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2026-02-07 08:26:02

Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

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Pluralistic: End of the line for video essays (07 Feb 2026)


Today's links


An image of a static-filled TV; centered in it is a distorted Youtube logo with the wordmark replaced by the word 'FairUse.'

End of the line for video essays (permalink)

What if there was a way for a business to transform any conduct it disliked into a felony, harnessing the power of the state to threaten anyone who acted in a way that displeased the company with a long prison sentence and six-figure fines?

Surprise! That actually exists! It's called Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the "anticircumvention" clause, which establishes five-year sentences and $500k fines for anyone who bypasses an "effective access control" for a copyrighted work.

Let's unpack that: every digital product has a "copyrighted work" at its core, because software is copyrighted. Digital systems are intrinsically very flexible: just overwrite, augment, or delete part of the software that powers the device or product, and you change how the product works. You can alter your browser to block ads; or alter your Android phone to run a privacy-respecting OS like Graphene; or alter your printer to accept generic ink, rather than checking each cartridge to confirm that it's the original manufacturer's product.

However, if the device is designed to prevent this – if it has an "access control" that restricts your ability to change the software – then DMCA 1201 makes those modifications into crimes. The act of providing someone with a tool to change how their own property works ("trafficking in circumvention devices") is a felony.

But there's a tiny saving grace here: for DMCA 1201 to kick in, the "access control" must be "effective." What's "effective?" There's the rub: no one knows.

The penalties for getting crosswise with DMCA 1201 are so grotendous that very few people have tried to litigate any of its contours. Whenever the issue comes up, defendants settle, or fold, or disappear. Despite the fact that DMCA 1201 has been with us for more than a quarter of a century, and despite the fact that the activities it restricts are so far-reaching, there's precious little case law clarifying Congress's vague statutory language.

When it comes to "effectiveness" in access controls, the jurisprudence is especially thin. As far as I know, there's just one case that addressed the issue, and boy was it a weird one. Back in 2000, a "colorful" guy named Johnny Deep founded a Napster-alike service that piggybacked on the AOL Instant Messenger network. He called his service "Aimster." When AOL threatened him with a trademark suit, he claimed that Aimster was his daughter Amiee's AOL handle, and that the service was named for her. Then he changed the service's name to Madster, claiming that it was also named after his daughter. At the time, a lot of people assumed he was BSing, but I just found his obituary and it turns out his daughter's name was, indeed, "Amiee (Madeline) Deep":

https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/Madster-creator-Cohoes-native-who-fought-record-11033636.php

Aimster was one of the many services that the record industry tried to shut down, both by filing suit against the company and by flooding it with takedown notices demanding that individual tracks be removed. Deep responded by "encoding" all of the track names on his network in pig-Latin. Then he claimed that by "decoding" the files (by moving the last letter of the track name to the first position), the record industry was "bypassing an effective access control for a copyrighted work" and thus violating DMCA 1201:

https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/story?id=108454&page=1

The court didn't buy this. The judge ruled that pig Latin isn't an "effective access control." Since then, we've known that at least some access controls aren't "effective" but we haven't had any clarity on where "effectiveness" starts. After all, there's a certain circularity to the whole idea of "effective" access controls: if a rival engineer can figure out how to get around an access control, can we really call it "effective?" Surely, the fact that someone figured out how to circumvent your access control is proof that it's not effective (at least when it comes to that person).

All this may strike you as weird inside baseball, and that's not entirely wrong, but there's one unresolved "effectiveness" question that has some very high stakes indeed: is Youtube's javascript-based obfuscation an "effective access control?"

Youtube, of course, is the internet's monopoly video platform, with a commanding majority of video streams. It was acquired by Google in 2006 for $1.65b. At the time, the service was hemorrhaging money and mired in brutal litigation, but it had one virtue that made it worth nine figures: people liked it. Specifically, people liked it in a way they didn't like Google Video, which was one of the many, many, many failed internally developed Google products that tanked, and was replaced by a product developed by a company that Google bought, because Google sucks at developing products. They're not Willy Wonka's idea factory – they're Rich Uncle Pennybags, buying up other kids' toys:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/02/google-ai-chatbots-microsoft-bing-chatgpt/673052/

Google operationalized Youtube and built it up to the world's most structurally important video platform. Along the way, Google added some javascript that was intended to block people from "downloading" its videos. I put "downloading" in scare-quotes because "streaming" is a consensus hallucination: there is no way for your computer to display a video that resides on a distant server without downloading it – the internet is not made up of a cunning series of paper-towel rolls and mirrors that convey photons to your screen without sending you the bits that make up the file. "Streaming" is just "downloading" with the "save file" button removed.

In this case, the "save file" button is removed by some javascript on every Youtube page. This isn't hard to bypass: there are dozens of "stream-ripping" sites that let you save any video that's accessible on Youtube. I use these all the time – indeed, I used one last week to gank the video of my speech in Ottawa so I could upload it to my own Youtube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZxbaCNIwg8

(As well as the Internet Archive, natch):

https://archive.org/details/disenshittification-nation

Now, all of this violates Youtube's terms of service, which means that someone who downloads a stream for an otherwise lawful purpose (like I did) is still hypothetically at risk of being punished by Google. We're relying on Google to be reasonable about all this, which, admittedly, isn't the best bet, historically. But at least the field of people who can attack us is limited to this one company.

That's good, because there's zillions of people who rely on stream-rippers, and many of them are Youtube's most popular creators. Youtube singlehandedly revived the form of the "video essay," popularizing it in many guises, from "reaction videos" to full-fledged, in-depth documentaries that make extensive use of clips to illuminate, dispute, and expand on the messages of other Youtube videos.

These kinds of videos are allowed under US copyright law. American copyright law has a broad set of limitation and exceptions, which include "fair use," an expansive set of affirmative rights to access and use copyrighted works, even against the wishes of the copyright's proprietor. As the Supreme Court stated in Eldred, the only way copyright (a government-backed restriction on who can say certain words) can be reconciled with the First Amendment (a ban on government restrictions on speech) is through fair use, the "escape valve" for free expression embedded in copyright:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eldred_v._Ashcroft

Which is to say that including clips from a video you're criticizing in your own video is canonical fair use. What else is fair use? Well, it's "fact intensive," which is a lawyer's way of saying, "it depends." One thing that is 100% true, though, is that fair use is not limited to the "four factors" enumerated in the statute and anyone who claims otherwise has no idea what they're talking about and can be safely ignored:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/27/nuke-first/#ask-questions-never

Now, fair use or not, there are plenty of people who get angry about their videos being clipped for critical treatment in other videos, because lots of people hate being criticized. This is precisely why fair use exists: if you had to secure someone's permission before you were allowed to criticize them, critical speech would be limited to takedowns of stoics and masochists.

This means that the subjects of video essays can't rely on copyright to silence their critics. They also can't use the fact that those critics violated Youtube's terms of service by clipping their videos, because only Youtube has standing to ask a court to uphold its terms of service, and Youtube has (wisely) steered clear of embroiling itself in fights between critics and the people they criticize.

But that hasn't stopped the subjects of criticism from seeking legal avenues to silence their critics. In a case called Cordova v. Huneault, the proprietor of "Denver Metro Audits" is suing the proprietor of "Frauditor Troll Channel" for clipping the former's videos for "reaction videos."

One of the plaintiff's claims here is that the defendant violated Section 1201 of the DMCA by saving videos from Youtube. They argue that Youtube's javascript obfuscator (a "rolling cipher") is an "effective access control" under the statute. Magistrate Judge Virginia K DeMarchi (Northern District of California) agreed with the plaintiff:

https://torrentfreak.com/images/Cordova-v.-Huneault-25-cv-04685-VKD-Order-on-Motion-to-Dismiss.pdf

As Torrentfreak reports, this ruling "gives creators who want to sue rivals an option to sue for more than just simple copyright infringement":

https://torrentfreak.com/ripping-clips-for-youtube-reaction-videos-can-violate-the-dmca-court-rules/

Remember, DMCA 1201 applies whether or not you infringe someone's copyright. It is a blanket prohibition on the circumvention of any "effective access control" for any copyrighted work, even when no one's rights are being violated. It's a way to transform otherwise lawful conduct into a felony. It's what Jay Freeman calls "Felony contempt of business model."

If the higher court upholds this magistrate judge's ruling, then all clipping becomes a crime, and the subjects of criticism will have a ready tool to silence any critic. This obliterates fair use, wipes it off the statute-book. It welds shut copyright's escape valve for free expression.

Now, it's true that the US Copyright Office holds hearings every three years where it grants exemptions to DMCA 1201, and it has indeed granted an exemption for ripping video for critical and educational purposes. But this process is deceptive! The exemptions that the Copyright Office grants are "use exemptions" – they allow you to "make the use." However, they are not "tools exemptions" – they do not give you permission to acquire or share the tool needed to make the use:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/28/mcbroken/#my-milkshake-brings-all-the-lawyers-to-the-yard

Which means that you are allowed to rip a stream, but you're not allowed to use a stream-ripping service. If Youtube's rolling cipher is an "effective access control" then all of those stream-ripping services are wildly illegal, felonies carrying a five-year sentence and a $500k fine for a first offense under DMCA 1201.

Under the US Copyright Office's exemption process, if you want to make a reaction video, then you, personally must create your own stream-ripper. You are not allowed to discuss how to do this with anyone else, and you can't share your stream-ripper with anyone else, and if you do, you've committed a felony.

So this is a catastrophic ruling. If it stands, it will make the production of video essays, reaction videos, and other critical videos into a legal minefield, by giving everyone whose video is clipped and criticized a means to threaten their critics with long prison sentences, fair use be damned. The only people who will safely be able to make this kind of critical video are skilled programmers who can personally defeat Youtube's "rolling cipher." And unlike claims about stream-ripping violating Youtube's terms of service – which can only be brought by Youtube – DMCA 1201 claims can be brought by anyone whose videos get clipped and criticized.

Is Youtube's rolling cipher an "effective access control?" Well, I don't know how to bypass it, but there are dozens of services that have independently figured out how to get around it. That seems like good evidence that the access control is not "effective."

When the DMCA was enacted in 1998, this is exactly the kind of thing experts warned would happen:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/05/13/ctrl-ctrl-ctrl/#free-dmitry

And here we are, more than a quarter-century later, living in the prison of lawmakers' reckless disregard for evidence and expertise, a world where criticism can be converted into a felony. It's long past time we get rid of this stupid, stupid law:

https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/01/39c3/#the-new-coalition

(Image: Electronic Frontier Foundation, CC BY 4.0)

Hey look at this (permalink)


A shelf of leatherbound history books with a gilt-stamped series title, 'The World's Famous Events.'

Object permanence (permalink)

#25yrsago Bellsouth phases out pay-phones https://web.archive.org/web/20010211165636/http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20010202/bs/bellsouth_pay_phones_1.html

#20yrsago Man who shattered museum vases asked not to come back http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2006-02/07/content_517885.htm

#20yrsago Dozens of Web 2.0 companies’ logos https://flickr.com/photos/torrez/95124293/

#20yrsago Did Nvidia hire an army of message-board sock-puppets? https://web.archive.org/web/20060208045150/https://www.consumerist.com/consumer/evil/did-nvidia-hire-online-actors-to-promote-their-products-152874.php

#15yrsago Sarah Palin Circle-R wants a trademark on her name https://www.loweringthebar.net/2011/02/sarah-palin-tm-having-trouble-with-registration.html

#10yrsago Love Picking: Locksport meets love locks https://toool.us/love-locks/

#10yrsago Superb investigative report on the fake locksmith scam https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/31/business/fake-online-locksmiths-may-be-out-to-pick-your-pocket-too.html?_r=1

#5yrsago Klobuchar wants to bust her some fuckin' trusts https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/06/calera/#fuck-bork

Upcoming appearances (permalink)

A photo of me onstage, giving a speech, pounding the podium.


A screenshot of me at my desk, doing a livecast.

Recent appearances (permalink)


A grid of my books with Will Stahle covers..

Latest books (permalink)


A cardboard book box with the Macmillan logo.

Upcoming books (permalink)

  • "Unauthorized Bread": a middle-grades graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, 2026

  • "Enshittification, Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It" (the graphic novel), Firstsecond, 2026

  • "The Memex Method," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2026

  • "The Reverse-Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book about being a better AI critic, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, June 2026


Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources:

Currently writing: "The Post-American Internet," a sequel to "Enshittification," about the better world the rest of us get to have now that Trump has torched America (1010 words today, 24701 total)

  • "The Reverse Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book for Farrar, Straus and Giroux about being an effective AI critic. LEGAL REVIEW AND COPYEDIT COMPLETE.

  • "The Post-American Internet," a short book about internet policy in the age of Trumpism. PLANNING.

  • A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING

This work – excluding any serialized fiction – is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially, provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link to pluralistic.net.

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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"When life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla" -Joey "Accordion Guy" DeVilla

READ CAREFULLY: By reading this, you agree, on behalf of your employer, to release me from all obligations and waivers arising from any and all NON-NEGOTIATED agreements, licenses, terms-of-service, shrinkwrap, clickwrap, browsewrap, confidentiality, non-disclosure, non-compete and acceptable use policies ("BOGUS AGREEMENTS") that I have entered into with your employer, its partners, licensors, agents and assigns, in perpetuity, without prejudice to my ongoing rights and privileges. You further represent that you have the authority to release me from any BOGUS AGREEMENTS on behalf of your employer.

ISSN: 3066-764X

2026-02-07 08:12:57

VK: Voorpagina

Volkskrant.nl biedt het laatste nieuws, opinie en achtergronden

Polen stopt vliegverkeer op twee luchthavens tijdens grote Russische aanval op Oekraïne

2026-02-07 08:04:00

The Guardian

Latest news, sport, business, comment, analysis and reviews from the Guardian, the world's leading liberal voice

Guardiola can be both right to speak out and a performative hypocrite | Barney Ronay

Coach should not ‘stick to football’ when football strays into politics and death but his role as fluffer for his club’s autocratic owners cannot be ignored

You may find yourself living in a glass and steel yak-fur-lined penthouse. You may find yourself with six Premier League titles and a sport refashioned in your image. You may find yourself in front of a large advert board covered in words such as Experience Abu Dhabi, haunted by images of suffering, a scythe clanking gently at your shoulder. And you may say, well, how did I get here?

There are only ever two types of Pep Guardiola article. First, articles announcing that Guardiola’s influence has reached some new level of annihilating dominance, that what we have here is our own cashmere-draped, cranium-whirring Ideal Tactics Man, that Pep-ism is bigger than smartphones, bigger than internet porn, bigger than a mother’s love, that playing out from the back is now visible from space.

Continue reading...
2026-02-07 08:00:58

Winter Olympics briefing: opening ceremony delivers a love letter to Italy

Drawing on opera, music, art, fashion, dance and more, the events at San Siro and beyond were spectacular

The curtain rose on a moment of myth and magic: Cupid’s kiss awakening Psyche, a tender beginning that blossomed into a dazzling tribute to Italy itself. From opera and art to fashion, music and dance, the Milano Cortina opening ceremony unfolded as a vibrant celebration of culture. An explosion of colour, romance and theatrical flair that felt unmistakably Italian.

The spectacle then drifted into a dreamlike Fantasia chapter. The Italian actor Matilda De Angelis, wielding an enormous conductor’s baton, guided swirling dancers across San Siro, flanked by the larger-than-life figures of Italy’s operatic greats – Giuseppe Verdi, Giacomo Puccini and Gioachino Rossini – brought to life with towering papier-mache bobble heads. Performers in radiant hues paraded in a joyous passeggiata, evoking the everyday elegance of an Italian stroll.

Continue reading...
2026-02-07 08:00:58

Wales must remember miracles are possible or the Six Nations will lose a slice of its soul

The off-field politics are toxic, Wales are on a terrible run and England are flying, but everyone needs Saturday’s game to be competitive at Twickenham

Are you a Wales fan reading this on the train to London? If so, let’s huddle in tight and try to stay positive. In round one of the Six Nations everyone starts equal. There is rain around and England have a couple of significant injuries. Steve Tandy is a capable guy and there are some talented individuals at his disposal. In this grand old championship miracles have been known to happen.

C’mon boys, believe. That red jersey still represents something special. All that history, all that fabled lineage. Gareth, Gerald, Jiffy, Alun Wyn … they’re all right with you. It’s only 80 minutes and opportunity knocks. Under the radar is a useful place to be. And, look, it’s not even called Twickenham these days. Allianz Stadium could be anywhere.

Continue reading...
2026-02-07 08:00:57

AI analysis casts doubt on Van Eyck paintings in Italian and US museums

Tests on both versions of Saint Francis of Assisi Receiving the Stigmata were unable to detect brushstrokes of 15th-century master

An analysis of two paintings in museums in the US and Italy by the 15th-century Flemish artist Jan van Eyck has raised a profound question: what if neither were by Van Eyck?

Saint Francis of Assisi Receiving the Stigmata, the name given to near-identical unsigned paintings hanging in the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Royal Museums of Turin, represent two of the small number of surviving works by one of western art’s greatest masters, revered for his naturalistic portraits and religious subjects.

Continue reading...
2026-02-07 08:00:57

Bompastor faces unfamiliar scenario as Chelsea aim to dispel crisis talk

Manager caught in the first sticky patch of her career, but has agreed a new contract despite falling out of WSL title race

Dejected body language, talk of a crisis, and a 12-point gap ruling them out of the title before the second week of February. For a Chelsea team so used to winning the Women’s Super League, this is uncharted territory after their 5-1 loss to Manchester City.

For Sonia Bompastor, who has had more defeats in her past five league matches than in her previous 104 games in charge of Chelsea and Lyon, this is also an unfamiliar scenario, but Chelsea have placed their full faith in her – and vice versa – by agreeing a new, extended contract with the Frenchwoman and putting their trust in each other that recent results amount merely to a temporary blip, rather than a longer-term downward spiral.

Continue reading...
2026-02-07 08:00:56

trendbeheer.com

David Bade en Jordan Herregraven @ Maurits van de Laar

Een vreemde ervaring. Bij galerie Maurits van de Laar in Den Haag zijn (nog tot 22 februari) sculpturen, schilderijen en etsen te zien van David Bade en Jordan Herregraven. Ik was er meer dan een [Meer...]
2026-02-07 08:00:32

Wel.nl

Minder lezen, Meer weten.

Chinese centrale bank blijft goud opkopen

BEIJING (ANP/BLOOMBERG) - De centrale bank van China is in januari doorgegaan met het opkopen van goud. Volgens een verklaring van de People's Bank of China op zaterdag ging het om een hoeveelheid van 40.000 troy ounces (elk 31,1 gram) die vorige maand werd ingekocht.

Daarmee is de Chinese centrale bank nu al vijftien maanden op rij bezig met het vergroten van de goudvoorraden. Mede door de goudaankopen door China en andere centrale banken, waaronder die van India, heeft de goudprijs over het afgelopen jaar een enorme opmars gemaakt naar nieuwe recordniveaus. Aan die opmars kwam onlangs wel even een einde doordat de goudprijs flink daalde onder druk van winstnemingen door handelaren. De goudprijs piekte daarvoor op bijna 5600 dollar per troy ounce.

Goudbrancheorganisatie World Gold Council (WGC) meldde onlangs dat centrale banken over het gehele jaar 863 ton goud hebben gekocht en dat de vraag door centrale banken dit jaar waarschijnlijk hoog zal blijven.


2026-02-07 07:57:54