Slashdot Mirror
RIAA Calls YouTube-Viacom Decision Bad Public Policy
adeelarshad82 writes "The Recording Industry Association of America voiced its opposition to the recent decision in the YouTube-Viacom copyright infringement case, stating that 'the district court's dangerously expansive reading of the liability immunity provisions of the [Digital Millennium Copyright Act] upsets the careful balance struck within the law and is bad public policy.' Cary Sherman, RIAA president, also wrote in a blog post, 'It will actually discourage service providers from taking steps to minimize the illegal exchange of copyrighted works on their sites.'"
'It will actually discourage service providers from taking steps to minimize the illegal exchange of copyrighted works on their sites.'
Since when is it their job?
'It will actually discourage service providers from taking steps to minimize the illegal exchange of copyrighted works on their sites.'"
In other words, minimizing the illegal exchange of copyrighted becomes the responsibility of the copyright holders, by forcing them to identify which works are their copyright, and which works they would like to not have floating around on the Internet. Go cry me a river. It's bad public policy only in the world where 'public" is defined as "corporations under the RIAA umbrella".
The more you steal from the public domain, the less I care about abiding by copyright law. I haven't bought a new CD in years, my movie buying is exceedingly limited, and care less and less about ripping any movie/song that I like.
Before someone accuses me of not wanting to pay for content that I use - nonsense. I actually donate money to a completely silly online game because even FB game developers need to eat, and I donate to NPR because I listen to them. I pay if I think I'm getting something in return, or if I feel that I'm supporting a deserving cause. I feel that I don't get anything from the media conglomerates.
Go suck it, RIAA.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
It will actually discourage service providers from taking steps to minimize the illegal exchange of copyrighted works on their sites.
Aren't you guys trying to force service providers to pick up the tab by changing the law -- you sit back and collect the profits while they pay the costs? I recently calculated that for about $33k worth of hard drives filled with infringing MP3s (average 4MB in size) I could be sued for statutory damages greater than what this country's entire economy made in 2009.
Don't cry to me that you can't pass the buck to service providers here when you've got that kind of legal power at your disposal.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
"But we have treaties!" - Londo
"Words on a page. Ignore them." - Refa
POINT: I don't consider treaties to be higher than the Supreme Law of the Land (Constitution) or the People (ultimate authority). They can be signed today and nullified ten years from now, if we so wish. When the Russian Federation took-over for the collapsed Sovyet Union, they said they would honor the treaties but they didn't have to. The new government could have just as easily nullified them as being "illegitimate acts" by a defunct government. Another example is when Japan walked-out of the League of Nations, nullified their treaties, and started building tons of battleships.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
The key word in public policy is 'Public'. I think the RIAA doesn't seem to get that. The Public is what grants them copyright in the first place. The Public's interests should come first with respect to anything which the Public granted them in the first place.
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
I may be picking nits, but the DMCA makes NO specifications at all about what a company must or mustn't to when it receives a takedown notice. If I'm hosting a video which is clearly fair use, I don't have to take it down because I receive a takedown. It's just legally safer that way.
I never knew there was a "careful balance" with the DMCA.
Worse than that (from their perspective)... they got the law they lobbied for, but didn't realize that
a) It would be applied as written
b) That anyone could actually afford to comply
c) That a financial model would exist where it made sense for the service provider to defend the ability to post content against a hail of RIAA/MPAA member lawsuits.
Where is the careful balance in DMCA?
'It will actually discourage service providers from taking steps to minimize the illegal exchange of copyrighted works on their sites.'
Do they really think that ISPs exchange copyrighted works on their own sites? Or do they think that because an ISP serves a site that makes the site belong to the ISP?
They already own many senators. That's why they're upset - they bought the DCMA, and now they found out it's not entirely what they thought they were buying.
You know, sort of like buying a CD and finding out the only song you know is the only good song on it.
This space available.
You might not consider them to be so, but you'd be wrong about that. It's been a pretty consistent ruling that treaties do indeed get placed ahead of the constitution. Which is what is so troubling about things like the WTO and ACTA. Definitely not in the interests of the American people, but the politicians write and sign them anyways.
RIAA's next big idea is to get the government or the FCC to enforce their hopeless business model. Expect to see more of this "it's everyone's job to protect our intellectual property" mentality. The ACTA is their next big hope to get laws passed that protects their music online. Personally I think it delays the inevitable, but as long as there are lobbyists and crooked politicians there's going to be a recording industry that is locking down the internet in a very self serving manner. Anyone who reads Slashdot should have the dignity to write their statesmen and tell them that further copyright regulations only takes money from hard working artists and puts it in the hands of an obsolete middleman.
What about the smoking gun emails from YouTube's founders? Hopefully they will be considered on appeal, as the DMCA safe harbor never was intended to allow content providers to leave stuff up that they found infringing copyright to make money from the resulting page-views or things like that and the fact that they were finally taken down when Viacom sent it's takedown notice is no excuse. But they are correct that it never required active monitoring or filtering or anything like that.
Actually nullifying the League treaties worked GREAT for Japan..... until they rather stupidly decided to attack a continent-sized nation. If they had not done that, they could have walked-out of the League with no further repercussions and existed independently.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
> What about the smoking gun emails from YouTube's founders?
What about the OTHER smoking gun where Viacom uploaded videos altered to appear to be leaks?
Copyright is a matter of *permission* Nobody but Viacom knows who they gave permission to upload the videos to. And they not only could, but did give people permission to load certain videos (that would appear infringing to anyone who didn't know that). Worse, Viacom's expensive lawyers couldn't figure that out, even after performing a detailed investigation.
The problem was so bad that Viacom had to withdraw certain clips from its case after the fact. Twice.
If Viacom's own highly paid legal team can't figure it out who Viacom gave permission to upload what after spending many billable hours (at rates on the order of $300/hour), how the hell is YouTube supposed to do this millions of times a day? And if humans can't figure it out, how is Google supposed to find people who can program a computer to do it? Yes, they now do automatic matching of MAFIAA content based on the assumption that *nobody* has the right to upload it, but they're just making the best guesses they can. They don't actually know.
They can't actually know. This is a social problem, not a technical one.