DMCA – Page 2 – Center for Intellectual Property x Innovation Policy

European Union Draws a Line on Infringing Hyperlinks

Cross-posted from the Mister Copyright blog.

Last week, the European Court of Justice—the judicial authority of the European Union—issued an anticipated decision in the Sanoma hyperlinking case, declaring that commercial linking with knowledge of unauthorized content constitutes copyright infringement. The opinion comes after years of similar cases in Europe stirred debate over whether linking to pirated works was a ‘communication to the public’ and therefore infringing, and provides a sensible test that protects the works of authors and creators while ensuring the internet remains a bastion of free speech. Read more

Despite What You Hear, Notice and Takedown is Failing Creators and Copyright Owners

In a recent op-ed in the LA Times, Professors Chris Sprigman and Mark Lemley praise the notice and takedown provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) as “a bit of copyright law worth saving.” They argue that Section 512 of the DMCA continues to serve its purpose of balancing the rights of copyright owners and creators with those of Internet service providers (ISPs), while leaving both sides only “slightly disappointed.” Read more

CloudFlare’s Desperate New Strategy to Protect Pirate Sites

San Francisco-based CloudFlare has earned a somewhat dubious reputation in the online world. Website owners can set up CloudFlare in just a few minutes, gaining the performance, security, and privacy benefits the service provides. Traffic routed through CloudFlare’s global content delivery network is cached for faster delivery times and protected from numerous online threats. Read more

Three Years Later, DMCA Still Just as Broken

By Matthew Barblan & Kevin Madigan

In 2013, CPIP published a policy brief by Professor Bruce Boyden exposing the DMCA notice and takedown system as outdated and in need of reform. The Failure of the DMCA Notice and Takedown System explained that while Section 512 of the DMCA was intended as a way for copyright owners and service providers to work together to fight infringement in the digital age, the notice and takedown system has been largely ineffective in managing the ever-increasing amount of piracy. Read more

Second Circuit Deepens Red Flag Knowledge Circuit Split in Vimeo

The Second Circuit’s recent opinion in Capitol Records v. Vimeo is, to put it mildly, pretty bad. From its convoluted reasoning that copyrights under state law for pre-1972 sound recordings are limited by the DMCA safe harbors, despite the explicit statement in Section 301(c) that “rights or remedies” under state law “shall not be annulled or limited” by the Copyright Act, to its gutting of red flag knowledge by limiting it to the nearly-impossible situation where a service provider actually knows that a specific use of an entire copyrighted work is neither fair nor licensed yet somehow doesn’t also surmise that it’s infringing, it’s hard to see how either result is compelled by the statutes, much less how it was intended by Congress. Read more

Capitol Records v. Vimeo: Courts Should Stop Coddling Bad Actors in Copyright Cases

Here’s a brief excerpt of my new post that was published on IPWatchdog:

Here’s where we are after Capitol Records v. Vimeo: A service provider can encourage its users to infringe on a massive scale, and so long as the infringement it encourages isn’t the specific infringement it gets sued for, it wins on the safe harbor defense at summary judgment. Read more

Copyright Policy Should Be Based On Facts, Not Rhetoric

Here’s a brief excerpt of a post by Kevin Madigan & Devlin Hartline that was published on IPWatchdog.

After nearly twenty years with the DMCA, the Copyright Office has launched a new study to examine the impact and effectiveness of this system, and voices on both sides of the debate have filed comments expressing their views. Read more

Separating Fact from Fiction in the Notice and Takedown Debate

By Kevin Madigan & Devlin Hartline

With the Copyright Office undertaking a new study to evaluate the impact and effectiveness of the Section 512 safe harbor provisions, there’s been much discussion about how well the DMCA’s notice and takedown system is working for copyright owners, service providers, and users. Read more

Middle Class Artists Want a DMCA System That Works

The following guest post comes from Rebecca Cusey, a second year law student at George Mason University School of Law.

By Rebecca Cusey

Mason Law’s Arts & Entertainment Advocacy Clinic filed comments today with the U.S. Copyright Office detailing the frustrations and futilities experienced by everyday artists as they struggle with the DMCA system to protect their copyrights online. Read more

Copyright Scholars: Courts Have Disrupted the DMCA’s Careful Balance of Interests

The U.S. Copyright Office is conducting a study of the safe harbors under Section 512 of the DMCA, and comments are due today. Working with Victor Morales and Danielle Ely from Mason Law’s Arts & Entertainment Advocacy Clinic, we drafted and submitted comments on behalf of several copyright law scholars. Read more

Antonin Scalia Law School

Tag: DMCA