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posted by martyb on Thursday March 31 2016, @09:31PM   Printer-friendly
from the squeak-now-or-forever-hold-your-grease dept.

There is just one day left to comment about the DMCA safe harbor provisions in section 512 of Title 17:

The United States Copyright Office is undertaking a public study to evaluate the impact and effectiveness of the DMCA safe harbor provisions contained in section 512 of Title 17. On December 31, 2015, the Office issued a Notice of Inquiry seeking public input on several questions relating to that topic. See 80 FR 81862 (Dec. 31, 2015). To ensure that commenters have sufficient time to respond, the Office is extending the deadline for the submission of initial comments in response to the Notice to April 1, 2016, at 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time. Please note that in light of the expected time frame for this study, the Office is unlikely to grant further extensions for these comments.

Here's a form letter, and an article about how the DMCA could change for the worse.

Previously: Internet Archive Seeks Changes in DMCA Takedown Procedures

Update: 50,000 People Protest DMCA Abuse, "Crash" Government Server


Original Submission

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Internet Archive Seeks Changes in DMCA Takedown Procedures 20 comments

The Internet Archive has submitted comments about the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to the U.S. Copyright Office:

As a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software and music, the Internet Archive has a keen interest in copyright law. In a submission to the U.S. Copyright Office the Archive says since the major studios often send invalid notices, they're suggesting a change in the law to allow content to remain up while disputes are settled.

[...] Under pressure from rightsholders, on the final day of 2015 the U.S. Copyright Office launched a public consultation with the aim of assessing the costs and burdens of the notice-and-takedown process on copyright owners, online service providers, and the general public. As a free and public repository of a wide range of media (26 petabytes overall), the Internet Archive has a keen interest in how U.S. copyright law is shaped. In its just-published submission to the Copyright Office the Archive is quite clear – without the Safe Harbor provisions of the DMCA its valuable work would become impossible.

[...] With some reservations the Archive believes that the DMCA and its system of shared responsibility is "working well" and should not be significantly overhauled. It notes that as a curator of everything from feature length films, old radio programs and cylinder recordings, to pre-1964 architectural trade catalogs, house plan books, and technical building guides, the Archive deals with an almost unprecedented range of material. That is only possible due to the "important certainty" offered by the DMCA.

[...] In its submission the Archive goes to some lengths to highlight differences between those engaging in commercial piracy and those who seek to preserve and share cultural heritage. As a result the context in which a user posts content online should be considered before attempting to determine whether an infringement has taken place. This, the organization says, poses problems for the 'staydown' demands gaining momentum with copyright holders. "This is why proposals for 'notice and staydown,' which would appear to require platforms to use automated processes to make sure certain materials are never again able to be posted to the internet — regardless of context — threaten to chill legitimate speech and fair uses of materials," the organization warns.

The Internet Archive also notes that many automated takedown notices have demanded the removal of public domain works based on "loose" keyword matching, and suggests that service providers should be allowed to keep material up if they have a reasonable, good faith belief that material is non-infringing, public domain, or a fair use. Read the Archive's full submission here.


Original Submission

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