Rightswatch Explores European Takedown Options

An anonymous reader writes "RightsWatch, an EC funded consortium consisting of media and other rightsholders, ISP's, content providers, privacy advocates and user groups recently published a white paper providing guidelines on notice and takedown procedures in Europe. The intent seems to be to provide a mechanism for dealing with the issue of publishing copyrighted or illegal content on the Internet. The paper attempts to strike a balance between the rights of the end-user, those of the rightsholder, and the issue of indemnity for the ISP's and content providers stuck in the middle. Is this going to be how notice and takedown is dealt with throughout Europe in future?"

Comments

Whats good for the Goose is good for the Gander

[Anonymous Coward]

Stealing feathers is bad, but I don't think it should involve any copyright law. Anyhow, modern science has created alternatives to goose feathers now so you don't have to TAKE DOWN anymore to put in your pillow. :-)
TDz.

To answer, briefly...

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this going to be how notice and takedown is dealt with throughout Europe in future?

No, not when Europe adopts their own draconian DMCA. I imagine that there will be a comparable amount of corporations-turned-thugs as there are here.

RightSwatch.com

[HTH NE1]

I've been there once, but only by mistake. I was trying to find a site that would help me match some material I wanted to use for decorating my home.

This is awesome

[tofubar]

I'm glad people are finally embracing the middle ground, if less people were extremist we owuldn't have so many problems.

Re:This is awesome

[Alsee]

I'm glad people are finally embracing the middle ground

You have been deceived. The White paper is not "middle ground", and I can back that up. It is in fact a propaganda piece for the copyright lobby. The Whitepaper calls for copying the US's Digital Milleneum Copyright Act and imposing it across Europe.

First of all the article falsely reports that "RightsWatch, an EC funded consortium consisting of media and other rightsholders, ISP's, content providers, privacy advocates and user groups". RightsWatch website reports that the project partners are the MCPS-PRS Copyright Protection Society, ISP's, a copyright-holder lawfirm that happens to advovate DRM, and the Laboratory of Communications and Images of the University of Florence.

A University! Could that be the "privacy advocate" / "user group"? Lets check thier WEBSITE! The University of Florence's Laboratory of Communications and Images website says the purpose of Rightswatch is to "facilitate the prompt removal of copyright-infringing material from the Internet". The laboratory's mandate is internet business. They are also activly developing Digital Rights Management Systems.

Unfortunately ISP's are too busy trying to protect themselves to be of much help. The EU's E-Commerce Directive guarantees ISP's a certain mimumum level of immunity against copyright infringment charges, however it does not make ISPs liable for anything and it does not compel ISPs to do anything. Everyone agrees that the ISPs are not at fault and that they need proper protection, but the Directive did not guarantee adaquate protection. Thus ISP's are being pressured to help the copyright lobby get what it wants in exchange for proper protection.

RightsWatch's own site says The primary objective of the project was to build consensus [] on all aspects of notice and takedown (NTD) [] and thus encouraging electronic commerce in information. RightsWatch's objective is purely commercial interests, their goal is to impose a non-judicial "takedown" system, a system the white paper admits legislators are unlikely to impose. This is not a genuine consensus project, it a SHAM by one side with a predetermined result.

RightWatch's agenda is to grant copyright holders the power to compel ISP's to remove material from the internet. Specificly they want to ELIMINATE courts and judges from the process. They repeatedly discuss how they don't want a judge to review the request, it would delay the process.

In cases of genuine infringment there is absolutely no difficulty in getting a judge to compel material removed. RightsWatch wants to bypass judicial review with the result that they can compel "takedown" even when no infringment has actually occurred.

Why should copyright holders be granted some special power to bypass judicial review and also to get "expedited subpeonas" when even the POLICE need to go through normal legal processes to compel action and go through the proper subpoena process when persuing RAPISTS and MURDERERS?? The copyright lobby wants the law to grant them special privileges.

My favorite part of the White Paper is where they say "false statements to an ISP regarding legality/illegality of material stored on its servers [] could be modelled on the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act's 'penalty of perjury'." This is a joke because the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act in fact DOES NOT carry any penalty of perjury regarding legality/illegality of material. And before some ill-informed person jumps up to state that the DMCA DOES contain a perjury clause, yes it does. However that clause is very carefully worded and it ONLY applies to the statement that they are a copyright holder. It does NOT a