Recording Industry's Latest Plan To Mess Up The Internet: Do Away With Safe Harbors

from the because-collateral-damages-is-foreign-to-you dept

Fri, Apr 24th 2015 8:02am — Mike Masnick

For the most part, the recording industry has been rather quiet of late concerning copyright reform. With labels pulling funding from the RIAA and its international sister operations like the IFPI, the focus on copyright reform has been left mainly up to Hollywood and the MPAA. The recording industry has been much more focused on smaller issues like performance rights and other licensing issues. But, apparently, the recording industry hasn't yet truly given up on the idea of completely undermining key parts of the internet to get its wishes. According to the IFPI, its "top" goal for copyright reform is attacking the so-called "safe harbors" found in copyright law, like the DMCA's Section 512.

If you're unfamiliar with it, copyright's safe harbors are designed to make sure that the internet thrives, by avoiding frivolous litigation that would stifle free expression and innovation. Honestly, the safe harbors are a pretty simple concept: put the liability for infringement on the parties that actually infringe the content, rather than the internet services that they use. Think of it this way: you don't blame Ford for providing the getaway car in a bank robbery, and you don't blame AT&T for providing the phone service used to make a bomb threat. As such, it makes no sense to blame a hosting company because a blogger posted an infringing image.

IFPI's main target, not surprisingly, is YouTube. It makes a strained argument that the DMCA's safe harbor is costing the recording industry hundreds of millions of dollars -- and it does this by comparing apples to oranges.

Which results, the record industry argues, in what the IFPI calls a “value gap”. The trade group says: “An illustration of this can be seen in comparing the share of revenue derived by rights owners from services such as Spotify and Deezer, and those derived from certain content platforms like YouTube or Dailymotion. IFPI estimates music subscription services have 41 million paying global subscribers, plus more than 100 million active users in their ‘freemium’ tiers. This sector generated revenues to record companies of more than $1.6 billion in 2014″.

It goes on: “By contrast, YouTube alone claims more than one billion monthly unique users and is thought to be the world’s most popular access route to music. Yet total global revenues to record companies generated by certain content platforms including YouTube amounted to just $641 million in 2014, less than half the total amount paid to the industry by subscription services such as Spotify and Deezer”.

Note the implicit (and wrong) assumption, though: that YouTube and Dailymotion are the equivalent to Spotify/Deezer. Yet, much of the value in YouTube and Dailymotion is that they are platforms for anyone to upload any content, the vast majority of which is not music. But that point never seems to be considered by the IFPI at all. Instead, it wants to remove the safe harbors entirely from YouTube, by arguing that since the company is also providing services to help artists make money, it should lose its safe harbors:

Calling for action, IFPI chief Frances Moore said: “The value gap is a fundamental flaw in our industry’s landscape which sees digital platforms such as Dailymotion and YouTube taking advantage of exemptions from copyright laws that simply should not apply to them. Laws that were designed to exempt passive hosting companies from liability in the early days of the internet – so-called ‘safe harbours’ – should never be allowed to exempt active digital music services from having to fairly negotiate licences with rights holders”.

She added: “There should be clarification of the application of ‘safe harbours’ to make it explicit that services that distribute and monetise music should not benefit from them”.

But think about the obvious consequences to such a move (obvious to everyone but the recording industry, it seems). Removing the safe harbors from YouTube would have tremendous collateral damage, basically making the platforrm useless for all user generated content. It would effectively require Google to carefully pre-screen every video that goes up (beyond what it does now with ContentID -- which already, problematically at times, goes beyond what the law requires).

Furthermore, the message that Moore and IFPI are saying to the rest of the internet is don't help us monetize because the second you do, you should lose your safe harbor protections and immediately become liable for the actions of your users. How shortsighted can Moore possibly be? The recording industry's plan here is to basically tell the internet: don't build services that help us make money or we'll sue you. How is that possibly a smart strategy?

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Filed Under: copyright, dmca, intermediary liability, liability, recording industry, safe harbors, user generated content
Companies: ifpi, youtube

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Anonymous Coward, 24 Apr 2015 @ 8:17am

Smart for a different reason
"don't build services that help us make money or we'll sue you. How is that possibly a smart strategy?"

Clearly they don't want services that benefit content creators... because the more that happens, the less likely that content creators will use the middlemen record labels to promote and monetize their content.

By eliminating online 3rd party services that aren't created by the record labels themselves, they are ensuring that the music delivery industry will fall back into the stone ages.
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Anonymous Coward, 24 Apr 2015 @ 8:22am

Re: Smart for a different reason
Well, since they controlled the stone ages, or at least image they did, it's all good to them.
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Baron von Robber, 24 Apr 2015 @ 8:22am

RIAA/MPAA: "But going after the infringers is hard. It's really hard! Makes wanna squeeze our peepees."
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Anonymous Coward, 24 Apr 2015 @ 8:29am

I find it interesting that they're measuring the revenue generated to record companies as opposed to the revenue generated by "rights owners" and record companies. You would think that at least looking at the revenue of people not openly hostile to the service would provide a more accurate picture.
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Anonymous Coward, 24 Apr 2015 @ 8:32am

Yes, "teh internets" has matured and will be regulated.
Just like every other new industry in every other area of business.

Without this principle, we'd all be paying Standard Oil whatever it asked, and it'd control industry world-wide.

Like all loony "libertarians", Masnick looks at the system long after it's been regulated and claims we don't need regulation. There's no such thing as a "free market": doesn't remain so for long if the rich are "free" to use their advantages.

Now, it's been easy on "teh internets" to make money using the value that other people, but it's illegal and that needs stopped. No more greasy blobs getting millions using what they didn't create. No more kids rampantly "sharing" $100 million dollar movies and thereby cheating the creators.

You had a good long free ride, pirates, but it can't last.
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John Fenderson (profile), 24 Apr 2015 @ 8:33am

It's part of the larger effort
This is part of the larger effort to change the purpose of the internet from a means of allowing people to communicate and share to being a privately controlled broadcast medium.
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Just Another Anonymous Troll, 24 Apr 2015 @ 8:33am

"An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last."
-Neville Chamberlain

At this point, I think it should be pretty clear that the copyright industry will not stop until they control every possible manner of expression, either out of sheer malice or a misguided need to protect their copyright. YouTube implemented ContentID, going beyond the demands of the law to appease the RIAA and co., and they're still drilling at YouTube for even more copyright control. They've already exceeded the scope of the law in their demands, and then they push for/make new laws so they can exceed those. They won't stop until We The People take a stand, vote with our wallets, and bombard Congress with letters demanding that they not give in to these bastards. Sadly, not nearly enough of us are doing that, so nothing will change anytime soon.
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Anonymous Coward, 24 Apr 2015 @ 8:34am

What I like is there assumption that the more than a billion users = more than a billion people listening to the music for which they own the copyright. There is far more on Youtube than music videos, or even video where their music is incidental, and probably covered by fair use.
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Anonymous Coward, 24 Apr 2015 @ 8:36am

Yes, "teh internets" has matured and will be regulated.
Just like every other new industry in every other area of business.

Without this principle, we'd all be paying Standard Oil whatever it asked, and it'd control industry world-wide.

Like all loony "libertarians", Masnick looks at the system long after it's been regulated and claims we don't need regulation. There's no such thing as a "free market": doesn't remain so for long if the rich are "free" to use their advantages.

Now, it's been easy on "teh internets" to make money using the value that other people, but it's illegal and that needs stopped. No more greasy blobs getting millions using what they didn't create. No more kids rampantly "sharing" $100 million dollar movies and thereby cheating the creators.

You had a good long free ride, pirates, but it can't last.
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Anonymous Coward, 24 Apr 2015 @ 8:43am

Re:
...video where their music is incidental, and probably covered by fair use...

Or the music is offered by YouTube, both free-to-use and fee supported.
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Anonymous Coward, 24 Apr 2015 @ 8:43am

Re: Yes, "teh internets" has matured and will be regulated.
It's cute that you would compare regulation of an oil industry so that consumers have fair market access to a physical resource to regulation of internet services such that record labels would have free reign to sue content delivery systems into oblivion so that average people would no longer be allowed to share and create with them.

Yeah, that's an apples to apples comparison... I see how you turned that around and basically used the opposite logic to make your point.

In fact, the proper regulation by your example should be preventing record labels and their lobbyists from controlling the internet the way they want and cooking their books so that they can claim they have lost money, while they in fact are raking it in more than ever.
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Baron von Robber, 24 Apr 2015 @ 8:43am

Re:
This is why I want to pirate again. Haven't in years, but with idiots like Anti-Dirt, oob, etc, I just want the RIAA and MPAA to die like the dinosaurs that they are.

I'll pay directly and directly only to the bands, musicians themselves, but no longer the leaches that latch onto them.
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Mason Wheeler (profile), 24 Apr 2015 @ 8:48am

If you're unfamiliar with it, copyright's safe harbors are designed to make sure that the internet thrives, by avoiding frivolous litigation that would stifle free expression and innovation. Honestly, the safe harbors are a pretty simple concept: put the liability for infringement on the parties that actually infringe the content, rather than the internet services that they use.

No, that's the way they're marketed, and anyone who uses the term "safe harbor" here is either pushing that line of propaganda or has been taken in by it. The way it actually works in practice is the exact opposite: the "safe harbors" provide the exact opposite of safety, and a tool of extortion by which the bad guys use the threat of frivolous lawsuits are to avoid having to do the hard work involved in putting the liability on the parties who actually infringed, and instead going after the service providers who are supposed to be immune under the safe harbor.

It did nothing to protect YouTube from coming within a hair's breadth of being sued out of existence. It did nothing to protect MegaUpload, Veoh, or Aereo. The bottom line is, it is a "safe harbor" that does not keep Internet companies safe!

In fact, it actively makes things worse for Internet companies. By establishing a set of rules that an Internet company has to follow in order to avoid secondary liability, it implicitly establishes a concept of secondary liability that would not exist otherwise. The notion of liability pertaining only to the actual infringer and not to the person who transmits it long predates the Wold Wide Web; it's known as Common Carrier doctrine, it doesn't have any extortionate conditions attached the way the DMCA takedown system does, and if it weren't for the DMCA it would have been offering real protection to Internet companies all these years.

So yes, the "safe harbors" have to go, along with the rest of the DMCA. Throw the entire law out, and maybe we can start making some real progress towards an Internet that's truly safe for user-generated content.
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Anonymous Coward, 24 Apr 2015 @ 8:51am

Re: Yes, "teh internets" has matured and will be regulated.
As an unregulated market, I give you the PC market, which due to intense competition has had the price of computers fall such that today the price paid for a PC is about 1/10 of what is was in the beginning in actual dollars, which makes the price in real terms nearer 1/100 of the price of the first machines. Real competition does more to keep a market fair than any regulation of a monopoly or cartel.
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Anonymous Coward, 24 Apr 2015 @ 8:55am

Re:
I wish it was as simple as you suggest, but because they store and then supply content, the legacy industry will go after sites as publishers, even if thy do not exert any control over the actual publication of content.
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Anonymous Coward, 24 Apr 2015 @ 9:05am

The Big Lie
"Laws that were designed to exempt passive hosting companies from liability in the early days of the internet – so-called ‘safe harbours’ – should never be allowed to exempt active digital music services from having to fairly negotiate licences with rights holders”.
IFPI chief Frances Moore, referring to Youtube/Dailymotion
Moore is mis-characterizing these services deliberately. The entire argument flows from this falsehood.
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John Fenderson (profile), 24 Apr 2015 @ 9:13am

Re: Re:
"I just want the RIAA and MPAA to die like the dinosaurs that they are."

I'm right with you, but pirating will only prolong their lifespan, not shorten it. The better approach is to completely ignore the product of RIAA and MPAA member companies.

"I'll pay directly and directly only to the bands, musicians themselves, but no longer the leaches that latch onto them"

This is what I've been doing for decades now, and it has only been getting easier over time. I highly recommend it. The unexpected benefit of this is I have become to more more truly exceptional music than was possible when just bought label music.

Movies are more problematic with this, though.
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John Fenderson (profile), 24 Apr 2015 @ 9:15am

Re: Re: Re:
"I have become to more more truly exceptional music"

I seem to have had a stroke when I wrote that. I meant "I have become exposed to more truly exceptional music"
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Anonymous Coward, 24 Apr 2015 @ 9:24am

Seems like if safe harbor was removed, you could have all companies that allow uploaded content to protest by bringing down their sites and only have a message pop up explaining their protest. If Youtube, Vimeo, Facebook, etc all brought their sites down for 24hour, it would be a huge uproar and possibly move people to request stronger safe harbor laws. Maybe even to the point of including fines for lost revenue in false DMCA claims.
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James Burkhardt (profile), 24 Apr 2015 @ 9:31am

Re: Yes, "teh internets" has matured and will be regulated.
Masnick is not saying in this article that there should be 'no regulation'. He's saying that A) The safe harbor regulations are GOOD. B) Removing safe harbor regulations would be BAD. This is the opposite of no regulation.

I enjoy that you are saying we need regulation to rein in big companies (your standard oil comparison), then use that argument to say we should give big companies (recording industry) free reign. Seems a bit strange doesn't it?

The complaint and the article focus on YouTube, so I am going to address the rest of your comments in that vein. Apparently YouTube people are making money 'using the value that other people'. I am going to assume you mean the value that other people create. Ok. Lets look at the top grossing YouTube channels. That should give us a good idea of how much money is being made off other people's content, since its all pirates.

http://venturebeat.com/2015/01/02/youtubes-10-most-profitable-channels-of-2014-were-um-not-w hat-i-expected/

Well, you've got official channels from Taylor Swift, WWE, Spinnin Rec, and EMI. So no piracy there. 3 Original content channels, Disney collector, Littlebabybum, and stampylonghead.

Then we get to the stuff that you need to look at a little closer. movieclipsTRAILERS, for instance. They have a significant amount of original content. But they do Have official trailers from major movie studios. If they do monetize trailers, its likely revenue sharing with the studio, as I doubt the studio didn't upload the trailer to ContentID. So likely an accepted advertising strategy, since the goal of a trailer is not to make money but to put the trailer to eyeballs. They spend money doing it. Here they get eyeballs for free. getmovies is strange. They have a lot of Russian childrens programming, and its unclear whether its pirated or not. Given their size I doubt unsanctioned media from them would go unnoticed long, and some of their content has been up for at least 4 years suggesting their content is licenced/owned by them. Finally we have pewdiepie. A sweedish video game commentator. Video game commentary is an unclear area of copyright law right now. Some creative elements come from the game. But many do not, leading to a new transformative work which generally doesn't hurt the market for the original game. Given the wide acceptance he gets from developers (except nintendo) it seems to be legit. You can't say pewdiepie didn't create the videos they uploaded, even if they didn't create the underlying game.

$100 million dollar movies are rapidly taken down, if they even manage to get put up in the first place. hell 1 million dollar movies get taken down pretty quickly if they manage to get past ContentID in the first place.

Now tell me, how is YouTube legally liable for the actions of others? Why, legally, should Youtube, which not only adheres to the law when it comes to copyright, but goes beyond the law to protect legacy content creators at the expense of smaller, independent content creators, be liable for the actions of a 'greasy blob'.

All Mike is saying in this article is that the target of a civil suit (or a criminal investigation) should be the person who committed the Tort (or crime), not a secondary party who happens to have bigger pockets.

By the way, nice Ad Hominim
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jupiterkansas (profile), 24 Apr 2015 @ 9:31am

Re: Yes, "teh internets" has matured and will be regulated.
I'll ignore the petty insults you're slinging this time, but your logic is absolutely twisted - intentionally I suspect.

The kind of "regulation" they're asking for is along the lines of Standard Oil dictating that manufacturers can only make cars that run on gas from Standard Oil.

And it's not really a comparison because oil is a finite resource - not infinite like data.
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Rich Fiscus (profile), 24 Apr 2015 @ 9:34am

Laws that were designed to exempt passive hosting companies from liability in the early days of the internet

How exactly do you offer a service passively?
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Anonymous Coward, 24 Apr 2015 @ 9:35am

Re: Re: Yes, "teh internets" has matured and will be regulated.
You mean like the cable Internet industry?
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Baron von Robber, 24 Apr 2015 @ 9:36am

Re: Re: Re: Re:
Totally agree. When I was playing hard years ago, I knew guys in bands that should have made it 'big'. They were excellent musicians and creative. One band who I knew a couple of guys in did make it big but only after they left the band. Felt bad for them.
Another I knew was big in Europe but not in states.

It's 1/2 luck, and 1/2 who you know.
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Anonymous Coward, 24 Apr 2015 @ 9:40am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
You have to be good and you have to promote yourself. If you're really good promoting yourself won't be hard because your work will practically promote itself with little effort.
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jupiterkansas (profile), 24 Apr 2015 @ 9:42am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
No, you have to be good, promote yourself, and be lucky.
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Anonymous Coward, 24 Apr 2015 @ 9:47am

Re: Re: Re:
Movies are more problematic with this, though.

It is now possible to produce near photo-real movies using all free software, and a camera capable of filming movies is affordable, along with green screen support in the software. Rendering can be distributed via the Internet so a hundred to a few thousand people could contribute to a distributed ender farm. Oh an amateur team is already continuing the the voyages of the Enterprise.
I expect to see an epic of the scale of many epic films within a few years produced by an amateur team.
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John Fenderson (profile), 24 Apr 2015 @ 9:52am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
This. And not just in music, but in all business. Being great and working hard isn't quite enough. A large measure of persistence and luck is required as well. This is as it has always been.
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Anonymous Coward, 24 Apr 2015 @ 9:52am

Re:
Someone who offers server space or file storage etc., and who do not exercise any control over the content before it becomes visible to the public.
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Mason Wheeler (profile), 24 Apr 2015 @ 9:56am

Re: Re:
...you mean like Megaupload? Oh, wait, the DMCA did nothing to protect them, even when their compliance went well above and beyond its requirements.
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James Burkhardt (profile), 24 Apr 2015 @ 9:57am

Re:
Except without the safe harbors YouTube would totally have LOST its suits. Its entire defense hinged on the fact that by adhering to the law it was protected against the lawsuit. YouTube is not an ISP, therefore not subject to the common carrier doctrine. Even if it was, the same long drawn out lawsuit would have occured. Nothing in Common Carrier Doctrine would have changed the way The rulings were repeatedly appealed, would have done nothing to speed up the lawsuit or allow the lawsuit to be dismissed.

MegaUpload went out of business, yes, but because of the rogue actions of law enforcement. If allowed to remain a going concern, Or if its assets had not been seized, it very likely could have kept going, as it had the cash to fight (which is why he was never sued). It has yet to be decided if MegaUpload violated the safe harbors. Evidence provided to us suggests no, but we shall see.

Veoh yes got sued to death before being vidicated by the courts. But what took them down was court costs, not penalties for infringing on copyright. This has less to do with the safe harbors failing then the way the court system works failing.

Aereo was not subject to safe harbor provisions and never would be, as they do not host user generated content. Please dont conflate seperate issues.

You recommend a regime where if I upload say The Avengers 2 in HD and then go off grid, the site hosting the content would never have to take it down. Because even with the court declaring me guilty of infringement, the host isn't liable if it remains up. So without me to take it down, it remains up indefinitely. The safe harbors attempt a balancing act, providing a mechanism to get infringing content taken down by the host, while sheilding the host from claims of copyright infringement. They have problems, having no way to prevent censorious abuse. But they do work to prevent copyright infringement judgments against hosts, as shown by the YouTube and Veoh lawsuits.

Throwing out the safe harbor provisions doesn't solve anything. Fix the issues in the courts, as with all copyright disputes make fee shifting the norm, institute penalties (on top of the fee shifting) for those who sue hosts who are adhering to the DMCA and make it so false DMCA claims are punishable, and you have fixed most of the problems with the safe harbors.
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Baron von Robber, 24 Apr 2015 @ 9:57am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
That part's the given. Today it's much easier to promote at a low cost. But getting the attention has always been the hard part. Well good attention, anybody can get bad attention.
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SirFatty, 24 Apr 2015 @ 9:57am

FTFY
"For the most part, the recording industry has been rather *publicly* quiet of late concerning copyright reform."
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Anonymous Coward, 24 Apr 2015 @ 10:02am

Re: Yes, "teh internets" has matured and will be regulated.
"No more greasy blobs getting millions using what they didn't create."

So you are actually against the RIAA and MPAA?
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Anonymous Coward, 24 Apr 2015 @ 10:16am

Re: Re: Yes, "teh internets" has matured and will be regulated.
So we can agree. The sleazy middlemen gatekeepers that create nothing and instead get rich on the backs of actual creators have to go.
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Anonymous Coward, 24 Apr 2015 @ 10:18am

Re: Re: Re:
Nothing protects people from a rogue government if they get other governments to cooperate with them.
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James Burkhardt (profile), 24 Apr 2015 @ 10:28am

Re: Re: Re: Re:
But the point being that the 'passive service' they claim to want is one they decry as the absolute worst thing.
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Mason Wheeler (profile), 24 Apr 2015 @ 10:59am

Re: Re:
Except without the safe harbors YouTube would totally have LOST its suits. Its entire defense hinged on the fact that by adhering to the law it was protected against the lawsuit.

Begging the question. Yes, obviously without the DMCA, YouTube would not have had a "we were in compliance with the DMCA" defense, but it's a bit silly to jump from that to "they would have had no defense."

MegaUpload went out of business, yes, but because of the rogue actions of law enforcement. If allowed to remain a going concern, Or if its assets had not been seized, it very likely could have kept going, as it had the cash to fight (which is why he was never sued). It has yet to be decided if MegaUpload violated the safe harbors. Evidence provided to us suggests no, but we shall see.

Veoh yes got sued to death before being vidicated by the courts. But what took them down was court costs, not penalties for infringing on copyright. This has less to do with the safe harbors failing then the way the court system works failing.

Well, it's not much of a safe harbor if it doesn't even keep you from being sued to death over an obviously meritless charge, now is it?

You want to see a real safe harbor in action, look at CDA 230. Look at the way it routinely gets baseless cases thrown out long before they become expensive enough to destroy the innocent victims. The DMCA does not do that.

You recommend a regime where if I upload say The Avengers 2 in HD and then go off grid, the site hosting the content would never have to take it down. Because even with the court declaring me guilty of infringement, the host isn't liable if it remains up. So without me to take it down, it remains up indefinitely.

I recommended no such thing. This issue has come up before, and my recommendation has remained consistent: I believe in due process.

If you were to be found guilty in a court of law, at that point the copyright owner would have every right to present the hosting site with a takedown request, and that request should be honored. But punishing someone for breaking the law before they have been found guilty of breaking the law is an abomination, and that doesn't change if the law in question is copyright law.

Throwing out the safe harbor provisions doesn't solve anything.

It solves the true problem: "guilty until proven innocent." Everything else is just details.

Fix the issues in the courts, as with all copyright disputes make fee shifting the norm, institute penalties (on top of the fee shifting) for those who sue hosts who are adhering to the DMCA and make it so false DMCA claims are punishable, and you have fixed most of the problems with the safe harbors.

...or you could just throw it out and institute sane rules that preserve the sanctity of due process and the presumption of innocence.
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Rekrul, 24 Apr 2015 @ 11:02am

If they succeed in abolishing safe harbors, people should post some infringing links on their blog and then sue them for facilitating copyright infringement.
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Anonymous Coward, 24 Apr 2015 @ 11:23am

Re: Re: Yes, "teh internets" has matured and will be regulated.
Nonsense.

And all thoroughly debunked here:

https://vimeo.com/122361826
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rapnel, 24 Apr 2015 @ 11:32am

Re: Yes, "teh internets" has matured and will be regulated.
The internet is an area of business second, distant second, to a means of communication.

The problem is as it ever was - the decrepit giants of entertainment would rather swing in wild-eyed desperation in the hopes of mortally wounding the wraiths surrounding them.

Copyright industries can't build a single thing that can utilize a communications strategy that goes both ways. They are, quite simply, disastrously outdated. Disastrous to all of us as well as themselves. And you seem to be just another idiot farting rocks in kind.
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Groaker (profile), 24 Apr 2015 @ 11:33am

The populace must love being shorn of their rights. This is demonstrated by their continuing support of these industries.

Have a boycott the RIAA and MPAA week, and these clowns would be quickly brought to heel.
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Anonymous Coward, 24 Apr 2015 @ 11:53am

Re: Re: Re: Yes, "teh internets" has matured and will be regulated.
Haha vimeo.
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Anonymous Coward, 24 Apr 2015 @ 11:54am

one of these days it is going to be admitted here and on other blogs and reporting sites that the USA Hollywood and Entertainment Indsutries will not be content until they can say who can do what, with what, when, how, with whom and for what price on the internet. instead of keep saying 'no they're not' admit to what is going on! they have built up bit by bit to get to the point they are at now and done so with the blessing of almost every court and every government in every country. anything or anyone that stood in their way has been mowed down. it hasn't been doing it for no reason and when you consider how high up the internet chain it has attempted to go, ie, domain level and higher, it stands out like a poodles plums! they will get what they want because they refuse to adapt to it, making the internet stagnate so it adapts backwards, if you like, to it and how it did business up to the internet taking off! if it isn't stopped, you can bet your ass the 'net will fail. now going after 'safe harbours' is just another step on the road they are traveling. looking at all they have stopped so far, the site blocking, the site removal, the jail time given, the lives ruined just because those industries refuse to step up and deliver what customers want. it is pathetic behavior by old fuckers with no guts but oodles of money fueled by oodles jealousy!!!!
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James Burkhardt (profile), 24 Apr 2015 @ 12:19pm

Re: Re: Re:
It solves the true problem: "guilty until proven innocent." Everything else is just details.

...or you could just throw it out and institute sane rules that preserve the sanctity of due process and the presumption of innocence.

Those details you speak of matter greatly. Changing the DMCA to a notice and notice system would fix your issues with assumption of guilt without having to completely rewrite digital copyright law. It also gives rights owners a way to address concerns with infringement without A) creating a small claims court for copyright which would be a disaster, and B) requiring a rights holder to go through a bloated suit process for someone they likely cant serve. Remember we do actually have to think about independent artists. So we maintain the notice system, but remove the assumption of guilt inherent in the existing system.

as for CDA 230, It seems all the major case law with CDA took at least a year, and in several cases lesser defendants had already settled before the big companies, with the deep pockets, finally got a good ruling. And that was with issues far less financially backed then copyright. If you think that somehow a more strict immunity will prevent repeated lawsuits and repeated appeals, you're wrong. Yelp gets sued regularly for behavior its immune to under CDA 230 (alongside some dickish behavior of its own). The only reason Yelp is still in business is the case law has clearly been decided, so they no longer need to go through the lengthly trial every time. But back in the YouTube and Veoh days? Plenty of potential loopholes to pick at. thats what killed Veoh. The sanctity of due process is what killed Veoh.
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James Burkhardt (profile), 24 Apr 2015 @ 12:29pm

Re: Re: Re:
The biggest problem with the Throw it out Mantra is that you are suggesting writing a major copyright bill with thousands of provisions, and getting it through the most obstructionist, pro-copyright industries congress in history. And expecting it to be better then what we have.
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nasch (profile), 24 Apr 2015 @ 12:39pm

Re: Yes, "teh internets" has matured and will be regulated.
You had a good long free ride, pirates, but it can't last.

OK, this is parody, right? I voted it funny either way.
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Mason Wheeler (profile), 24 Apr 2015 @ 1:18pm

Re: Re: Re: Re:
without having to completely rewrite digital copyright law.

You say that like it would be a bad thing.

It also gives rights owners a way to address concerns with infringement without A) creating a small claims court for copyright which would be a disaster, and B) requiring a rights holder to go through a bloated suit process for someone they likely cant serve.

A) Why?
B) If all you were looking for was getting infringing content taken down, a simple small claims suit would be quite suitable, (no pun intended), and if the defendant never shows up, you get a default judgment. It's all very simple, neat and tidy. It's only if you try to make a big deal out of it (see: stupid stunts that the MAFIAA pull on a regular basis) that it requires a bigger, more expensive court proceeding.

Remember we do actually have to think about independent artists.

You mean the guys who benefit the most and (generally, at least) have the least objections to having their work shared around, generating free advertising for them? The current system doesn't protect them; it gets in their way at best, and that's when it's not actively helping the bad guys to rob them blind.
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Mason Wheeler (profile), 24 Apr 2015 @ 1:22pm

Re: Re: Re: Re:
you are suggesting writing a major copyright bill with thousands of provisions

When did I suggest that? What I suggested above contains exactly one provision: the repeal of the entirety of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Although in the past I have advocated a second provision that logically should go with this: formally reclassifying the "access control devices" (aka DRM) formerly protected by the DMCA as what they truly are: illegal hacking tools.

I see no need for further provisions, at least not right away. Fixing these two things would allow a lot of the problems built upon these main problems to sort themselves out.
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Anonymous Anonymous Coward, 24 Apr 2015 @ 1:34pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
How about making a false DMCA claim a criminal offense, along with requiring the requester's analysis of each of the 4 fair use tests?
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Zonker, 24 Apr 2015 @ 2:01pm

Re: Smart for a different reason
IFPI's business model is as outdated as the "phonographic industry" in their very name. Seriously, most people stopped using phonographs thirty years ago, and most stopped buying CDs about fifteen years ago.

YouTube and other means of online distribution threaten IFPI and RIAA's obsolete business model of maintaining exclusive control of the means of physical media distribution and promotion. Artists and musicians can self promote, group fund, self publish, and self distribute online without any middlemen whatsoever, making the IFPI and RIAA unnecessary and obsolete. They are dinosaurs fighting against their own inevitable extinction.
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That One Guy (profile), 24 Apr 2015 @ 2:52pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Theoretically it already is, what needs to be done is to start enforcing it, as well as changing the wording regarding bogus DMCA claims to actually be applicable when they should be.
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James Burkhardt (profile), 24 Apr 2015 @ 3:11pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
DRM =/= hakcing devices. Some forms yes. But many forms of DRM do not harm or manipulate your computer.

I apparently gave you too much credit. I was holding off on referring to your approach as the anarchists approach, but that appears to be what you are advocating. Just burn it all down, and sort out the pieces later.

Doing away with the DMCA would leave us without several laws regarding copyright in digital mediums. Likely this would result in a worse situation for everyone, as court attempt to use the Copyright Act to fill the void.

We need no other provisions? Here are a few other Provisions of the DMCA that were and still are needed:
Provisions for copies made in the course of repairing digital devices. (under the Copyright Act, this was ruled illegal)
Statutory Licencing for Broadcasting
Additional support for Library Archival of phonographs
Recognizing International copyrights.

And that's just based on reading a few summaries. I'm sure there are more provisions which we will find interesting to lack.

We need copyright reform, including the DMCA. But that means actual comprehensive reform, not just burning it all down and seeing whats left.
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Anonymous Coward, 24 Apr 2015 @ 3:42pm

Re: Yes, "teh internets" has matured and will be regulated.
Yes, "teh internets" has matured and will be regulated.

Just like every other new industry in every other area of business.

Without this principle, we'd all be paying Standard Oil whatever it asked, and it'd control industry world-wide.

Like all loony "libertarians", Masnick looks at the system long after it's been regulated and claims we don't need regulation. There's no such thing as a "free market": doesn't remain so for long if the rich are "free" to use their advantages.

Now, it's been easy on "teh internets" to make money using the value that other people, but it's illegal and that needs stopped. No more greasy blobs getting millions using what they didn't create. No more kids rampantly "sharing" $100 million dollar movies and thereby cheating the creators.

You had a good long free ride, pirates, but it can't last.

This is actually a more reasoned statement than the author's simpleton analogy, "Think of it this way: you don't blame Ford for providing the getaway car in a bank robbery, and you don't blame AT&T for providing the phone service used to make a bomb threat. As such, it makes no sense to blame a hosting company because a blogger posted an infringing image."

Consider the financial sector. They are charged with guarding against lawlessness within their ecosystem. Why? Because they're the only ones who can effectively and efficiently monitor that ecosystem. Otherwise you would have total anarchy courtesy of those misusing the system.

Like the owners and managers of the financial system who profit by their ownership and management of that system- the players in the internet ecosystem cannot simply wash their hands in the Holy Water and claim "safe harbor". While the Internet guys are not on the hook for every wrongdoing by a user of the ecosystem (any more than bankers) they have largely turned a blind eye and hide behind "safe harbor".

IMO if you are one of the players that makes a business ecosystem run, you have a duty to interdict unlawful behavior. And no Masnick, that doesn't mean an adjudication first- no more than a bank can accept a duffel bag full of cash to deposit and wire it on to a Western Union branch in Tijuana.

At the end of the day, without commonsense, industry-designed regulation to prevent wanton looting of intellectual property the internet ecosystem is going to have regulation forced up their asses piecemeal by judges and lawmakers around the globe that will be a complete disaster by its design (or lack thereof). This industry should be begging for regulation of their own writing to forestall the inevitable. The lesson learned from SOPA should have been that alternative regulation (through industry agreements and collateral actions like six strikes) will sprout in its place. I'd have thought now that the high-fives have finished that message would have sunk in. But apparently not.
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James Burkhardt (profile), 24 Apr 2015 @ 3:52pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
A small claims court for Copyright would, ok, maybe not be a disaster. But if its effective, meaning quick (so as to not create a massive backlog) and cheap (to make it useful, also will *require* quick trials), I see a lot of potential for abuse, on both sides. Let me use a problem I had with normal small claims courts to illustrate the problem.

I gave my 30 days notice and left an apartment. After another 30 ahd passed I was still waiting for my deposit. When I finally did recieve notice about my deposit, it was in the form a a notice that they had to spend my deposit on 'cleaning' the apartment. 2 things about the law in my area, you can only deduct cleaning expenses beyond normal wear and tear (they went beyond that), and you must notify the former tenant within 30 days, or forfit the deposit. So I Took them to small claims court. They actually showed up, but begged poverty (you're not supposed to spend deposits, but oh well) and got the judge to set them up on a payment plan. Which they promptly didn't pay. So I took them to court again (see where this is going?). I refused to take them to court the third time, because i wasn't going to keep doing it and eat even more in court fees.

So heres how I, the troll, evade the copyright small claims court. Everytime i get a judgement rendered against me, that video comes down. but i just pop up with a different face and a different name and the video. Forcing them to pay again to enforce the takedown. Its the same problem rights holders have with the current system, but now they have to pay every fucking time to get their video taken down.

But what if the court had enough authority to get me to pay? Well now the trolling comes from another angle. Now a firm can file a claim in New York while i live in Los Angeles, and rake in those $50-$100 default judgements when I can't fly across the country to defend myself. And if you force the suit to be in the jurisdiction of the defendant, now the independent artist can't enforce his copyrights, because he can't fly all over the country enforcing them.

Providing both a cheap quick venue for copyright holders to air their grievances and at the same time providing defendants the time and ability to mount a vigorous defense is difficult. I see repeated instances where trolls could come in to abuse the process just as bad if not worse then with a DMCA takedown.

Furthermore, as for independent artists, yes they like their work shared. They do not like their work to be appropriated, however. And that is becoming a big problem in the photography, digital music, and animation industries.
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Mike Masnick (profile), 24 Apr 2015 @ 5:40pm

Re: Re: Yes, "teh internets" has matured and will be regulated.
Consider the financial sector. They are charged with guarding against lawlessness within their ecosystem. Why? Because they're the only ones who can effectively and efficiently monitor that ecosystem. Otherwise you would have total anarchy courtesy of those misusing the system.

Many might question that claim about the financial sector, but... more to the point: the idea that the tech industry can "effectively and efficiently monitor" the ecosystem is not just wrong, it's nearly totally ignorant of how technology and copyright law work.

Platforms can tell what content is there, but it is not at all easy to determine whether or not it is "infringing." If you think it is, you're wrong. Hell, the very company being complained about here, YouTube, has put hundreds of millions of dollars into its own attempt at a technological solution and it sucks.

Remove the safe harbor and you've guaranteed two things: 1. YouTube is the last company in this space because no other company can take on the millions to build such a system and 2. Most companies just shut off user generated content.

The collateral damage from such a move is insane.

Like the owners and managers of the financial system who profit by their ownership and management of that system- the players in the internet ecosystem cannot simply wash their hands in the Holy Water and claim "safe harbor". While the Internet guys are not on the hook for every wrongdoing by a user of the ecosystem (any more than bankers) they have largely turned a blind eye and hide behind "safe harbor".

Bullshit. That claim about "turned a blind eye" is 100% bullshit. You are either ignorant or lying. Almost every platform goes above and beyond the safe harbors already in policing content and they still get attacked and blamed. None of them "turn a blind eye" on the issue, because they know to do so removes safe harbors and gets them massive liability.

IMO if you are one of the players that makes a business ecosystem run, you have a duty to interdict unlawful behavior.

Again, this is just wrong. You have a very weak understanding of the law. And while you mocked my statements about Ford and AT&T above, you are saying they should be responsible? Are you nuts?

In a world where you have hundreds of millions of people *communicating* with each other, demanding that technology companies wave a magic wand and stop infringement (which, again, is only a tiny part of services like YouTube) is impossible. You're only saying it's necessary because you know it's impossible and the people who pay your salary HATE having to compete with those fucking amateurs.

So you want to kill them off. Disgusting. You attack free expression and the platforms that enable it just so that some gatekeepers can try to regain some control over an ecosystem so they get all the profits. Sick.

At the end of the day, without commonsense, industry-designed regulation to prevent wanton looting of intellectual property the internet ecosystem is going to have regulation forced up their asses piecemeal by judges and lawmakers around the globe that will be a complete disaster by its design (or lack thereof).

You have so little of a clue it's almost pathetic.

This industry should be begging for regulation of their own writing to forestall the inevitable.

We have regulation. We have the DMCA safe harbors. And you complain that now you want to get rid of them.

The lesson learned from SOPA should have been that alternative regulation (through industry agreements and collateral actions like six strikes) will sprout in its place.

As expected, you learned the wrong lesson. I'm afraid you're going to have go back to school again the next time your friends attempt to do something stupid. Don't worry. Millions of teachers are ready to teach you again. And again. Until you get it.
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Anonymous Coward, 24 Apr 2015 @ 6:22pm

Re: Re:
Seriously, Slonecker. If your only contribution is to continue cocksucking the spammers and trolls, you need to get a room.
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Anonymous Coward, 24 Apr 2015 @ 6:34pm

Re: Re: Re: Yes, "teh internets" has matured and will be regulated.
You're hilarious, Masnick.
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Anonymous Coward, 24 Apr 2015 @ 8:18pm

Re: Re: Re: Yes, "teh internets" has matured and will be regulated.
Re: Re: Yes, "teh internets" has matured and will be regulated.

"Consider the financial sector. They are charged with guarding against lawlessness within their ecosystem. Why? Because they're the only ones who can effectively and efficiently monitor that ecosystem. Otherwise you would have total anarchy courtesy of those misusing the system. "

Many might question that claim about the financial sector, but... more to the point: the idea that the tech industry can "effectively and efficiently monitor" the ecosystem is not just wrong, it's nearly totally ignorant of how technology and copyright law work.

Platforms can tell what content is there, but it is not at all easy to determine whether or not it is "infringing." If you think it is, you're wrong. Hell, the very company being complained about here, YouTube, has put hundreds of millions of dollars into its own attempt at a technological solution and it sucks.

So the dollar bills that move through the banking system each self-identify as being drug proceeds or otherwise unlawfully obtained?

Remove the safe harbor and you've guaranteed two things: 1. YouTube is the last company in this space because no other company can take on the millions to build such a system and 2. Most companies just shut off user generated content.

The collateral damage from such a move is insane.

Who said anything about removing safe harbors? I simply implied that the current safe harbor practice in the internet world is far less rigid and accountability is much less than in the financial world. You don't see Tony Montana and his crew showing up at banks with duffel bags of cash like the old days. And that is almost exclusively due to increased enforcement within the financial ecosystem.

"Like the owners and managers of the financial system who profit by their ownership and management of that system- the players in the internet ecosystem cannot simply wash their hands in the Holy Water and claim "safe harbor". While the Internet guys are not on the hook for every wrongdoing by a user of the ecosystem (any more than bankers) they have largely turned a blind eye and hide behind "safe harbor". "

Bullshit. That claim about "turned a blind eye" is 100% bullshit. You are either ignorant or lying. Almost every platform goes above and beyond the safe harbors already in policing content and they still get attacked and blamed. None of them "turn a blind eye" on the issue, because they know to do so removes safe harbors and gets them massive liability.

Right. And apply that same flabby standard to the banking world and you would see a return to the "Scarface" era of banking.

"IMO if you are one of the players that makes a business ecosystem run, you have a duty to interdict unlawful behavior."

Again, this is just wrong. You have a very weak understanding of the law. And while you mocked my statements about Ford and AT&T above, you are saying they should be responsible? Are you nuts?

A Ford automobile is a product, not a process; much less an ecosystem. And bomb threats are anomalies among the billions of phone calls made, not common currency.

In a world where you have hundreds of millions of people *communicating* with each other, demanding that technology companies wave a magic wand and stop infringement (which, again, is only a tiny part of services like YouTube) is impossible. You're only saying it's necessary because you know it's impossible and the people who pay your salary HATE having to compete with those fucking amateurs.

So you want to kill them off. Disgusting. You attack free expression and the platforms that enable it just so that some gatekeepers can try to regain some control over an ecosystem so they get all the profits. Sick.

I don't attack free expression, I attack grifters and freeloaders. You on the other hand squeeze yourself into your tights, don your free speech cape with your internet freedom medal dangling around your neck and morph into the biggest piracy apologist on the planet. You seem to believe that there is virtually no limit to free speech while property rights barely registers. Sick.

"At the end of the day, without commonsense, industry-designed regulation to prevent wanton looting of intellectual property the internet ecosystem is going to have regulation forced up their asses piecemeal by judges and lawmakers around the globe that will be a complete disaster by its design (or lack thereof). "

You have so little of a clue it's almost pathetic.

Apparently you are in complete denial. You write about enforcement actions, industry agreements and laws all the time yet fail to recognize it is shaping (that's what regulation does) the industry? Smart industries who see these blinking neon signs of defacto regulation generally like to get out ahead of it so they don't get regulated in a piecemeal, often conflicting manner. Stevie Wonder can see this. Your zealotry has clearly affected your thinking.

"This industry should be begging for regulation of their own writing to forestall the inevitable."

We have regulation. We have the DMCA safe harbors. And you complain that now you want to get rid of them.

I only observed that the existing regulations were inadequate. I never said safe harbors should be eliminated. Likewise, I did not suggest that a bank should be shut down because a customer changed a $100 bill that a customer got in exchange for crack.

"The lesson learned from SOPA should have been that alternative regulation (through industry agreements and collateral actions like six strikes) will sprout in its place."

As expected, you learned the wrong lesson. I'm afraid you're going to have go back to school again the next time your friends attempt to do something stupid. Don't worry. Millions of teachers are ready to teach you again. And again. Until you get it.

There were many lessons to be learned. You continue to ignore most of them. But I guess your brand of zealotry blinds you to much of it. That's why you will always be regarded as a shrill extremist and dismissed as an irrational jihadi and figure of fun.
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Anonymous Coward, 24 Apr 2015 @ 8:28pm

Re: Re: Re: Re:
If you're not going to log in why even bother whining about your account?
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nasch (profile), 24 Apr 2015 @ 9:19pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Yes, "teh internets" has matured and will be regulated.
Can you explain why the banking industry and the content industry should be regulated in similar ways? That seems to be a major thrust of your argument that isn't making any sense to me.
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Anonymous Coward, 25 Apr 2015 @ 7:57am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Yes, "teh internets" has matured and will be regulated.
nasch: My argument is that there is a responsibility to guard against illegal activity by the owners/managers of an ecosystem used by the public and from which they profit- which when left unregulated or unpoliced is subject to rampant illegal activity by its users. Therefore part of the cost of doing business is to proactively guard against unlawful behavior within that system. I really don't think it is such an outrageous concept.
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Anonymous Coward, 25 Apr 2015 @ 12:42pm

It's all about greed.

Don't buy their shit.
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jupiterkansas (profile), 25 Apr 2015 @ 2:01pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Yes, "teh internets" has matured and will be regulated.
Only a court of law can determine that something is infringing. A private company cannot arbitrarily make that decision. It should be presumed that whomever uploads content has the rights to do so unless challenged by the copyright holder in a court of law. I don't care if you think it's obvious or not - that's how the law works and that's why you have to go after the uploader, not the business hosting the content.
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Anonymous Coward, 25 Apr 2015 @ 2:26pm

Only a court of law can determine that something is infringing. A private company cannot arbitrarily make that decision. It should be presumed that whomever uploads content has the rights to do so unless challenged by the copyright holder in a court of law. I don't care if you think it's obvious or not - that's how the law works and that's why you have to go after the uploader, not the business hosting the content.

Go into a bank with a duffle bag full of $100 bills. Ask them to wire it to Nigeria and after they recover from their side-splitting laughter, inform that only a court of law can make a determination that this is an unlawful transaction. I'll be right here waiting to hear how you made out. Both young your money will be history. Dolt.
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That One Guy (profile), 25 Apr 2015 @ 6:12pm

Re:
Ah yes, because much like duffle bags filled with large denomination bills, an infringing file, and a non-infringing file, look completely different, which is why it's easy enough for anyone to tell(except when they can't), despite the fact that the only person who can reasonably know whether or not something has been authorized to be posted is the copyright holder.

And of course let's completely toss out the window the fact that to make any sort of determination about whether something may or may not be infringing, someone would have to look over it.

As an example, let's look at just YouTube. Given how much is posted on an hourly basis, you'd need likely thousands of people, if not more, doing nothing but examining uploads(again, despite the fact they completely lack the required knowledge to spot infringement), employed on a full-time basis.

Are you going to pay for that? What about those companies claiming that infringement is 'obvious' and that 'you know it when you see it', think they'd care to pay for something like that? Or are you expecting YT to shoulder that massive cost just as a 'favor'? You know, like how other industries shell out massive amounts of money to protect the interest of industries and/or companies completely unrelated to them.

Financial institutions can look for suspicious types of transactions, like sudden large transfers, or transfers to certain known organizations, but online data is data, and it's impossible to determine the legality of a given file just by glancing at it, given an infringing file, and a legal one, look identical.

Not to mention, without carefully examining the files being transferred(which brings up it's own concerns regarding privacy), it's impossible to know whether a particular file may or may not be infringing/illegal, especially if the one doing the examinging is a third-party who lacks the require knowledge to make the determination.
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Anonymous Coward, 25 Apr 2015 @ 7:29pm

Re: Re:
Take two piles of hundreds, put them next to one another and tell me which one is the proceeds of a drug deal and which is cash Grandma's been stashing under the mattress for decades. You can't.

I'd be curious to know the number of financial transactions and video/music transactions in a given year. Both are certainly massive. Yet the financial ecosystem is fairly successful guarding against lawlessness it their ecosystem.

The difference is that suspicious financial transactions are flagged and/or stopped. The internet world screams "free speech" over any disruption of potentially infringing material. It seems that there are degrees of free speech. Political speech, opinions and speaking your mind is the basic free speech the framers of the Constitution had in mind. This sacred right has been perverted by self-serving freeloaders to now include the right to share infringing material- absent a court's determination. That's not free speech- that's a smokescreen for looters and grifters to hide behind.
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nasch (profile), 25 Apr 2015 @ 8:36pm

Re: Re: Re:
Take two piles of hundreds, put them next to one another and tell me which one is the proceeds of a drug deal and which is cash Grandma's been stashing under the mattress for decades. You can't.

Why do you keep comparing a video upload to a huge pile of hundred dollar bills? One happens so much it's hard to count - 300 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute, and that's just YouTube - the other is a very, very rare occurrence. Out of the ocean of financial transactions that occur every day, how many do you think are someone depositing a duffel bag full of hundred dollar bills? How well do you think the banking system would work if someone had to thoroughly inspect every transaction to make sure the money didn't come from somewhere illegal? After all, that is what you're suggesting for the content web sites.
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nasch (profile), 25 Apr 2015 @ 8:37pm

Re: Re:
Or are you expecting YT to shoulder that massive cost just as a 'favor'?

It sounds like he considers it Google's moral duty to shoulder that cost.
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Anonymous Coward, 25 Apr 2015 @ 10:41pm

Re: Re: Re: Re:
Don't expect antidirt to answer. He's still busy rubbing his hands together in glee, thinking no one will catch him posting on his wife's laptop as a concern troll.
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That One Guy (profile), 26 Apr 2015 @ 4:03am

Re: Re: Re:
I'd be curious to know the number of financial transactions and video/music transactions in a given year. Both are certainly massive. Yet the financial ecosystem is fairly successful guarding against lawlessness it their ecosystem.

Here's one of the big differences though: A financial transaction is either legal or illegal, the number or content of it don't matter. If someone notices a large transaction from an account that's not known for it, it's a quick matter to check that out. A transaction with a known crime group? Again, fairly easy to investigate.

Copyright infringement though? Not nearly so easy, as the exact same file can be both illegal, maybe legal, or legal, depending on context. There are no 'suspicious' markers to look out for.

The difference is that suspicious financial transactions are flagged and/or stopped.

Define 'suspicious files', and do so in a manner that doesn't require you to know the contents. Is it a large file? A small file? Files transferred on a regular basis? Files transferred on an irregular basis? Files transferred by someone with a criminal record? By someone without a criminal record?

To even begin to look for 'suspicious files', would require ISP's or other large companies to closely examine Every. Single. One. and given the sheer number of files, and the fact that it's nigh impossible to tell the legal status of pretty much any of them without careful investigation, and in most cases, a court trial to determine one way or another, the idea that internet companies could 'monitor' what passes through their systems in the same way that banks do isn't even close to feasible.

In addition to the problem of scale, there's also the issue of knowledge. Third-parties, like ISP's and internet companies, completely lack the required knowledge to know whether or not a given file is infringing or not, and for two reasons. One is that the legal status of a file depends almost entirely on context, which is knowledge they do not have.

Say someone is transferring a movie, is it infringing? Maybe, maybe not. Could be a legal backup, could be a movie in the public domain or otherwise not covered under copyright. Could be pirated or it could be purchased. It could be an 'official' leak to a reviewer, or an 'unofficial' one to a friend of someone who works in the label/studio. The third-party does not, and can not know, yet context is everything in a case like that.

The second part regarding the lack of knowledge is that the third party has no way of knowing what's been authorized or not. A given mp3 might be being transferred by the artist them-self, or by someone authorized to act on their behalf. It might be owned by the very person who's sending it, or it might be owned by someone completely different. The owner may know it's being sent and approve, or they might not. The third party does not know, and has no way of knowing. The only person who could be expected to know is the copyright owner them-self, not the third-party.

This sacred right has been perverted by self-serving freeloaders to now include the right to share infringing material- absent a court's determination.

And do you know why it's that way, and needs to stay that way?

Because it's better to let the guilty go, if it means not punishing the innocent.

That is why a trial is required, in order to determine guilt. So that if a site, or even a file is taken down, it's because it has been proven to be infringing, not just because some company or individual said it was.

Companies and individuals screw up all the time, and you don't need to look very far to find examples. As such, it's better by far to require a trial before any speech is silenced, to make damn sure that innocent people and their rights aren't trampled in the hysterical flailing about to 'stop piracy'.
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That One Guy (profile), 26 Apr 2015 @ 4:08am

Re: Re: Re:
Funny, or perhaps just hypocritical, that so often the ones who are claiming that pirates are the ones with the sense of entitlement always seem to expect everyone else to shoulder the costs, whether it be time, effort or money, in protecting their stuff.

Like they expect others to be just honored to act as unpaid lackeys, only to be just shocked that people aren't lining up for the position.
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jupiterkansas (profile), 26 Apr 2015 @ 1:47pm

Re: Re: Re: Re:
I think the movie Swimming With Sharks pretty much sums up Hollywood's attitude to their customers.
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That One Guy (profile), 26 Apr 2015 @ 3:42pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Hey now, that's unfair, sharks get a bad enough rap as it is, comparing them to parasites like that is uncalled for.
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Anonymous Coward, 26 Apr 2015 @ 4:31pm

Re: Re: Re:
Lets put some scale to the problem, Youtube is running at 300 hours a minute uploaded, and mush of that is legal content. The MPAA and RIAA member produce of the order of 1,000 hours a year or so of content. That is their output is only a few minutes worth of what is posted on Youtube, so it is very much a case of the tail wagging the dog.
Hint the only reason they can identify their content easily is because they produce so little. They are however scared that their content will be lost in the flood as more and more people to the many sites that allow self publishing on the Internet.
The only way they can see to avoid this is to stop the flood by forcing everybody else to play by their model of publishing, that is make it a resource limited by the number of people vetting every publication, which cuts the flood of publications to a mere trickle.
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Pragmatic, 27 Apr 2015 @ 6:04am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Yes, "teh internets" has matured and will be regulated.
He can't let go of the idea of copyright as property and until he does we can't have a civil, reasoned discussion with him.
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Pragmatic, 27 Apr 2015 @ 6:07am

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I've been in conversations with many musicians who prefer not to promote themselves "too much" because they're stone cold terrified of piracy.

Yes, I just wrote that.

It's a ridiculous attitude that holds them back and stops them really getting anywhere. And who do they blame for their lack of success? Us. And their solution? Lock down the internet and nickel and dime us for All The Things.

We really need to push back hard against the notion that copyright is property. It's not.
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Pragmatic, 27 Apr 2015 @ 6:10am

Re: Re: Yes, "teh internets" has matured and will be regulated.
It rather helps that there wasn't a monopoly or cartel on PCs in the first place, enforced by industry-written regulation to lock competitors out on the grounds of government interference being bad, or something.
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Pragmatic, 27 Apr 2015 @ 6:15am

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Silly Rekrul, copyright laws are for little people, not the ones who make our laws!
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Gwiz (profile), 27 Apr 2015 @ 7:25am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Yes, "teh internets" has matured and will be regulated.
My argument is that there is a responsibility to guard against illegal activity by the owners/managers of an ecosystem used by the public and from which they profit- which when left unregulated or unpoliced is subject to rampant illegal activity by its users.

I understand your argument, but don't necessarily agree with it.

If we were to implement such a system, would the rightsholders agree to changing copyright to an registration required system instead of the "everything gets copyright" system we have now. That is the only way I could see your plan working. We would need a central database of copyrights for the members of the ecosystem to work from. We would also probably need a registration fee from the rightsholders to pay for such a database.

Would that be acceptable? Or do you think that the rightsholders should benefit from such a system without incurring any of the cost to do so?
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John Fenderson (profile), 27 Apr 2015 @ 8:13am

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There are also people who refuse to leave their house because they are terrified that they might get mugged or murdered. But we shouldn't gear our entire society to accommodate them.
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nasch (profile), 27 Apr 2015 @ 8:45am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Yes, "teh internets" has matured and will be regulated.
If we were to implement such a system, would the rightsholders agree to changing copyright to an registration required system instead of the "everything gets copyright" system we have now. That is the only way I could see your plan working.

That wouldn't really solve it. Just because something is in the copyright database doesn't mean any particular upload is infringing and should be blocked.
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Gwiz (profile), 27 Apr 2015 @ 9:06am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Yes, "teh internets" has matured and will be regulated.
Just because something is in the copyright database doesn't mean any particular upload is infringing and should be blocked.

I agree. Such a database wouldn't be much help in determining Fair Use. It would be a start though, IMO, especially if it included who was "officially" licensed to use the content at any given time and was consistently and constantly updated by the rightsholders.
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John Fenderson (profile), 27 Apr 2015 @ 10:02am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Yes, "teh internets" has matured and will be regulated.
I agree. In fact, I would consider this to be one of the minimum requirements. It's beyond insane to expect anyone to be able to determine copyright status when there is no requirement to maintain a registry of copyright owners.
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Apr 2015 @ 6:12pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Yes, "teh internets" has matured and will be regulated.
My argument is that there is a responsibility to guard against illegal activity by the owners/managers of an ecosystem used by the public and from which they profit- which when left unregulated or unpoliced is subject to rampant illegal activity by its users.

I understand your argument, but don't necessarily agree with it.

"If we were to implement such a system, would the rightsholders agree to changing copyright to an registration required system instead of the "everything gets copyright" system we have now. That is the only way I could see your plan working. We would need a central database of copyrights for the members of the ecosystem to work from. We would also probably need a registration fee from the rightsholders to pay for such a database."

Would that be acceptable? Or do you think that the rightsholders should benefit from such a system without incurring any of the cost to do so?

There is already a system of watermarking. I do think this concept is adaptable and that rights holders should bear the cost.
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Mojo Bone (profile), 11 Aug 2016 @ 3:01am

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Now that Facebook and YouTube are live streaming, the Great Unbundling is about to begin; Big Content is finally ready to put the brakes on.Safe harbor, believe it or don't, is a sideshow compared to the DOJ's Consent Decree decisions; most folks don't realize that most of the money in music is in publishing and licensing-not 'sales' to 'consumers', however it is that music gets consumed.

The PROs could go away altogether, in favor of direct licensing; there will be either cohesion or disruption and the tech companies think chaos is in their favor, but they're wrong, and on the wrong side of history. The thing about the Stone Age is there was a middle class of musicians and an economic environment that encouraged growth, instead of stagnation, in terms both economic and cultural.
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