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EFF Urges US Copyright Office To Reject Proactive 'Piracy' Filters (torrentfreak.com)
TorrentFreak: As entertainment companies and Internet services spar over the boundaries of copyright law, the EFF is urging the US Copyright Office to keep "copyright's safe harbors safe." In a petition just filed with the office, the EFF warns that innovation will be stymied if Congress goes ahead with a plan to introduce proactive 'piracy' filters at the expense of the DMCA's current safe harbor provisions. [...] "Major media and entertainment companies and their surrogates want Congress to replace today's DMCA with a new law that would require websites and Internet services to use automated filtering to enforce copyrights. "Systems like these, no matter how sophisticated, cannot accurately determine the copyright status of a work, nor whether a use is licensed, a fair use, or otherwise non-infringing. Simply put, automated filters censor lawful and important speech," the EFF warns.
Yup, piracy = murder, won't someone think of the children?
I'm trying to figure out whether you are joking or not. I'm going to assume you're not. Intent to commit murder is not a crime. It's necessary to prove first degree murder, but treating "intent" to do something as a crime is a common distopian sci-fi theme, not a current reality (Minority Report, Orwell's Thoughtcrimes, etc). Were you thinking of conspiracy to commit murder? That's different and requires someone to have actually committed crimes before prosecution. Also, this is a horribly comparison. A more apt comparison is if the judge at a murder trial were a super-powerful toaster that could recognize when something looked like murder, but couldn't tell the difference between murder, actors reenacting a murder, and a subway worker making me a sandwich (admittedly, sometimes it does seem like they murdered my sandwich, but that's neither here nor there). Since it can't tell the difference, it gives all three the death sentence.
I meant "couldn't recognize the difference". I really need to take the opportunity to review my posts when /. asks me to prior to submission...
Also, "horribly" is "horrible". This is embarrassing.
The problem is false positives.
Might as well say that anyone that owns a gun/knife/car/object-that-can-kill is guilty of murder.
I assume that such filters will be computer generated with little to no human review. The article specially mentions ContentID. Given the number of bogus DCMA takedowns that Yahoo receives each day due to these substandard checks, I don't see this being much better.
This could cause a stifling effect upon fair use.
What's your point? Copyright infringement is already a crime and filters work by blocking content, not by... convicting people of it (which is what I think you're getting at)?
Also, for what it's worth: I'm pro filter, piracy only became what it is today when the masses learned to use it.
Don't forget distopian / dystopian. :D
I hate it when I make multiple typos.
Intent to commit murder is also a separate crime. Usually goes beyond mere thinking to some constructive action like hiring a hitman or purchasing a gun.
And would be government censorship.
Now as much as the crowd here likes to shout that word at the drop of a hat, we're looking a the real deal this time. At the very least this easily fits into the idea of prior restraint. You are asking for the government to deny access to part of a communication system based on notion of what you think is going on in commercial terms. There's no overriding government secrets to enforce, no defense materials at stake. Purely commercial.
That right there is more than enough to drive a stake through its heart if the Copyright office had any sense at all.
We all knowed what you meant.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
But but it's EXACTLY THE SAME THING! No different! Someone help, the internet is full of MURDERERS!
Intent to commit murder is not a crime.
I agreed with you when I read this. Then I thought to myself, "Wait, do you really know for sure?"
No. I really didn't know for sure.
Unless you voluntarily stop posting right now, you are a hypocrite. Why? To demonstrate the problem with automatic filters, you have been selected as the victim of a false positive in a social experiment. Obviously I cannot actually make you stop, but by continuing to post you will be admitting to the problems of automatic filtering.
Let's ban roads too. They are often used to commit crimes.
"Proactive?" Even if this weren't a stupid (in multiple dimensions) idea, wouldn't legislating it be illegal on 1st Amendment grounds?
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
The current rules have no feedback to make a copyright holder make sure he has a valid takedown.
So there a just plain wrong takedowns with no consequence.
This proposal gives even more power to these folks.
Given that there has been abuse, does this power come with a long missing feedback/penalty for bad takedowns?
Were you thinking of conspiracy to commit murder? That's different and requires someone to have actually committed crimes before prosecution.
Other than the conspiracy, there doesn't need to be another crime. The US, like many countries, requires an over act, but that does not need to be a crime. Still, your point stands, intent to murder alone is not a crime.
1st amendment issues!
I gots caca doodies in my undies.
4 people. Planning. Together.
That's conspiracy.
It wasn't the murder they were planning that got them arrested, it was the planning of the murder. It's a subtle but important difference. The charge would have been the same had they been planning to rob a liquor store or mug a little old lady.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
Conspiracy has always been 5 or more people conspiring to commit a crime. When did 4 get tossed in?
murders have the right to JURY TRAIL & due process
Uh... Where the hell do you live? Conspiracy need involve only two people... conspiring to commit a crime.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
Simply put, automated filters censor lawful and important speech
Collateral damage due to protecting copyrights. The media companies that are encouraging DMCA get replaced don't care about this. They just want their material protected. Hell, they probably would very much like 'fair use' to go away. Anything to tighten the screws, damn the legitimate usages!
This is a very American response to the issue: Shoot first, ask questions later. Automated filters are basically this mentality encoded. Censor first, ask questions later. Protect copyrights first, ask questions later.
Why the hell is it that values that Americans seems to cherish are left at the entrance when they go to work? Fucking disgraceful.
Well you're talking law. I was talking language, which often does not match what super intelligent elected officials write. I looked up the definition and it does indeed say 2 now. I think it evolved to match law, but it used to mean 5 or more.
new law that would require websites and Internet services to use automated filtering to enforce copyrights.
Given the rise of pretty much every websites flipping on HTTPS, the prevalence of VPN's and other measures to obscure what's really being transmitted to any given IP address, they got a hell of a tall order there to try to 'stomp' on copyright infringement on the fly. You're talking about cracking/decrypting HTTPS on-the-fly, add analysis and comparison to samples. I'm not saying it's impossible, our computers are getting disturbingly fast, but what a fucking waste of resources. All that effort so Joe can't download a copy of your movie? Epic waste of resources, for little-to-no gain whatsoever. Haven't these people learned yet? People who pirate content are rarely people who would EVER buy your stuff.
Filter? It had better be NO false positives, then. False positives is NOT ok. It is worse than piracy.
Content providers has another option - don't release stuff to the public, if you worry so much about piracy. Show the movies in theatres & broadcast TV only.
Also - with piracy being illegal, it is not that hard to get convictions. Works much better than a often-failing filter.
If filtering, make the punishment for a false positive just as bad as the punishment for piracy. You don't block me unpunished - it is just the kind of thing that motivates hacking.
Of course I was talking law. We were talking about 4 people being arrested (in the article linked in the first comment I replied to), which would be something that happens on the basis of law, not language.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
"Filtering software" will always ping false positives
The RIAA is counting on it
Hiring is conspiracy.
Buying a gun isn't a crime.
Intent must have demonstrations before it is a crime.
Buying a gun is not a demonstration UNTIL an attempted assault or an actual one occurrs
Intent to commit murder isn't a crime in itself, but in combination with an action it becomes a crime.
Example: pointing an unloaded gun at someone and pulling the trigger = not a crime
pointing an unloaded gun at someone without knowing it's unloaded and pulling the trigger = attempted murder
Same action, same outcome, but the factor of intent in the second case makes it a crime.
Word for word, the abuses of this automated system are precisely the goal here.
Distributors hate fair-use nearly as much as they hate homemade content entirely unrelated to their ability to profit from it. People should pay for the ability to pay for everything they see and hear, not make their own damn thoughts.
Of course, if the US copyright office is considering this, it's because they've already been paid to push it through and non-consumer-hostile entities like the EFF will be ignored at best. Only way to stop it at this point is a whole lot of dead bodies.
Automatic filtering to enforce copyright could work....if there were *steep* and enforceable penalties against media companies for wrongfully censoring / claiming ownership of work that wasn't copyrighted.
I had an original work on youtube (written and performed by me) get taken down on behalf of Warner Brothers for a DMCA violation - which equates to theft - they are claiming to own my work.
If they were responsible for the software that they use that spams out DMCA takedowns and financially liable for their theft (piracy)....if it was a two way street to protect the assets of owners instead of a one-way butt fuck, I'd support it.
There's no such thing as "fair use".
-- your media industry
Only that if the equivalent "filters for murder" existed in the real world, they would keep executing children with toy guns and people who "looked suspicious".
"Changed"? When was it ever 5? It's been 2 ever since the term was coined in the 14th century.
Two will do
Wrong. Pointing an unloaded gun and firing it put Squeaky Fromme in prison till she died
Except when the Prosecutor threatens you with Death unless you plead.