It is clear that anyone engaging in distribution of digital media and text online faces numerous forms of legislation from the alleged governments that attempts to enforce copyright and others doctrines onto them. The long tale of Bit Torrent sites being targetted, blocked and shut down by governments is a part of the history here, but how does this effect Steemit?
Months ago I made a post questioning the copyright situation for DTube and speculated that a failure to take some kind of action to stop mass uploading of copyrighted materials could pose a serious threat to DTube and possibly also Steem. It appears that with the continued rise of @DTube, this spectre is becoming ever more relevant and as far as I am aware, there is no public plan in place to handle this currently.
The recent piece on Polygon, featuring DTube and @ned tries to frame Dtube as being a kind of 'Youtube for Conspiracy Theorists' - which just isn't true at all and goes some way to revealing the agenda of the author. In any case though, it is clear that many users are using DTube (and Steemit) because they have been censored and controlled on other networks and they like the freedom here. There's nothing wrong with that, freedom is a good thing. The problem though is that:
With great power comes great responsibility
We all enjoy the freedom here and for the moment there is no great move to control the social experiment that is Steem, however, I do feel there is a kind of bravado involved among many who think they are untouchable because.... public blockchain. But that's not actually the reality. If a Domain is used to carry out operations that are claimed to breach legislation, then the domain can be seized and I think so too can the hardware and software involved - at least in some regions of the world (including USA). While it is true that the open source nature of Steem means that it would be really very hard to totally stop it's use on the web, it IS possible for state actors to attempt to shut down the blockchain simply by targetting the humans involved.
DISCLAIMER: This is not legal advice, I am not a professionally trained legal adviser, if you want legal advise I suggest seeking someone who is a professional in the relevant field of Law for your jurisdiction.
Copyright implications for Witnesses
This hadn't occurred to me until just now and I have never seen anyone else even mention it. If I or anyone runs a witness server or a complete Node for the Steem blockchain, Am I essentially operating a form of digital distribution that amounts to being responsible for breaches of copyright that may occur within the posts being processed by the server?
The Witness servers are technically processing data that could be copyrighted and thus could be said to be 'breaking the law' in some senses and thus the operators of the servers could potentially be hassled as a result.
Furthermore, the new EU legislation for online privacy (GDRP) which comes into effect in May, has an elaborate new set of requirements for 'data processors' who may be involved with operating systems that process information that could be used to identify individuals. I have see no mention of this being relevant to anyone here yet.
I don't know all of the answers to these issues and I think that there is a chance that no-one will really know the answers for sure unless there is a challenge made of some kind and the details are fought over in a court case for some reason.
I am in the process of researching GDRP in the course of my professional activities and so will know more about it in the coming weeks.
Does anyone have any good references for this topic in regards to Steem and Steemit?
It would be great if @ned or someone else at Steemit Inc. would point me to a legal statement regarding these issues. Maybe @andrarchy can help?
What do you think?
Wishing you well,
Ura Soul
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