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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 mcgrew on Saturday January 09 2016, @04:34PM
I doubt the AC you replied to ever wrote a book. Most likely he's a MAFIAA shill, or he would have told us his name and the title of his book. In a situation like that where he's not self-published, the publisher's legal staff would have taken care of the situation, since they paid for publication rights (meaning Mr. greedy AC was already paid).
You can read and download mine for free, I'll only come after you if you try to make money off of my work.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 09 2016, @06:03PM
> the publisher's legal staff would have taken care of the situation, since they paid for publication rights (meaning Mr. greedy AC was already paid).
The publisher is currently shorthanded, so I handled the takedown with Google Drive myself, and my contact at the publisher was appreciative. They take care of most of them, but the woman that used to play whack-a-mole with websites hosting the crappy scan is away (maternity leave, I believe).
Feel free to call me greedy, but after 20 years, the time that went into producing the book has paid back at a modest hourly rate (adding up all the royalties). Less than I make now for contract engineering. I did not get an advance from the publisher, instead contracted for a two-tier royalty, I gambled that sales would be good and a higher % kicked in after sales were enough to approximately cover production costs. It is possible to deal with publishers, I re-wrote quite a bit of the contract they first offered.
And I know that I was lucky, many/most reference and specialist text books make very little money.