After the EU Copyright directive dissolves the “safe harbour” principle, what’s next?

In 1998, the United States passed its Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which established the first safe harbours to protect what were (at that time) web storage hosts with no interaction.

The EU created similar protections for copyright owners with its 2000 E-Commerce Directive.

The rise of the “web hosts” like Facebook and YouTube in mid-2000 a business model that depended on input provided by users and funded by advertising was created. A new term has been minted — so-called “User Generated Content” (UGC).

The problem is that the correct term for “user-generated content” is user-uploaded content.
It is mostly copyrighted content that belongs to someone else.

The safe harbour system has rules in place to deal with copyright. However, it does not work very well. Any DSP (Digital Service Provider) like YouTube, for instance, must take down unauthorized uploads if told to by the copyright owners.
The problem is that it will be uploaded again somewhere else the minute after it’s taken down. In YouTube alone, over 600 000 hours of video is uploaded EVERY day. That is more than 12 million videos per day (average 3 minutes duration aka length of a song), each a “UGC” or more accurately UUC (User Uploaded Content) with a possible attached song on the videos (birthday party video with Stevie Wonders Happy birthday for instance)
YouTube claims they have a solution they call Content ID that can detect copyright and consequently send some royalties to the copyright owner — instead of removing the track or video.
So why the need for a copyright directive?

Safe Harbour — I’m gonna make him an offer he can’t refuse!
YouTube tells copyright owners to license their copyright that is uploaded by users at the rate of 12 million each day at a price set exclusively by YouTube.
The alternative is to check 12 million videos each day and send take-down notices for copyright infringement for each occurrence of copyright piracy — an impossible task…

This Don Corleone approach has enabled YouTube to pay 1/10 of what Spotify is paying copyright owners for a music stream. And as we all know, Spotify is not the best p(l)layer in the class.

The new EU directive says that for the more than 500 million citizens of the European Union, YouTube and Facebook will be treated like Spotify, Apple Music, Netflix or any DSP.
They must license the copyrighted works on their sites or face the music (pun intended) for copyright infringement.

What’s stopping them from doing so?
Nothing really, besides a 90% rise in cost and consequently less in profit.

However, it is going to be a very long and hard fight for the copyright owners before that is going to happen.

The New Internet Media Solution.
NIM has the solution for implementing the Copyright directive ready.
This sentence has been everywhere lately — world famous in EU 😊
I got an email in response to this claim — saying: You got a big mouth, Thor, prove it!
A challenge I cannot pass upon!

The answer is — Regulated registration of Copyright.
We firmly believe that a regulated registration and trading of copyright is the way forward.

A publicly regulated and transparent registration process for copyrights and intellectual property rights much like the regulated registration of companies and trading of company stock functions today. NIM is working on a parliamentarian level in different countries to get registration and trading of copyrights regulated. In Sweden, there is a parliamentarian motion in place since 4Q 2018 (ref 2018/19:998)
A Copyright registration places on record a valid account of the date and content of the work in question so that in the event of a legal claim, or case of infringement or plagiarism, the copyright owner can produce an accurate copy of provenance from a reliable source.

For instance, you film your sister’s birthday on your mobile, and you want to put the song “Happy birthday to you by Stevie Wonder” as music always make a video better. Since this is a copyrighted song, Facebook and YouTube will have to refuse upload under article 17 UNLESS you make a quick stop at one of NIM’s partners MaaS (Music as a Service) and register the use of “Happy birthday to you” as a UUC (User Uploaded Content) BEFORE uploading the video.
Since the Copyright is registered and you registered the use (take 5 to 15 seconds) neither Facebook nor YouTube will have any objections, and they will pay the royalties to the owners of Happy Birthday to you, each time it’s played (however reluctantly).