I really don’t want my cloud storage provider to check my files for copyright violations. It’s not required legally and it’s something that I think is anti-user.
Banks don’t have to check safe deposit boxes for stolen art.
Self storage don’t have to check containers for stolen goods.
Of course, I’m against illegal stuff, but I don’t want to waste a single second defending myself from false positives in these situations. Google has no way of knowing whether I own the IP so I could have paid for a license for the material on my drive or many other legitimate cases.
Is it because you might share the files with someone that they have to consider anything put on Google drive as being redistributed under copyright law, and thus subject to copyright restrictions?
Or is the very act of putting something in cloud storage considered redistribution under copyright law, even if the file is never shared and you are the only user?
A while ago, I backed up a bunch of my Mom's files from a failing computer of hers onto Google Drive. I didn't think anything of it at the time. If there are some copyrighted materials on there, is Google going to suddenly terminate my account after a retroactive scan?
I think very hard about copyright and ensure that I uphold copyright in all my public works — for example, there are licensing details at the end of all my slide presentations for all images. Having to apply such a level of care to every action I perform on Google services is bonkers.
As poster above says, Google has no idea if I own the rights / have a license to the articles in question.
I used to work in the music industry and had license to rip music and distribute it online from all the major labels. I don't want my cloud storage disappearing along with my Google account just because Google mistakenly thinks I'm a pirate.
That may or may not be correct in the USA, but the world has many jurisdictions with varying laws on copyright infringement, and cloud storage providers may be liable for copyright infringement claims.
Therefore, Canadian copyright law is currently unclear on whether cloud storage providers may be shielded from liability for copyright infringement
⇒ If I were to run a cloud provider who permits file sharing, I think my legal team would strongly advise to scan files _shared_with_others_ for copyright infringement.
(In the ‘.DS_Store’ case, Google’s system seems to have some embarrassing false positives, but that’s a different issue)
It is laughable to put something working this badly into your "service" at all.
I realize this was probably 'forced' on some engineers at Google, but I'd still be embarrassed to say I've had a hand in this. A bit like being a supporting character in the worst movie of the year.
At what point do you threaten to quit over being forced to ship crap like automatic scanning of people's private files? I am unable to empathize here at all.
Just a guess, but it has the feel of a flawed source database of what's been copyrighted.
Something like a source where if one file in a collection is actually copyrighted, the entire folder/files/collection is assumed to also be copyrighted. And then, each file then goes in a database with a hash, etc.
That would account for this issue, and the earlier one where files with just a one/two/three digit number in them triggered the copyright hammer.
Unfortunately, past experience at Google is still seen as a good sign in job applications. I think we're at a point where gap years should be a better sign than a stint at that company.
Yesterday, while discussing backups, someone said end users should basically trust the cloud. This is why it is a bad idea.
The risk is data loss, irrespective if it is because of hardware failure or because of cloud failure connected to overzealous legal enforcement, algorithm decision making failure,or service deprecation.
Part of the risk equation is how big the chance is, and I would really love to see the numbers of hardware faulure vs cloud failure.
Another part is impact. Hardware loss might be recoverable via specific services. Cloud failure, basically you're on your own, and they might revoke access to your email a.k.a. digital identity certificate, or even sick the copyright cartel on you, worst case ending in a police visit taking out the other backups.
Hardware loss is easily avoidable with more hardware... create backups, store them on multiple external drives (for most users, a single modern external drive is enough for all the backups, so the additional ones are for copies), and you can then keep one at home, one at work, one at your parents place, and replace them every now and then to 'refresh' the backups... Most home users don't need hourly or daily backups, they just nee their photo and home video collections saved, their documents scanned etc.
With cloud providers, storing stuff in different datacenters doesn't help you, if you get banned from google, because someone didn't like your youtube comment. Multiple cloud providers might be using the same amazon/azure/... datacenter in the backend. Then there are different L0-L8 problems, from political, where your country gets embargoed due to some ongoing political struggle, or you can move to another location, where the internet is slow. And now, it seems that you can lose data due to stupidity as in the original post.
I tell all coachees if they are on AWS, also put backups on GCP/Rsync.net/Herzner/... and vice versa. If your data and backups are with one provider it's a non zero risk of losing everything because of account removal.
I haven't had a hardware failure in so long, it's scary. I keep wondering when my next failure is going to be but my countless laptops, hard drives, NAS, and desktop systems keep chugging along without issue.
I know of a Netgear consumer NAS I installed in 2011 is still running a business, untouched. It uses two enterprise drives in a mirror config.
And this is why I put together a NAS for my home, which then backs up to a cloud provider, encrypted - and if that provider decides to play silly shenanigans I can just as easily colo another box and back up to that as well as any other cloud provider.
ZFS on Linux is stupidly easy to setup, something like URBackup for all your clients to backup onto the NAS and you've got a nice 1-2-3 (with 3 being offsite) backup scheme.
Has Google publicly explained why they previously flagged files that has just the number '1' in them for copyright infringement [1]? I know they certainly didn't apologize for doing this, but did they at least explain it? At least internally? Did other Googlers ever hear an explanation?
This complete lack of accountability, of acting with total impunity is what really rankles me about big tech.
Given that there's no support you can call, this leaves no recourse if you accidentally sync the wrong .DS_Store. In the reddit post screenshot, there's no button to open a dispute of any kind. I wonder if this also marks your Google account with a "copyright violator" tag and further increases the chance of an automatic ban with the anti spam AI account pruning system that they run.
People who have 10 years worth of data and life linked to their Google Account should be pretty scared.
Google is causing a huge number of headaches of late. The gsuite withdrawal, the forced retiring of perfectly usable apps, the lack of any customer redressal if you get caught in cross fire, the banning of political youtube channels in certain countries, ...
I am actively moving email and data on to my own servers before even more things go down catastrophically.
I agree. I'm in the process of moving all my services to my own domain so if the worst happens I don't lose access to my primary email address. Anything I upload to GDrive is backup only. I would love if Rumble were to take off because YouTube's censorship over the last couple of years is becoming concerning.
I started the slow process of de-googling my life a few years ago. Google is so bad these days, it's not that hard to replace all the google things. Except one – YouTube.
People on the drive team should feel great shame for this. Catching a Google ban can be very very damaging to someone's life. Scans of files like this don't need to happen.
Is there a good word for when a solution is bad (in a 'defective by design' sense) but offloads all the "badness" to the competitor, ironically making it look good to casual users?
Like mac introducing files that are hidden to a mac but littering the place in other systems.
Or like Google nor caring about false positives as long as its customers (i.e. record labels) are happy.
In any case, I don't lose much sleep when one bad design hits another. My advice is the same as in the general case: avoid such systems.
If you're talking about .DS_Store, understand that it's not just by comparison that it's better; .DS_Store does a lot for MacOS users and while they have no idea that .DS_Store does this, your average Mac user probably would be upset to lose things like the Finder column defaults per directory, the window position, etc.
While I understand it's an annoyance to deal with an OS specific feature, at the same time, .DS_Store is so predictable that I just can't see how it's a challenge to deal with. Everything you need to know as a non-Mac user is basically "you don't need to consider this except by special request", and at worst, the end-result of not considering .DS_Store is your user(s) have to reset a few window settings.
I truly don't get the vitriol expressed towards .DS_Store; it's a hidden system file like any other and I struggle to understand the use cases where having .DS_Store in a directory is an issue. I have read countless articles complaining on it, but I've not heard a reason beyond "it junks up file systems", which can be said about _any_ system file.
.DS_Store is pretty neat solution to store folder-specific metadata. Whenever a user changes settings on how contents of the folder are displayed the file gets created. And since .DS_Store is a local file it is portable. Nothing breaks when folder is moved anywhere. Some programs use that to present a simple drag'n'drop installation picture. You don't need anything else, just a folder with correctly positioned files and custom background image.
Why does google want to get ahead of this? Pretty much all services use submit a notice and that's about it - why is google being so proactive at the cost of their users?
From what I understand (I don't have sources for this, other than memory):
Processing the DMCA notices has a cost. Nothing requires the DMCA notice to be in a machine readable format (although AI is getting better at this type of task), so it often requires a human in the loop. And they were getting sued by the copyright holders regardless of protections under DMCA. So they struck a deal with the copyright holders, that instead of them sending Google a DMCA, Google would provide an interface and automation to handle this, in return for the rights holders dropping their lawsuits.
I won’t use a drive service that is not e2ee. My files are my own business. There are multiple alternatives out there like sync.com (no, I’m not affiliated with them).
Disclaimer: I also don’t store copyrighted material.
Unless you are very careful not to, you probably do store copyrighted material, and there's a nontrivial chance that some of it is technically infringing. Copyright is much broader than most people realize, and the continued existence of the information economy largely relies on big copyright holders being reasonable and choosing their battles.
Copyright protections are really getting out of hand, and they are ridiculous:
Nothing to do with this example but today I decided to watch a documentary on my iPhone on Netflix app, which I rarely use on mobile. I liked a scene, took a screenshot to send to someone who might be genuinely interested in watching the documentary (which would even mean potential new customers for Netflix). The screenshot was blank. Then googled it to find it's on DRM grounds.
It takes one person to pirate and distribute a movie online to anywhere on Earth, yet these attempts block normal users from perfectly fair use.
Anyone who is going to pirate things will find a way anyway. Just like the Google example: the whole piracy detection system harms all the perfectly legal, fair use users while pirates have tons of other ways of distributing files anyway.
I wonder when this will end and copyright holders will understand that they're approaching this the wrong way.
Haha, the fact that Drive engineers couldn’t put out a fix quickly does kind of imply something about the product/engineering design cycle. Google does have the reputation in the Bay of being a retirement home for engineers who don’t care that much about being good engineers. Looks like that’s well deserved.
I had ,,backup and sync’’ for Google working OKish for me for accessing my Google Drive files in the past. I’ve got an upgrade called ,,Google Drive’’ which took down backup and sync, and then installed the software. After that it told me that it wants to sync everything on my disk, and there’s not enough space on my Google Drive to do it, and I can’t use backup and sync anymore.
I could pay for more storage for Google, but I don’t want it to have all my data with all the problems that I see here, and I honestly don’t know what to do now to sync with my mobile, as Google Drive was great for me in the past.
I see some people suggesting E2E solutions, but I’m not sure how great is the mobile experience for those, and how well they integrate with Google docs, which I love to use.
I was wondering if there is a file format that can be used as a defense against bulk scanning, but isn't necessarily an encrypted file where you would need a key to decode it. What I was thinking is encrypt the file, but store the key in the file in such a way that it requires an expensive computational operation to decode the key. When reading a single file it may take an extra couple seconds to open it, which could be ok for an end user, but it would make mass scanning impractical. One way of doing this I can think of is starting off with a random string that is recorded in the file header, then running it through bcrypt with a suitable cost factor, in order to derive the actual encryption key for the rest of the file.
Video file produced by us has been marked as copyright violation by the company I use to host large files (no we were not filming copyrighted subjects / objects). Repeated requests to restore access to file so our customers could download it ended up with customer support repeating the same thing ad nauseum. I have better things to do than waste my energy on this and since it was just a single file I just hosted it in a different place.
The scanning files is one thing, but the lack of this bug being resolved in a matter of hours is the real problem. This should not be an ongoing issue days later.
[+] [-] prepend|4 years ago|reply
Banks don’t have to check safe deposit boxes for stolen art.
Self storage don’t have to check containers for stolen goods.
Of course, I’m against illegal stuff, but I don’t want to waste a single second defending myself from false positives in these situations. Google has no way of knowing whether I own the IP so I could have paid for a license for the material on my drive or many other legitimate cases.
[+] [-] rectang|4 years ago|reply
Is it because you might share the files with someone that they have to consider anything put on Google drive as being redistributed under copyright law, and thus subject to copyright restrictions?
Or is the very act of putting something in cloud storage considered redistribution under copyright law, even if the file is never shared and you are the only user?
A while ago, I backed up a bunch of my Mom's files from a failing computer of hers onto Google Drive. I didn't think anything of it at the time. If there are some copyrighted materials on there, is Google going to suddenly terminate my account after a retroactive scan?
I think very hard about copyright and ensure that I uphold copyright in all my public works — for example, there are licensing details at the end of all my slide presentations for all images. Having to apply such a level of care to every action I perform on Google services is bonkers.
[+] [-] kingcharles|4 years ago|reply
I used to work in the music industry and had license to rip music and distribute it online from all the major labels. I don't want my cloud storage disappearing along with my Google account just because Google mistakenly thinks I'm a pirate.
[+] [-] Someone|4 years ago|reply
That may or may not be correct in the USA, but the world has many jurisdictions with varying laws on copyright infringement, and cloud storage providers may be liable for copyright infringement claims.
Even limiting this to the USA, we had
- Metallica vs Napster (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallica_v._Napster,_Inc.)
- A&M Records vs Napster (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A%26M_Records,_Inc._v._Napster....)
Napster lost both cases.
So, if you run a cloud provider who permits file sharing, it seems there’s a decent change you’re liable for copyright infringement by your customers.
Also, https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/cloud-computing-a-brief-ov... says:
Therefore, Canadian copyright law is currently unclear on whether cloud storage providers may be shielded from liability for copyright infringement
⇒ If I were to run a cloud provider who permits file sharing, I think my legal team would strongly advise to scan files _shared_with_others_ for copyright infringement.
(In the ‘.DS_Store’ case, Google’s system seems to have some embarrassing false positives, but that’s a different issue)
[+] [-] hoschicz|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shp0ngle|4 years ago|reply
If it allows that, people will misuse it for piracy, which will lead to this.
[+] [-] nrvn|4 years ago|reply
As an end user I would be sure that my data is encrypted in-transit and at rest.
As a cloud provider I would take care of encryption and privacy promises and transparency and care about my bandwidth and storage costs.
Risks:
- bad cryptography/leaked keys. Mitigation: sound cryptography, open source model of development.
- all possible attacks from the public about potential usage of the service for CP, terrorism and other deadly crimes.
- the rest of the risks that apply to e2ee messaging as well.
// just off the top thoughts
[+] [-] Mindwipe|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] belharius|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chmod775|4 years ago|reply
I realize this was probably 'forced' on some engineers at Google, but I'd still be embarrassed to say I've had a hand in this. A bit like being a supporting character in the worst movie of the year.
At what point do you threaten to quit over being forced to ship crap like automatic scanning of people's private files? I am unable to empathize here at all.
[+] [-] tyingq|4 years ago|reply
Something like a source where if one file in a collection is actually copyrighted, the entire folder/files/collection is assumed to also be copyrighted. And then, each file then goes in a database with a hash, etc.
That would account for this issue, and the earlier one where files with just a one/two/three digit number in them triggered the copyright hammer.
[+] [-] userbinator|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] friedturkey|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hyperman1|4 years ago|reply
The risk is data loss, irrespective if it is because of hardware failure or because of cloud failure connected to overzealous legal enforcement, algorithm decision making failure,or service deprecation.
Part of the risk equation is how big the chance is, and I would really love to see the numbers of hardware faulure vs cloud failure.
Another part is impact. Hardware loss might be recoverable via specific services. Cloud failure, basically you're on your own, and they might revoke access to your email a.k.a. digital identity certificate, or even sick the copyright cartel on you, worst case ending in a police visit taking out the other backups.
[+] [-] ajsnigrutin|4 years ago|reply
With cloud providers, storing stuff in different datacenters doesn't help you, if you get banned from google, because someone didn't like your youtube comment. Multiple cloud providers might be using the same amazon/azure/... datacenter in the backend. Then there are different L0-L8 problems, from political, where your country gets embargoed due to some ongoing political struggle, or you can move to another location, where the internet is slow. And now, it seems that you can lose data due to stupidity as in the original post.
[+] [-] KingOfCoders|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] datavirtue|4 years ago|reply
I know of a Netgear consumer NAS I installed in 2011 is still running a business, untouched. It uses two enterprise drives in a mirror config.
[+] [-] philjohn|4 years ago|reply
ZFS on Linux is stupidly easy to setup, something like URBackup for all your clients to backup onto the NAS and you've got a nice 1-2-3 (with 3 being offsite) backup scheme.
[+] [-] viktorcode|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Ansil849|4 years ago|reply
This complete lack of accountability, of acting with total impunity is what really rankles me about big tech.
[1] https://twitter.com/emilyldolson/status/1485434187968614411
[+] [-] noway421|4 years ago|reply
People who have 10 years worth of data and life linked to their Google Account should be pretty scared.
[+] [-] KingOfCoders|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] windex|4 years ago|reply
I am actively moving email and data on to my own servers before even more things go down catastrophically.
[+] [-] Gareth321|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kilroy123|4 years ago|reply
Gmail -> Fastmail
Browser -> Firefox / Safari
Phone -> iPhone
Google -> DDG
Google Calendar -> Fastmail calendar
Google maps -> Apple Maps
The list goes on and on.
[+] [-] tpl|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] josteink|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tpoacher|4 years ago|reply
Like mac introducing files that are hidden to a mac but littering the place in other systems.
Or like Google nor caring about false positives as long as its customers (i.e. record labels) are happy.
In any case, I don't lose much sleep when one bad design hits another. My advice is the same as in the general case: avoid such systems.
[+] [-] csydas|4 years ago|reply
While I understand it's an annoyance to deal with an OS specific feature, at the same time, .DS_Store is so predictable that I just can't see how it's a challenge to deal with. Everything you need to know as a non-Mac user is basically "you don't need to consider this except by special request", and at worst, the end-result of not considering .DS_Store is your user(s) have to reset a few window settings.
I truly don't get the vitriol expressed towards .DS_Store; it's a hidden system file like any other and I struggle to understand the use cases where having .DS_Store in a directory is an issue. I have read countless articles complaining on it, but I've not heard a reason beyond "it junks up file systems", which can be said about _any_ system file.
[+] [-] viktorcode|4 years ago|reply
I wouldn't call it a bad solution.
[+] [-] cesarb|4 years ago|reply
I believe the expression you're looking for is "negative externality".
[+] [-] tokamak-teapot|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lousken|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] derekp7|4 years ago|reply
Processing the DMCA notices has a cost. Nothing requires the DMCA notice to be in a machine readable format (although AI is getting better at this type of task), so it often requires a human in the loop. And they were getting sued by the copyright holders regardless of protections under DMCA. So they struck a deal with the copyright holders, that instead of them sending Google a DMCA, Google would provide an interface and automation to handle this, in return for the rights holders dropping their lawsuits.
[+] [-] DeathMetal3000|4 years ago|reply
Disclaimer: I also don’t store copyrighted material.
[+] [-] 0xcde4c3db|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] can16358p|4 years ago|reply
Nothing to do with this example but today I decided to watch a documentary on my iPhone on Netflix app, which I rarely use on mobile. I liked a scene, took a screenshot to send to someone who might be genuinely interested in watching the documentary (which would even mean potential new customers for Netflix). The screenshot was blank. Then googled it to find it's on DRM grounds.
It takes one person to pirate and distribute a movie online to anywhere on Earth, yet these attempts block normal users from perfectly fair use.
Anyone who is going to pirate things will find a way anyway. Just like the Google example: the whole piracy detection system harms all the perfectly legal, fair use users while pirates have tons of other ways of distributing files anyway.
I wonder when this will end and copyright holders will understand that they're approaching this the wrong way.
[+] [-] renewiltord|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xiphias2|4 years ago|reply
I could pay for more storage for Google, but I don’t want it to have all my data with all the problems that I see here, and I honestly don’t know what to do now to sync with my mobile, as Google Drive was great for me in the past.
I see some people suggesting E2E solutions, but I’m not sure how great is the mobile experience for those, and how well they integrate with Google docs, which I love to use.
[+] [-] derekp7|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] keonix|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] FpUser|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Saris|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] _h9mb|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kl4m|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sigzero|4 years ago|reply