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El Reg reports
The US Copyright Office is asking the tech industry and members of the public to comment about the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and in particular the rules governing copyright infringement.
Section 512 of the DMCA gives ISPs and internet hosts immunity from prosecution if material that infringes copyright, such as music tracks, is taken down promptly if the entity owning the rights to it protests. "Repeat infringers" are penalized.
[...] The DMCA was signed into law in 1998, and since then flaws have been consistently pointed out in the legislation, not least with section 512. So the Copyright Office wants to know how to improve things.
"The Office will consider the costs and burdens of the notice-and-takedown process on large- and small-scale copyright owners, online service providers, and the general public", the request reads.
"The Office will also review how successfully section 512 addresses online infringement and protects against improper takedown notices. To aid in this effort, and to provide thorough assistance to Congress, the Office is seeking public input on a number of key questions."
In the request for responses, the Office posits 28 questions it would like answered, including how the legislation is working in practice, what legal precedents are affecting its operation, and whether takedown notices are effective. It also asks for any academic studies on the matter.
[...] The guidelines for submissions will be posted on February 1 and the open period for comments ends on March 21, so there's plenty of time to get a submission ready. How much good this will do, however, remains to be seen.
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Saturday January 09 2016, @04:28PM
I don't care about the backdoor request. I don't care if they camp out in Google's server farm.
But an escalating scale of monetary penalties for issuing false takedowns has to be added to the law.
Fine, but such a policy won't have any teeth if Google 'decide' to pull down your content because they deem it to breach their own usage policy (without any mention of the DMCA etc.).
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Saturday January 09 2016, @08:33PM
If Google gets a cut of the penalties levied against false takedowns, Google might suddently be more interested in following the procedures that would let it get paid.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday January 09 2016, @10:24PM
If your content violates Google's policy then take your content somewhere else.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 09 2016, @10:32PM
Google has the right to make their policy whatever they want (within reason. IE: so long as they don't promote terrorism or some nonsense like that).
The problem isn't that Google's policy is too strict because the law allows it to be too strict. If that were the case then the solution is to create a competing service. Google should be allowed to make their policy as strict as they want. If you don't like it you should be free to either create your own platform or to go to another platform. If they want to be a pro-religious platform or a pro-atheist platform or only a platform for science that's up to them. It's their policy. The problem is that the law encourages a one sided policy due to the unbalanced nature of the law. The following is the problem.
"This may result from the inherent imbalance in prerequisites for the original complaint and the counter-notice. To get content removed, copyright holder Bob need only claim a good-faith belief that neither he nor the law has authorized the use. Bob is not subject to penalties for perjury. In contrast, to get access to content re-enabled, Alice must claim a good faith belief under penalty of perjury that the material was mistakenly taken down."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_Copyright_Infringement_Liability_Limitation_Act [wikipedia.org]
"As we've noted many times in the past, there is almost no real punishment for filing false takedowns. The "penalty of perjury" language appears to only apply to the question of whether or not the person filing the takedown actually represents the party they claim to represent -- and not whether the file is infringing at all, or even whether or not the file's copyright is held by the party being represented. "
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131118/02152325272/warner-bros-admits-to-issuing-bogus-takedowns-gloats-to-court-how-theres-nothing-anyone-can-do-about-that.shtml [techdirt.com]
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20151231/16544133215/us-copyright-office-asks-public-comments-dmcas-notice-takedown.shtml?threaded=true [techdirt.com]
and that's what needs to change.