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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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @08:31PM (2 children)
I am not a lawyer, and advice on the internet from stranger is worth what you pay for it. That being said...
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.
Why?
To begin with, SN doesn't engage itself in obviously illegal behavior. There is an argument for copyright infringement, but quotes from posts are linked-back-to and cited, so I doubt anybody would really engage in a lawsuit for such a small function (plus case law in the US about how small snippets of text are considered fair use, as I recall). So the question of "Safe Harbor" doesn't even apply.
However, assuming there was illegal content, I'll note from the summary that, "the appeals court ruled that just shouting 'safe harbour' is insufficient - the court should investigate the extent to which the moderators curated the input." This is not saying that it is not legal, only that it requires a closer look. A lightly-moderate venue like SN would be much closer to safe harbor than not, I would think.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday April 11 2017, @08:45PM (1 child)
Plus it hooks into the argument about whether linking to illegal content is the same as uploading it yourself, which there may still be some dumb rulings on.
I would hope that this threat would only apply to "gated sites" that don't publish content submitted by users before someone reviews it (which we here would fall under...for articles themselves but not comments) vs. like forums where anybody can start a thread and post without delay.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday April 12 2017, @12:07AM
I think the greater problem is that the powers that are wants to own and kill the free internet by any means possible. And these kinds of decision is like cooking the frog a little bit hotter or moving the demarcation like just a little bit closer. Death by thousands of cuts.