Student Privacy, CDTEU in the CASA -- Talking Tech w/ Joy M. Bruce & Vincenzo Tiani
Host Brian Wesolowski sits down first with Joy M. Bruce, the executive director of CASA New Orleans, a nonprofit focused on the rights of abused and neglected children. She helps Brian put the focus on the impact data has on foster kids in the education system – alongside Keedy Bradley, who was part of the foster care system in New Orleans, and now interns with CASA.<br><br>Then, Brian tackles the European Parliament's recent controversial adoption of the Copyright Directive, aimed at modernizing copyright law for the digital age and harmonizing it across the EU. Opponents of the directive, including CDT are concerned the law will have significant unintended consequences and break the principle of fair use. We bring on our new EU analyst, Vincenzo Tiani, to discuss.<br><br>More on CASA: http://www.casaneworleans.org/<br>More on CDTEU: https://twitter.com/cdteu<br><br>More on Joy: https://twitter.com/joymbruce<br>More on Vincenzo: https://twitter.com/VincenzoTiani<br>More on our host, Brian: bit.ly/cdtbrian<br><br>Attribution: sounds used from Psykophobia, Taira Komori, BenKoning, Zabuhailo, bloomypetal, guitarguy1985, bmusic92, and offthesky of freesound.org.
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Transcript
Welcome to Tech Talk. Bye.
CT. T.
Welcome to CDT's tech talk where we dish on tech and Internet policy while also explaining what these policies mean to our daily lives. I'm Brian Wasilowski, and it's time to talk tech. Today, we'll be talking about the importance of quality student data and data protections for children in foster care. We welcome two passionate advocates from Casa New Orleans, a nonprofit that advocates for foster children. And then we bring you an update from Brussels on a controversial new directive aimed at modernizing copyright law, but the many believe might fundamentally change the open nature of the Internet. It's not uncommon for students to change schools multiple times during the course of their education. Unfortunately, the data about them doesn't always follow. And while there may be reasons for not wanting a data trail, lack of student data at the new school can lead to a myriad of problems. One group of students who this is certainly true for are those in foster care. Joining us today to talk about data sharing are Joy Bruce, the executive director of Casa New Orleans, and Katie Bradley, who was part of the foster care system in New Orleans and now interns with CASA. Welcome Joy and Katie. Good morning. So great to have you here. So I'm gonna start with you, Joy. Tell me a bit about CASA New Orleans, what CASA stands for first, of course, and what services y'all provide. Sure.
CASA stands for Court Appointed Special Advocates. We fight for the rights of abuse and neglected children. So we match kids who are in foster care, who are through the court system with caring and competent adults who advocate for their best interest. There are CASA programs all over the country, so most of your listeners have probably heard of a CASA program. As you all probably know, there's two different ways that you can do nonprofits that are national. One is if you have that one centralized one and then local chapters and everything gets pushed down uniformly. Ours is the other way Okay. Similar to how United Way's are constructed where we're all individual five zero one c threes. We are members of the National Casa Association, but we do have some differences. So every Casa program has one core mission. They recruit, train, and support community volunteers to advocate for the best interest of abused and neglected children in court systems. So that is the same. But because we're all local and we have those slight differences, we can really respond to the needs of our communities. And so what that looks like in New Orleans might be different than New Mexico, might be different than here in DC. Right? So our program, in Louisiana, we're all court based programs that are, they're all nonprofits that are serving the courts, which is pretty typical, I think, of a lot across the country. Ours here is a little different in that we were the first in our state and one of the few in the country to follow kids after they age out of foster care. Oh, that's right. And so in Louisiana, up until this session, Katie and I have been been very involved in policy conversations and and moving some things in the state. But, up until right now, when a kid turns 18, they age out of foster care, and our state is one of only six that does not provide additional services for them. And so we have continued that. And so our kids are from birth. We have drug exposed newborns all the way through the k 12 system up until 18, and then their involvement with the court ends at 18, but we have continued to follow them. And so Katie is one of those first cohorts that we committed to six years ago and said, we're gonna follow you into young adulthood
statistical anomaly in all of the best ways. Well, well, let's pivot to that quickly. Katie, tell us what you're studying, where you go to school. Congratulations, first of all. Oh, thank you. And thank you for giving me this opportunity to speak here. Of course. With you guys. But, yes, I am a senior right now at the University of New Orleans, and I major in sociology. So it's kind of also with a minor in, like This is great. Business and, policy and stuff like that. So and it's been, like, a great experience. Like, we're from high school, from middle school, college to college now. And, you know, the people who, like, have helped me along that way was Casa and who stayed with me, like, no matter what. And, you know, even though some people was probably coming in and out of my life and changed, but my Casa advocate, Caitlin Wah, and, of course, like, the co Casa program itself, like, stayed those main those main people in my life. That's amazing. Do you know what you wanna do when you graduate? That's probably the question you get asked too much, and you're like, come on. Chill out, people. Yes. I do. I You do. I'm I'm not gonna pinpoint and say exactly where I would fall because, obviously,
as a youth, like, we probably changed so much and other things gonna be, like, happening in life. But I can say I do wanna help children and families and work up on the the degree of, like, with policy. Well, everyone listening, you're on the job market and what? You graduated May? Is that about right? Yep. Alright. So if Katie's looking for a job, reach out to us. We'll connect you to her. You're gonna be more amazed as we talk to her further. Alright. Yeah. Back to the topic at hand. So, data sharing is what we're talking about. Data sharing specifically between schools. Why is this such an important, issue when it comes to, children in foster care?
Well, they move a lot. And one of the things that gets disrupted the most when they move from place to place is education. The system, unfortunately, does a terrible job of considering education when they're making those moves. So for a child in foster care, their custodial parent is the state. A lot of people don't realize that. They're staying in a foster home, but the foster parent is limited in what they're able to give permissions for, how much control they have over that child's life. They're They're providing food and shelter and hopefully some care and comfort, but their role is not to be the the custodial parent of that child. It's the state. So when the state of Louisiana is your parent, states while individual people within that structure might be making decisions in a child's best interest, states and government agencies are making decisions based on financial interests. Right? And so sometimes, literally, we're having conversations about moving units of children. And I know that sounds terrible, but that's exactly how it works. When when placements are being determined and and the department is looking for places to put kids, it's a supply and demand conversation. Are there enough foster homes in this area for this child? Do they need to move to a group home? Are the group homes only located in this part of the state? Right? And so so many other things are going into that conversation that really have nothing to do with, is this a good school for that child, and do they have good schools in that area? And timing is often not considered as well. And so they're not moving at times that make sense. Let's move over Christmas break. Right? Right. They're moving in the middle of whatever because, certainly for older kids, they often disrupt placements. We can have this whole conversation about trauma and what that means for a child and their need to feel like they've got some control over a very out of control life. And so one of the ways that you can see that manifest if it's not treated well is that a youth will disrupt the placement or a foster parent will disrupt the placement. Right? And and if that's the case, then, schooling is left out of that conversation. And so now you've got this scramble where a child was living in this particular jurisdiction, and now they've moved to a different jurisdiction, or they've moved to a different part of the state. How do we make sure that there's as little disruption to their education as possible? So if they had an IEP, if they, just basic understanding about trauma informed care and what that kid needs needs to follow them, and you're not gonna have a parent advocate in the same way. So while other transient populations also share many of these concerns, obviously, if you're homeless but you're staying with a caring and competent parent, a parent can advocate for you in those ways. If you're a military child, a parent can advocate for you in those ways. But if a child moves from one region of the state to another, they're gonna get a different foster parent, a different social worker. Everything is going to change. Right? The only thing that's gonna stay the same is the court of jurisdiction, but the judge isn't going to school to check you in. Right? So there needs to be a baseline amount of information that's being shared. Of course, that needs to be balanced because information can also be weaponized against a child. And so that's a really nuanced conversation that we could spend way more time than you have. But it it has to be, primary when we're having these conversations about data portability that when a child is moving and they don't have the people that most children have moving along with them, how do we make sure that that information goes along so that their education is disrupted as little as possible? That makes a lot of sense. And I was actually told by our privacy team that Louisiana
has a fairly new privacy bill Mhmm. That has impacted your work a bit. What did it do, and how is it kind of hurt some of the data sharing that's needed?
Well, I it's one of those double edged swords things. Right? And so we're gonna have to get into the balancing conversation. Right? We can do it. Well, just because the what's good for one child and this important need for privacy, is often not good for another. And sometimes that's not a foster care versus not foster care conversation. Sometimes it's a conversation about different kids in foster care or who have been in foster care because some kids are better advocating for their own needs than others. And so for those kids who are pretty independent, or are good at self advocating, or do maybe have really great social workers or really great foster parents who, you know, do what they can within that, then maybe the privacy concerns aren't as big for them because they've got that support structure around them. But for our kids who don't have that, not having that information and having to basically start all over again every time you move schools or you move to another area can be really detrimental to that child.
Katie, I'd love to turn to you. Have you experienced this? Did you move a lot during, you know, your k twelve days? And did you experience any of this as you shifted to a new school, not having data come with you? Yes. Absolutely. I definitely moved a good bit and definitely changed some teachers and obviously changed foster parents too as well. And just people coming in and out as far as, like, even, like, therapy sessions and stuff like that changed with different people too. So, I mean, that that meant taking, like, time to get used to, like, my say, professors now since I'm thinking, like, college, but but teachers, as well. And I mean, also different guiding counselors too I had to talk to as well. And the way my how it was for me, like, being in, Like, sometimes I would feel like some teachers do need to know because, I mean, like like like Joy has said, when we come in, the state is our, like, caretaker. Yeah. Even though we're staying with a foster parent, our foster parent is not the one who would be signing a a permission slip to say, oh, yeah. My child could have photos with the school. Like, our, permission slip saying, yeah. My child could go on a field trip. Who does sign? So the state signs that. Yeah. The state signs that. So that means that sometimes I bet that doesn't move quickly. No. It does not move quickly at all. And I wish that it that we encourage and, like, we talk to, like, our teachers and our school systems on, like, the the how how something needs to be signed in, like, a timely fashion or what needs to happen in a certain amount of time so we could get it to our social workers. Because obviously, they're gonna have to be the ones that sign it because of, like, policies and procedures that, you know, we understand, but we just wish that it would go in another way according to help the the youth, I mean, and families just in general. But because, I mean, permission slip probably would be going to like, some people like to call it the normal child. I'm like, what is the normal child compared to, like, the other child? I do not like that term. But so your average child would basically have a permission slip sign in maybe, like, a week or you could give the just give it to their parents in, like, the last day to be able to sign. Yeah. Right there. Bam. Child's gone on a trip. In my case or any other foster youth's case, like, that's not gonna happen like that because since the DCFS worker has to sign, you probably would have to get that permission slip to them two weeks in advance because they have so many cases and so many children on their caseload. Mhmm. They have to make sure everything, you know, goes along with their protocol and how in a timely fashion on seeing them. So it wouldn't happen that way. Yeah.
And sometimes the need is the opposite. So, you know, in those cases, you need to have further information in advance in order to to accommodate a foster care population. Sometimes you need to be able to react more quickly. So I'm thinking about, two cases specifically. So one was a a young man who was on track to go to college. He was doing really well. He was in his senior year. He was transferred. He had been living in the northern part of our state and was transferred back to New Orleans because everybody felt like as he was getting ready to turn 18, he should be back in New Orleans. Well, the way his records were transferred were not handled well at all. And so his new school told him that he had to repeat his senior year. Oh my goodness. And it was so demoralizing to him that ended up after he turned 18, he dropped out. Because instead of graduating before his eighteenth birthday and continuing on the the trajectory that he was on, he was now 18. He was unaccompanied at this point on his own, completely demoralized that he had to repeat, and he dropped out. I also think about some of our kids who, miss opportunities for higher education for other reasons. You know, the statistics are nationally three percent of former foster kids finish college, which is really, really low. And the numbers who attempt aren't a whole lot higher than that. And so for some of my kids, for instance, we have, Posse is in New Orleans. It's a it's a national nonprofit that helps place kids, in college. But the kids that I have nominated for Posse, because I'm a nominator, are ones that often guidance counselors haven't chosen because they haven't built that relationship up. Right? And it's natural and it's totally understandable. But as the guidance counselors are thinking, I only have a certain number of slots to nominate a kid for a posse scholarship. They're picking the kids who are really worthy, but they've been there for three or four years throughout high high school, and that guidance counselor knows them really well. And so if the foster kid just ended up there at the beginning of their senior year, halfway through their senior year, or even as a junior, they're less likely to be chosen for that. So the kids that I'm picking who have successfully gotten posse scholarships weren't identified by their schools as being that kind of kid or on that kind of track. And maybe if there had been a better flow of information,
and a better understanding of what kind of student they are, then they would be able to get some of those other opportunities that aren't out there Yeah. That makes sense. For our kids. Yeah. And to piggyback off of basically what Miss Joy is saying, so, obviously, they have to build a a relationship with the the counselor. So in some cases, youth probably don't wanna build, you know, a relationship because that means going into the actual specific events that maybe led them into foster care. So because obviously, if that guidance if that guidance counselor is making a recommendation for you, then, of course, they wanna know more about you, how you are, what you'd have been through. Because sometimes it's good when applying to, like, a college or it's good when applying to, like, other, like, scholarships and stuff like that on how they got a counselor know you and what you have, like, persevered through. Like, no matter what, even those all these things was going on in this child, like, this this child still persevered, like, through everything. And that means that they would have to know that you've been in foster care. They would have to know, like, maybe you were homeless, all this. And sometimes the youth just doesn't wanna share that, so maybe that relationship does not get built. And sometimes that can hurt you Yeah. Because that person, you know, you wouldn't be able to go to the posse program. And, you know or sometimes it could help you, like, knowing a good good person like miss Joy to be able to vouch for you. Because you know that miss Joy, you know, sometimes understands that confidentiality piece. That doesn't mean that counselor wouldn't have done that, but you just have built that relationship with miss Joy instead of that guiding counselor that you had due to, like, you know, move in and everything else too as well. Yeah. I mean, it's hard to build relationships and to have to do it on a regular basis for such an important purpose would would be challenging regardless of the reason. So when you add that layer that you just explained, that's that's a really important valuable point.
So you both I'm gonna put it back to data here. You're both in town for a workshop at the very lovely Eaton Hotel down the street from our CDT offices here, and the the workshops on data portability and student sharing as we've been talking about. If you could improve things, what would you like to see improved when it comes to this process? That is so tricky. That's why I asked it. I I'm looking for your wisdom here.
I I my first answer honestly is, trauma informed practices, but that's at a much more, school level. In other words, what are we doing with this information? Because so much of it is hyperlocal. I want you to have this information if you're going to handle it in a trauma informed way, if you're gonna handle that child in a non blaming, non shaming way, if you're going to use this information as a a tool to help them access resources, to maybe gain access to opportunities that are out there for students who have been on a nontraditional path. Yeah. If that's the case, I want you to have it. If you're a school that's going to weaponize this information or be insensitive, I don't want you to have it. Well, that's really hard when we're creating policies at the national and state level, right, because we don't know who's going to use it. And so keeping that in mind, not just the philosophy or culture of the groups that are doing it, but maybe it's identifying specific people who have access to it. So information should follow a youth, but maybe everybody, as Katie said earlier, isn't on blast with that information. You know? Can we make it specific to certain actors within the system that they need to have access to that information? But there's an understanding of how then they utilize it. Right? Because there is a tendency in foster care in general, and I think this is true for a lot of transient populations, to treat kids like case files. You know? I have the stack of papers, so I understand who this kid is. No. You don't. Yeah. Right? But on the other hand, you can't have a child show up with nothing attached to them and then expect them to be able to to be on equal footing with the kids who have been in that school for a lot longer period of of time. So balance, I think, is what I would want people to, keep in mind as much as possible and encouraging people to use this information in good faith, but protecting against those who who won't.
Right? Yep. Katie, I saw you clapping at one point.
What I would say is, like, a big piece. So, obviously, we know most of the time, like, ACT, SAT scores, and sometimes they like, they call it, like, the end of year, kinda like the EOC, end of year, kinda like, exams that they do end of year courses. They do that. So most of the time, that's what they're sharing with these students and telling them, okay. Well, this is how well you did on this test or this is how awful you did on this test. This is what we're sharing. But I feel like we should want to bring our students and our parents on board even before we're doing testing and say, like, okay. This is the area that you you need help in or this is the area that you don't need help in. And I feel like a lot of those times we don't do that. Like, say for instance, like, I I'm a math girl all the way, I would say. And like help me out though. So I just love me some numbers. And but English, like, I mean, I do good in English, of course, like to pass and do well. But I wouldn't say, like, I love English like that. Like, you know, my sister's the English person. I'm the math person. We always do that. I mean, some people could be both, but some not. So I would say in school, you should probably should help a youth out before we get to standardized testing and saying, like, okay. Well, this is the area English that you may need to work on. Mhmm. Because sometimes I would say, like, with English with me, I always have a problem with opening, but I could definitely give you details and I could close it out like a bang. But opening is just like, no. And sometimes I feel like we fall short on that, like, with schools, like, helping them to understand or even parents, like, help helping them with, like, tracking what has been going on, like, how the child development is going on in school and how we're doing that. We can't just, you know, just only share standardized testing. I think that's where we're not doing a good job at, like, doing something before then saying what we need to fix or what we don't. Yeah. Right. And so I think what you're really getting at is context for the information, making sure that when we share data, we're sharing that data
in context, because even things like GPA need to be looked at in context. I'm thinking about, one of the young men that I've worked with who he was in five different schools his freshman year. And so his GPA was about a point one.
Yeah. Right? I think I mean, do GPAs even transfer from school? I mean, you'd have to imagine that every school has a slightly different way of calculating it even when it's in the same state. Yeah. It was it was awful. And he then changed schools a couple times his sophomore year.
And then he finally found stability in his junior year, and he did his junior year and his senior year in the same school. And when he found that stability, by his senior year, his GPA in those individual, quarters was a three point o and then a three two five and then a three five and then a three seven five. Right? Each quarter, it got higher. He lettered in football and basketball. He was homecoming king. Right? But he didn't have those opportunities at the beginning of his high school, path. And so when he went to apply to colleges, when they were just looking at his overall GPA, it wasn't competitive. It was awful. And so what we were working with him on was providing those letters of recommendation that gave context, making those direct, connections to universities and admissions department to say, don't just look at his overall GPA. Please look at his overall transcript. Please understand that he was in five schools his freshman year. Please understand that once he reached stability, his GPA has been on an upwards trajectory. And when he gets to your university, it's gonna keep going up. Right? And so in that sense, I wanted them to know that he had moved so many times. I wanted them to know that he had had such an unstable experience because then it showed how much was his responsibility because, yes, you are responsible for your own grades, sweetheart, to a certain extent. Right? But, also, there were some adults in your life who made some decisions that were completely out of your control, and they did not set you up in a path for success. So how do we balance that information so that those who are receiving it have that context to the data that really tells that kid's story in a positive way, right, and not in a negative, oh, he was in foster care. He moved a lot. But in a positive, look. When this kid is stable, he does amazing things, and you really do want him on your campus, and you really do want to admit him to your university. Was he admitted? Yes. Awesome. That's that's a happy ending that I wanted there, which is great.
Joy and Katie, thank you so, so much for joining. We're so lucky to have you here, participate participating in our workshop on this because these are such important perspectives. Enjoy the rest of your stay in DC and thank you for joining us on Tech Talk. Thank you again for letting me have this opportunity so much. Yes. And remember, she will be job hunting soon.
First first, a master's in policy? Yeah. Okay. Alright. So maybe not right away. Not right away. We're working on it. Thank you so much. Thank you.
Recently, the European Parliament adopted the controversial copyright directive aimed at modernizing copyright law for the digital age and harmonizing it across the EU. Opponents of the directive, including CDT, are concerned the law will have significant unintended consequences and break the principle of fair use. Joining us today to talk about the EU copyright directive is brand new EU analyst based in Brussels, EU affairs analyst based in Brussels, Vincenzo Tiani. Welcome, Vincenzo.
Thank you, Ryan. It's a pleasure to to join you and all, the listeners.
Yeah. So tell me about yourself first. I mean, whenever we get a new team member in Europe, we're excited. What did you do, before joining CDT?
So I have a legal background, but, three years ago, I came to Brussels. I did an LLM in IP and IT law, so like copyrights, privacy and that kind of stuff. Then I did an internship in European Parliament with the member of European Parliament, Julia Reeder, which is who is very active in the operator for. Yeah, absolutely. And after that, another internship with Adrian, it's a European digital rights, another NGO like CDT that works with digital rights. I worked as a freelance journalist for some media outlets in Italy, like, the television of Wired and the Motherboard, the vertical of advice on technology. And I also chose copyrights in in Milan at the university to communication
students. That's awesome. So we really hired a ringer. That's great.
Yes.
Alright. So let's let's put your expertise to the test here. The EU copyright directive, what is it for people who aren't all that familiar with it? And what was it supposed to do, go a little bit deeper than I did in my
general intro? Yes, sure. So, the copyright directive, it's, has been approved last week in Strasbourg, March 26. And basically, the European Commission proposed this text in 2016 to update the former directive. The former directive was proposed in 2001. So, you know, in the last eighteen years, a lot of things happened,
especially in the digital world. I mean, the Internet changed quite a bit in that time.
Yeah. Some, you know, little little little startups that do some, you know, social things. And, yeah. So, the goal was interesting because of course things changed in the meanwhile, but the final text wasn't so good. So first of all, I would say that normally LO should prepare should update and prepare for should be the base for the next twenty years, let's say. In this case, this directive basically just makes some adjustment to what's happened in the previous fifteen years, twenty years. So it's not really looking at the future. Basically, it just looks at the past, just made some patch for what happens in the previous years. So what does he do? Basically, there are we are talking about two main articles, which are former articles eleven, fourteen that in the final text became article fifteen and seventeen. So the article former article 11, now 15, basically it recognized a new right to ancillary right to publishers. Publishers basically as we all know are living not living a good period. You know, cases where, where, you know, digital revenues are good as
in the past for So when we think about publishers, you're talking kind of like newspapers, kind of traditional publishers? Sorry? When you're talking about publishers, you're talking about kind of traditional news outlets and whatnot. Yes?
Yes. So we are talking about, yeah, traditional papers because, in fact, actually, so this kind of publishers, so let's say, as you say traditional, want this reform. But the online publishers, the new publishers don't want this reform.
That makes sense.
There's a reason because basically, you know, traditional publisher used to earn a lot lot from paper sold and it's not the case at the moment. So why? Where all the money went basically in the digital advertising? And basically Google and Facebook and all social media platforms have all these revenues. So they basically want a slice of that cake. And the way they want it is to have a new rights. So the basis, if you have a social media or if you are an aggregator where news are shared by users or by, for example, the aggregator itself. Basically they say, okay, you have a product, you have something relevant, thanks to our articles and that's not fair for us. So you should provide us some money. So let's go with the license and then if you pay us a license, users will be able to share content. The funny thing is that basically we are talking about hyperlinks, we're talking about we are talking about hyperlinks, we're talking about snippets or extracts of just a title, just an image of an article when you publish an to the journals. So it's your users share interesting articles and people see these links, see these titles and then go to the straight to the, to the website of these journals. And these journals make money thanks to that. So it's it's a bit weird that they are they are asking for this new new right. Yeah.
The seamless nature of the Internet, kind of the experience we have where we can, you know, search, discover and navigate to seems like it could be impacted by this.
Yeah. And, you know, the other thing that's, so the initial text wasn't so good. I can say that now it's good. At least there are some exceptions. So CDT also asked for an exception to have an exception for hyperlinks and we have in the text. There's also an exception for short text structs and we have in the text. So apparently it could be a good low. But the problem is that what is a short text structs? It's 20 words, one word, two words, three words, we don't know yet. And every since this is a directive, so for non EU listeners, basically within the EU, we have two kinds of legislation, directive and regulation. The regulation doesn't need to be implemented in the '27 or '28 depending how Brexit we go, 27 regulations, different legislations like for the GDPR, our fresh privacy regulation, data protection regulation. This is the directive. So basically every member state could have a different or slightly or less slightly different legislation. So some in some parliament, we could have a law that says that social tax cuts is 20 words. So like you think, for example, or maybe three words. So imagine if, you know, a startup, European startups want to have, you know, create an aggregator or create the new social media, the new a new unicorn, a new Facebook, it would be basically quite,
complex. So it's not really serving the purpose of harmonizing is what you say, or it remains to be seen if it will because there could, in fact, be 27 or 28 different interpretations of some of these.
Yeah. And and also, you know, also judges could, you know, have a different interpretation of the law. So, it's really we we need to have to, you know, wait. And, the timing is two years. So, in the next two years, the, every member state could have to implement the law. And the next there's also a next vote, a final vote from the council, which will be which will take place next April 25. Apparently, it should be that the law could should pass as it is, but there's still some space for
changes. So what would be the biggest changes? This is about publishers rights. Yes. What would be the like one or two biggest changes that we would hope to see or you would hope to see, if at all possible?
So honestly honestly, about the publishers rights, I think that's article 11. So now article 15, should be deleted. Just deleted. Honestly, I don't see any CDP basically asking to delete it. And so many other NGOs, organization, 200 academics. It's really plenty of experts that that say these rights are not you wouldn't need these rights because you already can have a, you know, you don't need it. Also, and a funny thing is that some years ago, a couple of years ago, the European Commission asked for a paper, a study to see what's the impact of aggregators, news aggregators. And the result was that basically, the aggregators help the publishers. They drive because they drive traffic to the publishers. Yeah. And this and this study was, was written, wasn't published. And was, Yulareda. Yulareda asked for, thanks to a voice or a request to to access these these files, finds out that, basically, there was this study. So you you see already studies and also, you know, good sense says that we shouldn't we shouldn't have this new right. It's a law that's working to address a problem that doesn't exist, it sounds like. Yeah. Yeah. Funny. You know, when you have, the fact is that newspaper need a new business model. That's it. Yeah. We've seen in U. S, New York Times has made good efforts in improving their digital presence. And now, yeah, apparently it's working. Yeah, it's doing well. Out there. But you need to remember that we are in 2019, not in 2009 or 2000. So
Yeah. So last question before I let you go. Know, the principle of fair use is something that people always associate with copyright, at least here in The US and I think globally. What what does this do to fair use? You've kinda touched on it, but kind of concretely, what does it do to it? You know, when I think of fair use, I often go to, you know, clever, creative memes and stuff like that. Are are memes dead in Europe because of this?
No. So, yeah, this concern, the the other article, article 13 now, article 17, that's, that this was this was wanted by music producer, movie producers, so right holders in that kind of field. And what's the problem? What's even in this case, CDP and other organization academics ask it to delay Article 13. Why? Because right now they say, okay, when you upload, for example, a video on a major platform, let's say, for example, YouTube, there are so many users that brought, you know, content without having the rights. Like, so and at the moment, below, it's similar to the to the one in The US, so it's not a synthetic down. So, the rights holder, has sent a notification to the platform and said, I have the rights on this video and so you have to take it down. And this principle and so what's the problem now in even if it's not written in the law, basically the only way we have to to to see if there is an infringement is the filters, like the content ID filters we have on on YouTube. Why there we, you know, there are we had a campaign that say Mimi couldn't be there in in in a couple of years because filters are not judges. You know, filters are not IP lawyers. They're not able to recognize all the exceptions. And and within The US, we've got fair use, so which is it's not really there are some rules of care, of course. And it's a bit different from the EU where we have really exceptions. It's a strict list of exceptions that we have in the law. But the problem is that even if we have in the law, so even if this directive says, okay, with this exception, quotation, criticism, caricature, parody, pastiche, you don't need, you know, you have to let it, you should let them be published. Published. But the fitness doesn't know how it works. So it's automatic with an algorithm and if they say, okay, I can't recognize this, and we could have censorship basically.
Gotcha. Yeah. No. Typically, when there's mandated technical solutions, they don't work out great. Alright, Vincenzo. I'm gonna let you get back to the great conference you're at there. But this has been wonderful. We're gonna have to have you as a guest on regularly for Tech Talk. Thanks for bringing, bringing us the latest from Europe on the copyright directive.
Thank you. Thank you, and bye to all our listeners.
And that's it for this episode of Tech Talk. If you wanna learn more about our work on student privacy or our advocacy efforts in the EU, be sure to visit cdt.org. And our EU team has their own Twitter account so give that a follow at c d t e u I'm Brian was last week thanks so much for listening
