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EFF: The Music Industry Shouldn't Be Able To Cut Off Your Internet Access (eff.org)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Electronic Frontier Foundation: No one should have to fear losing their internet connection because of unfounded accusations. But some rights holders want to use copyright law to force your Internet service provider (ISP) to cut off your access whenever they say so, and in a case the Washington Post called "the copyright case that should worry all Internet providers," they're hoping the courts will help them. We first wrote about this case -- BMG v. Cox Communications -- when it was filed back in 2014, and last month, EFF, Public Knowledge (PK), and the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) urged the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit to overturn a ruling that ISP Cox Communications was liable for copyright infringement. EFF, PK and CDT advised the court to consider the importance of Internet access in daily life in determining when copyright law requires an ISP to cut off someone's Internet subscription. The case turns in part on a provision in copyright law that gives internet intermediaries a safe harbor -- legal protection against some copyright infringement lawsuits -- provided they follow certain procedures. Online platforms like Facebook and YouTube, along with other internet intermediaries, have to "reasonably implement" a policy for terminating "subscribers and account holders" that are "repeat infringers" in "appropriate circumstances." But given the importance of Internet access, the circumstances where it's appropriate to cut off a home Internet subscription entirely are few and far between. The law as written is flexible enough that providers can design and implement policies that make sense for the nature of their service and their subscribers' circumstances. A repeat infringer policy for the company that provides your link to the Internet as a whole should take into account the essential nature of internet access and the severe harm caused by disconnection. But music publisher BMG wants to use this provision to force ISPs to become tougher enforcers of copyright law. According to BMG, ISPs should be required both to forward rights holders' threatening demand letters to their subscribers and terminate a subscriber's Internet access whenever rights holders allege that person has repeatedly violated copyright law. A subscriber is a "repeat infringer" and subject to termination, they argue, whenever they say so. Cox's appeal of the ruling raises two very important issues: (1) Who should be considered a "repeat infringer" who should be cut off from the Internet, and (2) whether ISPs must either cede to rights holders' demands or monitor their subscribers' internet habits to avoid liability. Slashdot reader waspleg adds: Two landmark Supreme Court cases, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd., and Sony Corp. of America v. Universal Studios made clear that if a service is capable of significant lawful uses, and the provider doesn't actively encourage users to commit copyright infringement, the provider shouldn't be held responsible when someone nonetheless uses the service unlawfully.
As long as this is an equitable two-way street, I don't see a problem. If, the second time (which would make them a repeat offender) a "rights holder" misuses email to accuse someone falsely their own Internet service is cut off, this could work. Same with misusing the postal service.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Shades of Cory Doctorow's Pirate Cinema.....
"Truth is what works" -- William James "It works!!" -- o-dark-AM comment
... because the Internet should be classified as a utility similar to electricity.
No one's advocating termination of house power for a third offender.
The music industry, in its current form, is a dying business model and knows full well these broad-reaching attempts to stop digital hemorrhages are just not going to work.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
That was troll-tastic.
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
Its like saying someone can't own a mailbox because someone sent them an illegal package once. It is like saying someone has no right to talk, after hearing something. Copyright infringement is not an offense so awful to take away someone's human right to be on the Internet.
Repeat offenders should be cut off but "accused"??? What about convicted!
I worry that the music/film industry can have the power to just accuse someone and have their internet cut off with out independent proof to identify the particular offender.
This could be considered a method of voter suppression because many voters use the internet for news and to investigate candidate positions.
There are many problems with copyright enforcement, two of which is the disproportionate size of litigants and low cost of making a false complaint. There ought to be some liquidated damages like US$1000/day-blocked per 3Mbps in the event of an unsupported/unproven finding. Modest for the complainer, but sufficient to encourage vigorous defense and hence very careful prosecution.
Thanks for not using the "P" word. Copyright infringers are exactly that. Visions of peg legs, eye patches, and hooks need not apply to this discourse.
And if your ISP wants to cozy up to the music industry and do whatever they want, then you might just have to find a different provider. It's your ISP that loses out if they lose you as a subscriber, so it's not in their best interests to alienate you without a pretty good reason.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
The EU actually prevented the music industry from doing that in France, stating that having an internet access is a basic need. The hadopi law was therefore half dead on arrival.
Let's hope the same happens in the US.
The DMCA is a law. A fairly shitty one, totally one-sided and in favor of corporations rather than the people. That's fine and dandy.
But, how is it not Unconstitutional?
Hmm, ISPs are supposed to disconnect you (deprive you of service, a tangible thing) without due process when you are accused, not found guilty or liable but merely accused, of Copyright infringement. That really seems like an illegal search and seizure, which violates the 4th amendment. The fact that it violates your rights by putting penalties on the service provider should bot be an issue, as you are a direct party to the action and are the one being deprived without due process.
I'm not a lawyer, but this seems a bit more firm than the free speech arguments people keep trying to use to strike this down. Any wanna chime in (and give Cox's team a call if its right?)
The copyright holders want to use restriction to internet access as a club, instead of a surgical knife. Given the importance of the internet in daily life, especially given its increased importance and utility to the disabled and elderly (I'm a housebound disabled woman who uses the internet to do things like pay my bills, order grocery deliveries, and not go insane from a complete lack of social interaction), a sane response would be "if someone uses torrents to infringe copyright, block their access to torrents", "if someone uses Usenet to ...", etc etc. But these wankers of course could never accept any sanely measured response like this because these are the people who sue for ONE MILLION DOLLARS! for downloading/uploading a single mp3, and so of course they want the situation to be as disproportionately punitive as possible. Also, while I pay for media when I can (that being somewhat limited due to the low income which comes with being unable to work), even that which I can afford to pay for I generally also download an unDRMed (i.e. "pirated") version of because the various ways I need to use my media player of choice, VLC for the record, just to ensure things like access to subtitles i.e. "captions" in Americanese (even filthy "pirate" subtitles, a nice side effect of VLC also being choosing font style/size so subtitles are about half-by-height and a quarter-by-width the ABSURDLY HUGE FONT SIZE you find on DVDs and Blu-rays... yes, I use memetastic Impact-like fonts for that, except less ugly, so perhaps Trektastic LCARS-like is a better term), to ensure those subtitles have an offset of about 650ms after the relevant line begins (don't even ask me to get into the complex reasons why that breaks my brain less and increases accessibility, just trust it does), proper keyboard shortcuts for skipping back and forth a few seconds (cognitive issues sometimes make me need to repeat a line two or five times to get my brain to absorb it and I am not about to screw around with an imprecise and cumbersome cursor-based time bar) and various other ways in which I need to ensure my media player is accessible. Plus I do apologise that about 60% of this post went on a wee tangent, but that's what happens when something gets me started about the various ways people forget or dismiss accessibility for the disabled!
For instance, the internet can be used to gather legal materials for legal proceedings.
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
Is this the case where the ISP (Cox communications) was found liable for not implementing an infringement notification mechanism and three-strikes policy? There's a big difference between blocking someone using Twitter and Facebook versus blocking someone using email and online banking.
I just quit buying and listening to music when these cocksuckers started this shit back in the Napster days. Fuck em. If musicians and especially record executives have food to eat on their table, they should consider themselves lucky.
If i had a choice, I would give the recording companies what they ask for with one provision...
if a right holder was found to incorrectly claim infringement three times in any jurisdiction, the rights to the work would be forfeit to public domain.
In the event of an artist that has signed over rights for a tiny royalty, the record label is on the hook to the artist for 10 years of gold album sales (500,000 units) at current album rates per fraudulent infringement claim.
This should stop the rampant disregard for proper verification before litigation.
Utility rules!
Classify ISPs as a utility.
There happens to be a bunch of corporations owned by other corporations...
If corporations are legally 'people',
then doesn't this classify as 'slavery' ?
And these little corporations doing copyright stuff are 'slaves' ?
And slaves have no legal rights..... and thus are not people...
The above is what happens when the laws are not viewed with any common sense...
... because the Internet should be classified as a utility similar to electricity.
No one's advocating termination of house power for a third offender.
The music industry, in its current form, is a dying business model and knows full well these broad-reaching attempts to stop digital hemorrhages are just not going to work.
You mean "going to work forever". And therein lies the problem. They may not care that it's not going to work forever. They only care that it helps them make a buck today, regardless of how much it fucks over the information technology infrastructure of our society. This game is over a decade old. It may not make them bucks forever, but I sure get the feeling they'll be mucking up my cyber-environment for just about the rest of my natural life expectancy. Same difference (to me, in the before-the-after-life).
Fixing the copyright term would eliminate many problems: "...a term of 14 years, with the right to renew for one additional 14 year term should the copyright holder still be alive".
Currently, there is so little music in the public domain that it's laughable. Copyright was enacted to protect and incentivize the people who produce artistic works, not to enrich the publishers, heirs and other non-productive entities. This is true all the way back to the original statute in England from 1710.
Imagine if all of the music, books, films, etc. through 1988 were in the public domain, along with and many of the works through 2002. What a different world it would be!
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
But the industry has money, lots of it, and political influence, lots of it. So they'll do as they please. The EFF has been fighting a lost battle in a long-lost war so long that as a joke it's not even funny anymore.
Access to the internet is classified as a basic human right by the UN..
If only! Choices of Internet providers are few. Do you want provider A or provider B, both of whom are in the Copyright Alert System?
My ISP texted me a CAS notice once. I was plenty angry about the accusation, the system, and the premises the whole thing is built on, as well as their choice of communication medium, but what could I do? Who could I switch to? I looked for alternatives and found nothing but another member of the CAS, though I am in a major metropolitan area.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
Do TPP and TTIP have a say in this. If an agreement like TTIP is signed, does that mean signatories to the treaty would be required to implement an X-strikes copyright policy?
Innocent until proven guilty?
As it is, you can be punished by disconnection if you are ACCUSED of violating copyright law. No proof, no due process.
It would serve the music industry right if random people accused the music industry bodies of repeat copyright infringement, then get those ISPs to disconnect them without any proof.
This would likely hold for video as well, and many ISPs are also content provider/owners. I am sure they are glad music is doing the heavy lifting for them, this round...
Why stop there? Lets take away their home and car, cut off their ears in the process. Don't let a little thing like Due process of law stop it.
Charges should be filed against company that terminates ISP service to a house, for wrongful termination of service to all but 1 person in the house. Terminating ISP service to every person in the house, perhaps to stop 1 unknown person in the house or 1 outside the house via WiFi, should be considered malicious action against users of the ISP service.
Or we could just accept this & continue as sheeple when they terminate service to coffee shops, hotels & any place DMCA violations are alleged.
3 false copyright desist claims and the music companies internet access should be cut off to.