RIAA President Cary Sherman recently posted a statement responding to last week’s summary judgement in the Viacom lawsuit against YouTube decrying the decision as a “dangerously expansive reading of the liability immunity provisions of the DMCA.” He also called it “bad public policy.”
He went on to claim the decision will “will actually discourage service providers from taking steps to minimize the illegal exchange of copyrighted works on their sites.”
This is nothing surprising coming from the RIAA. Like the MPAA and Business Software Alliance (BSA), they have consistently argued service providers should be responsibile for identifying copyright infringement rather than the content owners themselves.
But as Judge Louis Stanton pointed out in his decision on YouTube’s DMCA defense, this responsibility falls solely on the shoulders of the content owners except in rare cases where the infringement is obvious without any investigation.
He wrote, “The DMCA is explicit: it shall not be construed to condition “safe harbor” protection on “a service provider monitoring its service or affirmatively seeding facts indicating infringing activity.””
Judge Stanton went on to explain, “the present case shows that the DMCA notification regime works efficiently,” pointing out that it took less than a single business day for YouTube to remove nearly 100,000 videos once they received Viacom’s takedown notices.
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Result for: copyright infringement
RIAA President Cary Sherman recently posted a statement responding to last week’s summary judgement in the Viacom lawsuit against YouTube decrying the decision as a “dangerously expansive reading of the liability immunity provisions of the DMCA.” He also called it “bad public policy.”
He went on to claim the decision will “will actually discourage service providers from taking steps to minimize the illegal exchange of copyrighted works on their sites.”
This is nothing surprising coming from the RIAA. Like the MPAA and Business Software Alliance (BSA), they have consistently argued service providers should be responsibile for identifying copyright infringement rather than the content owners themselves.
But as Judge Louis Stanton pointed out in his decision on YouTube’s DMCA defense, this responsibility falls solely on the shoulders of the content owners except in rare cases where the infringement is obvious without any investigation.
He wrote, “The DMCA is explicit: it shall not be construed to condition “safe harbor” protection on “a service provider monitoring its service or affirmatively seeding facts indicating infringing activity.””
Judge Stanton went on to explain, “the present case shows that the DMCA notification regime works efficiently,” pointing out that it took less than a single business day for YouTube to remove nearly 100,000 videos once they received Viacom’s takedown notices.
[More]>>
Result for: copyright infringement
Thirteen major record labels have announced they want to freeze all of LimeWire’s assets, at the same time accusing the founder of the service of trying to evade millions, and possibly billions in damages over copyright infringement.
Last month, U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood found LimeWire guilty of assisting pirates in downloading unauthorized music and movies, and said that founder Mark Gorton personally “directed and benefited from many of the activities” involved.
Lawyers for the labels filed papers this week accusing Gorton of moving 90 percent of LimeWire’s ownership stake to a new entity that he hopes will be shielded from any damages in the lawsuit.
Reads the filing: Gorton and LimeWire “have engaged in a series of fraudulent actions to frustrate a legal judgment in this case…An asset freeze is required in order to ensure that plaintiffs recover at least some of the monetary compensation they are entitled to.”
Despite Wood’s ruling last month, the labels said a quick search of LimeWire showed every recording in Billboard’s Top 40, Top 40 Country, Top 40 Rock and Top 40 Latin Pop charts were still readily available.
Says LimeWire in response: “We will continue to stay focused on the development of our new music service and ensure that the company continues business as usual.”
