July 1, 2008
Doctorow on Copyright Enforcement
It’s a bit snarky but it has some merit:
You see, the big copyright companies – record labels, broadcasters, film studios, software companies – are lobbying in the halls of power around the world (including Westminster) for a three strikes rule for copyright infringers. They want to oblige internet service providers (ISPs) to sever the broadband links of any customer who has been thrice accused of downloading infringing material, and to oblige web-hosting companies to terminate the accounts of anyone accused of sticking infringing material on a web server three times.
They’re not even proposing that this punishment should be reserved for convicted infringers. Proving infringement is slow and expensive – so much so that the Motion Picture Association of America just filed a brief with the US court considering the appeal of Jammie Thomas, a woman
sentenced to pay $222,000 in fines for downloading music, in which the trade association argued that they should never have to prove infringement to collect damages, since proof is so hard to come by.
comments
One Response to “Doctorow on Copyright Enforcement”
Leave a Reply
This is good, Andrew. It shows again how the law has not caught up with technology. Murder is often pretty difficult to prove–but I’m not ready to give up on the notion that it does need to be proved before penalties are meted out. And it does seem, in this particular case, that there should be some comparable penalty for getting it wrong. What was all of that a while back where film bits were being removed (was it at UTube?)–and people had to prove that they actually owned the rights?