House Joins The Senate In Moving Forward On Plan To Massively Increase Copyright Trolling
from the this-is-bad dept
For quite some time now we've been talking about why the CASE Act, which sets up a special copyright "court" with lower barriers to entry for copyright holders, is such a bad idea. There are all sorts of problems with it, starting with the fact that we already have a massive copyright trolling problem, and the CASE Act is deliberately designed to make it worse. While supporters like to pretend that the CASE Act is the equivalent of a "small claims" court, it actually can lead to damages awards up to $30,000, which is way higher than a standard small claims court.
That said, as with so many copyright bills before it, Congress ignores all the problems associated with the CASE Act, because a bunch of vested interests pretend that there's some real problems solved by this law. So, once again, the bill has moved forward, this time with the House passing the bill out of the Judiciary Committee, meaning that it can go to a full vote on the floor. The end result here would be really dangerous for free speech online, but no one in Congress seems to care about it. Yet.
EFF is asking people to contact their elected officials in Congress to let them know that theyshould not massively expand copyright in this manner, which will only lead to that much more extortion and shakedowns, while creating even more chilling effects for free expression online.
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Filed Under: case act, congress, copyright, copyright trolling, small claims
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Corporate Rights
Hey Corporations have the Right to protect their Imaginary Property. And they are going to spend whatever it takes to make Copyright Great Again.
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I wonder how the people who decry corporate censorship feel about corporations having more power to censor people using copyright. 🤔
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Re: Corporate Rights
Are you happy with laws around copyright being extended so that the only way you can get anything published is to get it approved by a publisher, including all sites using the letters to the editor model for comments?
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Re: Re: Corporate Rights
Poe's law has struck in this instance. Gary is running a parody of our usual Pro-copyright lobby.
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Re: Re: Re: Corporate Rights
i didn't think "Make Copyright Great Again" was in any way subtle...
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Corporate Rights
It wasn't
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Soon after the intellectual property con game is made legal, there will be a huge new insurance market. I wonder how much it will cost to purchase this new intellectual property insurance.
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How is this supposed to benefit the public again?
Since Copywright has been abused since its inception, how is this change going to be good for the taxpayer again? Oh thats right, it is only designed to screw us over again. I wouldn't be surprised if Disney uses this to keep Mickey from going public in a few years as he finally was supposed to be.
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Re: How is this supposed to benefit the public again?
It's worse than that dirty old mouse. (Honestly, let him rot in the sands of time where he belongs.)
This isn't about protecting, it's about authorization. I.e. They want veto power over anything that may remotely threaten their profit margins. Develop a revolutionary new energy source? Vetoed by the fossil fuel industry. Create a cure for cancer? Vetoed by the pharmaceutical industry. Made a breakthrough with computer processing? Vetoed by Intel and AMD. Make a better OS? Vetoed by Apple and Microsoft. Build a better mouse trap? Vetoed by the mouse trap industry.
The whole point is to bankrupt a competitor not by making better products or providing better service, but by dragging that competitor through expensive court cases until they either give you the rights to their IP through a settlement or go bankrupt and you get the IP for next to nothing at liquidation prices.
Corporations are not good for society, if you wanted more evidence of that, here it is laid bare: They are winning the authority to decree that the clock of human progress be stopped or turned back for their own personal gain.
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That thing where they had to show actual evidence that the law would address a specific problem that exists...
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Mike Masnick just hates it when copyright law is enforced.
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Re:
Considering that entire sites are censored without due process, fair use is rarely respected, and that fraudulent claims are rarely if ever penalised according to the DMCA...
I'd say that Mike Masnick hates it when copyright law isn't enforced.
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Re:
How's that Paul Hansmeier defense fund coming along, bro?
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Re:
Hey bro. I own the copyright on that phrase. This is your only warning.
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Re:
...What copyright law? When was the last time an enforcement of copyright law made it to court based on the merits? Fox Rothschild? Malibu Media?
For someone who wants copyright law enforced you seem to espouse a strong interest in making sure claims never make it to the courtroom. Now why is that? If your enforcement is so righteous and your evidence so rock solid, why would you feel the need to avoid judges trying to see if your claims pass the laugh test?
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Re:
[Asserts facts not in evidence]
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If it's like small claims court
Make it like small claims court. No lawyers. The person bring the case has to be a lay person. We could have a new Judge Just or People's court type TV program to go along with it.
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Sigh--you're thinking like an honest person: for you, the law describes how honest people do things. The people who are using this court will not ever be honest people. They will be looking for ways to abuse the law, evade its intent, and harm innocent people.
They will hire disbarred Prenda Law principals ("no longer lawyers", see?), accuse Seminole Indians in the Juneau court, indigenous Hawaiians in Rutland Vermont, and dead Arizona grandmothers in San Juan, Puerto Rico. They will not serve the accused and will lie in court about it (like they are already doing). These people are already running criminal organizations, RICO racketeering and extortion. There is nothing that you can write into the law that will keep them from continuing their current practice in the new courts.
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Re:
This is more like giving them a license to continue business as usual, just easier.
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Copyright law just hates it when Mike Masnick is enforced.
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Re:
Considering that Masnick had a hand in the death of SOPA, ACTA, Prenda Law? Yeah, sounds about right.
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I wonder if the plaintiff will be required to prove their case or will the court simply take their word for it?
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Why bad laws get through Congress
Remember that most politicians these days are lawyers. Anything that creates more jobs for lawyers will sail pretty smoothly through Congress. This bill is clearly all about increasing jobs for lawyers.
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Twitter boomers said corporate rights
https://twitter.com/stretchphoto/status/1175818542098374657
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