Indian Court Says Service Providers Are Liable For Users' Copyright Infringement
from the safe-harbors-be-damned dept
We've talked many times about the importance of the various safe harbors in the DMCA and the CDA, in the US, in protecting service providers from liability for actions by their users (e.g., YouTube should not be legally responsible if one of its users uploads an infringing work). Other countries have not been nearly as strong on this, though many seem to recognize the basic reasons to not make service providers liable. Unfortunately, it looks like India may have just done away with such safe harbors in a recent decision. Amlan Mohanty alerts us to the detailed writeup he just did about a lawsuit against MySpace in India, and the reasoning of the decision, which definitely appears to wipe out protections for intermediaries and suggests they're perfectly liable for actions of their users.I'm certainly not an expert on Indian law, but it really sounds like yet another case of bad legal drafting by lawmakers, in which they approved two laws that seemed to contradict each other. The end result is pretty ridiculous, as was some of the reasoning. For example, the court claimed that because MySpace put in some tools to deal with infringement, that could show it had "knowledge" of infringement. In other words, it seems that according to this ruling, a company is safer in India (though not in most other countries) if it has no policies and no tools to deal with infringement, so that it can claim no knowledge. That's ridiculous.
However, the court builds on this form of "knowledge" to say that the law requires a site to block infringement if it has such knowledge... In the US, this (mostly, with one exception) means actual knowledge of specific infringing works via a DMCA takedown notice. But, in this ruling the court appears to say that the general knowledge, proved by the mitigation tools, means that MySpace has an obligation to find and block all infringing works, based on just a list given to them by rights holders. Separately, they claim that because MySpace put ads into the videos at issue, it showed that they were reviewing the videos, and thus should have reviewed them for infringement. That such ad insertions are likely automated (and most certainly not done by copyright law experts) does not seem to occur to the court.
Then there's this whopper. The court apparently decides that MySpace must do a "preliminary check in all the cinematograph works relating Indian titles before communicating the works to the public rather than falling back on post infringement measures." Yup. There go any safe harbors. If you're a service provider online with Indian users... you may want to beware...
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Filed Under: copyright, india, safe harbors, secondary liability
Companies: myspace
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So this applies to EVERY site and EVERY possibly copyrighted work?
This will go well.
"Hey [Some IP Address here], I know you requested information from our server, but you're going to have to give us a few months to scan the entirely of the material that you have requested before we allow the connection to go through. Just let us scan every published work ever made and we'll get those packets sent to you within the next 6-8 weeks".
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It takes nerves of steel to do this, but Google did it against that newspaper consortium that wanted to be paid back for what Google "stole" from them, and then whined when Google just dropped them to be safe from the litigation.
Because in all honesty... its My[______] its not exactly a high traffic site.
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Until other copyright holders come knockin'. Best to just have a blanket ban on Internet...safer that way. However, I guess ultimately that might be the goal, as they'll have less riots that way.
I weep for India...it is sad that greed beats out humanity every time. Eventually we as a collective are just going to have to stand up and tell them we aren't going to take it any more.
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You spin me right 'round
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"ad insertions are likely automated" -- FOR PROFITS.
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Re: "ad insertions are likely automated" -- FOR PROFITS.
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Re: "ad insertions are likely automated" -- FOR PROFITS.
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Re: "ad insertions are likely automated" -- FOR PROFITS.
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Re: "ad insertions are likely automated" -- FOR PROFITS.
That is about all I got from your discussion.
You realize there is a price to pay for free, even if you are not paying it directly, right? Google pays it with server farms. Facebook pays it with server farms. Others pay Amazon to host it.
Is the 8 seconds that the commercial runs before you get to see the video you selected really that horrible of a price? And, you might just see something that interests you, or you could do like I do and just read comments sections while waiting for the commercial to finish.
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Hit me kind of hard...
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Re: Hit me kind of hard...
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Re: Hit me kind of hard...
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Talk about one sided!
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I'm sure he's distressed at the news.
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"So . . . you're accusing Mike of having a consistent opinion that differs from your own?
I'm sure he's distressed at the news."
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I don't care that he has an opinion different from mine, I just get concerned that it is being presented in a slanted manner, with little regard for telling all of the truth.
How many articles about how the NYT paywall would be a huge failure? A dozen, maybe more? How many about how successful it has been so far? 1, and that 1 still couldn't accept the idea that it was working, even a bit.
If it's about business models that work, shouldn't we be crowing this great new step? Oh, no, wait, it fails the "free" test.
So I wonder, how many other articles, how many other subjects are either ignore or "colored" to suit the desired result, rather than discussed for what they are?
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I still don't understand your complaint.
If tomorrow, the supreme court releases an opinion saying that police officers can search your house anytime they want, for any reason, and without any oversight, I would call it a terrible ruling. If instead, the supreme court decides that the 4th has been trampled on too much already, and that our rights need to be strengthened, I would call that a fantastic ruling.
How is that "having my finger on the scale"? Are you saying everybody should paint every ruling in a neutral light, regardless of their opinion? That makes no sense. This is an opinion blog.
Do you also go onto Yelp and complain that some people have good things to say about some restaurants, and bad things to say about other restaurants?
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Mike often talks about great business models, and how things work in the new world. Much of his stuff is based on the "free", and the infinite, and how you can't make money selling the infinite, and you should sell the "scarce". He considers information to be infinite. Yet, there is the NYT, charging for access and racking up 10 million in sales. That pretty much pokes a sharp stick into the basic theories that Mike works from.
It's no longer a question of opinion, but rather than the foundation of "facts" that Mike works from has crumbled in at least one corner, if not more. So now the "debunked" stuff that he works from as the foundation of his opinions has be shown to be somewhat less than true in all cases.
Having an opinion is fine. But when you state an opinion, you have to accept that other people will have the opposite opinion. It is only opinion, not fact. Mike thinks not only that he is right, but works with it like facts. the NYT proves his "facts" to be wrong, so he ignores them.
In the end, my concern is that many here fall for Mike's stuff fully, and they go around in the comments acting like it's natural law and the truth of the universe. We know now that Mike can (and has been) wrong, about human nature, business models, and the whole "infinite" universe. What does he have left?
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I sincerely don't mind that. People are free to believe what they want. But that doesn't change the underlaying reality, and gives them no right to impose their views on others.
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Not to mention...
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Possible Fix
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So what are we left with, a big white screen (and a better website in my opinion)
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If this is the case, then the government would be responsible for all of the drug sales in the government subsidized housing.
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