Internet Association Hits Back At RIAA's Desire To Wipe Away DMCA Safe Harbors
from the good-for-them dept
On Friday, we wrote about how the RIAA has already started pitching the terrible idea that we should do away with the important DMCA safe harbors, which make sure that liability for infringement is properly applied to those actually infringing, rather than tools and services. The RIAA, however, thinks that it should be everyone else's responsibility to prop up their increasingly obsolete business model, so they want to do away with the safe harbors and make every internet service liable if anyone uses their service for infringement. Of course, what this would do is stifle innovation broadly, because companies would avoid any kind of user generated services, because the liability would be super high. Sure, some of the big players would stick around, because they've got enough money and lawyers, but new startups would be few and far between.Thankfully, some are already pushing back against the RIAA's crazy desires, and the Internet Association has pointed out that this move by the RIAA highlights the industry's real end goal with SOPA: to make the internet responsible for propping up their business model.
“The DMCA provides a framework that appropriately balances the interests of copyright owners with the rights of users and the development of new and innovative products and services. The RIAA's statement that it wants to change the DMCA lends support to those who suspected that SOPA's stated objective of targeting offshore websites was really a stalking horse to achieve the RIAA's true objective — to amend the DMCA by having Internet companies police user activities,” Internet Association CEO Michael Beckerman said in a statement to MT. “Congress should reject the RIAA’s invitation to amend the DMCA.”Of course, a reasonable argument could be made that the DMCA's safe harbors are already too far tilted towards copyright holders, considering the number of bogus takedowns we talk about regularly. A much more reasonable system would be a true notice and notice system, in which those accused of infringement would be given an opportunity to respond to a takedown notice before the content itself is taken down. That simple change would help prevent the all too common case of the DMCA being used for censorship.
Separately, the RIAA's end goal goes way beyond just making internet companies police user activities. They want nothing less than to have the internet re-crafted in their own image, protecting an obsolete business model while limiting any competition and disruption they don't like.
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Filed Under: balance, copyright, dmca, innovation, safe harbors, sopa, takedowns
Companies: internet assocation, riaa
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Anomalies
But OOTB says these are all anomalies. All of them. No matter how many. Every grain of sand on the sea shore is an anomaly and should have really been a grain of gold dust in Hollywood's pocket. Every star in the sky is just an anomaly and should have been a wish granted to a Hollywood executive.
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Re: Anomalies
How many anomalies does it take to screw in a light bulb?
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Re: Re: Anomalies
One (or more) is enough to create forward progress. Without at least one "anomaly", Hollywood will never progress forward.
How many Hollywood executives does it take to screw in a light bulb?
Unknown. They're too busy screwing artists and the public, and prefer doing it under cover of darkness.
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How about penalties with teeth for bogus takedowns
Especially takedowns that are for material where the requester is not the copyright owner or authorized agent of the copyright owner.
Surely Hollywood wouldn't object to that? They wouldn't want someone else taking down their online content with bogus takedowns.
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Re: How about penalties with teeth for bogus takedowns
Sometimes the old ways ARE best.
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But at the same time, it is important not to overreach. Even when we tend to want to do so because of seeing it done by example by Hollywood.
Maybe you should lose your ability to ever send DMCA takedowns. Let's say a Sick Strikes "alert system".
Maybe if you are a frequent filer (say, over ten thousand DMCA notices per day), then you get to reset your six strikes every 30 days. So the penalty isn't permanent. Just enough incentive to make you want to get it right. That should stop the more brazen abuse such as four major Hollywood studios simultaneously taking down a video they don't own, but that embarrasses them.
Maybe there should be statutory damages for bogus takedowns? That way even if you're up against a giant corporation, you merely have to prove the takedown was bogus, but you don't have to prove actual damages. If such bogus takedowns really are anomalies, then a statutory damage award once in a rare anomalous while should be a problem, should it?
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So a handful of questionable notices means it's tilted in the favor of copyright holders? Wouldn't the millions and millions of legitimate notices then, by that same logic, mean that things are tilted in favor of the infringers? Can you clarify why that would cut the other way?
They want nothing less than to have the internet re-crafted in their own image, protecting an obsolete business model while limiting any competition and disruption they don't like.
You make post after post about how their business model is obsolete, but you never discuss the details of what you mean. What is obsolete about it, precisely? I suspect you simply mean that as long as they exclude others from that which is not naturally excludable, then that's "obsolete." Am I right?
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Re: the FNG
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Same goes for movies.
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Surely it is just a coincidence that four major Hollywood studios would simultaneously take down a video that they don't own, but the video embarrasses them. Gee that surely isn't any kind of organized bad behavior that ought to be criminal.
Mike has explained how the business model is obsolete many times. In short, we live in an age where digital bits are not scarce and cost nominally zero to send anywhere on the planet in real time. Build a business model that is not victimized by that, but rather that leverages on that. Gee now? Let's see? If it costs little to send bits around, but costs something to store them and set up servers, and I have lots of content, how could I make money from that? Hmmmm? What if there were other premium perks that could be paid for, such as skipping ads? Or getting to vote on elements of what is good/bad in the content? I didn't spend more time thinking about this than it took to type this. I would also point out that there are other scarce things to sell, and that has been done since forever. There are advertising supported business models. Subscription business models. Streaming models. Radio-like models. A content owner could set up a new internet form of "cable subscription" that bypasses the cable companies entirely and lets consumers pick ala carte. I could go on, but I suspect it is pointless. Just keep fighting change that is inevitable.
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Music is an enticement to get you looking at ads or having access to vast libraries of songs or get you to live performances.
The industry needs to get it out of their heads that they are creating a product for direct sale. There is a disconnect between the industry and those that consume their product and until they reconnect with music listeners they will continue to suffer the consequences like people turning to alternative means to get the service the "legitimate" services are not adequately offering.
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Because it's not a "handful of questionable notices", boy.
The amount of fake/phony/incorrect notices appears to be between 1/3 and 1/2 of ALL notices.
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Citation needed. I would grant you that unchallenged doesn't mean legitimate, but even so, come on.
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No. That just means that many people use various services to infringe. That isn't going away, no matter how we structure the DMCA.
In a properly balanced system, the DMCA notices would only take down material if the notice wasn't bogus. A notice-notice-takedown system accomplishes that better than the one we have now.
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They can't make money from their business model anymore because it relies on (in this case) recorded music being hard to access, making physical copies worth a fair amount of money. Today, recorded music is extremely easy to access, so physical recordings are worth less.
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It's not the notices themselves that unfairly "tilt," it's the blind acceptance of them without proper review.
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BTW, I am certain there are many instances where the "business models" promoted here are quite beneficial. However, given the complexity of many so-called "content companies", it is much to simplistic to even suggest that all would be well in their world is they simply adapted, by adopting, the economic musings on this site.
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> knowledge and culture to all of humanity.
You make that sound bad. But it really is just the modern form of advancing the useful arts and science.
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It keeps the people of poor countries from daring to innovate.
It keeps the people of poor countries in fear of speaking freely.
I'm sure a Hollywood executive could list other good reasons to keep the people of poor countries in ignorance, but I hope that is enough examples to answer your question.
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Nope. It is just bad in itself.
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The copyright industry does not have products.
If you mean the media made by the media related industries, I for one would like to see every blockbuster movie or formula based song made by the BIG guys, dissappear completly and forever.
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> "prop up" these "innovative" Internet companies.
You are confused about which ones are the innovative ones.
Real internet companies that allow users to communicate are not interested in being propped up by infringing content. (If they are, then by my definition they are not the innovative companies.) But a real internet company should not get shut down, which is what you want, when one of its users infringes someone's copyright. These companies might even be interested in helping you fight infringement. But they are not interested in giving you a giant OFF switch for either the internet or for their business.
But all you can see is piracy. Just as McCarthy only saw communists hiding under every bush. So everyone must be a pirate. Ever techdirt user. Every internet company. They are all just filthy steenkin' pirates I tell you!
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In short copyright is the scourge of speech and has been and is being abused to such a degree as to render its importance somewhere between free speech and life.
To utter words unto human kind does not entitle the utterer to forever prevent those that can hear from repeating them. The same for a painting, a poem, a song, a thing.
The objective of copyright is to provide he that utters provisioning for a fair and just capacity for recompense before enabling the creation to foster more creation. Dust upon dust creates bricks upon bricks and houses that burn.
Without your creations humanity itself is worthless, yet, without your humanity your creations are vile.
The reach of copyright in all its present majestic circumstance ebbs. Alas, the kingdom must repent and reappoint the purveyors to humanity.
How long is too long? How soon is now?
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What exactly is that supposed to mean?
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Everyone's shit stinks and your million dollar blockbusters are much more shit than not, so .. desist from insisting it be a surprise to those that choose to open the package. There is no package.
Exactly? It means just because you've succeeded in manipulating "copyrights" in your corner as well as the previous means of dissemination do not suppose that it can always be so. That's what it means, I'm sure of it.
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They're not as irreplaceable as they'd like to think. The continual growth of independent music is proof of that.
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You must be new here...
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tl;dr so GIGO.
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Broken link
It's likely you left off an end quote, because the URL has "%20target=" appended to the end.
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How many times can that envelope of cash get people to forget how many times they have cried wolf?
The RIAA who were awfully silent when some of their membership were caught committing commercial copyright infringement in Canada, but scream bloody murder if someone hears a song on YouTube and they didn't get paid.
If they want more rights and powers, then they need to open up all of the members books for review. Lets see these imaginary losses, and how they actually were just used to pay bonuses to CEOs who declared war on consumers. Lets make sure that the penalty for screwing up is the same they used against the public. $150,000 statutory damages for every invalid notice, they (like infringers) are breaking the law afterall. Whats good to beat the public up with is good to beat a corporation with.
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