What Happens Without Safe Harbor Protections: ISP Deletes All User Multimedia Files
from the yes,-all-of-them dept
In the ongoing case of Viacom against Google, one of the keys is whether or not Google/YouTube have protection under the DMCA safe harbor provisions, which are supposed to protect service providers from the actions of their users. This is an important, because without those safe harbor provisions, the increase in liability would basically cripple all kinds of internet service providers. For an example, just look to Australia, where an ISP was found liable for content its users hosted, leading another ISP to delete all multimedia files hosted by its users every night (these are only the files hosted on their web accounts, not on their home computers, obviously). Yes, every multimedia file -- even if those files were perfectly legal. Record your own kid singing happy birthday and stick on your site? Gone. It might be infringing and this ISP doesn't want to risk the liability. That's why safe harbor provisions are there in the first place: to avoid that type of ridiculous situation. Yet, with Viacom trying to completely wipe out the safe harbor for any company that makes money providing services to users, it would effectively cripple much of what can be done on the internet. Of course, in the end, that will hurt Viacom even more, by limiting the usefulness of the internet as a distribution mechanism -- but the entertainment industry isn't exactly known for its long term strategic thinking.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Silly example, since if you didn't pay the appropriate performance royalties that _would_ be an infringing video..
Which just leads us into a whole new level of sillyness.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
It's opt out
I must admit, I'm quite pleased that they do this rather than waste money on lawsuits and raise my internet costs.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
R you sure?
Are you so sure about that?
Chapell claims to own the rights to the lyrics for that song (the music having gone out of copyright a lot earlier), based on the arrangement done by Preston Ware Orem in 1935.
HOWEVER, many people claim the lyrics preexisted. Wikipedia cites these two occurrences (below, but those may not be correct), which I'd like to find a way to verify. If they're true then Chappell doesn't own the lyrics at all.
The bigger point here, is that even with a popular well known song, tracing the origins of it after LESS THAN 100 YEARS, is extremely difficult. It may have caused royalties to go to the wrong people. Yet people are proposing perpetual copyright, where we'd need to trace the origins of songs back 1000's of years.
Even the video games *I* wrote in my youth, I *think* the copyright reverted to me, because I recall something in the contract about that, but I didn't keep the contract and can't prove it. That's only 20 years ago.
Wikipedia cites:
"Robert Coleman included "Good Morning to All" in a songbook with the birthday lyrics as a second verse. Coleman also published "Happy Birthday" in The American Hymnal in 1933. Children's Praise and Worship, edited by Andrew Byers, Bessie L. Byrum and Anna E. Koglin, published the song in 1928."
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: R you sure?
Seriously. I hope we have a better system in place by then...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: R you sure?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Just anExcuse
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I must admit, I'm quite pleased that they do this rather than waste money on lawsuits and raise my internet costs.
Optimistic about taking the shaft huh?
Not that it's really the ISP's fault, but...
Seriously - if you post your OWN personal content, it shouldn't be deleted - hell, what if you are an indie short film maker? Is it ok for them to just delete the content?
How is that even remotely fair. You obviously could not run that kind of business or service if they were your ISP.
I am very thankful they are NOT my ISP.
At this point, we would be better off without any copyright law at all, seeing what it is doing to innovation and art.
Just because Hitler burned books he didn't agree with, didn't make it right - nor does deleting content just because of fear. Is it so very different to burn a book as opposed to deleting creative data? Sure, perhaps there's another copy of both - but it's still not right.
People should go back and REALLY read how Hitler took control, the parallels of today are striking indeed.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re Overcast
As was already stated "To be fair here, exetel is a low profit isp and they let all their users know about this *before* they implemented it and also told us how to avoid the problem."
So an ISP decides to rescind a service where users are saving data to the ISP's servers and tying up the ISP's resources and you're saying they should NOT be allowed??!! Even after giving the users advance notice?
Um, last time I checked any company can do whatever they dang well please with THEIR SERVERS and if that means deciding that users can no longer save multimedia on THEIR SERVERS then the ISP is well within it's rights to do so.
"How is that even remotely fair. "
How is it fair to the service provider to say "Well, you let me do this in the past so now you HAVE to let me do it forever"??
They changed their rules, notified their users and took appropriate action...last time i checked companies, as well as individuals, were allowed to change their minds.
If anything they should be touted for informing their users BEFORE deleting data. That's something you might not see every day.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Why is this a problem
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Why is this a problem
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Just make everyone who uploads a video on YouTube accept a similar contract. Except, if they do upload copyrighted material, Google special op forces will hunt them down.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Google
And I'm sure they make the SEAL's look like wooseys.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Seriously..
There is a free service called "photobucket.com" They allow picture and video hosting, upload your stuff on their and display it on your site through the service provider...they can't delete something that isn't on their server.
Or heres an even better idea. Create your own server...got xp? You can do it "THROUGH" your ISP but yoru files will be on your computer which they can also do nothing about, if you're hosting illegal content on your own server/computer, yeah you'll have the FCC, or Microsoft, or the FBI knocking on your door...
so that sounds like a good alternative instead of whining about service providers hmm?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Seriously..
PhotoBucket would have to worry about the same thing
"Or heres an even better idea. Create your own server"
first I'd like to see you teach the average user how to run a web site from the average computer. Some ISPs block port 80 requests. Some give you a privet IP instead of a public. etc. etc.
second, chances are that goes against your services agreement. (That's why they have hosting.)
Third, unless you pay the big bucks, chances are your upload sucks.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
website
I get my hosting for 25 bucks every 6 months, and my domain for 12 bucks or so a year, so it's hardly breaking the bank here.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]