Some good news in the world of copyright, the United States Ninth Circuit has decided to enforce limits on spurious DMCA actions.
The Ninth Circuit upheld an important limitation on Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) subpoenas that other federal courts have recognized for more than two decades. The DMCA, a misguided anti-piracy law passed in the late nineties, created a bevy of powerful tools, ostensibly to help copyright holders fight online infringement. Unfortunately, the DMCA’s powerful protections are ripe for abuse by “copyright trolls,” unscrupulous litigants who abuse the system at everyone else’s expense.
Full story at the Electronic Freedom Foundation.
Yes that's right, in addition to restricting use and reuse of material, copyright legislation gives copyright holders and those who represent them or claim to do so sweeping powers to collect private information. To demonstrate how ludicrous this situation is, I'll disclose that when appealing or submitting counter notices for use of public domain material and material I created I have had to give up personal information in order to register the challenge, and this is one-sided I cannot request the same information from the other side.
Even more, worryingly, once an acquaintance of mine had to get a lawyer to stop YouTube from giving up his personal information to a copyright claimant. After some back and forth, it was revealed that the copyright claimant had no connection to the IP in question, and was an open Neo-Nazi who was attempting to use the system to track down my acquaintance via the copyright takedown system. That is an extreme example, but really anyone could use these tools to harvest information and target people, and this was perfectly legal with no recourse for the victims.
There really is no need for a legitimate copyright claimant to know the personal information of anyone, if copyright is being infringed and actual harm is being done then shutting down the unauthorised distribution solves that issue. Everything else that comes with it be it fines, prison time, or losing your right to privacy is just a punitive tool for the powerful at the expense of the average citizen.
So, I'm pleased to see that the EFF has been successful here in lobbying to weaken this tool of intimidation and harassment. Let's hope there's more to come in the future.
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