If you weren't convinced that copyright enforcement has gone completely overboard, several recent incidents ought to convince you. Whether it’s using automated bots to shut down legitimate content or using government power to seize Websites -- copyright oversight is out of control.
Let's look at three stories of copyright control run amok.
Let's start with a tale that's so wild, it's hard to believe it actually happened. Just the other night, UStream, the online video service, was streaming Worldcon's Hugo Awards live. (The Hugo Awards, for those who aren't familiar, are the most prestigious awards in science fiction.)
According to a post on the i09 Website, in the middle of the ceremony, the live feed was cut and a message appeared: "Worldcon banned due to copyright infringement."
What exactly was that copyright infringement? It turns out the Hugo Awards was showing clips of the award-winning entries -- which by the way, the Hugo Awards had permission to do; the content owners themselves had shared the clips (but even if they hadn't, as i09 pointed out, the materials fall under fair use).
In spite of these facts -– and of any common sense -- UStreams' own copyright bots shut down the ceremony for copyright violations. It seems the service uses an automated system to determine if copyright is being violated, and according to an explanation from UStream's CEO Brad Hunstable on the company blog, the system implemented an automatic shutdown when it determined a copyright infringement had occurred -- even though it hadn't.
At least Hunstable apologized, and has suspended use of this system until they can find a way to tune it so it doesn't shut down legitimate content in the future.
It's one thing to have bots shutting down a system; it's another for the government to use agencies set up to protect the country from criminals and terrorists to go after alleged copyright infringers. According to a TechDirt story, Rojadirecta, a Spanish Website that was accused of embedding content from another site, was shut down for 18 months until the US government realized there was no case and relented.
But as bad as bots shutting down a live event and the government seizing Websites without real cause or due process may have been, this wasn't the worst case. Not by a long a shot. That distinction goes to a case in England where the owner of a Website got sentenced to four years in prison for hosting a site with nothing but links to content, some of which were considered illegal.
The key here is that site owner, Anton Vickerman, did not display any actual content on his site. He simply had the audacity to link to it.
According Ars Technica, Vickerman was targeted by a media industry group called the Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT), which hired private investigators, gathered evidence, and encouraged the government in Britain to take legal action against Vickerman. It wasn't illegal, but it was highly unusual to have an industry-sponsored group drive a prosecution in this fashion.
Overall, these three incidents show a copyright enforcement system that has grown so far out of proportion that we have automated digital copyright control systems shutting down legitimate content; governments seizing Websites without clear wrongdoing; and industry groups working hand-in-glove with prosecutors to shut down and prosecute site owners whose only crime is linking to other Websites.
This has clearly gone way too far. I'm sure there are plenty of bad people in the world planning horrible acts. It's high time government agencies, whose job is to stop these criminals and terrorists, to put their resources to better use than going after alleged copyright violations on behalf of the big media companies.
Bots determining copyright violations can be a real problem. Maybe there should be a penalty imposed automatically to the website using a faulty bot to ensure such things don't happen. Just think, a penalty bot, watching a copyright bot, and smacking it down when things go wrong.
Even YouTube's system seems to leave a lot to be desired, kicking out videos for alleged copyright violations. And trying to reason with YouTube is not the easiest thing to do. But he who owns the gold makes the rules.
Big companies will have to be forced to accept copyright reform, because copyright right now works well for them. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be anyone around to do the enforcing.
The real change that needs to be made is returning to copyright being the exception, rather than the general rule. Right now we think of the public domain as the exception, but it used to be the opposite. Most work was uncopyrighted. Copyright required a conscious effort to get; it was easy, but most people didn't bother.
The three events you enumerated were all alarming, but I find myself shaking my the head the most at the third one. Since when did sharing links become illegal? It looks to me like Vickerman was specifically targeted. FACT was probably trying to use his case as a warning to others to refrain from doing the same, but it's just so wrong.
There really should be something done to the current enforcement of these policies, because what good are they if they're doing more harm than good?
Lessig tried by creating the Creative Commons License as an alternative to traditional copyright, which allows the content owner to define how the content can be shared -- or even altered. The book cites some interesting results when artists allowed this.
His was a bold attempt to redefine copyright for a sharing medium like the Internet, and while it's in wide use, it didn't redefine mainstream copyright because of big media intransigence.
These are great examples of the kinds of events that have led to a re-evaluation of the entire copyright situation. And they happened awhile ago. My question, of course, is why nothing more has been done to follow through on revamping content rights.
I guess the answer goes back to the monied interests.
Lawrence Lessig wrote a great book about this several years ago called Remix that explores these issues in depth, and notes the absurd position of the big media content owners who protect copyright to insane degrees. He opens with the now famous story of the mother who was sued by a record company for putting a video on YouTube of her two-year old dancing to a Prince song, which was on the radio in the background. The record company argued she was violating copyright.
Another favorite example of mine was posted by author David Meerman Scott. A few years ago Led Zeppelin had a reunion concert in England. The concert sold out instantly and excited fans posted grainy cell phone videos of parts of the concert on YouTube. Led Zeppelin's record company ordered the videos be taken down in the name of copyright. Scott argued the the record companies were not threatened in any way by these low-qualty videos and they would actually have helped introduce the band to a new generation of fans who were born long after the band recorded its final album. Instead it was copyright uber alles.
I definitely support the notion of content ownership, I just think it has to be adapted to allow for reasonable sharing. Defining where that line is, and finding common ground is where the hard work comes in, but I think we would all benefit from having that debate.
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