India's Recording Industry Wants The Power To Take Down Content Without Notification
from the क्योंकि-भाड़-& dept
India's copyright laws are a bit of a mess right now. Late last year, at the request of a movie studio, ISPs were instructed by an Indian court to block several file sharing sites. A full blockade was set up, eliminating access to complete sites, rather than specifically targeting the offending files. Six months later, the Indian government ordered another round of ISP-level blocks, this time taking out access to another set of file lockers and, for some reason, Vimeo. Then, once you thought you had India's government pinned down as an overzealous anti-piracy enforcer for the movie industry, an ISP found itself being fined by a consumer group for going too far with its blockage.Well, it would appear the dust has settled momentarily as new legislation is discussed, and India's government is, at the moment, still an overzealous anti-piracy enforcer. This time, however, it's the music industry that's looking to have the government expand its enforcement. The Indian Music Industry has filed a petition in support of India's IT Rules. This has been filed in response to Shojan Jacob's petition challenging the constitutionality of the proposed rules.
What the music industry is interested in is the powers granted by the IT Rules, which allow content to be taken down within 36 hours, without any notice to the content creator or uploader. There's no doubt many in the content industry would like such a rule to be implemented worldwide, but considering how many bogus DMCA takedowns there are, it would definitely be a bad thing for anyone not protected by the legislation.
The Indian Music Industry cites the following in support of its wish to unilaterally zap content off the net without having to be troubled with trifling details like court orders or if the content is actually infringing. It would rather streamline the process into a shoot-first-ask-questions-never free-for-all.
- The Internet is the fastest and most widespread medium for diffusion of sound recordings in digital form. This is done through ISPs.While a majority of what's stated is factual, it's a rather big leap to go from "the internet makes it easy to copy" to "let us decide what's infringing and simply have it removed without notifying anyone." And the pointing at ISPs as somehow being contributors to infringement is a rhetorical tactic nearly as old at the internet itself. It's based on the faulty assumption that people wouldn't purchase internet access if they couldn't help themselves to infringing content, plainly ignoring the thousands of legitimate uses ISPs facilitate every day.
- Many websites allow streaming, reproducing, adapting, distributing, communication, transmitting, disseminating or displaying and downloading songs, without taking any license from copyright owners. Owners of websites are unknown, and it's impossible to track. However, ISPs have details of the owners of the website, and it is practically impossible for copyright owners to take action against people located outside India.
- The IT Rules allow the designated officers to block the contents of the website.
But what exists already in India, as skewed as it is towards copyright holders, simply isn't good enough. IMI wants more.
Did the Indian Music Industry need the IT Rules to get those 104 websites blocked? We think not. Can they still get content blocked without the IT Rules? Yes they can. What the IT Rules do is that allow the IMI to go into overdrive, and block access to websites through ISPs and domain registrars, without going to court. In their current form, the IT Rules assume that the complainant is always right, and put intermediaries (ISPs, websites etc) under pressure to act-or-be-taken-to-court; the IT Rules don't offer proper recourse to someone whose content is being blocked, which is something that the reworking of the IT Rules should allow.That seems to be the case the world over. The endless pressure from these industries for more expansionist policies and fewer options for recourse is now the standard operating procedure. IMI will probably find a strong ally in the Indian government if the recent past is any indication. Most governments are looking for ways to control what their citizens say and do on the internet and the IT Rules, if left unchanged, give the Indian government the perfect backdoor towards more censorship.
The copyright protection clause in the IT Rules isn't the problem: the issue is with other provisions related to broad terms used to define intermediaries and some of the subjective and broad provisions under which content can be taken down (grossly harmful, disparaging, impacting friendly relations between nations and suchlike), apart from the fact that the rules don't provide for adequate transparency and recourse, which impinges on freedom of expression...Between the copyright industries and a seemingly natural tendency for governments to impose as much control on the "wild west" internet as possible, India's IT Rules are bad news for anyone not on the inside of these entities.
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Filed Under: censorship, copyright, india, takedowns
Reader Comments
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Uploaders and other copiers have NO rights in copyrights.
Seems so simple when you remove the premise that uploaders have "rights".
But yes, you can share your own products all you want.
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Makes no sense
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Re: Uploaders and other copiers have NO rights in copyrights.
Thanks OOTB, for giving me permission to upload my CDs as much as I want.
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Copyright and the Internet
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Re: Uploaders and other copiers have NO rights in copyrights.
And when you do, you are just as much of an "uploader" as the pirates are.
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Re: Uploaders and other copiers have NO rights in copyrights.
Because you said so right fucktard?
What an ass. No wonder all your comments get buried.
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@ "control what their citizens say and do on the internet"
I'll just save wear and tear on my fingers, and you fanboys can twist yourselves into pretzels -- or ad hom all you like; I don't bother to read them, and any ad hom only serves to make the site unpalatable to reasonable people, so knock yourselves out.
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Re: @ "control what their citizens say and do on the internet"
Oh, the sweet, drunken irony!
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Re: Copyright and the Internet
couldn't agree with you more. trouble is, we have no one to blame but ourselves because we have not kicked up anywhere near enough when the entertainment industries have started one of their anti-internet campaigns or suing someone for doing what they dont like or shouted loud enough against politicians that keep backing the industries and introducing more and more laws that hurt the public. instead, they should have been forced to make the industries join the digital age, reduce prices and make content accessible, but we couldn't do that as we cant throw a few thousand dollars into their coffers!
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Re: Re: Uploaders and other copiers have NO rights in copyrights.
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Re: Re: Copyright and the Internet
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This and not reading the articles before spouting off is exactly why you are considered a troll here. Your blinder blocked vision means you aren't participating but rather you are trolling.
It's good to finally see the community has had enough of your troll messages and has started doing something about it. I notice your compatriot troll has pretty much quit commenting since he's buried pretty fast. He at least no longer has free reign to spew.
Continue at your present pace and you're next. Not a bad outcome.
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Re: @ "control what their citizens say and do on the internet"
Marked as funny.
"I don't bother to read them" - Or the articles either. Why do you come here again? Oh thats right, to do what you accuse us of doing. Got it... right.
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Re: Re: @ "control what their citizens say and do on the internet"
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Re: Re: Re: Copyright and the Internet
Big Media, Big Politicians and Big Anti-Piracy would kill themselves if they got what they wanted. The piratebay would open up on a new domain with another isp and be ready to go in minutes.
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Re: Copyright and the Internet
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This could be a good thing
US recording industry wants the same. Other countries' recording industries will want the same.
Now imagine RIAA takes down all MPAA websites. MPAA takes down all RIAA and India INI websites. British BPI takes down French SNEP. Finland IFPI takes down BPI and Australia ARIA. Argentina CAPIF nukes Brazil ABPD. Belgium BEA nukes IFPI. Etc, etc.
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Re:
Still, when you have trolls like out_of_the_ass, who make it clear what their modus operandi is, it justifies the response to them - report every single post they make. Average_joe tries to claim that everyone who doesn't agree with the RIAA is trying to censor posts attempting discussion, but for a group of people represented by someone who loudly and proudly proclaims not to read anything that is posted before firing his criticisms, reporting is fair game and should be commended.
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Re: @ "control what their citizens say and do on the internet"
"significant, not inane"
Did you, of all people, actually just say that? Good lord.
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Author, your grammar
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Re:
The classical music scene (Hindustani and Carnatic) is extremely robust, with dozens of new guys making their mark every year.
Add to this an assortment of folk, religious (Hindu, Muslim and Christian devotional in various languages), fusion, rock, etc and you have a vibrant music scene.
The funny thing is: music was, and is, mostly accessed through radio all along. The concept of buying recorded music was always restricted to a minority (still a lot, since you know there are more than a BILLION people). All musicians make money through selling scarcities (I know Masnick invented this term, but this is essentially what Indian musicians have always done and still do, especially in the digital era).
Classical musicians make a living through concerts and some generate additional revenue by teaching music (at music academies). The Indian diaspora is now the single biggest patron of these guys, who are in great demand and get paid good money world over.
I could go on, but basically it's only a few recording companies that are affected, since recorded music (cassettes CDs, DVDs) has been wiped out by the MP3 and the Internet.
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Re: Author, your grammar
But starting sentences with "And" is fine?
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Re: Uploaders and other copiers have NO rights in copyrights.
I own a few CDs. So you telling me I can copy them and share with my friends? Good cause that's what I do.
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Re: Re: @ "control what their citizens say and do on the internet"
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Re: Re: Author, your grammar
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What's the visible difference between a computer glitch that knocks a page offline and a noticeless takedown? None whatsoever.
My question is, would it be illegal to circumvent a noticeless takedown, even if you didn't know it was a takedown, and not a server error?
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