Copyright Part 2: Enforcement and Balances
March 4
Digital technologies spawned the proliferation of sharing of media and music, which has led to a number of controversial legal and technological strategies for control and copyright enforcement. “Controversial” may be putting it lightly; the ongoing fight between copyright owners and Internet evangelists is one of the most popularly debated fights surrounding Internet control.
This class focuses on how copyright is enforced online, with particular emphasis on the "notice-and-takedown" provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA"), which allow Internet service providers to limit their liability for the copyright infringements of their users if the ISPs expeditiously remove material in response to complaints from copyright owners. The class will also look to the now-famous fight concerning SOPA and PIPA, and other attempts to more strictly regulate against online piracy.
Joining us will be Adam Holland, who works here at Berkman on the Chilling Effects project.
Assignments
The second half of assignment 2 (commenting on prospectuses) is due before class today. Information on the assignment can be found here.
Readings/Watchings
- The DMCA Notice-And-Takedown Process
- Digital Media Law Project, Claims Based on User Content and Protecting Yourself Against Copyright Claims Based on User Content
- Chilling Effects, About and peruse the weather reports.
- Case Study - SOPA/PIPA
- The big picture
Optional Readings
- Case Study - ISP "Six Strikes
- Case Study - Operation In Our Sites
Videos Watched in Class
Links
Class Discussion
Yet again, related to an earlier class, but another interesting write-up was just published on The Verge: The Internet Is Fucked (but we can fix it) --Seifip 19:05, 26 February 2014 (EST)
Ditto, not related to Copyright, but the theme of the class in general, politics & control of the Internet. The Quebec government started fining businesses for not writing in French on their Facebook pages. I've never understood why Canada has such a stereotype of being 'nice'. Erin Saucke-Lacelle 23:37, 26 February 2014 (EST)
The highly controversial Section 512 of the DMCA, 17 U.S.C. § 512 provides a “safety zone”, where online service providers could operate shielded from liability charges on account of copyright infringement. Service providers function by allowing people to modify, post, and search content on their servers. By hosting foreign content that is not generated by the OSP or ISP, they were placing themselves into position of being held liable on infringement charges. This changed in 1998, because as long as roughly three essential steps were taken, an OSP could take advantage of the “safe-harbor” clause. One of those steps is the “expeditious” removal of infringing content. On the other side, the alleged offender can send a counter-notice disputing the copyright holders claim.
This might seem in favor of the public domain with an anti-copyright agenda, but it does not diminish the copyright holders privileges in any way. This provision also allows the first step of prosecution in the form of takedown notices. While these measures are beneficial for the public good and provide a degree of protection, they seem utterly inefficient in situations like Erin McKeown experienced. In an attempt to control infringers and pirates, the ICE has engaged in domain seizures, which resulted in tens of thousands of innocent websites being shut down. Emmanuelsurillo 22:26, 1 March 2014 (EST)