouTube videos and and various ways that
Things get shut down. How does that technology work?
I've asked many people and no one really seems to know how they're able to keep such a massive database of audio and video
many times
Audio and video that's not even available anyplace else
For instance, you take something off an old TV program and and all of a sudden a YouTube instantly flags it as being a copyright
Violation but yet you cannot find that anyplace else. Is there some kind of online?
Library that no one else has access to where all these things are just stored and compared
YouTube is a special case here
This is not the case with every content platform
And and we don't know exactly how it works. We have we we have a general idea of it
Obviously, it's drawing on you know, quite a lot of Google technology
YouTube system is called content ID and
it it does involve a
giant database of
Content or I guess it's probably
hashes or fingerprints of content
from
Major content companies. We're talking major record labels and major TV and movie
Producers probably less so with independent or they they may or may not be in that database. So it doesn't cover the world it covers
Just sort of reading really sort of sort of high-profile
There's a corporate and entertainment distributors
Somehow yes, they're they're searching
And it's hard to know again. It's hard to know the details. They're searching all the uploaded video
For you know and comparing it against this database of
content hashes and
I
Think in many cases they if they find a match, they don't necessarily take it down right away
Sometimes they'll they'll they'll offer to build they'll offer to monetize it or you know
they'll offer it sort of right essentially broker a deal between the uploader and the and and and the right holder or
Just just run ads over it if that's what the right holder wants
It would actually be pretty unfortunate if
The YouTube content ID system got enshrined as the gold standard for how
User-generated content platforms could work because none of the rest of them have the resources of Google
most of them can't afford the resources of Google and if and if
If it were to be if the rule were that you know, you can't run a user generated content site
you
Know free and clear of liability without implementing something like Google's system
Then you you basically just crowned Google the the the monopolist of user-generated content. That would be a real shame
Well, no doubt that's where they'd like to head on on that particular thing one thing you did say that intrigued me
Concerning independent artists now. I'm not saying independent artists should play this game because it's really unhealthy
But what I'm curious about is is this something that it's like an exclusive club that only the big corporate
Copyright holders take part in and everybody else who also is a legitimate copyright holder
Are they being excluded from from participating in this?
Largely yes, I don't know the details there are some there is definitely some participation by independents
But even then it's generally going to be large independent again. New America copyright is pervasive and it's automatic
So we are all copyright owners anyone who's ever
Typed anything into a keyboard?
scribbled a drawing on a napkin
You know, we don't necessarily want all of those in a database being matched against everything uploaded to the Internet
That would be a strange and dangerous world
For you
Is this case only is it only binding in a Ninth Circuit?
It's also interesting that the Ninth Circuit is where a lot of these big
Entertainment content companies happen to be based which I think is a good thing that this decision went down in the Ninth Circuit
But does it not apply in the in all the other the rest of the country?
No formally it only applies in the Ninth Circuit, which is the Pacific Coast States and a few others
Hopefully, it'll be persuasive in the rest of the country. There's not again. There's not very many cases on this. There's not a lot of binding
precedents on this subject so
Courts in other parts of the country can choose to follow there's certainly companies in
New York and and other places can choose to follow this
But they don't necessarily have to
I
Mitch I wonder I wonder how much how much this I wonder how much power this puts back into the hands of
Site operators like YouTube because now that this is now that this has been freed up to an extent
Would it still behoove someone like YouTube to be overly?
Zealous with with taking things down or do you think this will actually cause someone on the scale of YouTube or any smaller?
sort of content sharing sites to
To actually work toward protecting the fair use of
copyrighted works I
Actually don't think this decision changes the incentives for platforms like YouTube very much
I think you do the point of this law the digital Millennium Copyright Act was was to as much as possible
Take the platforms out of the role of
copyright police or copyright judges
The they basically follow a script and
If they follow that script and they're out of the equation then a copyright holder can can either file a lawsuit
At that point or or or do nothing
So they're pretty well protected and I don't think this is really going to change their incentives very much now, it's great
And YouTube does this sometimes and then and others do this sometimes it is great when
Companies go to bat for their users say
That's an obvious fair use and I'm just not going to respond to this takedown notice. I mean we love to see that
Sometimes the company is taking a risk doing that, you know
And that's you know, and it's a significant risk because the penalties for copyright infringement are crazy
But we like to see it when it happens it you know, it can't happen all the time
Mitch we're speaking with Mitch Stahl senior staff attorney over at the Electronic Frontier Foundation
I know you're involved in in many cases your organization does an incredible job
I you know, I sometimes wake up in a cold sweat thinking that the EFF doesn't exist and all of our rights have been completely
Trampled and evaporated if you guys weren't around. I really wonder what this situation would be like
How can people help how can people get involved both in this case?
in in the case of of innocent teenagers building clocks in the case of ink splotches being
Being accused of belonging to somebody else so much insanity is going on with these
These companies and and just the way we're thinking these days. How can people join in these fights?
Education is key. We have a lot of resources on our website and a lot of campaigns
we let people we let people know when
It's a good time to contact the legislators. We have a wonderful
Platform that puts people in touch with their senators and representatives by phone
And our work very much depends on the donations of individuals
That's that this this is this is our lifeblood
And we encourage people to join in and help us out and become a part of that community
And that's all easily accessible at EFF org
Okay, great any any final comments or questions from anybody I
Just want to thank you again for the work you're doing
I hope that your optimism that this will change the actual practices of the entertainment industry is is founded and
That you know positive change for people who want to do creative things
Will come from this work and so much else of the work that you guys do
I'm sorry about this phone that delay that we have here, but go ahead Bernie
Mitch I wanted to ask these eight years of this legal fight of surely there were legal fees and expenses involved
Is Universal Music Corp have to pay all those legal expenses now or or not?
That's an unsettled question. Actually that the case is not over and that that has yet to be determined
EFF of course our work is again is is supported by by donations from
The the listeners of this program and many others that that's where that's where the fees come from on our side
On on Universal's, I don't know that that's that's hard to know
Okay, well, thanks again Mitch for everything you do and everything that
EFF does as well. I'm sure we'll be talking about other cases in the very near future
Hopefully they'll be victorious ones
Thank you guys and thanks for shining a spotlight on this
Our pleasure. I just wish we didn't have to I wish these things were
were
Just I don't know
I wish people had common sense as far as issues of copyright and and assumptions and things like that and maybe we're less greedy
Yeah, that would be nice. Wouldn't it? What would we do with our time then?
Well, I'm sure we'd find something to complain about
But right now what we're gonna do with our time is try to take phone calls because we figured out how to do that
Even if this radio station doesn't have any phones
We're going to do it. Anyway, and the phone number is once again area code three three one
two two three
WBA I and we did this last week and I think it worked pretty well
We're gonna try it again this week and and see if it works Kyle. You could deserve the credit for setting this up
You want to try and explain quickly what what's going on here?
Sure, it's it's pretty simple
We lucked out
But we found a couple channels on the board that we could switch to that were for I believe a CD player
We're not using right now. So we switch to that and that covers
Two inputs or two outputs so we get audio that's red and yellow RCA
And then the white one we're using is for monitoring or that goes back through as a microphone
Through our preamp here in the studio. So we have an extra headphone output. We just run through the mic
And yeah, it's just an AV cable for can't I hate to interrupt you?
We have a call and this call is from Long Island. Is it not?
Hi, how you doing?
Say that again, we had trouble hearing you
It's not oh I see. Okay. Yeah, you did fool us. I
Didn't mean to
Why I'd like to connect the Raspberry Pi with the tour how would I learn how to do that so I
Wonder what those tones are all about. Are you hitting touchstones caller?
No, it's the it's the magic track
Wow, at least it's not us this time
Well, you might want to listen on the radio for the answer to your questions. Is somebody gonna answer this question?
You Mike I don't know the offhand, but I do know that people have done it and if you look around
There's a large Raspberry Pi
community
And if you look through that you should get the answer. That was that was not very good on my part
Yeah, well, it is a good answer
No, that's a fantastic answer Mike and the real point is these these computers are getting cheaper and cheaper and there's amazing projects
going on with them and there is a lot of development a lot of active development in
Creating operating systems that I dare say are
Their sole purpose is for running tour. So the stuff is out there and there are a lot of possibilities
I mean the fun of this technology is that it's it's very inexpensive and you can explore and learn how it works
It's very hard to permanently break it. But even if you do succeed in permanently breaking it
You can just get another one and maybe you can turn it into a clock
Yeah, the Raspberry Pi itself was created as an educational tool
It's meant to be very simple to
Relatively simple to set up and to use and to tweak to your satisfaction. So there's a huge community out there
I think if you throw out some web searches for Raspberry Pi and tour you will find a whole lot of things people have already
Done that you can follow and the real beauty is you can pop the SD cards in and out so you can have one OS
On one SD card then switch it and you have a different operating system on another SD card
There's a lot of it's just built for that. So good good to hear you're doing it and good luck finding stuff
And we have another call the phone number three three one two, two three WBA
I only works for our show by the way, so don't try calling after eight o'clock. Good evening caller. You're on the air
Yeah, what's on your mind
Or and also trying to identify a
Good speak up, please
Hello
Hey folks, you got to speak up and this is kind of a tenuous connection, so
We need to raise the volume to the max and if you don't speak loudly we we won't be able to hear you at all
Again, three three one two, two three WBA is our phone number
We only have one line incoming and if you if you don't get through you might get voicemail or something like that
Hang up and call right back and we'll be we'll be sure and try and take your phone call on the air
Three three one two, two three WBA. I again. This is something that's not supposed to work
But it does because we we were able to a piece together Bernie. Are you still there?
I'm still here. I think that guy might have been on his cell phone and he has lost his connection, but this is great
We've had like all these people on the phone tonight, and I wish all the producers could do that with all the shows
That would be really nice. All right, we have another phone call. Good evening caller. You're on the air
Hello, how are you? Pretty good. How are you? I'm doing well. Thanks. I actually want to
Hi, I actually want to talk about a
Experience that I had with an organization
We had a silly little thing in a very closed
Industry trade group in our little magazine
It was a little quotes thing that somebody put out and I think that and the organization was sued
for like
$10,000 because of copyright infringement Wow
That's all
What happened was it was there was?
It's a revenue opportunity for
people to go out and hunt these things down and then threaten to sue you and
the organization wound up paying
$10,000 because they had deep pockets and they didn't you know, they didn't know what else really to do
And they had done something wrong, but they didn't know. Yeah, they realize it
Yeah, that's very much like the situation that happened with our ink splotch. There is this huge predatory business model
That's very profitable to do where you just threaten people and hope they pay you off
Yeah, it's if they're counting on catching your organization somebody there in the right moment, right?
when they're not thinking about it quite with the guard up in the right way and it it presents itself as a very serious thing and
All of a sudden these organizations are on the ropes
They're starting to think liabilities and and what do we do and how do we yeah and then it's about survival
They end up taking the kind of quick way out which ends up being a bit of a hustle
Yeah, this is why
This is why I'm slightly pessimistic about the good news that we talked about before the the
Organization that's suing you
Doesn't have to be legally, right? They just have to and I assume if your organization has $10,000
They also spend a few minutes talking to a lawyer and I'm sure what the lawyer said is yeah, we can defend this
maybe we can win, but it's going to cost you more than $10,000 in legal fees to do so and
And the organization that is suing
Knows exactly how much you're gonna spend on lawyers. They can ask you for 80% of that and and get it so much of the time
Something needs to change and I wish I knew what it was
All right, thanks, thanks for your call and good hearing from you
again, three three one two, two three WBA I is our
Temporary phone number for off the hook. I think Kyle is working really well considering what we have
It's rigged up here. Yeah, I'm already thinking of revisions like I would take this line
that's that's operating the mic and
There are splitters that could take it from mono to stereo
So it just puts mono and both right and left that way because it's coming through just in my right channel
I'm getting it in both ears. You're getting about okay, so maybe it's fine. Maybe okay, don't mess with well. It's not broken
Yeah, but it might be if I'm the only one getting that. All right. All right, as long as we're happy
Maybe you have special mono headphones. I might I might just have mono hearing again
Three three one two, two three nine two, two four three three one two, two three WBA
I is our temporary phone number. It goes out of service at eight o'clock and just about five minutes, maybe six minutes
But this is a chance for you to be heard on the air
Despite the fact that we have no working phone lines here at WBA I except for the one that Bernie is currently occupying right now
Okay
Yes waiting for the phone to ring and I know this sometimes takes a little while because
Like I said, we only have one line and and other people get transferred into voicemail oblivion
So again, three three one two, two three nine two, two four, but I'm just to address a couple of the early callers
I'm very happy to hear about the interest in tour and setting that up and if anyone is interested in in tour the onion router
Tor throw out some web searches because there are plenty of really good tutorials on getting yourself started with it
You don't have to be all that technical actually to get it going. Yeah, actually to add to that the
Operating system. I was thinking of that involved tour is called tails and that's something you could run that is basically a
Private or more or less a secure operating system. That's the goal or aim of the project
So check those things out and get involved build stuff for yourself. There are so many tools out there that are free and and
really fun to implement
Yeah a story that we didn't even have time to get into because there's just so much going on in the world
but there's libraries that are installing tour and libraries that are being told not to install tour and
There's there's just a lot going on and it's all really fascinating. Here's a call from New Jersey. Good evening. You're on the air
Hello
Are you freaked out because I know where you're calling from
Okay, I guess so they they hung up we only have about a minute so if anybody wants to call in
Three three one two, two three WBA eyes phone. Let me have about one minute to go
And you can write to us to OTH at twenty six hundred dot-com
Is our is our email address, let's take this call good evening you're on the air and you're calling from, Pennsylvania
Wow, listen to that he's on a train, it's so cool
It's a couple different things you have the tour project, which is an acronym the onion router and then
The hardware projects that we were talking about is the Raspberry Pi. It's basically a
around 800 megahertz
computer that is about the size of a credit card maybe a little bit bigger and
you can do all kinds of projects with input and output and
and
We'll be back next week with our special Maker Faire pre-show and again, you can write to us OTH at twenty six hundred dot-com
We'd love to hear from you. Stay tuned for the personal comments and we'll see you next week
Computer show the manual for off the hook. Have a good night and stay busy
Oh
Oh, yeah
Till
You