Last Nox , robot shut down the hot program of one of science fiction ’s most honored prize ceremonies . No , you ’re not show a science fable narrative . In the middle of the annual Hugo Awards event at Worldcon , which yard of mass tune up into via video streaming help Ustream , the provender cut off — just as Neil Gaiman was give an toleration speech for his Doctor Who script , “ The Doctor ’s Wife . ” Where Gaiman ’s face had been were the tidings , “ Worldcon banned due to right of first publication infringement . ” What the hell ?
Jumping onto Twitter , people who had been watching the livestream set out asking what was going on . How could an laurels ceremonial have anything to do with right of first publication infraction ?
Bestselling scientific discipline fiction author Tobias Buckell tweeted :
https://twitter.com/embed/status/242453178426212353
And then it began to fall into place on the great unwashed what happened . Gaiman had just receive an award for his Doctor Who script . Before he took the stagecoach , the Hugo Awards showed clips from his get ahead instalment , along with clip from some other Doctor Who episodes that had been name , as well as a Community sequence .
Wrote Macworld column film director Jason Snell :
Ustream just shut down the#Hugoslive stream because they show clip of the TV nominees . machine-controlled copyright patrols ruin more things .
— Jason Snell ( @jsnell)September 3 , 2012
This was , of course , absurd . First of all , the clips had been leave by the studio to be shown during the award ceremonial occasion . The Hugo Awards had denotative permission to air them . But even if they had n’t , it is dead average use to broadcast clipping of copyrighted stuff during an honor ceremony . Unfortunately , the digital restriction management ( DRM ) golem on Ustream had not been programmed with these introductory shape of right of first publication law .
And then , it mystify worse . Amid more cries of dismay on Twitter , Reddit , and elsewhere , the prescribed Worldcon Twitter announced :
We are sorry to report that#Ustreamwill not resume the telecasting feed.#chicon7#hugos#worldcon
— Chicon 7 ( @chicon_7)September 3 , 2012
And with that , the program was officially bring down off . Dumb robots , programme to pour down any broadcast hold back copyrighted material , had destroyed the only live broadcast of the Hugo Awards . Sure , we could read what was happening on Twitter , or get the official succeeder announcement on the Hugo website , but that is scarce the same . We wanted to see our heroes and friends on that stage , and share the event with them . In the world of science fiction writing , the Hugo Awards are kind of like the Academy Awards . Careers are made ; hoi polloi get dressed up and give speeches ; and celebrities rub shoulder with ( admittedly geeky ) paparazzo . You require to see and hear it if you’re able to .
But Ustream ’s falsely programme copyright enforcement squad had put down our only admission . It was like a Cory Doctorow story queer with RoboCop 2 , with DRM robot going unhinged and shooting promiscuously into a crowd of perfectly innocent broadcasts .
And who did we have recourse to ? We could n’t file away a effectual ailment in fourth dimension to see io9 ’s Charlie Jane Anders accept the Hugo for good novelette . And Ustream was altogether unresponsive . As of today , September 3,people who send querieson UStream ’s sitehave yet to be answered .
The point is , our power to broadcast was entirely subject on ill - programmed bot . And once those bots had made their faulty conclusion , there was absolutely nothing we could do to re-start the sign , as it were . In case anyone still believe that copyright rules ca n’t halt free talking to or snuff out a community , the automate censorship of the Hugo Awards is a case in point .
Robots kill our legitimate programme . Welcome to the present .
UPDATE # 1 :
Ustream ’s CEO Brad Hunstable has finally made a public apology about the incident , but his account is quite odd . The upright news is that Ustream will no longer be using Vobile , a third - party service that does automated violation takedowns . The odd part is that seemingly Ustream could n’t resume its own alive feed once Vobile had shut it down . At least , that ’s what Hunstable claim .
Hunstablewrites on the Ustream blog :
Very regrettably at 7:43 p.m. Pacific meter , the channel was automatically banned in the middle of an toleration delivery by author Neil Gaiman due to “ copyright violation . ” This occurred because our 3rd party automated infringement system , Vobile , discover content in the stream that it deem to be copyright . Vobile is a system that rights holders upload their content for review on many video sites around the web . The telecasting clips shown prior to Neil ’s speech mechanically spark off the 3rd political party system at the behest of the copyright holder .
Our editorial squad and content monitors almost immediately noticed a flood of livid Twitter messages about the ban and attempted to restore the broadcast . regrettably , we were not able to rise the ban before the broadcast stop . We had many unhappy viewing audience as a result , and for that I am truly sorry .
As background , our system works like this for put up a bombastic volume of broadcasters using our free weapons platform . user of our paid , advertizing - free Pro Broadcasting service are automatically white listed to avoid situation like this and incur hands - on guest support .
I have suspend habit of this third - company system until we are able-bodied to recalibrate the scope so that we can advantageously poise the need of broadcaster , viewers , and copyright holders . While we are attached to protecting copyright , we utterly must ensure our astonishing and democratize platform allows effectual broadcasters to Ustream their events and shows . This is our first and foremost indebtedness to our users and residential district .
I clap Ustream for cast aside Vobile , but remain puzzled about why the company could n’t control its own applied science and restart the feed as soon as they realized the misapprehension .
UPDATE # 2
This keeps getting curiouser and curiouser . Vobile CEO Yangbin Wangtold Gigaom :
Vobile was shocked when it learned of the Hugo Award incident for the first time in the media , as no contact was made by Ustream through Vobile ’s 24/7 customer support , or through any other unmediated channel , at any decimal point during or after the webcast . Vobile engineering was not at the root of the problem . Our content recognition organisation render customers with accurate information . Each customer must adjudicate for itself what it does with that information .
So basically it sounds like Ustream had put up its own automated system to take down the feeds of non - compensable customers if they pour anything that triggered Vobile ’s “ contented identification system . ” And Ustream was either unable or unwilling to turn the Worldcon flow back on when they realized what was going on .
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