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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 maxwell demon on Saturday January 09 2016, @05:38PM
No. His answer presupposes that the DMCA is intrinsically wrong. There was copyright already before the DMCA.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by HiThere on Saturday January 09 2016, @08:44PM
And the Sony Bono copyright extension was also wrong. In fact I question that any copyright act since the 1920s was either fair or just. (And before the 1920's there were lots of problems with protectionisn, etc. so those weren't just either.)
I like the principle of Copyright, I just think it should have a 5 year limit with an optional renewal to 10 years, and a subsequent renewal with coerced licensing to 15 years. And nothing after that. And it should definitely not last as long as the life of the media on which the work was produced. If you buy a copy, it sould be something that you can have guaraneed access to forever (or as long as you make backups)...which means that if they copy protect their work they should be required to provide rapid and easy replacement if the original becomes damaged.
The entire purpose of copyright is that works should eventually end up in the public domain. Any law which does not ensure this does not achieve the purpose of copyright (as implied by the constitution) and should therefor be invalid.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.