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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.
Think of it this way, both murder and intent to commit murder are both crimes. This is no different. If you wait until after the crime has already been committed, it's too late. You can't ever take things down off the internet, once they are there, they're there forever.
Nobody working for EFF makes or has any money so of course they want to pirate content.
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.
Hmmm?
Don't forget distopian / dystopian. :D
I hate it when I make multiple typos.
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.
"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
self-entitled millenitards ruin it for the rest of us. again.
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?
1st amendment issues!
I gots caca doodies in my undies.
murders have the right to JURY TRAIL & due process
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.
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.
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
Except when the Prosecutor threatens you with Death unless you plead.