Showing posts with label graduated response laws. Show all posts
Showing posts with label graduated response laws. Show all posts
Monday, June 3, 2013
French Appear Ready to Soften Law on Media Piracy; New York Times, 6/2/13
Eric Pfanner, New York Times; French Appear Ready to Soften Law on Media Piracy:
"Elsewhere, countries that have adopted systems involving warnings and penalties, also known as graduated response, have tended to opt for less draconian measures than France or South Korea, sometimes involving private-sector deals rather than legislation.
In the United States, for example, five major Internet providers recently agreed to put in place a so-called copyright alert system, negotiated with the entertainment industry. Sanctions, which can include a temporary slowdown in Internet access speed, do not kick in until an account holder ignores at least five warnings.
Analysts say that the backtracking by the French could lessen legislators’ enthusiasm for graduated response systems in other countries, at least if they involve the threat of disconnection."
Saturday, August 4, 2012
France will cut funding to its piracy police; paidContent, 8/3/12
Robert Andrews, paidContent; France will cut funding to its piracy police:
"France’s new culture minister is not yet promising to disband the country’s internet piracy enforcement agency, Hadopi. But she already is already planning to cut its budget and to dissuade it from kicking people off the internet."
"France’s new culture minister is not yet promising to disband the country’s internet piracy enforcement agency, Hadopi. But she already is already planning to cut its budget and to dissuade it from kicking people off the internet."
Sunday, July 17, 2011
French copyright cops: we're swamped with "three strikes" complaints; ArsTechnica.com, 7/15/11
Timothy B. Lee, ArsTechnica.com; French copyright cops: we're swamped with "three strikes" complaints:
"We can appreciate that Hadopi has a broad mission, but the three strikes program, with its threat to actually disconnect people from the Internet over online infringement, is what has drawn worldwide attention to France's antipiracy program. For example, we've been covering American ISPs' recent tentative steps toward a "graduated response" strategy of their own. Those ISPs took great pains to distinguish their own policies from a French-style 3-strikes plan, promising that they would not spy on their users or disconnect them from the Internet. Disconnection as a sanction has almost come under attack from the United Nations and from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, both of which say the penalty is disproportionate to the offense."
"We can appreciate that Hadopi has a broad mission, but the three strikes program, with its threat to actually disconnect people from the Internet over online infringement, is what has drawn worldwide attention to France's antipiracy program. For example, we've been covering American ISPs' recent tentative steps toward a "graduated response" strategy of their own. Those ISPs took great pains to distinguish their own policies from a French-style 3-strikes plan, promising that they would not spy on their users or disconnect them from the Internet. Disconnection as a sanction has almost come under attack from the United Nations and from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, both of which say the penalty is disproportionate to the offense."
Friday, May 20, 2011
New Zealand Libraries Considering Shutting Off Public Internet Access To Avoid Three Strikes Law; TechDirt.com, 5/19/11
Mike Masnick, TechDirt.com; New Zealand Libraries Considering Shutting Off Public Internet Access To Avoid Three Strikes Law:
"[I]n order to preserve internet access for those who work at the library, many New Zealand libraries are considering turning off internet access for the public (via TorrentFreak."
"[I]n order to preserve internet access for those who work at the library, many New Zealand libraries are considering turning off internet access for the public (via TorrentFreak."
Monday, November 16, 2009
Viacom's top lawyer: suing P2P users "felt like terrorism"; Ars Technica, 11/16/09
Nate Anderson, Ars Technica; Viacom's top lawyer: suing P2P users "felt like terrorism":
Michael Fricklas, Viacom's general counsel, tells a group of Yale Law students that he's a huge fan of fair use, doesn't want to take down your YouTube mashup, and has no plans to start suing P2P users in federal courts—but he still loves DRM and "three strikes" laws.
"Michael Fricklas is Viacom's general counsel, and it's his job to oversee the company's legal efforts, including its $1 billion lawsuit against YouTube. When people talk about Big Content, they're talking about people like Fricklas.
So it might be surprising to watch him tell a class of Yale law students this month that suing end users for online copyright infringement is "expensive, and it's painful, and it feels like bullying." While the recording industry was big on this approach for a while, Fricklas certainly understands the way it came across to the public when some college student went up against "very expensive lawyers and unlimited resources and it felt like terrorism."
Customers "need to be treated with respect," he added, and that respect extends even to DRM—much of which has been "really bad."...
Kinder, gentler, but still lovin' DRM
Part of the answer is that "Big Content" is of course a convenient fiction; every creator and company has a different outlook, is staffed by different individuals, and relies more or less heavily on exclusive rights under the Copyright Act.
Viacom, for instance, creates copyrighted works every day, but it's also a heavy "fair user." Consider The Daily Show, for instance, and think about just how much of its daily show relies on video footage from other organizations. Fricklas even showed a spoof movie poster that Viacom had done years ago—for which it was sued by famous photographer Annie Leibowitz—and with which it eventually prevailed in court, claiming parodic fair use...
DRM
While bashing the experience of many earlier DRM schemes, Fricklas is a firm believe in the basic concept, saying that it allows consumers to have experiences they could not have without DRM (or not at the same prices)...
Graduated response
Another area of tension between consumers and rightsholders is graduated response, sometimes referred to as "three-strikes" policies that sanction those accused of repeat copyright infringement online. While the content industries like to tout graduated response as a kinder, gentler way to handle these issues, the worldwide public hasn't been sold on the plan. The European Parliament voted several times to ban such schemes unless they had judicial oversight, while France's attempt at passing a graduated response law was defeated once in the legislature and once by the Constitutional Council before finally being passed. New Zealand had to scrap its three-strikes plan and start over after resistance from users and ISPs, and the UK is in the midst of a furious row over the idea. Graduated response has never been introduced in Congress, and no major ISP has agreed to adopt the approach voluntarily.
Still, Fricklas is big on the idea. It's definitely a saner solution to the issue than hauling college kids into federal court, and feature sanctions "more proportional to the harm." (This is certainly debatable when it comes to France-style disconnections and blacklists, however, especially on family accounts.)
And Fricklas wants to make sure that there are rights of appeal, since the process can sometimes be a bit too "guilty until proven innocent."
Michael Fricklas, Viacom's general counsel, tells a group of Yale Law students that he's a huge fan of fair use, doesn't want to take down your YouTube mashup, and has no plans to start suing P2P users in federal courts—but he still loves DRM and "three strikes" laws.
"Michael Fricklas is Viacom's general counsel, and it's his job to oversee the company's legal efforts, including its $1 billion lawsuit against YouTube. When people talk about Big Content, they're talking about people like Fricklas.
So it might be surprising to watch him tell a class of Yale law students this month that suing end users for online copyright infringement is "expensive, and it's painful, and it feels like bullying." While the recording industry was big on this approach for a while, Fricklas certainly understands the way it came across to the public when some college student went up against "very expensive lawyers and unlimited resources and it felt like terrorism."
Customers "need to be treated with respect," he added, and that respect extends even to DRM—much of which has been "really bad."...
Kinder, gentler, but still lovin' DRM
Part of the answer is that "Big Content" is of course a convenient fiction; every creator and company has a different outlook, is staffed by different individuals, and relies more or less heavily on exclusive rights under the Copyright Act.
Viacom, for instance, creates copyrighted works every day, but it's also a heavy "fair user." Consider The Daily Show, for instance, and think about just how much of its daily show relies on video footage from other organizations. Fricklas even showed a spoof movie poster that Viacom had done years ago—for which it was sued by famous photographer Annie Leibowitz—and with which it eventually prevailed in court, claiming parodic fair use...
DRM
While bashing the experience of many earlier DRM schemes, Fricklas is a firm believe in the basic concept, saying that it allows consumers to have experiences they could not have without DRM (or not at the same prices)...
Graduated response
Another area of tension between consumers and rightsholders is graduated response, sometimes referred to as "three-strikes" policies that sanction those accused of repeat copyright infringement online. While the content industries like to tout graduated response as a kinder, gentler way to handle these issues, the worldwide public hasn't been sold on the plan. The European Parliament voted several times to ban such schemes unless they had judicial oversight, while France's attempt at passing a graduated response law was defeated once in the legislature and once by the Constitutional Council before finally being passed. New Zealand had to scrap its three-strikes plan and start over after resistance from users and ISPs, and the UK is in the midst of a furious row over the idea. Graduated response has never been introduced in Congress, and no major ISP has agreed to adopt the approach voluntarily.
Still, Fricklas is big on the idea. It's definitely a saner solution to the issue than hauling college kids into federal court, and feature sanctions "more proportional to the harm." (This is certainly debatable when it comes to France-style disconnections and blacklists, however, especially on family accounts.)
And Fricklas wants to make sure that there are rights of appeal, since the process can sometimes be a bit too "guilty until proven innocent."
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Singing a different tune; Economist, 11/12/09
Economist; Singing a different tune:
The battle against online music piracy is turning. A return to growth will take a good deal longer
"While it is by no means over, the struggle against music piracy is going better than at any point since the appearance of Napster, a file-sharing service, ten years ago.
It has been a brutal decade. In many countries music sales to consumers have fallen by more than a third...
The music business is now doing two things right. First, it has built a better stick. Most countries have virtually abandoned the practice of suing people for downloading copyrighted files. The favoured approach these days is known as “graduated response” or “three strikes and you’re out”. People who are suspected of trading media illegally are sent warnings. If they fail to stop, their internet-service provider (ISP) may slow their connection. If that fails to deter, they may be temporarily cut off...
Almost everywhere in the developed world, such laws are being debated. Even where they are not (America, for example), ISPs are working quietly with the record industry to similar ends.
The trouble with the old practice of suing people for swapping music is that it is slow, expensive and limited. In most countries, being prosecuted for file-sharing is a little like being struck by lightning. The exception is Germany, where a cheap, efficient legal system has made it possible to launch some 100,000 prosecutions. In the past two years the proportion of German internet users who share files illegally has dropped significantly. It now stands at 6%, according to Jupiter Research—less than in any other big European country...
The second change is that the industry is offering tastier carrots. These days the music associations talk less about lawsuits and more about cultivating alternatives to piracy. The past year has seen rapid growth of digital music services that accept the post-Napster consensus that music should be free, or at least appear to be free...
The recorded-music business is not about to lurch into growth. A big proportion of revenues—more than half just about everywhere—still comes from CD albums, which are gradually falling out of favour. Start-ups like Spotify need to turn more freeloaders into paying subscribers if they are to survive and start providing a serious income stream to record companies and artists. And there are still plenty of ways of sneakily copying music.
John Kennedy, head of the IFPI, points out that piracy was rife even before file-sharing. The goal is not to eradicate it—that is impossible—but to tilt the playing field towards legitimate services. That finally seems to be happening. "
http://www.economist.com/businessfinance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14845087
The battle against online music piracy is turning. A return to growth will take a good deal longer
"While it is by no means over, the struggle against music piracy is going better than at any point since the appearance of Napster, a file-sharing service, ten years ago.
It has been a brutal decade. In many countries music sales to consumers have fallen by more than a third...
The music business is now doing two things right. First, it has built a better stick. Most countries have virtually abandoned the practice of suing people for downloading copyrighted files. The favoured approach these days is known as “graduated response” or “three strikes and you’re out”. People who are suspected of trading media illegally are sent warnings. If they fail to stop, their internet-service provider (ISP) may slow their connection. If that fails to deter, they may be temporarily cut off...
Almost everywhere in the developed world, such laws are being debated. Even where they are not (America, for example), ISPs are working quietly with the record industry to similar ends.
The trouble with the old practice of suing people for swapping music is that it is slow, expensive and limited. In most countries, being prosecuted for file-sharing is a little like being struck by lightning. The exception is Germany, where a cheap, efficient legal system has made it possible to launch some 100,000 prosecutions. In the past two years the proportion of German internet users who share files illegally has dropped significantly. It now stands at 6%, according to Jupiter Research—less than in any other big European country...
The second change is that the industry is offering tastier carrots. These days the music associations talk less about lawsuits and more about cultivating alternatives to piracy. The past year has seen rapid growth of digital music services that accept the post-Napster consensus that music should be free, or at least appear to be free...
The recorded-music business is not about to lurch into growth. A big proportion of revenues—more than half just about everywhere—still comes from CD albums, which are gradually falling out of favour. Start-ups like Spotify need to turn more freeloaders into paying subscribers if they are to survive and start providing a serious income stream to record companies and artists. And there are still plenty of ways of sneakily copying music.
John Kennedy, head of the IFPI, points out that piracy was rife even before file-sharing. The goal is not to eradicate it—that is impossible—but to tilt the playing field towards legitimate services. That finally seems to be happening. "
http://www.economist.com/businessfinance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14845087
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