You can read the IA’s take on these issues here: https://blog.archive.org/2023/11/02/internet-archive-submits-comments-on-copyright-and-artificial-intelligence/
Their take is quite different from the sentiment that seems to prevail in this community.
GDPR is not copyright, despite all similarities. I assume that you accept that copyright does not work like that, since you are changing the subject.
Note that the GDPR does not claim to be applicable in third countries; ie outside the territory where EU law is enforced. It only seeks to regulate dealings of outside parties with people in the EU. Even that can’t be practically enforced, usually. Once data leaves the EU, there isn’t much EU governments can do about it, which is why the GDPR has serious rules about data transfers to third countries. (That’s a problem for the fediverse.)
They follow French law in France and US law in the US. How else could it work?
They can’t choose to apply US labor law in France. Do you think they can be made to follow French labor law in Silicon Valley?
That’s where it gets interesting. The EU can, of course, regulate imports. If there’s a movie that is public domain in the US but not in France, then France/the EU could regulate the importation and sale of copies. I don’t know how that is actually regulated. What it can’t do is award damages for copies being made and used in the US.
There is a brief mention of the EU’s AI Act. That is certainly the basis for the lawsuit, rather than copyright law.
That means, if this case proceeds, it will be basically decided by the CJEU and create precedents for the entire EU.
They follow French law in France and US law in the US. How else could it work?
They can’t choose to apply US labor law in France. Do you think they can be made to follow French labor law in Silicon Valley?
Did they deploy their AI in Europe?
That’s a good question. I just checked with Meta’s website. It says Meta AI is “not available” in my country, which is in the EU.
They have to comply with these laws in Europe. They do not comply with them outside of Europe.
Is the argument that something that a multinational corporation does in one country, happens in all countries where the corporation is present? There’s no way that would stand up in court.
Yes, that’s where the trouble starts. I think later treaties reinforce the principle. I’d really like to know how the rights owners argue to get around that.
I guess my post was too long. Yes, France could enforce a judgment against Meta by leaning on the French division of Meta. The question is, on what legal basis this would happen.
They are suing because of something that happened in the US, right? What argument is there to apply French law?
That’s not merely politically contentious. It is explicitly against internation law; treaties that France has signed.
Oh wow. That’s not a small misunderstanding.
Law is basically territorial. French police can arrest people in France. If, say, Russian police tries to arrest someone in France, then it is, at best, a criminal kidnapping and, at worst, an act of war. Extradition hearings are a thing because a country decides on its own terms, by its own laws, whether to hand over people to another jurisdiction.
Sovereignty is a big deal for countries. If you think about it in terms of kidnapped or armed, uniformed foreigners running around, then you understand why.
If France were to send out fines to people in the UK for driving on the wrong side of the road, then the UK would refuse to collect them. France could collect fines for something people have done in the UK only if these people pass through France. Obviously, that would cause serious international tension.
In the same way, if France awards special privileges to its citizens that allow them to collect money from people around the world, other countries would not entertain such demands. What France can do, is make laws that force French residents to pay money to people around the world. That’s how copyright law works.
There are international treaties on intellectual property. Signatory countries generally agree to have certain minimal standards in their laws. They also agree to treat all nationals equal. So, France couldn’t make special privileges for its citizens. They also agree that their copyright laws only apply in their territories.
So, I don’t see quite what a French court could be doing here, that would be compatible with international law.
What? Did you reply to the wrong post?
I wonder what their argument is. French copyright law governs France. People in the US have no obligation to follow it. Might as well fine people in the UK for driving on the wrong side of the road.
Rich people have staff that knows all their secrets; assistants, bodyguards, maids, drivers, … Their staff might abuse their position to steal, blackmail, or even sign book deals. They still have the staff.
When AI agents become useful for normal people, normal people will use them.
These ideas are all fundamentally misguided. Let’s take a step back what we are trying to do here: We want to create a system so that the government can withhold certain information from certain people. That’s both difficult and dangerous.
PornHub’s idea requires cooperation from the hosters. You are not likely to get global agreement on that. So you will still need to do something about those foreign sites, such as blocking them.
At that point, such a law would achieve 2 things:
Blocklists that parents can install on their devices already exist, so there would be no change in that regard.
Of course, minors have no trouble circumventing such software. They have plenty of time and they are horny. You can’t win. The only faint hope might be to include such features at deeper levels, similar to existing DRM schemes. This would be ripe for abuse by bad actors or governments. It certainly would be used against the consumer by the copyright industry and tech monopolies; just like existing DRM schemes.
So we really should ask why we would want to walk further down this expensive, hostile, and dangerous path. Are we afraid that masturbation causes blindness?
What is burnt toast, if not fascist propaganda?
There have been controversies about that sort of thing.
I know the Oscar-winning movie The Tin Drum as an example. The book by Günter Grass is a very serious, highly celebrated piece of German post-war literature. It takes place around WW2. The protagonist has the mind of an adult in the body of a child. I guess the idea is that he is the other way around from most people?
The movie was banned in Ontario and Oklahoma, for a time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tin_Drum_(film)#Censorship
With European societies shifting right, I doubt such a movie could be made today, but we aren’t at a point where it would be outright illegal.
I see. I’ve looked up the details. Obscenity - whatever that means - is not protected by the first amendment. So where the material is obscene, it is still illegal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashcroft_v._Free_Speech_Coalition
It’s not a gray area at all. There’s an EU directive on the matter. If an image appears to depict someone under the age of 18 then it’s child porn. It doesn’t matter if any minor was exploited. That’s simply not what these laws are about.
Bear in mind, there are many countries where consenting adults are prosecuted for having sex the wrong way. It’s not so long ago that this was also the case in Europe, and a lot of people explicitly want that back. On the other hand, beating children has a lot of fans in the same demographic. Some people want to actually protect children, but a whole lot of people simply want to prosecute sexual minorities, and the difference shows.
17 year-olds who exchange nude selfies engage in child porn. I know there have been convictions in the US; not sure about Europe. I know that teachers have been prosecuted when minors sought help when their selfies were being passed around in school, because they sent the images in question to the teacher, and that’s possession. In Germany, the majority of suspects in child porn cases are minors. Valuable life lesson for them.
Anyway, what I’m saying is: We need harsher laws and more surveillance to deal with this epidemic of child porn. Only a creep would defend child porn and I am not a creep.
This is exactly the intended purpose of fair use. Look up the copyright clause.
Small creators are the biggest beneficiaries of this. They would have to pay the extortionate licensing fees.