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from the so-long-and-thanks-for-all-the-fish? dept.
This piece of news over at Ars Technica may have some startling implications.
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act's so-called "safe harbor" defense to infringement is under fire from a paparazzi photo agency. A new court ruling says the defense may not always be available to websites that host content submitted by third parties.
A Livejournal site hosted messages of celebrities, and a paparazzi agency that owns some of those photos took exception. Since the site moderated the posts that appeared, the appeals court ruled that just shouting "safe harbour" is insufficient - the court should investigate the extent to which the moderators curated the input.
As the MPAA wrote in an amicus brief:
If the record supports Mavrix’s allegations that LiveJournal solicited and actively curated posts for the purpose of adding, rather than removing, content that was owned by third parties in order to draw traffic to its site, LiveJournal would not be entitled to summary judgment on the basis of the safe harbor...
It's hard to argue with that: a site that actively solicits and then posts content owned by others seems to fall afoul of current copyright legislation in the USA.
But I can't help thinking of the impact this may have on SoylentNews.... if left to stand, this ruling could make running a site such as SN a very tricky line to walk.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by VLM on Tuesday April 11 2017, @08:20PM (2 children)
I am not a lawyer but I seem to get mixed up in legal things a lot. Also I'm willing to read and unlike the "journalists" involved I have no dog in the fight. So here goes.
I can't get the copy/paste functionality working so deal with it.
Page 4 explains that the leader of the mod team is an employee of LJ. That does not seem to be a problem at SN right now. Its hard to claim a member of the general public posted something to your discussion board when the guy who approved it is your own paid employee and there is no DMCA safe harbor for, perhaps, a crazy web developer uploading stolen code. If the logo for SN were stolen and uploaded as a part of the page design by a paid SN employee, then we would be F'd.
Page 6 explains how the community mod rules explicitly require posts to be copyright violations and page 7 continues the discussion of the complicated relationship of who rats out LJ for DMCA violations and who is easier to victimize. If SN explicitly on the submissions page told submitters that we're strictly a warez and codez discussion board, then we're F'd.
Page 7 shows the judges get excited over the plan to run ads making a profit off self described illegal activity. Its not just having an employee in charge of optimizing copyright violations but they plan to make money off it... Clearly this is making money off copyright violations and the victim is due their share as damages. If SN made money off ads on pages of illegal content then if the owner asked for their share of the money, we'd be F'd.
Page 8 goes into labor law topics such as are the other mods unpaid employees of the supervisor who is paid or merely contractors or volunteers. LJ came pretty close to getting slammed for labor law violations but they seem barely legal. I don't think this is an SN issue unless you guys are violating intern laws or maybe you can just categorize them as groupies. I mean, as a prolific SN poster I get lots of steamy groupie sex? Anyway I think this is not an issue that would result in SN getting F'd.
Page 9 discusses how it should have been rather obvious to either a member of the general public or a paid employee acting as agent that a series of pix with a watermark of someone elses website are almost certainly copyright violations. So it being very unclear to the general public if this line of C code is a violation:
time++;
SN is probably off the hook. However is SN starts posting stories like "mods please approve this as the best Microsoft Windows 10 (tm) download" and a mod hired by SN approves the best windows 10 torrent download, then SN is probably F'd.
Then the opinion degenerates into about 20 pages of backstory and historical law which I admit I skimmed.
if left to stand, this ruling could make running a site such as SN a very tricky line to walk.
Not really. If you want to run a warez site, don't claim "general public posting safe harbor" if its actually an employee doing the posting (whoopsie). If you want to run a warez site don't make a profit by running ads on illegal content. If you don't want to run a warez site don't put stuff on the public submission page stating "We accept illegal content only". If someone uploads ridiculously obvious warez such as a torrent for a windows 10 (tm) download, then delete it, don't post it. This just isn't rocket surgery.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday April 11 2017, @08:57PM
Actually, as a news organization, if we wrote an article to go along with it comparing and contrasting that vs. the official version we'd be free and clear. You can print pretty much anything if it's newsworthy.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @10:51PM
I am not a lawyer but I seem to get mixed up in legal things a lot
So, criminal, then? Somehow I am not surprised! (Illinois Nazis!)