Congress Shouldn't Turn the Copyright Office into a Copyright Court | Hacker News Reader

Congress Shouldn't Turn the Copyright Office into a Copyright Court

eff.org

81 pointsDiabloD36 comments

The only bit that really stood out to me here is the issue of timely registration, but it's hard for me to see how exactly this will play out.

My major issue with this discussion from the EFF is it is totally silent on who benefits vs who does not. As a small business content creator, I do want a faster and stronger copyright system that will STOP people from stealing content, especially images. With some of the notions in the law such as providing evidence that the infringer purposely removed water marks, etc.. is EXACTLY what we need going forward.

> "Unfortunately, the Copyright Office has a history of putting copyright holders’ interests ahead of other important legal rights and policy concerns. We fear that any small claims process the Copyright Office conducts will tend to follow that pattern."

Most of it is based on claims that the copyright court is "awful" at copyright decisions, yet at the same time the article is devoid of making specific citations - and is clearly a FUD piece in my opinion.

You don’t think that, for example, deanonymization subpoenas for copyright infringements are a bit strong?

Who is it that’s sharing your content? Is it other businesses?

As a casual observer the entrenched expectation of copyright is wholly incompatible with today's means of information flow and can only result in further erosion of privacy in and around all digital communications.

The entire premise of a limited monopoly was, previously, fairly easy to police, all things considered.

Realistically, expectation or desire for a full copy stop is a fools errand and further attempts at this along with the simultaneous desires for harsher penalties will hurt the many much more than any rights holder could ever be helped.

A digital age copyright solution is being prevented because of unrealistic or outdated expectations that are being wedged into a reality that has, effectively, aged out.

In my opinion the trifecta of threats that are at the root of the impending Internet Dark Ages consists of large media rights holders, ISPs and the sub-constitutional security state.

The only sliver of light that I can spy includes a catalog that is on par with our digital age. If the expectation is that any and all works can maintain their own copyright gates, or, worse, that the government can man it for them, is harmful, childish and doomed. The CASE Act appears to be more fear-based garbage law that will continue to aggravate the already untenable state of copyright and the expectations of protections. .. treating symptoms with poison.

The purpose of the copyright 'small claims' court is to resurrect the media distribution companies practices of deriving a revenue stream from mass action against large numbers of offenders. In the 90s they tried sending thousands of letters demanding settlement money, but eventually they got their hand slapped by the courts. This is their attempt to revive that. They would like to be able to ping 10,000 people a day or so for $1000 a pop without the hassle of actually having to prove anything and armed with nothing but an IP address and some naked claim that they witnessed something they feel to be 'infringement'.

Want to claim you weren't the one who actually was using whatever device made the transfer? Or that the content you transferred was actually legal? Or that you had a fair use right to make the transfer? Or that they simply made a technical mistake? Forget it. The small claims court isn't for that kind of determination, won't be held in any jurisdiction even a hundred miles from where you live, and is "optional" for you to attend anyway. Not that the fines levied will be optional.

One thing the article describe is the problem when large company abuse DMCA take down notices, something which small business content creator has had the unfortunate to be on the receiving end. Musicians has have their own music being hijacked by false DMCA claims and the ad revenue diverted. Small business content creator that create critical videos on products are regularly becoming the target for such abuse, to the point where one critic found a loophole in the youtube implementation where if he taunted two different companies to file DMCA notices then neither gets the ad revenue, and in this way the content creator could protect his video from hostile DMCA abuse. This way at least no one else get to earn money on his work.

If this happen to you, then you will have to prove to the court that the large company subjectively knew the targeted use was actually lawful, and even if you manage that, the damages are very limited making the effort too costly to do. As a small business content creator your best choice is to give up on that content and just hope that you won't be the target next time.

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