TechDayLife

Large numbers of Internet subscribers, mainly in the United States, have been taking to the Internet in recent months worried about piracy warnings sent to them by their ISPs. Meanwhile YouTubers in Europe are worried on the  new EU Copyright Article 13 which will effect on next Jan . Despite much discussion of these online, questions continue to be asked. So, what should users do when they receive these scary emails? Millions of Internet subscribers use their connections to download and share copyright-infringing content. It’s been going on for almost two decades already and shows no sign of stopping. We all knew and also experienced the crazy times of Torrent.  For the vast majority of users, this kind of activity has no consequences. People grab the latest movies or TV shows, for example, and then hear no more. For many, this means they simply carry on, oblivious to the fact that their unauthorized transfers are probably being monitored by someone, somewhere.  I...

By Bijan Stephen on Oct 12 YouTube’s relationship with its creators has always been asymmetric; the platform necessarily has all of the power, and it’s not super transparent about the changes it makes that affect people who rely on the site for revenue. This January, for example,  YouTube announced  that it would now require creators who wanted to enter its Partner Program — which allows creators to earn money from the ads that run on their videos and from the YouTube Premium subscribers who watch their content — to have at least 4,000 hours of views in the last year and at least 1,000 subscribers. Now, YouTube has changed its Partner Program policies again — this time around video duplication, which, as is typical of YouTube, seems inconsistent in its enforcement. A few days ago, in a post on its help forum, YouTube gave an explanation to people who may have been removed from its Partner Program for “duplicative content,” which appears to have less to do with fair use an...

By James Vincent on Sep 12th, 2018 The European Parliament has voted in favor of the Copyright Directive, a controversial piece of legislation intended to update online copyright laws for the internet age. The directive was originally rejected by MEPs in July following criticism of two key provisions: Articles 11 and 13, dubbed the “link tax” and “upload filter” by critics. However, in parliament this morning, an updated version of the directive was approved, along with amended versions of Articles 11 and 13. The final vote was 438 in favor and 226 against. THE FIGHT IS FAR FROM FINISHED, CAN CUCKOO BE THE ANSWER? The fallout from this decision will be far-reaching, and take a long time to settle. The directive itself still faces a final vote in January 2019 (although experts say it’s unlikely it will be rejected). After that it will need to be implemented by individual EU member states, who could very well vary significantly in how they choose to interpret the...