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March 2021
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New Year, Same You: Twitch Releases Tools To Help Creators Avoid Copyright Strikes, Can't Properly Police Abuse

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Readers here will remember that the last quarter of 2020 was a very, very bad time for streaming platform Twitch. It all started when the RIAA came calling on the Amazon-owned platform, issuing a slew of DMCA takedown notices over all sorts of music included in the recorded streams of creators. Instead of simply taking the content down and issuing a notice to creators, Twitch simply perma-deleted the content in question, with no recourse for a counternotice given to creators as an option. After an explosive backlash, Twitch apologized, but still didn't offer any clarity or tools for creators to understand what might be infringing content and what was being targeted. Instead, during its remote convention, Twitch only promised more information and tools in the coming months.Five months later, Twitch has finally informed its creators of the progress its made on that front: tools on the site to help creators remove material flagged as infringement and some more clarity on what is infringing.

Twitch announced in an email to streamers that the site has added new tools today to help creators see where they stand with takedown requests and copyright strikes. Twitch also added tools to let streamers mass delete their recorded streams. It’s a smart move because it gives streamers better tools to play on the right side of copyright law. (If you don’t, and you rack up enough copyright strikes, you get permabanned.)Now, in the event that a streamer gets hit with a DMCA takedown request, it’ll show up in their on-site inbox; Twitch’s video producer will also show the number of copyright strikes a channel has received. In addition, streamers can now unpublish or delete all their VODs at once (or in batches of 20 at a time).
It's not that Twitch's new tool is a bad thing. More clarity for creators and an increased ability to granularly address DMCA notices for their content is a decidedly good thing. But it all feels both extremely late in coming because, obviously, Twitch should have known that DMCA notices on creators from the copyright industries would be a thing.But if you're looking for encouraging signs that Twitch is getting its shit together in policing its own site, you certainly won't find it in the story of how one creator got one of his accounts banned for an account name that was "harassment via username." The user he's accused of harassing would appear to be... himself.
It might be an understatement to say that popular Minecraft YouTuber and streamer George “GeorgeNotFound’’ Davidson had a weird weekend. Within two days, he got banned from Twitch, possibly un-banned, definitely banned again, and unbanned (again?). Why? “Harassment via username,” according to Twitch. Problem is, the only person he could have possibly been harassing was himself.The new, different ban email from Twitch accused him of “harassment via username” and once again informed him that the suspension was indefinite—aka, a ban. This one also further elaborated on what exactly he might have done, without telling him exactly what he definitely did. Examples included “having a username that explicitly insults another user,” “having a username that threatens negative action towards another user,” and “having a username that promotes self-harm in conjunction with malicious chat activity, such as telling another user to kill themselves.”
Obviously, "ThisIsNotGeorgeNotFound" does not do any of those things. And, yet, his account was banned for a second time. He has since had the account unbanned. Which, fine, but what the hell is going on at Twitch that it never seems to get any of this right? And if the platform can't be trusted to do something as relatively simple as properly policing creators' handles, why would anyone have any confidence that it's going to navigate waters as treacherous as the Copyright Seas any better?Look, Twitch grew up fast. And nobody expects any growing platform to be perfect from the get go. But with the backing of a parent company like Amazon, it certainly should be able to do better by its creators than this.

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posted at: 12:00am on 24-Mar-2021
path: /Policy | permalink | edit (requires password)

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Connecticut Legislature Offers Up Bill That Would Make Prison Phone Calls Free

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A lot of rights just vanish into the ether once you're incarcerated. Some of this makes sense. You have almost no privacy rights when being housed by the state. Your cell can be searched and your First Amendment right to freedom of association can be curtailed in order to prevent criminal conspiracies from being implemented behind bars.But rights don't disappear completely. The government has an obligation to make sure you're cared for and fed properly -- something that rarely seems to matter to jailers.Treating people as property has negative outcomes. Not only are "good" prisoners expected to work for pennies a day, but their families are expected to absorb outlandish expenses just to remain in contact with their incarcerated loved ones. The government loves its paywalls and it starts with prison phone services.Cellphone adoption changed the math for service providers. After a certain point, customers were unwilling to pay per text message. And long distance providers realized they could do almost nothing to continue to screw over phone users who called people outside of their area codes. Some equity was achieved once providers realized "long distance" was only a figure of profitable speech and text messages were something people expected to be free, rather than a service that paid phone companies per character typed.But if you're in prison, it's still 1997. The real world is completely different but your world is controlled by companies that know how to leverage communications into a profitable commodity. As much as we, the people, apparently hate the accused and incarcerated, they're super useful when it comes to funding local spending. Caged people are still considered "taxpayers," even when they can't generate income or vote in elections.So, for years, we've chosen to additionally punish inmates by turning basic communication options into high priced commodities. And we've decided they don't have any right to complain, even when the fees are astronomical or prison contractors are either helping law enforcement listen in to conversations with their legal reps or making it so prohibitively expensive only the richest of us can support an incarcerated person's desire to remain connected to their loved ones.Connecticut legislators have had enough. Whether it will be enough to flip the status quo table remains to be seen. But, for now, a bill proposed by the Connecticut House aims to strip the profit from for-profit service providers, as well as the for-profit prisons that pad their budgets with kickbacks from prison phone service providers. (h/t Kathy Morse)

Connecticut holds the dismal distinction of being the state with the most expensive prison phone calls in the country. But a new bill in the state legislature may soon make Connecticut the first state to make prison phone calls free.Senate Bill 520 would require Connecticut state prisons to offer telephone or other communication to incarcerated people free of charge, at a minimum of 90 minutes per day. The state could not collect any revenue from operating these services.
Seems like a reasonable response. 90 minutes per day should make most calls from prisons free for all but the most talkative. And I hope those profiting from these services socked some money away for a legislative rainy day. They've certainly had the opportunity. As this report notes, prison call services raked in over $13 million in fees in 2018 alone. There's no reason to believe this amount declined in 2019 or 2020, especially when 2020 gave people millions of reasons to avoid in-person visits with anyone.The bill [PDF] is short and sweet -- somewhat of a surprise considering it was crafted by public servants who often seem to believe they're being paid by the word. Here it is in its entirety:
AN ACT CONCERNING THE COST OF TELECOMMUNICATION SERVICES FOR INCARCERATED PERSONS.Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Assembly convened:That title 18 of the general statutes be amended to require the Department of Correction to provide voice or other telecommunication services to incarcerated persons free of cost for a minimum of ninety minutes per day.Statement of Purpose: To provide certain cost-free telecommunication services for incarcerated persons.
As it says on the tin, the purpose of the legislation is to provide prisoners with free phone calls, rather than allow them to be subjected to per-minute fees last viewed as "reasonable" sometime in the early 1990s. (And only viewed as "reasonable" by long distance providers, not the captive market they provided service to. [And "captive" means people who have few options in terms of service providers, not just those locked behind physical bars.])Expect significant pushback. And it won't just be coming from prison phone service providers like Securus. It will also come from local law enforcement agencies which receive a percentage of these fees -- something most people would call a kickback, even if law enforcement continues to argue that it isn't.If this passes, this will be the first successful effort that covers a whole state. Pockets of prison phone fee resistance have been found elsewhere prior to this (New York City, San Francisco) but it has yet to be implemented at state level. This bill would be the first to make it illegal to charge for prison phone calls across an entire state.This is the sort of legislation that should be adopted across the nation. Prisons -- for better or worse -- are a public service. They shouldn't be subject to the predatory behavior of private companies. Making it prohibitively expensive to talk to loved ones should be considered "cruel," if not "unusual." It serves no deterrent effect. All it does is enforce the unspoken fact that people in prisons are no longer considered "people." That's not how our justice system is supposed to work.


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posted at: 12:00am on 24-Mar-2021
path: /Policy | permalink | edit (requires password)

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