Creators and Tech Companies Can Be Friends

We’re taking part in Copyright Week, a series of actions and
discussions supporting key principles that should guide copyright
policy. Every day this week, various groups are taking on different
elements of the law, and addressing what’s at stake, and what we need
to do to make sure that copyright promotes creativity and innovation.

There is a trope that tech companies are trying to exploit creators. Typically you see it in doom and gloom stories about the artistic apocalypse. Musicians receive fractions of a penny from a stream, when they used to receive dollars for a download. Journalism has been replaced by clickbait because real news doesn’t sell ads. Noble artistic pursuits are being ruined by the greedy exploitations of large Silicon Valley tech companies.

Change is never easy

The truth is always more complicated. There are tech companies that exploit creators. There are creative pursuits that have trouble making money in traditional ways. It is also the best time to be a creator in human history, and that is largely due to the internet.

Some content companies exploit creators just as much as some tech companies do, the difference is that now, creators have a choice. They no longer have to go through creative gatekeepers that get to decide whose creative output is worthy of worldwide distribution. Now a creator can self publish their art and reach a worldwide audience instantly.

Unfortunately, worldwide distribution isn’t what it used to be. You can have fans in hundreds of countries and still make no income. Many creators who face this dilemma understandably become frustrated and think that tech companies are squeezing the life out of creators, especially if they try to earn an income through old business models that are hurt by these new distribution methods.

Just as tech disrupted distribution, it can also disrupt the business model itself. Ads were one method that showed promise for a while. Direct support from fans is now becoming more popular and appears to be more sustainable. There could be other models too, the beauty of disruption is that we don’t know what the next step is until it’s suddenly everywhere.

Equality before the law

This post isn’t about the way business models are being disrupted though, it’s about copyright law. The problem with the trope of tech companies exploiting creators is that it leads to laws that target tech companies while claiming to be creator first. Laws treat everyone equally, which means a law meant to target a hundred billion dollar tech giant has the same effect on every garage based startup.

Many startups are working on ways to get creators paid, and they risk being shut down by laws meant to protect creators.

Let’s take one popular example that has received some attention recently. The established content industry says that the DMCA is broken because it allows for creators’ content to be hosted with impunity until the creator asks for it to be removed. The main proposal to replace it is something called a “takedown staydown” system that would require tech companies to continually monitor for any content they have received a takedown for in the past.

YouTube already has something like this called ContentID. Unfortunately, what we’ve seen is that it is prone to abuse and not very good at what it’s designed to do. If a huge company like YouTube can’t get it right for one type of content, how can smaller tech companies and startups ever hope to implement a solution? Patreon for example has audio, video, text, images and software, which each face unique technical problems with identifying infringing content.

Not to mention the fact that infringing content is often not even a copy of the original. An exact copy of a video is easier to catch, but what if it’s dealing with remixed or fan art content in a different medium? How can you automatically detect that a creator is posting a picture of a 3D printed model they made that is based on a character from a video game?

The vast majority of DMCA notices Patreon receives are based on remixed or fan art content, not copied content.

These types of content are almost impossible to detect automatically, and yet this is exactly what a law like takedown staydown would require to fix the perceived failings of the current DMCA system.

Less money for creators

And when smaller companies inevitably can’t comply with laws like this, they are sued out of existence. This shuts down innovation and alternative models for creators. Patreon just announced that we have sent $100M to creators. If a law like takedown staydown existed three years ago, we never would have received funding to start as a company because of the massive liabilities associated with user generated content, and that would be $100M out of the pockets of creators.

This is not a zero sum game. Creators and tech companies can both benefit by making more money available for art.

The companies that are truly creator first in both the content industry and the tech industry should work together to make sure that all laws we make around copyright enforcement actually serve creators.

To learn more about how Patreon currently handles DMCA issues, check this out.