Epic Games Sued By Company That Manages 'Coral Castle' In Florida Over New Fortnite Map

from the the-lawyers-in-the-coral-castle dept

Of all the trademark insanity we cover here, there are still little nuggets of niche gold when it comes to the truly insane trademark disputes. There are plenty of these categories, but one of my personal favorites is when real life brands get their knickers twisted over totally unrelated items in fiction. If you cannot conceptualize what I'm talking about, see the lawsuit brought by a software company that creates something called Clean Slate against Warner Bros. because...The Dark Knight Rises had a piece of software in it that was referred to as "clean slate."

Which brings us, as most stories about insanity do, to Florida. Epic Games released a new map for its hit game Fortnite recently, entitled Coral Castle. The map includes motifs of water and structures made from coral. CCI, based out of Florida, holds trademarks for a real life landmark called Coral Castle. There too, you can catch real life motifs of water mixed with structures made to look like coral. It is not, however, a video game setting. It is real life. And, yet, CCI has decided to sue Epic Games over the name of its map.

CCI, a Florida corporation, owns two trademarks related to Coral Castle, which is “a limestone structure created by an eccentric Latvian-American named Edward Leedskalnin.” According to the filing, Coral Castle, “often referred to as ‘Florida’s Stonehenge’ … comprises numerous megalithic stones, mostly limestone formed from coral, each weighing several tons.” The two trademarks cover “[o]n-line retail services” like Coral Castle replicas, collectible spoons, thimbles, t-shirts, and CCI’s logo, according to the complaint.

So, merch for the landmark, got it. What that has to do with a video game map is quite literally anyone's guess, but CCI seems to think that between the name of the map and what the filing itself refers to as thematic elements, this is somehow both trademark infringement and going to cause confusion in some kind of manner.

The virtual Coral Castle, CCI contended, “shares common themes with the real Coral Castle,” like castle structures and partial walls, stone objects, and nautical motifs. The complaint avers that both the real and virtual Coral Castle “evoke the feeling of a centuries old mysterious place.”

CCI argued that Epic has caused it harm by “utilizing the vast goodwill associated with the [t]rademarks” to promote Fortnite and the sale of in-game purchases without CCI’s consent. Too, Epic has purportedly “used reproductions, counterfeits, copies and/or colorable imitations of the Trademarks in commerce or in connection with the sale, offering for sale, distribution and/or advertising of Defendant’s goods and services, and such use is likely to cause confusion, to cause mistake, and/or to deceive.”

All of which is monumentally silly. Whatever fame Coral Castle might have regionally, it feels quite unlikely that the general populace is going to even know that the landmark exists, never mind somehow connect it to Fortnite's new map. In the absolute worst case scenario, perhaps some gamers might think, true or not, that the map is in some way inspired by the Florida spot. But some sort of confusion in commerce? Where? How?

Add to all of this that the map isn't a likeness of the real life landmark what are we even debating this for? Epic made its map different. As in distinct. As in not really trying to fool the public into thinking there was any association here.

What CCI could have done, however, would have been to have some fun with this and use it to draw attention to its real life landmark. It went legal instead, foregoing all of the potential good publicity it could have generated.

Filed Under: coral castle, fortnite, games, maps, trademark
Companies: cci, epic

Ding Dong: Silly Six Strikes Copyright Infringement Scheme Is Dead

from the about-time dept

The pointless "six strikes" plan -- a hilarious "voluntary agreement" between some big ISPs and the MPAA & RIAA is no more. It's dead. It never should have lived, and of course, the MPAA is now blaming everyone but itself for the failure -- and we'll get to that. But first, some background.

As you may remember, back in 2011, after significant direct pressure from the White House, many of the big ISPs and the MPAA & RIAA came to a (ha ha) "voluntary" agreement on a six strikes program to deal with "repeat infringers." There was a lot of history behind this, which we won't rehash, but the shorter version is that, for many years, the MPAA & RIAA have stupidly believed that if you could kick people off the internet (completely) if they're caught infringing three times, that would magically make piracy go away. They got a "three strikes" law passed in a few countries, starting with France. It was a complete disaster, as basically everyone who wasn't from the MPAA and RIAA predicted.

In the US, it became clear that there wasn't the political appetite to push through a three strikes law, so instead parts of the government, starting with the White House, started putting tremendous pressure on ISPs to work out a deal. The negotiations took a very, very long time. There were lots of rumors about them and then radio silence -- until the "six strikes" deal was announced. The "compromise" was that (1) it was six strikes instead of three and (2) after six strikes... nothing happened. The key aspect of the three strikes plans the legacy entertainment industry had pushed was that you lose your internet connection. But the ISPs, rightfully, considered that a complete dealbreaker and basically refused any deal with a cut off.

Of course, just months after the agreement was reached, the whole SOPA/PIPA thing happened, and ISPs realized that they probably could have pushed back even harder and not agreed to a crummy deal. The implementation of the plan was delayed repeatedly, and it was believed that some of the ISPs wanted to renegotiate post-SOPA.

The plan finally went into effect, and just as lots of people predicted, it had no real impact. Just as everywhere else where this plan went into effect, people who really wanted to find infringing works continued to do so. They just found ways of avoiding being spotted. It certainly didn't magically make people want to go out and buy stuff. The organization that was set up to manage the six strikes program, the Center for Copyright Information (CCI) bravely put on its best Baghdad Bob beret and insisted that the plan was working great -- even as leaked documents showed that Hollywood knew from early on that the plan was a dud.

And now it's dead:

Major internet providers are ending a four-year-old system in which consumers received “copyright alerts” when they viewed peer-to-peer pirated content.

The ISPs, studios, and record labels did not extend a pact that implemented the voluntary program, viewed as a way to fight piracy without the need for congressional legislation. When it debuted in 2013, it was viewed as a major new initiative to fight piracy, with Internet users subject to repeated notices if they continued to access infringing content.

But, true to form, the MPAA wants to point the finger at everyone but itself for its own failures to stop treating fans as criminals:

Although no reason was given for ending the program, the MPAA, in a statement from its general counsel, indicated frustration at the inability to stop repeat infringers.

“These repeat infringers are the ones who drive ongoing and problematic P2P piracy,” Steven Fabrizio, executive vice president and global general counsel at the MPAA, said in a statement. “In fact, an estimated 981 million movies and TV shows were downloaded in the U.S. last year using P2P. ”

Left out of this, of course, is the fact that the movie studios had the best year ever last year in terms of US box office revenue. And that more and more people are happy to pay for services like Netflix, even as the studios have been basically pulling tons of movies from those legal services.

We've been saying it for nearly two decades, but piracy is not the problem. Not listening to your customers is the problem. The MPAA is so focused on punishment it never recognizes that the carrot works better than the stick (which never actually works).

Of course, the MPAA still isn't getting this lesson. It's doubling down, which is why the BMG v. Cox case is so important to watch. Even before the six strikes plan went into effect, the legacy entertainment industry admitted that the real goal was to force ISPs to disconnect users. They planned to lump the six strikes plan in with a total misinterpretation of the DMCA to incorrectly argue that the DMCA actually requires ISPs to kick users off their service.

This reading is plainly wrong from what was in the DMCA and the negotiations around the DMCA. The law does require a policy to terminate "repeat infringers" but that was for online services (like a YouTube or a blog hosting company) and not for access providers. Unfortunately, in the Cox case, the judge seemed to get hung up on some unfortunate emails and a bizarre lack of understanding about how important an internet connection is for many people today, and ruled that ISPs do have to kick people off the internet.

That case is now on appeal, and basically all of the usual suspects (on each side) have been filing amicus briefs to push the 4th Circuit one way or the other. But a decision on that should be coming in the not too distant future, and that's going to be super important. If BMG's win is upheld, then it may be seen as a requirement for ISPs to not just put in place their own three- to six-strikes type plan, but that it would need to kick people off the internet based on such accusations (not convictions) of infringement.

And none of that will make people buy a product they don't want.

The MPAA has had a couple of decades to stop attacking its biggest fans as criminals and to actually focus on providing them what they want. And it keeps on failing to just focus on that. Instead, it keeps overreacting to piracy and getting infatuated with the idea that it must break the internet. The death of the official six strikes plan was inevitable. It was a dumb plan from the start. But the real issue here is what will happen in court. Will the court uphold a dangerous plan that will lead to innocent people being kicked completely off the internet? Or will it recognize that maybe, just maybe, Hollywood's focus on control shouldn't ruin people's lives?

Filed Under: copyright, dmca, dmca 512, isps, six strikes, three strikes, voluntary agreements
Companies: bmg, cci, cox, mpaa, riaa

Hollywood Studios Call Six Strikes A 'Sham,' Cue Plans For Something Much Worse

from the deep-well-of-dysfunction dept

When the entertainment and broadband industries' "six strikes" anti-piracy regime first launched a few years ago, most people (outside of Hollywood) realized it wouldn't work for a number of reasons. One, data has pretty consistently shown that such graduated response anti-piracy systems -- whether three "strikes" or six -- don't work, and in fact may actually make things worse. Two, even partner ISP execs I spoke to ahead of the program's launch made it clear they knew the program wouldn't do much, with most infringers simply hiding their behavior behind proxy servers of VPNs.

Publicly, the firm created to run the program (the Center for Copyright Information) has frequently tried to claim the program is a smashing success, often using unreliable, contradictory evidence to try and suggest pushing ISPs into the role of content nannies was a wonderful idea. But privately, Hollywood and the MPAA have acknowledged the program isn't doing much, though they're quick to argue that this is only because it hasn't yet been "brought up to scale."

Amusingly, some of the very same Hollywood voices that pushed so hard for six strikes and ignored warnings that it wouldn't work, are now calling the program an abject failure. The Internet Security Task Force, a coalition of smaller studios, which counts copyright troll Voltage Pictures among its members, has come out swinging this week against six strikes in a press release, calling the program a "sham":

"We’ve always known the Copyright Alert System was ineffective, as it allows people to steal six movies from us before they get an educational leaflet. But now we have the data to prove that it’s a sham," Gill comments. "On our film ‘Expendables 3,’ which has been illegally viewed more than 60 million times, the CAS only allowed 0.3% of our infringement notices through to their customers. The other 99.7% of the time, the notices went in the trash,” he adds."

One, ISTF doesn't appear to know how the program Hollywood pushed for actually works, since users receive an "educational leaflet" the first time they're found to infringe. Steps two through six then include "mitigation measures" that may involve having your connection throttled or finding your broadband access temporarily suspended until you've clearly acknowledged you've been naughty. Users then have the honor of paying a $35 fee if they'd like to fight the accusation. After the sixth strike nothing happens, and nobody tracks offenders between ISPs, something Hollywood is surely eager to "remedy" with program updates.

ISTF notes that the five major ISPs participating in six strikes (AT&T U-verse, Cablevision, Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Verizon FiOS), saw a 4.54% increase in infringements during the fourth quarter of last year. Two non-participating ISPs, Charter and Cox (the latter of which is being sued by BMG for allegedly ignoring piracy), saw a 25.47% decrease in infringements during that same period. Assuming you can trust Hollywood math here (never a wise bet), the ISTF claims this is proof of the fact that ISPs aren't taking piracy seriously:

"These alarming numbers show that the CAS is little more than talking point utilized to suggest these five ISPs are doing something to combat piracy when in actuality, their customers are free to continue pirating content with absolutely no consequences," said ISTF member Nicolas Chartier, CEO of Voltage. "As for its laughable six strikes policy, would any American retailer wait for someone to rob them six times before handing them an educational leaflet? Of course not, they call the cops the first time around."

Of course if non-participating ISPs are seeing infringement drop massively while participating ISPs are seeing a slight rise, that would seem to suggest that graduated response programs actually make things worse, which is what data Hollywood ignored said in the first place. The ISTF's solution for the States is to implement an uglier version of Canada's Copyright Modernization Act, which gives ISPs safe harbor only if they agree to pass on all infringement notices. While the Canadian law caps damages, it hasn't done much to thwart copyright trolls, who appear to just be making up for the income reduction by shaking down Canadian users on greater scale.

While these smaller studios are solely focused on greasing the rails for their "settlement-o-matic" shake downs, it's only a matter of time before the MPAA and the larger studios start pushing for "improvements" to six strikes as well, whether that's an organization that tracks offenders between ISPs, or a frontal assault on VPNs and proxy services. And that's just it, these studios consistently whine about the need for aggressive enforcement policies that have been proven not to work, and when they fail the answer isn't adaptation of the business models to the modern age, it's an expansion of already-bad ideas that clearly aren't working. It's a bottomless well of dysfunction. Unfortunately for Hollywood, any expansion of six strikes is going to have a steeper uphill climb in the post SOPA era, which may hinder the program from mutating into something truly monstrous.

Filed Under: cas, copyright, copyright alert system, copyright trolling, hollywood, infringement, isps, six strikes, studios
Companies: cci, internet security task force, istf, mpaa, voltage pictures

Hollywood Privately Acknowledges Six Strikes Program Isn't Doing Much, Guaranteeing It Will Get Much Worse

from the bigger-and-better-is-bad dept

We're getting close to the two-year anniversary of the Center for Copyright Information's (CCI) "six strikes" anti-piracy regime. The program, with cooperation from the biggest ISPs, involves forwarding on copyright infringement notices to consumers and punishing users via a "graduated response" program. Said responses vary by ISP but can include a user being temporarily locked behind a walled garden filter until they acknowledge receipt of one-sided "educational" materials, or having your connection throttled temporarily until you admit you've been naughty. If innocent, you have to pay a $35 fine to defend yourself.

While the program might seem effective in scaring little Billy straight once his parents notice their connection doesn't work, it clearly hasn't had much of a meaningful impact on piracy rates. Unsurprisingly, the entertainment industry argues this is because the measures don't go far enough; nobody tracks offenders between ISPs, absolutely nothing happens to a user that violates all six strikes (the program simply stops and no more notifications are sent) and most users can simply hide their behavior behind the use of BitTorrent proxy services.

That hasn't stopped CCI from frequently trumpeting six strikes as a smashing success, often using unreliable, contradictory evidence (when it can be bothered to show evidence at all) to support their argument that forcing ISPs into the role of content nannies is a great idea. Privately however, newly leaked MPAA documents suggest the entertainment industry isn't so sure six strikes is doing much of anything.

The leaked documents show the program isn't having quite the impact the MPAA would like, though again, unsurprisingly, the MPAA believes that's only because the program isn't big enough yet. While there's the occasional attempt to suggest that offenders change their ways after receiving notices, the document then proceeds to note the MPAA actually has no idea if people change their behavior, since it's possible they switched ISPs or are hiding their behavior via BitTorrent proxy services:

"The U.S. system is “not yet at scale” or operating with “enough education support” according to the MPAA. As a result the CAS has not made an “impact on the overall [piracy] landscape...“No current information as to the behavior of users who appear to stop P2P infringement – do not know whether [they are] migrating to other pirate systems or to lawful services,” the statement reads."

The MPAA's solution to this problem? Make Six Strikes bigger, bolder and thereby worse:

"Attainability as to existing programs boils down to whether ISPs will agree (a) to expand scale to levels that might impact overall P2P piracy, and (b) to enhance remedial measures so as to improve efficacy,” the MPAA writes."

I've spoken to execs at two large ISPs who have admitted privately they know most pirates have simply started using proxy services, but the ISPs are playing along begrudgingly. Already a bit put off by the added paperwork, few are going to be keen on an a voluntary expansion of the program. As such, look for the entertainment industry to lobby heavily to have this year's rewrite of the Communications Act include numerous new treasures aimed at ISP compliance of a plan expansion. Perhaps after that we can proceed to banning the use of VPNs and proxies entirely for the good of the nation?

Filed Under: copyright, hollywood, piracy, six strikes
Companies: cci, mpaa

Data On 'Six Strikes' Suggests Little Real Impact

from the because-of-course dept

Academic research has already shown pretty clearly that so called "graduated response" programs, in which ISPs send out notices concerning alleged infringement under a varying number of "strikes," don't actually work, but a failure to be effective has never stopped the legacy entertainment industry from pursuing useless policies and programs. Earlier this week, the Center for Copyright Information (CCI), which administers the Copyright Alert System (CAS), better known as the "six strikes" program, finally released some data about the program. While CCI quickly declared it a success, a quick look at the data suggests a rather dismal failure in terms of actually mitigating any behavior.

The proponents of the program insist that mere notices (i.e., "education") would lead people to suddenly stop their unauthorized usage ways, but that doesn't seem to be the case at all. While, yes, that shows a decreasing slope, there's always going to be a decreasing slope due to the nature of time between alerts. And, really, if "education" was effective, you'd expect to see a much more massive decrease. As TorrentFreak notes:

...the repeat warning percentage of 30% is quite high, especially when one takes into account that people who received their first alert during the last month had little time to generate a second one. In addition, the detection rate is relatively low, not to mention subscribers’ use of anonymizing tools.

It appears that U.S. pirates are relatively persistent. In France, for example, only 9% of all the warned copyright infringers received two warnings, and that was after two full years. Also, only 0.029% of the French got a third strike.

While these “strikes” programs have their differences, the high number of second warnings in the U.S. stands out.

In other words, the data certainly suggests the deterrent effect of the program isn't particularly powerful. Furthermore, it appears that there's a rather significant error rate. After the 3rd and 4th alert, people can challenge the claims, and there were 47 successful challenges (out of 265 total challenges). Most of the successful challenges involved people claiming that others were using their account, but it certainly highlights the problem with these programs, when you are declared guilty first, and can then "pay" to challenge, you'd hope there wouldn't be so many "errors" in the program. Either way, given the fact that these programs really appear to have little overall impact on the end user, it's not surprising that so few challenge them in the first place.

Filed Under: cas, cci, copyright, copyright alert system, impact, six strikes
Companies: cci, center for copyright infringement

CCI Claims Six Strikes Working Great To Thwart Piracy, Offers Absolutely No Evidence To Support That Claim

from the hard-data-is-optional dept

It has been about a year since the Center for Copyright Information (CCI) launched the United States' "six strikes" anti-piracy notification system with the help of the nation's largest ISPs. The service varies slightly by ISP, with carriers either briefly throttling your connection or temporarily locking you behind a "click through" walled garden unless you acknowledge receipt of some "educational" materials on copyright (not surprisingly, concepts like fair use are excluded). Any costs of this additional ISP clerical work are obviously passed on to broadband subscribers.

Since launch there has been absolutely no data released on how many people have been sent warnings, how many people have proceeded through all of the layers, and no consumer feedback has been shared on their experiences with the program. ISPs refuse to talk whatsoever about the program, and we've seen absolutely no data on how effective the program's appeals systems for the falsely accused (who have to pay $35 for the honor of protesting their innocence) have been.

As such, the CCI has announced that they're very happy to declare that the program has been a smashing success at thwarting piracy, with absolutely no data to back those suggestions up whatsoever:

"A national effort to crack down on Internet piracy through a "six strikes" system is seeing success, according to the program's director...Jill Lesser, who runs the system as manager of the Center for Copyright Information, said fears about the system were misplaced..."It's a non-punitive system" that is "intended to be education-based," Lesser told The Hill in an interview...There were "early examples of positive feedback," said Lesser said, adding that she hopes more analysis will show that Internet providers sent out more first and second notices and fewer fifth and sixth notices, which would demonstrate that users stopped sharing infringing content."

Yes, your fears have been misplaced and the program is clearly working, and to prove it, the only evidence we'll offer you is -- our claim that your fears have been misplaced and the program is clearly working. While the CCI hasn't been willing to release any data, traffic headed to BitTorrent networks has either remained static or increased, and overall shared files on websites like The Pirate Bay have increased. One problem CCI will face when trying to show data (should that actually ever happen) on the program is that many BitTorrent users have simply moved toward BitTorrent proxy and VPN services in order to hide themselves from the watchful eye of their ISPs. Those users would show up as no longer being copyright infringers, when in reality they'd simply be hiding their network behavior.

It's not a stretch to imagine that whatever data gets released, it will somehow magically show that the program is not only a smashing success, but that the entertainment industry is justified in expanding it further. As it stands, nothing happens to users after the sixth strike, and nobody tracks users who move from ISP to ISP. As such, it's only a matter of time before more great ideas get introduced. How about a ban on VPNs and proxies? How about a taxpayer-funded organization that tracks offenders across ISPs? Fines for those who reach the sixth level? Our non-transparent data clearly shows that all these things are necessary. Trust us.

Filed Under: copyright, piracy, six strikes, throttling
Companies: cci

Six Strikes Administrator: Loss Of Open WiFi Access At Cafes Is Acceptable Collateral Damage

from the really-now? dept

We recently covered some of the details of various "six strikes" policies being implemented by most of the large broadband providers in the US, noting that with Verizon's, it appeared that small businesses that offered free and open WiFi could get in trouble for doing so. TorrentFreak has followed up with Jill Lesser, the executive director of the Center for Copyright Information (CCI), the organization coordinating these plans, and discovered that this impact on small businesses is not an error, and Lesser does not seem to see a problem with it, arguing that offering such open and free WiFi is a violation of the terms of service for most small businesses.

“In addition, the terms of service on such accounts do not allow them to be used to provide free WiFi or ‘hotspots’ so the hypothetical cafe owner offering public WiFi will not be subject to the CAS if they are following their terms of service.”

Similarly, she says that if it impacts small businesses or home-based businesses that use residential accounts, she doesn't see it as a problem, since those businesses shouldn't "allow" their employees to "engage in copyright theft." Of course, it's not theft, but infringement -- and it's frustrating that someone like Lesser would misrepresent these things.

That said, her cavalier attitude towards these very common scenarios, which will have real impacts on a variety of small businesses, is unfortunate and dangerous. The importance of a fully working broadband connection to small businesses todays cannot be overstated. To suggest that all of this is okay because they're not following an almost universally ignored term in the terms of service on such accounts seems to be dismissing things way too simply.

The end result of this is likely to be a lot less public and open WiFi at a time when we actually need much more open access. That may not matter to the RIAA and MPAA -- who still don't understand the importance and value of internet access -- but it matters an awful lot to the pubilc and a variety of small businesses.

Filed Under: jill lesser, open wifi, six strikes, small businesses
Companies: cci, verizon

RIAA Apparently Forgot To Tell Six Strikes Coordinators That The 'Independent' Firm It Hired Used To Lobby For The RIAA

from the with-age,-comes-forgetfulness dept

TorrentFreak broke an unsurprising, but amazing, story this week in uncovering that Stroz Friedberg, the supposedly "independent and impartial tech expert" that was brought on to assist the Center for Copyright Information (CCI) in making sure that the new "six strikes" program BitTorrent monitoring is accurate, used to lobby for the RIAA. Apparently this bit of news took folks at CCI completely by surprise, since the RIAA failed to mention that tidbit of info. Now, CCI is apparently scrambling to make things right -- either by finding someone new, or by "opening up" the review that Stroz Friedberg does for the public to review. Either way, it's pretty incredible that the RIAA thought that no one would notice that the "impartial and independent" expert just happened to be a biased party that lobbied directly for them in the past.

Filed Under: independent, lobbyists, six strikes
Companies: cci, riaa, stroz friedberg

Is The Six Strikes Plan Being Delayed Because ISPs Are Pushing Back Against Hollywood Demands?

from the seems-possible dept

As you probably know, last year, the big ISPs agreed to a six strikes plan (really five strikes), after the White House pressured the ISPs to cave to Hollywood's interests. What many of us noticed, of course, is that this backroom deal left the public out of the equation, which was obvious from the fact that it actually takes away some of the public's rights -- for example, by curtailing the definition of the public domain.

Earlier this year, the RIAA said that the program would finally kick off in July. There were some rumors of delays, and then a bunch of sites (including us) got confused about the actual start date. There have been multiple reports now saying that it will actually roll out later in the fall.

Of course, this has a lot of people wondering just what the delay is about. There might be a clue in a piece over at The Daily Dot, where they say that the director of the Center for Copyright Information (CCI), Jill Lesser, has hinted strongly that the ISPs disagree with some RIAA/MPAA demands:

Jill Lesser, Executive Director of the Center for Copyright Information, told the Daily Dot that the repeated delays were because the coalition wanted an independent review from the American Arbitration Association.

She hinted that disagreement between the ISPs or the lobbying groups might have held up the process. Responding to a question about the delay, she wrote “members are all very involved in internal planning and review of the alert system, which has been and will continue to be a collaborative process.”

Of course, there's one big thing that happened between when the agreement was made and now: the huge public reaction to SOPA. After that, the EFF rightly called for scrapping the backroom deal and starting a new negotiation that actually involved the public. That recommendation was ignored by Hollywood, of course, but the news of some internal fighting hopefully means that the ISPs are asserting themselves a bit more strongly against excessive RIAA/MPAA demands. Of course, once again, this is why it would be nicer if this debate were in public, rather than hidden behind closed doors.

Filed Under: hollywood, isp, jill lessig, six strikes, sopa
Companies: cci, eff, mpaa, riaa

Time To Start Again On 'Six Strikes' And Let Internet Users Have A Seat At The Table

from the all-the-stake-holders dept

One of our key concerns with the so-called "voluntary" six strikes agreement set up between the ISPs and the content companies (with a major shove from the White House) was the fact that there was no one representing the users at the table. As much as the White House has insisted that the entertainment industry alone represents "all the stakeholders," the simple fact is that copyright law is supposed to benefit the public, not the legacy industry gatekeepers.

And while it may have been the way things were done around copyright in the past, the public's reaction to SOPA should have changed that equation. No longer should decisions around copyright law that effect the public internet users be made without their input. And, yet, that's exactly what happened with the six strikes agreement. Even if the new Center for Copyright Infringement (CCI), which has been set up to run the new six strikes program, has appointed some consumer rights advocates to its powerless "advisory" board, shouldn't we go back to the drawing board and have a true, open discussion about these things that includes the users of the internet? After all, aren't they the true stakeholders here?

The folks over at the EFF are calling for a complete "reset" on the agreement, and saying that it's time to do it correctly: with internet users at the table, rather than kept out of the room. The statement notes that the advisory board is not the same as including internet users in the process:

An advisory board is just that: a group of advisors, not decisionmakers. No matter how you slice it, subscribers don't have a seat at the table now any more than they did in the earlier negotiations.

Instead, they point out that the only way this is going to be done in a way that's fair and that actually serves the true purpose of copyright law is to start again, and have the discussion done in public where the public has a true say in what happens:

So here's an idea: press reset. This collaboration has been years in the making, with the ISPs under heavy pressure from the content industries and government officials. It may be that they made the best deal they could under the circumstances, but since then the world has changed. If the ISPs decided to take this back to drawing board, we think their customers will stand with them, loudly and publicly -- but only if they also insist that their customers have voice in the process.

Indeed. This may have seemed like a crazy idea pre-SOPA blackout, but since then, the public is aware and energized on this issue -- and they want to participate in the conversation. The number one point we've heard over and over again since the January 18th blackouts is about how the public can get involved in a positive agenda around copyright. Here's a key opportunity. The big ISPs who signed on to this six strikes deal should call for a brand new discussion, one that is not done in a backroom, but is done in public, where the public can take part.

Filed Under: graduated response, six strikes, sopa blackout, white house
Companies: cci, eff