
Internet Archive Seeks to Defend Against Wrongful Copyright Takedowns - jcr
https://torrentfreak.com/internet-archive-seeks-to-defend-against-wrongful-copyright-takedowns-160323/
======
acqq
The article about that on the Internet Archive written by Brewster Kahle
himself:

[https://blog.archive.org/2016/03/22/save-our-safe-harbor-
sub...](https://blog.archive.org/2016/03/22/save-our-safe-harbor-submission-
to-copyright-office-on-the-dmca-safe-harbor-for-user-contributions/)

"We filed comments this week, explaining that the DMCA is generally working as
Congress intended it to. These provisions allow platforms like the Internet
Archive to provide services such as hosting and making available user-
generated content without the risk of getting embroiled in lawsuit after
lawsuit. We also offered some thoughts on ways the DMCA could work better for
nonprofits and libraries, for example, by deterring copyright holders from
using the notice and takedown process to silence legitimate commentary or
criticism."

~~~
themartorana
_Is_ the DMCA working the way Congress intended? All we ever talk about here
is how it's constantly abused, and used as a club by large organizations over
smaller parties.

Or, is that pretty much "what Congress intended?"

~~~
ikeboy
There are two parts.

1\. Safe Harbor for websites, means you don't have personal liability as long
as you comply

2\. Ability for copyright holders to get stuff taken down quickly

1 is working fine, 2 is subject to abuse. The post says that 1 works.

~~~
bobcostas55
If 1 was working fine, google wouldn't have had to implement Content ID. Which
in turn led to even more of 2.

~~~
ikeboy
My understanding is that Google did that to cut down on the amount of time
they spent responding to DMCA requests, not because they were worried about
legal issues if they hadn't.

~~~
tobltobs
No, they were forced to implement it, as the copyright holder did not want to
discuss with google every time. They wanted the right to shoot first, then
ask.

~~~
ikeboy
The original post introducing it explicitly says it wasn't for legal reasons.

[https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/06/state-of-our-
video-i...](https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/06/state-of-our-video-id-
tools.html)

Do you have a source that says they were forced to do it by outsiders? Or any
plausible way in which the DMCA required that?

Edit: also, content ID is automated checking of uploads. The ability for
copyright owners to take down content directly is under a different program, I
think.

~~~
pdkl95
That's correct. Also, note that Google's take down system _is NOT_ a DMCA take
down request. It does not satisfy the requirements in several places, and it
is actually stricter than the DMCA.

Google is basically volunteering to allow people to issue take down requests
without consequences; if it was an actual DMCA take down, they would have to

And yes, Content ID is another system entirely where Google pattern-matches
uploads (and old stuff when they feel like it); when hits are found, Google
tends to _reasign the monetization_ to the "content owner" that registered
with Content ID. Getting that money back has generally been impossible, even
in cases where Content ID clearly screwed up (false positive).

If you're interested in the history of how Google has been using Content ID,
there is an older discussion[1] from a few years ago when Google really
started to abuse Content ID _hard_.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bt1ubSVMwaw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bt1ubSVMwaw)

------
walterbell
_> We are deeply concerned that automated filtering could lead to taking down
many materials that are being used in reasonable, legitimate and legally
protected ways—especially when the underlying purpose of the complaint is not
copyright related but rather an attempt to silence critical speech._

How would "notice and staydown" (vs. takedown) work with systems like IPFS
which use content hashes? Would there be centrally maintained blacklists
against which which all hosting companies would need to screen inbound
content?

~~~
gue5t
Even if we assume no user ever has legitimate access to a copyrighted work
(which is untrue; take, for a trivial example the author attempting to show
off their own work while travelling by downloading a copy of it from their
home computer via IPFS), it would be necessary to do this differently based on
the copyright laws of the user's country, along the same lines as the Linux
"wireless-regdb" which says which wireless frequencies may be used in each
country.

In general, the reason copyright enforcement is pushed for is not accurate
enforcement of laws, but rather maintenance of business models while paving
over "minor details" such as legitimate contracts and licenses between
copyright holders and others.

The digital copyright regime has effectively paved over centuries of intricate
law to create a binary of "free" and "nonfree", with no internal distinctions
or intermediates. That this is not widely recognized is a sign of how
effectively media conglomerates control perception of the issue.

You simply can't justify unilateral global takedowns on copyright grounds.
Many legitimate countries disagree about copyright rules, and they just aren't
so simple as a global "copyrighted?" flag. If you want to be a global moral
police, you can justify blocking hashes for _those_ reasons as long as there
are no collisions and everyone agrees, but that doesn't sound terribly likely
either.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
The fundamental problem with computer enforcement of copyright is that the
computer never has the context necessary to determine if the copy should be
allowed.

So for example, I'm sitting next to a teacher waiting for a train and reading
the newspaper. The teacher sees a story and says hey, can I have that when
you're done so I can make some copies for classroom use?

That kind of copying is clearly fair use, right? But the same thing happens on
the internet with some kind of hash-based copying prohibition and the teacher
can't copy the story from me. Because the computer has no way to know that the
law allows the copy. So it can only allow everything or prohibit everything.

That sort of system _can 't work_. It doesn't have the information or context
or logic necessary to make a fair use determination. But "prohibit everything"
is exactly what Disney et al want, so they're always pushing for it anyway.

~~~
richardwhiuk
I'm not convinced that's a legitimate fair use case to be honest...

~~~
AnthonyMouse
One of the fair use examples right out of 17 USC Sec. 107 is "teaching
(including multiple copies for classroom use)". But instead of arguing about a
specific arbitrary example, let's chalk that up to "making a fair use
determination is hard" which was kind of my point.

Unless you're convinced that there is _never_ a legitimate fair use case, feel
free to substitute whichever you like.

------
brador
Solution: monthly full core releases and daily update packs of the complete
archive in torrent form.

Offload the copyright risk to those more willing to take it and you get to
keep doing your friendly neighborhood scraping.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
You might be underestimating the size of their archive.

[https://archive.org/web/petabox.php](https://archive.org/web/petabox.php)

~~~
brador
They could start with a text only archive. Compresses beautifully and would
make a great first step.

------
temp1235
It seems obvious one should pay damages for making false copyright claims.

But.... why should we tolerate copyrights? What is in it for me?

I kinda like the idea of people doing paid work. If someone wants a something-
for-nothing kind of formula they should pay for it themselves rather than
creating an impossible burden for others (if not the whole world)

One can get enough funding before creating a work or before releasing it.
After release the audience can make donations and/or chose to fund future
works. This should be good enough for what we need.

Before we chose/prefer global mass persecution until the end of time over the
crowd funding formula we should first have a good reason for it. Failure to
preserve history for that extra bit of entertainment exploitation is not worth
it. Not just because it fails to be entertaining.

I can't think of any but there might be a few works important enough for
copyright to be an ideal formula but we can't expect it to work on the scale
we are having it on right now.

At the very least a lack of license should default to something like creative
commons. (If I rub a bit of snot on some paper I don't want to own the rights
to it.)

If enough people want a copyrighted work they are going to get it anyway. The
"dream" of artificial scarcity with infinite exploitation has ended. We have
to write realistic laws now. Something that doesn't violate basic logic.

We the audience would gladly pay for a new season of Star trek. I suppose the
fear here is that the audience would have influence on the programming?

------
cmurf
It's fair use for historical and educational purposes. My technical
explanation for copyright holders is tough noogies, or look at the hand. I'm
just not at all sympathizing with their claims. The Internet Archive is a
public good.

------
mirimir
It's a nice thought. But this talk of "legitimate", "legally protected" and
"wrongful" strikes me as just so much wishful thinking. To be reliably
available, stuff must be posted in ways that can't be taken down. It's rather
the same distinction as with encryption, isn't it?

------
drallison
The Internet Archive is one of the finest institutions of the Internet. The
Archive is a not-for-profit and deserves your financial contributions and
support. The proposed change to DCMA Copyright Takedowns rules would help
resolve existing problems and ambiguities.

------
cookiecaper
The Internet Archive archives many thousands of user profile pages and other
types of user-generated content that the OP may eventually realize is not
really wise to have online. Things like the individual message board posting
histories of private figures. The Internet Archive has no right to display
these things, as they don't have a license from the content's author or the
outlet that the content author posted on. There is no public interest served
by continuing to display these things, as the poster is a non-noteworthy
private person and was in all likelihood just posting nonsense. The OP can
contact the message board and probably get them to delete the profiles if they
don't have a deletion option already baked into their platform, but what about
archives like the Internet Archive? Will they comply with takedown requests
for such individual profiles, or fight them as well, pretending that there is
some public interest served by keeping it online?

Privacy is hard in the internet age.

~~~
arca_vorago
We are talking about abuse of DMCA related to takedowns and copyright, and you
are muddling the issue by stretching into privacy. Is privacy covered by DMCA?
Is the DMCA something that an OP could use to request takedown of data from a
site? If it is, then that would be what you should be speaking about, not
grand visions of "how dare they copy and then host things that were on the
public internet because some of those things might be privacy-sensitive!"

To play devils advocate against myself, I have made mistakes in the earlier
days of the internet, that I am glad the archives failed to keep. I do
understand that there is a need for privacy friendly user sites, but I am
sceptical about what tools are allowed to actually perform this structure.
Right now, the internet is a threat to the power that be, which is why we will
see an ever increasing attempt to legislate it into the ground. If we allow
government corruption to seep into the internet anymore than it already is,
the real concern will be one of censorship and propaganda, and user privacy is
less to do with publicly posting things you shouldnt, but more to do with the
corporate/government merger and data sharing that is going on around us.
Loopholes everywhere for suppressing dissidents.

~~~
cookiecaper
I don't have a problem with IA's operation in general, but individuals do own
the exclusive copyright on their works. The forums they post on generally have
a ToS that states the user grants them non-exclusive license to display the
content. This doesn't automatically extend to the IA. Thus, if an individual
doesn't want its work to appear on the IA anymore, they can issue a DMCA
takedown request, as can be done for any other copyrighted information on the
internet. The IA should respect these instead of trying to claim that there is
a public interest in keeping them accessible.

~~~
ghaff
It's a valid question. If, for whatever reason, someone wanted to purge their
identity from the Internet Archive as much as possible--including from
properties that they did not control--I suppose they could try, but I doubt
they's have much luck. For example, if you were to ask them to expunge any HN
page that you had comments on. One issue is that there's no easy way to delete
only your content if you're embedded in other discussions.

I expect it's a legal gray area that mostly works in part because most random
forum posts are pseudonymous.

~~~
cookiecaper
Not all pages contain content from other people. Most message boards have a
page that shows _just_ that users' posts. At least these should be pretty easy
to get taken down by informing the IA that they don't have a license to
display the content (which is true).

