The DMCA was intended to protect copyright holders from having their work stolen or reproduced online. Too often, however, the DMCA is used as a weapon for rights holders to bully competitors, critics, and even fans discussing their work online. Lindsay Ellis, prominent YouTube creator, will discuss her run-ins with DMCA notices after she published a video that was critical…

Chairman Tillis, Ranking Member Coons, Members of the Committee, thank you for giving me the opportunity to testify today about voluntary agreements. This is an issue that Re:Create’s members care deeply about. Re:Create is a coalition that represents a diverse set of creators, innovators and internet users — groups that overlap with each other more and more over the last…

Lawmakers Attempt To include Controversial IP Bills In Unrelated Government Funding Bill. Protocol reported on last-minute efforts to include the CASE Act, Trademark Modernization Act and felony streaming legislation “at the eleventh hour.” A group of 18 organizations, including Re:Create, sent a letter to congressional leadership asking to remove these proposals from government funding bills. “This backroom deal to empower…

We are at a critical juncture in the world of copyright claims. The “Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims Enforcement Act”—the CASE Act—is apparently being considered for inclusion in next week’s spending bill. That is “must pass” legislation—in other words, legislation that is vital to the function of the government and so anything attached to it, related to spending or not, has a…

Washington — Reports indicate there may be a package combining several pieces of proposed intellectual property legislation with a spending bill that must be signed by December 11th. The intellectual property part of the legislation may include the CASE Act, Trademark Modernization Act, and a proposal regarding “streaming.” The Computer & Communications Industry Association has serious concerns about substance and…

DMCA Special Edition: What Public Interest Groups, Libraries, Creator and Consumers Groups Told Senator Tillis About Changes to the DMCA Re:Create Calls For Transparency In DMCA Submission To Sen. Tillis. Re:Create issued a statement following its submissions to Senator Thom Tillis as part of his ongoing review of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA): “In the name of public interest, the Re:Create…

Changes To DMCA Would Hurt Consumers The Most. In a National Journal report on Senator Tillis’ efforts to change the DMCA, Re:Create Executive Director Joshua Lamel warns how American consumers will be hurt the most. “There needs to be a recognition that if they’re going to do something like notice-and-staydown or mandatory filtering, what they’re really doing is making it much…

GitHub recently reinstated the repository for youtube-dl, a popular free software tool for downloading videos from YouTube and other user-uploaded video platforms. GitHub had taken down the repository last month after the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) abused the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s notice-and-takedown procedure to pressure GitHub to remove it. By shoehorning DMCA 1201 into the notice-and-takedown process, RIAA potentially…

Library Of Congress Celebrates 20 Years Of Veterans History Project. The Library of Congress celebrated the 20th anniversary of its Veterans History Project this week with a series of virtual concerts and panel discussions. Started by Congress in 2000, the Veterans History Project was created to compile stories and recollections from U.S. war veterans and make them accessible to the…

On October 20, Twitch streamers woke up to find that thousands of their videos had been permanently, and without advance notice, wiped from the platform. Not only did Twitch blatantly violate the law (leaving it vulnerable to user lawsuits), the incident also shows how the Digital Millennium Copyright Act fails utterly at protecting individual speech […]