Re:Create Executive Director: Websites We Rely On Actually Rely On Balanced Copyright Law. In an op-ed published by Inside Sources, Re:Create Executive Director Joshua Lamel highlights the increasingly prevalent role the internet plays in our lives during the COVID-19 pandemic and how policy proposals from the entertainment industry would threaten the tools that are keeping us connected as a society. “Without the DMCA, online platforms, which we rely on now during the COVID-19 pandemic more than ever, would be forced to censor content excessively out of an abundance of caution to avoid being liable for copyright infringement,” wrote Lamel. “Imagine an America where hundreds of millions of us are staying at home to stop the spread of a lethal virus while we are deprived of online activities we rely on because we no longer have sensible and equitable copyright laws that include safe harbors.”
ICYMI: Key Takeaways From The Senate IP Subcommittee Hearing On Section 512. Following the U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Intellectual Property hearing on Section 512 of the DMCA, Jonathan Band posted his key takeaways to the Project Disco blog. Band noted that Chairman Tillis and the content industry are clearly seeking to replace the notice-and-takedown framework with “notice-and-staydown,” a policy that other witnesses stated will inevitably involve filtering and that the U.S. Copyright Office specifically declined to recommend in its recent report on Section 512.
Rebalancing DMCA: Good Bumper Sticker, Bad Public Policy. Seth Greenstein of Constantine Cannon LLP published an op-ed in Law360 highlighting the negative impacts that changes to the DMCA would have. Greenstein wrote: “Such ‘notice and stay down’ proposals have been proposed and rejected before, including before the enactment of the DMCA — and for good reason. They are contrary to core principles of copyright and First Amendment rights and should be rejected again.”
The Routine Actions That Would Disappear In A Notice And Staydown World. In a world under a notice and staydown policy (as opposed to the current notice and takedown law under Section 512 of the DMCA) online platforms would be forced to censor user generated content. The Re:Create Coalition posted a list of routine actions that take place everyday that would be threatened in a notice and staydown world of censorship which includes things as simple as posting videos to social media and retweeting.
Get To Know The Niskanen Center: Re:Create has launched a new blog series, Get To Know Our Members, to help others better understand its members and their work in support of balanced copyright policies. The latest post features a Q&A with Daniel Takash, regulatory policy fellow at the Niskanen Center.