Who Owns the Content - The DMCA and Web Copyright
Ever wonder how YouTube can get away with offering videos that are clear violations of copyright law? You know, when people post clips from movies, TV shows etc? It’s because YouTube is covered under the “Safe Harbor” part of the DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) that gives OSPs and ISPs a free pass on copyright liability if they adhere to and qualify for certain prescribed safe harbor guidelines and promptly block access to allegedly infringing material (or remove such material from their systems) if they receive a notification claiming infringement from a copyright holder or the copyright holder’s agent. This basically means that if you upload copyrighted material you don’t own to YouTube (or any other video sharing site for that matter) and the copyright owner discovers the video, he or she can’t automatically sue YouTube for displaying this content provided they remove it immediately.
This section of the DMCA called DMCA Title II: Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act and it is now under fire from Rep. Howard Berman - also known as “Congressman Hollywood”.
From Ars Technica:
“Berman believes that the DMCA, in particular, needs reforming, but not in the ways that consumers have clamored for. Instead, the congressman wants to look again at the issue of “safe harbor” provisions currently extended to ISPs for infringing content flowing across their networks. He wants to examine the “effectiveness of takedown notices” under the DMCA, and he’d like to take another look at whether filtering technology has advanced to the point where Congress ought to mandate it in certain situations.”
Basically Berman wants to do what the big content providers have been asking for for years: Shut down any ability for people to share video/music/other content without that content being pre-screened and proofed by some governing body. This could be done by creating filters that would track and disallow any content deemed “unfit” in any way putting an end to the use of copyrighted music and clips along with the sharing of other owned content. The problem is such a system would bog down the sharing process to such an extent that it would become impossible to use. Which is exactly what they want. It’s a bit like having a security guard frisk you every time you go out of your apartment. The result would be a stunting of video- and other content sharing sites to the point where it would be impossible for them to continue to operate.
This is pure conjecture on my part but it’s pretty obvious what’s going on here: The big content providers (TV and movie networks, music labels etc) want to regain control over where, who and how their content is being used by restricting it’s use to their approved channels, thus gaining all the monetary rewards for it. This is understandable but it is also backwards and damn near impossible to implement without ruining the ability for average Joes and Janes to create their own content. Not to mention that even though the DMCA and other similar laws are US laws, they are implemented as if they were international stunting the use of the internet and it’s resources for the rest of the world population.
In short, this is bad news for everyone. If Berman gets his way that is.
