A Law Professor's Opinion of Viacom vs YouTube

troll -1 writes "Lawrence Lessig, a well-known law professor at Stanford, has an op-ed in the NY Times entitled Make Way for Copyright Chaos which references the Viacom vs YouTube case. What's interesting about this article is that it gives some historical perspective on copyright law and the courts. Up until Grokster, Lessig says the attitude of the courts was, 'if you don't like how new technologies affect copyright, take your problem to Congress.' But in the Grokster case the court seemed to rule against the technology itself, cutting Congress out of the picture. He also explains that Viacom is essentially asking the Court to rule against the safe harbor provision of Title II of the DMCA which should protect YouTube and others against liability so long as they make reasonable steps to take down infringing content at the request of the copyright holder. Lessig doesn't give us any insight into who's going to win but he does conclude that 'conservatives on the Supreme Court have long warned' about the dynamic of going against Congress when it comes to copyright."

Comments

Re:The problem is volume

[Lehk228]

you can use shitty analogies all you want, the law is very clear in the DMCA.

while the anticircumvention portions are ill-advised the takedown/counter-takedown / safe harbor system is a solid improvement over carpetbombing with lawyers

Re:The problem is volume

[SpacePunk]

It's not the policy of YouTube, it's the policy of Congress. Why do you hate America?