PewDiePie - troll, racist, both?

[DGuller]

I don't see how a takedown notice creates a slippery slope. They're saying, we let you get away with it until now - but now stop. They're not, afaik, suing him from damages or anything like that.

I mean, you can disagree with the idea of takedown notices and what constitutes fair use, but I don't see anything particularly slippery about a situation that's "if you use our copyrighted material to make money in a way that we find harmless or beneficial, we don't mind - but if you use our copyrighted material in a way that tarnishes our brand, damages our industry, or has social consequences we disapprove of, we will mind and thus we will use legal remedies to stop you."

It's a slippery slope because in effect it establishes that every streamer is infringing on copyrights, but the publisher will leave themselves the discretion to decide who gets punished and who gets let off (for now).  Those videos are a source of income to streamers, so taking them down is dealing a hit to their livelihood. 

Yes, right now they're using their powers of selective enforcement against an unsympathetic target, but they can then gradually escalate matters to selectively enforce their copyright against streamers that criticize their latest released game, for example.  "Oops, sorry, it has to come to our attention that over the last five years, videos featuring our games earned you 100,000,000 views.  Please delete all these videos ASAP and do not make any new ones that feature our unfinished buggy piece of shit games."

[Berkut]

They don't have to gradually escalate anything. They have the copyright, and streamers are almost certainly legally infringing it. They can enforce it for whatever reason they choose. In this case, the reason is the guy is an asshole and bad for their brand.

They could certainly choose to enforce it if they felt that someone's criticism was more damaging than the fall out of refusing to let them infringe.

There is no legal issue here one way or the other - there is no slippery slope. Streamers are operating under the suffrage of the content owners now.

[The Brain]

I don't see how a takedown notice creates a slippery slope. They're saying, we let you get away with it until now - but now stop. They're not, afaik, suing him from damages or anything like that.

I mean, you can disagree with the idea of takedown notices and what constitutes fair use, but I don't see anything particularly slippery about a situation that's "if you use our copyrighted material to make money in a way that we find harmless or beneficial, we don't mind - but if you use our copyrighted material in a way that tarnishes our brand, damages our industry, or has social consequences we disapprove of, we will mind and thus we will use legal remedies to stop you."

It's a slippery slope because in effect it establishes that every streamer is infringing on copyrights, but the publisher will leave themselves the discretion to decide who gets punished and who gets let off (for now).  Those videos are a source of income to streamers, so taking them down is dealing a hit to their livelihood. 

Yes, right now they're using their powers of selective enforcement against an unsympathetic target, but they can then gradually escalate matters to selectively enforce their copyright against streamers that criticize their latest released game, for example.  "Oops, sorry, it has to come to our attention that over the last five years, videos featuring our games earned you 100,000,000 views.  Please delete all these videos ASAP and do not make any new ones that feature our unfinished buggy piece of shit games."

If that's the slippery slope then it seems to me that it can be safely ignored since the effect is negligible. All business negotiations can impact on people's revenue streams, I don't see what the big deal is.

And you can review and criticize products without using copyrighted material. No one is stopping criticism per se.

[Tamas]

It was unwise for PewDiePie to say what he did, but I still haven't seen any evidence that he's actually racist, rather than just insensitive. Also, the DMCA takedown request is spurious.

I have yet to meet a single person who used derogatory terms on a race/ethnic group and did not have derogatory views on them to match.

If we don't have to pretend that the antifa types are anything else than violent oppressor-wannabes, we don't have to pretend that people who talk and act like racists, are racists, either.

[Malthus]

It was unwise for PewDiePie to say what he did, but I still haven't seen any evidence that he's actually racist, rather than just insensitive. Also, the DMCA takedown request is spurious.

I have yet to meet a single person who used derogatory terms on a race/ethnic group and did not have derogatory views on them to match.

If we don't have to pretend that the antifa types are anything else than violent oppressor-wannabes, we don't have to pretend that people who talk and act like racists, are racists, either.

I've never understood why it matters whether someone who deliberately spouts racist slurs actually sincerely holds racist views or not.

The intention to act offensively is clear, and in my opinion, that's the issue.

[DGuller]

If that's the slippery slope then it seems to me that it can be safely ignored since the effect is negligible. All business negotiations can impact on people's revenue streams, I don't see what the big deal is.

And you can review and criticize products without using copyrighted material. No one is stopping criticism per se.

I guess I just instinctively dislike situations where everyone's a lawbreaker but the enforcer decides who should be punished and when.  This creates a situation with undue leverage.  Either the law is reasonable and should be enforced uniformly, or it should be deemed unenforceable if it's so broad that it requires extreme discretion in order to not lead to idiotic outcomes.  In this case, it appears to me that the fair use interpretation is unduly harsh on the streamers.

[The Brain]

If that's the slippery slope then it seems to me that it can be safely ignored since the effect is negligible. All business negotiations can impact on people's revenue streams, I don't see what the big deal is.

And you can review and criticize products without using copyrighted material. No one is stopping criticism per se.

I guess I just instinctively dislike situations where everyone's a lawbreaker but the enforcer decides who should be punished and when.  This creates a situation with undue leverage.  Either the law is reasonable and should be enforced uniformly, or it should be deemed unenforceable if it's so broad that it requires extreme discretion in order to not lead to idiotic outcomes.  In this case, it appears to me that the fair use interpretation is unduly harsh on the streamers.

Like I said earlier I think that non-enforcement likely should be regarded as implicit consent, which can be revoked. In that situation "everyone's a lawbreaker" isn't true, no one is a lawbreaker as long as they stop when the owners say stop. If your business depends on the use of material that is owned by someone else then you can always talk to them and make sure they're OK with what you're doing before you make huge commitments (if you don't your CRO should slap you, if you're a one man operation you can slap yourself).

[Valmy]

I've never understood why it matters whether someone who deliberately spouts racist slurs actually sincerely holds racist views or not.

Yeah I mean if somebody sincerely holds racist views who cares if they never actually ever do or say anything racist?

[The Brain]

It was unwise for PewDiePie to say what he did, but I still haven't seen any evidence that he's actually racist, rather than just insensitive. Also, the DMCA takedown request is spurious.

I have yet to meet a single person who used derogatory terms on a race/ethnic group and did not have derogatory views on them to match.

If we don't have to pretend that the antifa types are anything else than violent oppressor-wannabes, we don't have to pretend that people who talk and act like racists, are racists, either.

I've never understood why it matters whether someone who deliberately spouts racist slurs actually sincerely holds racist views or not.

The intention to act offensively is clear, and in my opinion, that's the issue.

It matters to God.

Oh right, you're one of Them.

[Malthus]

I've never understood why it matters whether someone who deliberately spouts racist slurs actually sincerely holds racist views or not.

Yeah I mean if somebody sincerely holds racist views who cares if they never actually ever do or say anything racist?

Heh, in the view of many in the modern left, racism can be sort of like sin in Catholicism.

It doesn't matter if you act on it; a sinful desire or thought is still a sin. Though of course acting on it is worse. 

Indeed, you could substitute "racism" for "sin" in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (ignoring the bit about "divine goodness" and the like) and it works pretty well:

1869 Thus sin makes men accomplices of one another and causes concupiscence, violence, and injustice to reign among them. Sins give rise to social situations and institutions that are contrary to the divine goodness. "Structures of sin" are the expression and effect of personal sins. They lead their victims to do evil in their turn. In an analogous sense, they constitute a "social sin."144 

Racism has an "original sin" aspect to it; if you were born White, you inherit it without necessarily doing anything, through the mechanism of 'privilege', from historical factors. Like original sin, you can only get rid of it by accepting certain doctrines, and engaging in a sort of confessional ritual in which you admit your privilege and resolve to take account of it in the future (to do otherwise would amount to a venal sin).

Racism can be a venal sin - if folks just trade on their privilege without thinking about it - or it can be a mortal sin - where folks make a conscious choice to be racist.

[Jacob]

That doesn't get any less outlandish just because you put a  behind it Malthus.

[Malthus]

That doesn't get any less outlandish just because you put a  behind it Malthus.

What's wrong with it being outlandish? 

I'm certainly not the only person to have noticed this.

https://www.amazon.ca/Americas-Original-Sin-Privilege-America/dp/1587433427

America's problem with race has deep roots, with the country's foundation tied to the near extermination of one race of people and the enslavement of another. Racism is truly our nation's original sin. "It's time we right this unacceptable wrong," says bestselling author and leading Christian activist Jim Wallis.

More: https://sojo.net/articles/remembering-trayvon/racism-americas-original-sin

... are these folks "outlandish" too?

[derspiess]

That doesn't get any less outlandish just because you put a  behind it Malthus.

Don't you believe in the checking of the privileges and all that jazz?

[Malthus]

Actually, as the articles I posted demonstrate, there may be a more direct connection rather than a mere observed amusing similarity: many in the early civil rights movement were, of course, deeply religious. It would hardly be surprising that notions of sin would get imbedded into consideration of racism, as being, quite literally, sin.

The irony is not that, it is that the idea is taken up by folks who, presumably, don't believe in sin in other contexts.

[Barrister]

That doesn't get any less outlandish just because you put a  behind it Malthus.

I don't know Jacob - I find Malthus' argument interesting.  I wish to subscribe to his newsletter.