CO DMCA Section 512 Study Evaluates if Law 'Best Policy' for 21st Century, Fletcher Heald Lawyer Says
The Copyright Office's study of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's Section 512 evaluates “whether a law passed in the 20th Century is still the best policy in the 21st,” Fletcher Heald copyright lawyer Kevin Goldberg said in a blog post…
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Wednesday. The CO sought further comment last week on how to improve Section 512's notice-and-takedown process and safe harbors (see 1611080021). DMCA is the product of a “different time” given that less than 5 percent of the world's population used the internet when the law was enacted in 1998, Goldberg said. “The purpose of Section 512 was to try and keep small copyright infringement disputes out of the courts -- especially those which might be filed against [ISPs] who could otherwise be sued for the infringing activities of third parties,” Goldberg said. “Copyright owners don’t love this regime because it often amounts to a game of 'whack-a-mole.'” Meanwhile, website operators and some other parties “feel a burden to keep up, even as they acknowledge that they are benefiting from the immunity provisions,” Goldberg said. “Many individuals and free speech organizations feel the notice-and-takedown regime is too weighted in favor of copyright owners, putting individual webizens in a defensive position upon the filing of any Takedown request.”