
Why Big Media Is Going Nuclear Against The DMCA - jacquesm
http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/06/big-media-nuclear-dmca/
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cwp
The DMCA "ushered an era of investment, innovation and job creation?" Well, I
suppose, but that's an incredibly charitable way to put it. I think "failed to
prevent an era of investment, innovation and job creation" might be more
accurate. The DMCA was introduced at the _behest_ of big media; it just didn't
go far enough to protect their interests.

~~~
Natsu
A lot of the good things that happen do so mostly by accident. The DMCA's Safe
Harbor was one of these things.

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RickHull
> When Congress updated copyright laws and passed the Digital Millennium
> Copyright Act (DMCA) in 1998, it ushered an era of investment, innovation
> and job creation. In the decade since, companies like Google, YouTube and
> Twitter have emerged thanks to the Act

Haha, this is satire, right?

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kijin
It would be more accurate to say that the safe harbor provision of DMCA,
rather than the DMCA as a whole, helped innovation.

~~~
georgemcbay
Actually it would be more accurate to say that the safe harbor provision
didn't block (all) innovation. It certainly didn't _help_ in any way.

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tankenmate
The only thing I haven't noticed anyone mention is that these laws only affect
the US. Other countries will be free to let their companies continue without
this draconian legislation. With Pirate parties gaining strength in various
countries in Europe it would be an uphill struggle to get this type of
legislation happening there. Does this mean that these type of companies and
their jobs will spring up elsewhere?

~~~
wmf
They can spring up wherever they want, but they'll be blocked in the US and
thus will have access to a lot fewer users.

~~~
tankenmate
I think you are missing some perspective. China has more online users than the
US these days. The EU has more people online that the US. I bet it would chafe
Warner Bros' butt just as badly if 100k people pirate their movie in the
Europe as it would if 100k people in US did the same.

If you told a company that planned to sell to 3+ billion people that you could
cut several tens of millions in legal fees a year by dropping 200m users they
would probably take you up on it. Lord knows most of the world's online
betting companies are not in the US. The big media companies in the US are
pissing in their own water supply, they just don't realise it yet.

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derleth
They're betting it's the 1990s again and they'll be able to get their laws
enacted and enforced everywhere that matters.

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mseebach
Google, Twitter and Facebook should join up and make politicians, ahem, an
offer they can't refuse: Any politician voting for this bill will have any
search-result, tweet, post, status or link in which they're mentioned prefixed
with a strongly worded warning that they're paid cronies helping the content
industry destroy the Internet.

Now THAT's a nuclear option.

~~~
rmc
(a) That's potentially libellous (b) That's potentially monopolist behaviour
(c) That'll freak the politicans out and make them side with TMCs in thinking
that those upstart silicon valley companies are too arrogant and powerful and
must be stopped (i.e. it will backfire)

~~~
olefoo
a) Reporting a fact is Libelous?

b) I believe the word you are looking for is Cartel rather than Monopoly, but
in either case; if the bill passes they have other problems.

c) It's not a fair tactic; but there's nothing to stop Google, Yahoo, Facebook
and Microsoft from coordinating on having a day where they banner link to a
"Stop the power grab!" site. Singling out individual politicians is
problematic.

Seriously though, as a country this whole thing is a sideshow. Our society has
become too top heavy and the rights and resources have become too concentrated
to the point where the average person no longer believes the social contract
is for their long term benefit. That's a very dangerous place to be, and we're
worried about losing access to a few cat videos?

~~~
icebraining
Cat videos? Really? Eliminating the Safe-harbor provisions is killing all and
every site that distributes user created content.

Hell, even discussion sites like Hacker News could be affected: what if
someone posts someone else's copyright content here, like a user posted the
Scientology texts on Slashdot? Would YCombinator be OK with being legally
responsible for the infringement? Slashdot had to take it down, but without
Safe Harbor, they could've been sued.

Wikipedia, Youtube, Vimeo, Blogspot, Wordpress.com, Tumblr, you can say
goodbye to all of them.

More: even if you build your own site - which is outside of the possibilities
of 99% of the people in the first place - are you really safe? After all, the
hosting company could be liable!

It's ultimately the destruction of the creative freedom we enjoy on the Web,
converting it into TV 2.0, where all the content is created by the media
companies and your only option is changing the channel.

Is that as important as being able to eat or have a place to sleep? No, of
course not. But it doesn't mean it's not damn important.

~~~
dextorious
"""Cat videos? Really? Eliminating the Safe-harbor provisions is killing all
and every site that distributes user created content."""

Which roughly amounts to cat videos.

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icebraining
You do realize you're using one of them right now? I don't see any cat videos.

~~~
tripzilch
That's because they keep downvoting them .

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danso
Wait. Doesn't the DMCA allow for the prosecution of DRM-breakers and content-
copiers? Shouldn't the headline read that "Big Media is Going Nuclear _For_
the DMCA"? or at least, "Big Media is Going Nuclear _Against_ the DMCA's Safe
Harbors"?

Also, what does Wikileaks have to do with any of this? I'm sure the author has
some good points here, but it seems like he's just throwing in the latest Net-
freedom controversies for the hell of it. Wikileaks did not run into
opposition primarily because of copyright/DRM violations. It's been blocked
for allegedly/ostensibly breaking other kinds of laws (such as national
security-related ones).

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Natsu
I don't know about the article, but the industry hates it because it leaves
the burden of enforcing their copyright on them and they don't want to. They
want someone else to do it for them, probably the government.

And yet, there's no one else who _can_ reasonably bear the burden. After all,
infringement is a matter of permission. Other people can guess about who has
authorized what, but no one but the copyright holder actually knows. And more
than one person has, for example, released their own work on The Pirate Bay
(even a "pirate edition" of that one game!) Moreover, as the _Viacom_ case
showed, sometimes even they can't keep track of who they authorized to do what
and if they can't do it themselves, nobody else should be expected to do it
for them.

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derleth
> After all, infringement is a matter of permission

The obvious solution is to make it impossible to give certain kinds of
permission, like how it's impossible to give up your 'moral rights' under
German law, for example: If the government sees someone using something
without being able to show they have paid for it and are operating under
restrictions, they are committing piracy. If you gave it to them without
enforcing those restrictions, you induced them to commit piracy, probably a
more serious crime.

~~~
throwaway64
laws like this would lead to very dark places

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derleth
Which is my entire point.

You don't think I was _advocating_ laws like that, do you?

------
lanstein
Jacques, are you back?

