7 ms·

Fix the DMCA

227 points by sinak 14y ago

largesse 14y ago
Nice, but the DMCA needs more reform than that. There is a severe imbalance in the fact that parties who feel that they have been infringed can serve financially disastrous take-downs that must be complied with immediately. The only recourse for served parties is a long expensive legal process. Something needs to be done to bring this into balance.
- sinak 14y ago
  Aware of this, but one battle at a time. Right now there's momentum towards getting anti-circumvention fixed because of the WH petition, we want to broaden the scope somewhat, but not unrealistically.
- sneak 14y ago
  > Nice, but the DMCA needs more reform than that. There is a severe imbalance in the fact that parties who feel that they have been infringed can serve financially disastrous take-downs that must be complied with immediately. The only recourse for served parties is a long expensive legal process. This is demonstrably false. The first line of recourse is counter-notification, which reinstates the content.
  - AnthonyMouse 14y ago
    >The first line of recourse is counter-notification, which reinstates the content. Sec. 512(g)(2)(B): "upon receipt of a counter notification described in paragraph (3), promptly provides the person who provided the notification under subsection (c)(1)(C) with a copy of the counter notification, and informs that person that it will replace the removed material or cease disabling access to it in 10 business days" What can the victim of the fraudulent takedown do for those 10 days? Maybe go to court (I have no idea), but if so that certainly sounds like "long expensive legal process" to me, and if not then it's even worse because there is just no recourse at all.
    - wmf 14y ago
      I think most providers process counter-notices faster than 10 days. Also keep in mind that before the DMCA you'd have received a lawsuit instead of a takedown in the first place.
      - AnthonyMouse 14y ago
        >Also keep in mind that before the DMCA you'd have received a lawsuit instead of a takedown in the first place. I kind of doubt it. Filing a fraudulent lawsuit requires finding a lawyer who is willing to risk getting disbarred and putting yourself in front of a judge with the power to impose serious punishments for misbehavior. Filing a fraudulent takedown notice can be done by any jackass with an internet connection and you only get punished if the victim has the knowledge, will and finances required to hire a lawyer and go after you.
        542458 14y ago
        > Filing a fraudulent lawsuit Who says that they'd all be fraudulent? I'd bet that there are more valid DMCA requests submitted than invalid. Sites like youTube would be buried in lawsuits.
        AnthonyMouse 14y ago
        >Who says that they'd all be fraudulent? The fact that the user in question by stipulation hasn't posted any infringing material. We're not talking about the effect on intermediaries. Obviously if there were no safe harbor at all then the intermediaries would immediately cease to exist and the internet as we know it would disappear, probably to be replaced by something resembling The Pirate Bay.
        devcpp 14y ago
        Oh, that's good. Why do we have lawsuits in general then? I'd bet more guilty people are prosecuted than innocents. Let's make the economy of the judge's salary and assume everyone is guilty.
- HNLogInShit 14y ago
  This proposal is missing a critical component: circumvention to allow playback of legally purchased media on any device we choose. There's no excuse for denying people the ability to copy a DVD or Blu-Ray's contents to an iPad, home server, or whatever.
Zikes 14y ago
Aren't media backups, including DVDs, already legal under Fair Use? Is there any legal precedent to the contrary?
- sinak 14y ago
  Circumventing the security measures that protect them is illegal under the DMCA, even though it's not actually copyright infringement. Section 1201, the circumvention provision, is specifically what we're trying to get fixed.
  - shmerl 14y ago
    It is not illegal when it's fair use. But this DMCA section shifts the burden on those who break the DRM (i.e. to prove that something is fair use) instead of keeping the burden on those who should prove that certain action is not fair use.
    - ncallaway 14y ago
      I'm not disagreeing with you, but asking for my own edification. I can't find (or am misinterpreting what I can find) in the DMCA that makes it legal for fair use. The main portion I'm trying to interpret is 17 USC S 1201 (a) (1) (A): "No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title. The prohibition contained in the preceding sentence shall take effect at the end of the 2-year period beginning on the date of the enactment of this chapter." I'm not finding another section that creates a fair use section. Does the phrase "protected under this title" create the fair use exemption? Or is there some judicial precedent that I'm missing?
      - shmerl 14y ago
        I think fair use makes it legal point blank. DMCA can't override it (DMCA contradicts fair use directly). But this can be open to interpretation by judges and etc. - would be good to hear some clarification from experts.
- 14y ago
sinak 14y ago
This is a bug thread. We built this in 72 hours while on a bus going from San Francisco to Austin on terrible cellular connections and running on 9 hours sleep in total (StartupBus). Please help us debug. If you see CSS/JS that needs changing, tell me and we'll get it done immediately.
- trotsky 14y ago
  at the bottom: I have joined a campaign to anti-circumvention provision of the DMCA (section 1201) at I'm not sure what word you're missing, but you're missing something.
  - sinak 14y ago
    On it. Update: Should be fixed in a few seconds.
- nwh 14y ago
  The fonts get nuked by Ghostery, which is not so much your problem as mine (and whoever else uses Ghostery). http://i.imgur.com/y0eh4sh.png http://i.imgur.com/y0eh4sh.png
- sinak 14y ago
  One known issue is rendering on iPad and iPhone. If anyone can figure out how to fix it, I'd be very happy. Tried, but there are bills being brought to Congress as we speak and we needed to get this up.
  - dubcanada 14y ago
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=720,maximum-scale=1.0"> Might have something to do with it. Your HTML/BODY tags are not allowed to extend to 100%, forcing your body/html to max at 720. Not allowing your "gray background" to extend 100%
    - sinak 14y ago
      Yeah I had this removed and it was better, but it slipped out in one of the merges we did. Will switch this back now, it's still not right though.
awwstn2 14y ago
This campaign needs all of the support it can get. If you'd like to help, please upvote on reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/19sbuc/fixthedmcaorg_congress_please_fix_the/ http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/19sbuc/fixthedmc...
Pyramids 14y ago
A very valid argument, however nothing on the current DMCA Takedown Notice provisions enforced upon "Online Service Providers" (aka pretty much any service, platform or ISP which makes content available online) That seems like an area which is worth addressing as well, at least in passing, and there are plenty of examples of abuse hanging around.
AnthonyMouse 14y ago
A couple of things: 1) DMCA 1201 is "treaty implementing legislation" for the WIPO agreements. Repealing it entirely is unlikely without getting that fixed -- but we (the United States) are the ones who actually wanted that crap in the treaty to begin with, so if the executive is behind scrapping it, pushing for that to happen internationally would be a big win. In the meantime, fixing the law so that circumvention-without-infringement is never illegal would still be a great improvement even if we can't be rid of the whole thing immediately. 2) There are two relevant parts to DMCA 1201. The first is that circumvention is prohibited. This is the thing the Librarian of Congress currently is allowed to create exemptions for. The second is that circumvention tools are prohibited. The exemptions the Librarian makes apparently don't apply to this -- if we're doing some reform, it really ought to exempt tools with a "substantial non-infringing use." This is the thing that prohibits Walmart from selling e.g. a DVR-like device that allow you back up all your DVDs and stream them to your phone whenever you want. There is a serious amount of innovation that doesn't happen because of the lack of that exemption.
- ewillbefull 14y ago
  > The second is that circumvention tools are prohibited. I don't think "substantial non-infringing uses" should be a standard for tools. These tools are not infringing at all. They do not contain or distribute copyrighted content themselves. In fact they can be small keys, or information tangentially related to the DRM scheme. They can also be various things in various contexts. I think the entire "anti-circumvention tools" part should be removed, period. It's not even helpful for its original purpose and probably unconstitutional (the government cannot criminalize instructions for violating the law). It's also being abused.
  - AnthonyMouse 14y ago
    >In fact they can be small keys, or information tangentially related to the DRM scheme. These sound like things that should have substantial non-infringing uses. >I think the entire "anti-circumvention tools" part should be removed, period. So then you need to fix the international agreements. Go for it. I still think we should do what we can in the meantime though.
ensignavenger 14y ago
This is a start, but what you guys really need to do is author specific legislation and then lobby to get a few sponsors to introduce it. Once you have identified a few potential sponsors, we can focus our efforts into lobbying them, ad once it is introduced, we can lobby the rest of Congress to pass it.
wheaties 14y ago
It's great but the only people who it would speak to are technical people. If you started with the section on blind people, then security researchers, then go into detail about other things like getting apps from an app store first, you'd appeal to more people. And if I studied english more I'd have learned how to write that without a run-on sentence.
pdonis 14y ago
Why are we trying to fix the DMCA instead of just trying to get it repealed? What parts of the DMCA are worth keeping?
- SoftwareMaven 14y ago
  Safe harbor for Internet providers is a pretty important piece of it.
  - pdonis 14y ago
    But it's tied together with the requirement to block access on receipt of a takedown notice, which is precisely what gets abused so often. I think this provision is a case of the "cure" being worse than the "disease". (Btw, I'm not sure how much of a "disease" there would be in the absence of this provision anyway. Internet providers could defend against accusations of copyright infringement by pointing at their terms of use, assuming they were smart enough to have them and make customers agree to them, as pretty much all of them are.)
    - darkarmani 14y ago
      Terms of use don't insulate them from contributory copyright infringement charges.
      - pdonis 14y ago
        Why not?
        darkarmani 14y ago
        Because you are still contributing. The DMCA is the only thing that provides the safe harbor to prevent this claim. It's the only good part of the law.
        pdonis 14y ago
eulo 14y ago
The douches just took down a nice repo I've been using https://github.com/designmodo/Flat-UI https://github.com/designmodo/Flat-UI
aptwebapps 14y ago
We don't need a set of permanent exemptions, we need to repeal the anti-circumvention provision. Not the whole DMCA, although there are other parts that could use adjustment. This provision stifles innovation all over the place and I seriously doubt it has any significant impact on piracy, which was it's original intent.
larkinrichards 14y ago
Totally support this. Also, Streem is listed twice as a supporter. Mistake?

227 points by sinak 14y ago

Nice, but the DMCA needs more reform than that. There is a severe imbalance in the fact that parties who feel that they have been infringed can serve financially disastrous take-downs that must be complied with immediately. The only recourse for served parties is a long expensive legal process. Something needs to be done to bring this into balance.

sinak 14y ago
Aware of this, but one battle at a time. Right now there's momentum towards getting anti-circumvention fixed because of the WH petition, we want to broaden the scope somewhat, but not unrealistically.
sneak 14y ago
> Nice, but the DMCA needs more reform than that. There is a severe imbalance in the fact that parties who feel that they have been infringed can serve financially disastrous take-downs that must be complied with immediately. The only recourse for served parties is a long expensive legal process. This is demonstrably false. The first line of recourse is counter-notification, which reinstates the content.
- AnthonyMouse 14y ago
  >The first line of recourse is counter-notification, which reinstates the content. Sec. 512(g)(2)(B): "upon receipt of a counter notification described in paragraph (3), promptly provides the person who provided the notification under subsection (c)(1)(C) with a copy of the counter notification, and informs that person that it will replace the removed material or cease disabling access to it in 10 business days" What can the victim of the fraudulent takedown do for those 10 days? Maybe go to court (I have no idea), but if so that certainly sounds like "long expensive legal process" to me, and if not then it's even worse because there is just no recourse at all.
  - wmf 14y ago
    I think most providers process counter-notices faster than 10 days. Also keep in mind that before the DMCA you'd have received a lawsuit instead of a takedown in the first place.
    - AnthonyMouse 14y ago
      >Also keep in mind that before the DMCA you'd have received a lawsuit instead of a takedown in the first place. I kind of doubt it. Filing a fraudulent lawsuit requires finding a lawyer who is willing to risk getting disbarred and putting yourself in front of a judge with the power to impose serious punishments for misbehavior. Filing a fraudulent takedown notice can be done by any jackass with an internet connection and you only get punished if the victim has the knowledge, will and finances required to hire a lawyer and go after you.
      - 542458 14y ago
        > Filing a fraudulent lawsuit Who says that they'd all be fraudulent? I'd bet that there are more valid DMCA requests submitted than invalid. Sites like youTube would be buried in lawsuits.
        AnthonyMouse 14y ago
        >Who says that they'd all be fraudulent? The fact that the user in question by stipulation hasn't posted any infringing material. We're not talking about the effect on intermediaries. Obviously if there were no safe harbor at all then the intermediaries would immediately cease to exist and the internet as we know it would disappear, probably to be replaced by something resembling The Pirate Bay.
        devcpp 14y ago
        Oh, that's good. Why do we have lawsuits in general then? I'd bet more guilty people are prosecuted than innocents. Let's make the economy of the judge's salary and assume everyone is guilty.
HNLogInShit 14y ago
This proposal is missing a critical component: circumvention to allow playback of legally purchased media on any device we choose. There's no excuse for denying people the ability to copy a DVD or Blu-Ray's contents to an iPad, home server, or whatever.

Zikes 14y ago

Aren't media backups, including DVDs, already legal under Fair Use? Is there any legal precedent to the contrary?

sinak 14y ago
Circumventing the security measures that protect them is illegal under the DMCA, even though it's not actually copyright infringement. Section 1201, the circumvention provision, is specifically what we're trying to get fixed.
- shmerl 14y ago
  It is not illegal when it's fair use. But this DMCA section shifts the burden on those who break the DRM (i.e. to prove that something is fair use) instead of keeping the burden on those who should prove that certain action is not fair use.
  - ncallaway 14y ago
    I'm not disagreeing with you, but asking for my own edification. I can't find (or am misinterpreting what I can find) in the DMCA that makes it legal for fair use. The main portion I'm trying to interpret is 17 USC S 1201 (a) (1) (A): "No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title. The prohibition contained in the preceding sentence shall take effect at the end of the 2-year period beginning on the date of the enactment of this chapter." I'm not finding another section that creates a fair use section. Does the phrase "protected under this title" create the fair use exemption? Or is there some judicial precedent that I'm missing?
    - shmerl 14y ago
      I think fair use makes it legal point blank. DMCA can't override it (DMCA contradicts fair use directly). But this can be open to interpretation by judges and etc. - would be good to hear some clarification from experts.
14y ago

sinak 14y ago

This is a bug thread. We built this in 72 hours while on a bus going from San Francisco to Austin on terrible cellular connections and running on 9 hours sleep in total (StartupBus). Please help us debug. If you see CSS/JS that needs changing, tell me and we'll get it done immediately.

trotsky 14y ago
at the bottom: I have joined a campaign to anti-circumvention provision of the DMCA (section 1201) at I'm not sure what word you're missing, but you're missing something.
- sinak 14y ago
  On it. Update: Should be fixed in a few seconds.
nwh 14y ago
The fonts get nuked by Ghostery, which is not so much your problem as mine (and whoever else uses Ghostery). http://i.imgur.com/y0eh4sh.png http://i.imgur.com/y0eh4sh.png
sinak 14y ago
One known issue is rendering on iPad and iPhone. If anyone can figure out how to fix it, I'd be very happy. Tried, but there are bills being brought to Congress as we speak and we needed to get this up.
- dubcanada 14y ago
  <meta name="viewport" content="width=720,maximum-scale=1.0"> Might have something to do with it. Your HTML/BODY tags are not allowed to extend to 100%, forcing your body/html to max at 720. Not allowing your "gray background" to extend 100%
  - sinak 14y ago
    Yeah I had this removed and it was better, but it slipped out in one of the merges we did. Will switch this back now, it's still not right though.

awwstn2 14y ago

This campaign needs all of the support it can get. If you'd like to help, please upvote on reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/19sbuc/fixthedmcaorg_congress_please_fix_the/ http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/19sbuc/fixthedmc...

Pyramids 14y ago

A very valid argument, however nothing on the current DMCA Takedown Notice provisions enforced upon "Online Service Providers" (aka pretty much any service, platform or ISP which makes content available online) That seems like an area which is worth addressing as well, at least in passing, and there are plenty of examples of abuse hanging around.

AnthonyMouse 14y ago

A couple of things: 1) DMCA 1201 is "treaty implementing legislation" for the WIPO agreements. Repealing it entirely is unlikely without getting that fixed -- but we (the United States) are the ones who actually wanted that crap in the treaty to begin with, so if the executive is behind scrapping it, pushing for that to happen internationally would be a big win. In the meantime, fixing the law so that circumvention-without-infringement is never illegal would still be a great improvement even if we can't be rid of the whole thing immediately. 2) There are two relevant parts to DMCA 1201. The first is that circumvention is prohibited. This is the thing the Librarian of Congress currently is allowed to create exemptions for. The second is that circumvention tools are prohibited. The exemptions the Librarian makes apparently don't apply to this -- if we're doing some reform, it really ought to exempt tools with a "substantial non-infringing use." This is the thing that prohibits Walmart from selling e.g. a DVR-like device that allow you back up all your DVDs and stream them to your phone whenever you want. There is a serious amount of innovation that doesn't happen because of the lack of that exemption.

ewillbefull 14y ago
> The second is that circumvention tools are prohibited. I don't think "substantial non-infringing uses" should be a standard for tools. These tools are not infringing at all. They do not contain or distribute copyrighted content themselves. In fact they can be small keys, or information tangentially related to the DRM scheme. They can also be various things in various contexts. I think the entire "anti-circumvention tools" part should be removed, period. It's not even helpful for its original purpose and probably unconstitutional (the government cannot criminalize instructions for violating the law). It's also being abused.
- AnthonyMouse 14y ago
  >In fact they can be small keys, or information tangentially related to the DRM scheme. These sound like things that should have substantial non-infringing uses. >I think the entire "anti-circumvention tools" part should be removed, period. So then you need to fix the international agreements. Go for it. I still think we should do what we can in the meantime though.

ensignavenger 14y ago

This is a start, but what you guys really need to do is author specific legislation and then lobby to get a few sponsors to introduce it. Once you have identified a few potential sponsors, we can focus our efforts into lobbying them, ad once it is introduced, we can lobby the rest of Congress to pass it.

wheaties 14y ago

It's great but the only people who it would speak to are technical people. If you started with the section on blind people, then security researchers, then go into detail about other things like getting apps from an app store first, you'd appeal to more people. And if I studied english more I'd have learned how to write that without a run-on sentence.

pdonis 14y ago

Why are we trying to fix the DMCA instead of just trying to get it repealed? What parts of the DMCA are worth keeping?

SoftwareMaven 14y ago
Safe harbor for Internet providers is a pretty important piece of it.
- pdonis 14y ago
  But it's tied together with the requirement to block access on receipt of a takedown notice, which is precisely what gets abused so often. I think this provision is a case of the "cure" being worse than the "disease". (Btw, I'm not sure how much of a "disease" there would be in the absence of this provision anyway. Internet providers could defend against accusations of copyright infringement by pointing at their terms of use, assuming they were smart enough to have them and make customers agree to them, as pretty much all of them are.)
  - darkarmani 14y ago
    Terms of use don't insulate them from contributory copyright infringement charges.
    - pdonis 14y ago
      Why not?
      - darkarmani 14y ago
        Because you are still contributing. The DMCA is the only thing that provides the safe harbor to prevent this claim. It's the only good part of the law.
        pdonis 14y ago

eulo 14y ago

The douches just took down a nice repo I've been using https://github.com/designmodo/Flat-UI https://github.com/designmodo/Flat-UI

aptwebapps 14y ago

We don't need a set of permanent exemptions, we need to repeal the anti-circumvention provision. Not the whole DMCA, although there are other parts that could use adjustment. This provision stifles innovation all over the place and I seriously doubt it has any significant impact on piracy, which was it's original intent.

larkinrichards 14y ago

Totally support this. Also, Streem is listed twice as a supporter. Mistake?