How Safe is YouNow? An Empirical Study on Possible Law Infringements in Germany and the United States Axel Honka and Jan-Niklas Tolles Heinrich-Heine University Düsseldorf, Germany

HHU Research Topic  Social Networking Services (SNSs) bring a lot of benefits  they also created an uncertain legal situation  Investigation of YouNow regarding law infringements  Focus: Teenagers and children  Legal situation in Germany vs. the US? How Safe is YouNow? 2

HHU 1 What is YouNow? How Safe is YouNow? 3

HHU What is YouNow?  Real time live streaming platform  Accessible via browser and app for mobile phone or tablet  Watching other users’ streams is possible without an account  Streaming own videos requires registration  Login via Facebook, Twitter or Google+ account How Safe is YouNow? 4

HHU What is YouNow? How Safe is YouNow? 5

HHU What is YouNow? How Safe is YouNow? 6

HHU 2 Legal bases How Safe is YouNow? 7

HHU Legal bases – Copyright  Author has to be compensated  Includes broadcasting through multimedia streams  Exemption possible (if broadcasting incidental)  Assessment of every individual case would be necessary How Safe is YouNow? 8 Germany

HHU Legal bases – Copyright  Any case of broadcasting protected material is a potential copyright infringement  Also includes underage broadcasters (parents can be held responsible)  GEMA represents authors and exercises their copyrights  GEMA (or other copyright holders) may initiate a civil or criminal pursuit How Safe is YouNow? 9 Germany

HHU Legal bases – Copyright  Legal situation is partially different  The author’s rights are protected by U.S. Copyright Act  Doctrine of “fair use”:  in cases of criticism, teaching, news reporting or commenting: No copyright infringement  US Law protects multimedia content in general  Also applies for showing protected video material How Safe is YouNow? 10 United States

HHU Legal bases – Own picture/word  Distribution of pictures taken of other persons without their permission is prohibited  Protection of the spoken word  Distribution of recorded voice, if not spoken in public  Protection of one’s own picture  Distribution of picture or videos of third parties without permission  Holds also for showing such content during a live streaming session How Safe is YouNow? 11 Germany

HHU Legal bases – Own picture/word  A special protection of one’s images does not exist in the USA  Prevention of publication possible  Plaintiff must prove that the publication violates his right of privacy  Only in case of unauthorized photographing or for commercial purposes How Safe is YouNow? 12 United States

HHU Legal bases – Own picture/word  Making audio or video recordings of oral speech without permission is prohibited  Could also hold for recordings made of other persons during a YouNow session  Regulated by federal law, with different manifestations on state-level basis How Safe is YouNow? 13 United States

HHU Legal bases – Youth protection  Consumption of alcoholic beverages prohibited under  the age of 18 (spirits and other high-proof alcohol)  the age of 16 (beer and whine)  Smoking is not allowed under the age of 18  Protection from youth-endangering multimedia material  Through television, radio, Internet and other electronic media How Safe is YouNow? 14 Germany

HHU Legal bases – Youth protection  The minimum age for consuming alcoholic beverages in the USA is 21  The smoking age is not consistently regulated  varies from state to state between the age of 18 and 21  The consumption of cannabis has been legalized in certain states.  On federal level consumption is still illegal How Safe is YouNow? 15 United States

HHU Legal bases – Defamation  The act of insulting other people is prohibited  This includes  Offensive utterances  Utterances containing value judgements towards third parties  Showing certain offensive gestures  Depends on whether or not there is an intent to offend another person  Each case should be assessed individually How Safe is YouNow? 16 Germany

HHU Legal bases – Defamation  On federal level: no criminal defamation or insult laws of any kind  On state level: 17 states and two territories have criminal defamation laws  Free utterance is not necessarily a defamation  The expression of one’s opinion (even if offensive) does not automatically lead to a lawsuit How Safe is YouNow? 17 United States

HHU Legal bases – Data Privacy  A natural person can collect and store data for private purposes (personal and household activities)  Distribution of private information during streaming is questionable  Problematic gap in legislation  General Data Protection Regulation  We include the distribution of personal data as a potential violation of data privacy How Safe is YouNow? 18 Germany

HHU Legal bases – Data Privacy  Combination of legislation, regulation and self- regulation  No absolute legislation that dictates handling data protection  Companies should develop their own policies for data privacy and ensure their compliance  YouNow’s conditions of use prohibit the disclosure of other users’ private information How Safe is YouNow? 19 United States

HHU 3 Our approach How Safe is YouNow? 20

HHU Our approach  Data acquisition based on observation of streamers on YouNow  Possibly the most accurate approach regarding offenses  Other approaches, e.g. surveys, are questionaible  Coverage: June 2015  Same amount of male and female/German and American streamers  Each of these groups have been observed for an entire week  Each day has been divided into four time slots  Four streams per slot/ 15 minutes each How Safe is YouNow? 21 Methodology

HHU Our approach How Safe is YouNow? 22 Database structure

HHU 4 Results How Safe is YouNow? 23

HHU Results How Safe is YouNow?  possible infringements:  ~57% of observed streamers  ~65% of all female streamers  ~50% of all male streamers

HHU Results  ~40% of all observed streamers were playing music  52% female/ 48% male  ~3% had their TV turned on How Safe is YouNow?  ~6% of all streamers were legally relevant  Filming  Showing pictures  Calling third parties on speaker CopyrightRight in one‘s own picture and spoken/written word

HHU Results  Referred to under 18 years old streamers  7%: sexual content or drug use  Include: alcohol, smoking cigarettes/marijuana, hookah How Safe is YouNow?  3% of all streamers  Streamers insulting viewers or the other way round Youth ProtectionDefamation/Insulting Data Privacy  Less than 1%

HHU Results How Safe is YouNow? USA vs. Germany

HHU 5 Conclusion How Safe is YouNow? 28

HHU Conclusion  Biggest issue: violation of copyright  Lacking child protection/ violations of personality rights  Are these violations substantial enough? Prosecution?  Concretization is necessary  Solution to protect children?  Improvement of information literacy  Better monitoring of the streams/ violations by platform operators?  Improved registration system  Financial costs… How Safe is YouNow?

HHU How Safe is YouNow? 30 Thank you for your attention!