Category Takedown

The Implementation of Art. 17 DSM-Directive in Germany: A Primer with Some Comparative Remarks

[Matthias Leistner] Abstract: The implementation of the DSM-Directive in the European Member States is underway.... In regard to Art. 17, two basic models have emerged. Many Member States, in particular France, closely follow the wording of the Directive with only rather minor differences concerning the legislative technique and certain details, such as the definition of the OCSSPs. By contrast in Germany, the legislator, on the basis of an historic and contextual interpretation as well as interpretation in conformity with fundamental rights, has enacted a different system. Art. 17 is implemented in a balanced way providing for ex ante safeguards during the blocking and stay down procedure for certain contents which are not manifestly infringing (minor contents, user generated contents) and therefore regarded as presumably authorized by law. This effectively amounts to a collectively remunerated notice and delayed takedown system for such presumably legal contents.

YouTube Copyright Transparency Report: Overblocking is real

[Paul Keller] ... On Monday YouTube published the first edition of its Copyright Transparency Report. The report that covers copyright enforcement actions on the platform for the period from January to June of this year provides much needed insights into how YouTube’s various copyright management systems function... So what can we learn from this first copyright transparency report? The overall take-away is that automated content removal is a big numbers game. In total YouTube processed 729.3 million copyright actions in the first half of 2021 of which the vast majority (99%) were processed via Content ID (as opposed to other tools, such as Copyright Match Tool and the Webform). And while YouTube claims that ContentID is much more accurate and less prone to abuse than its other systems ContentID has still received 3.7 million disputes from uploaders claiming that the actions (these can be blocks/removals but also demonetisation actions) taken against them are unjustified.

An Endless Odyssey? Content Moderation Without General Content Monitoring Obligations

[Christina Angelopoulos and Martin Senftleben] Abstract: In line with the E-Commerce Directive and the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market, the proposed Digital Services Act provides explicitly that intermediaries may not be obliged to monitor their service in a general manner in order to detect and prevent the illegal activity of their users. However, a misunderstanding of the difference between monitoring specific content and monitoring FOR specific content is a recurrent theme in the debate on intermediary liability and a central driver of the controversy surrounding it. Rightly understood, a prohibited general monitoring obligation arises whenever content – no matter how specifically it is defined – must be identified among the totality of the content on a platform. The moment platform content must be screened in its entirety, the monitoring obligation acquires an excessive, general nature.

The Government of Canada Launches Consultation on a Modern Copyright Framework for Online Intermediaries

[Government of Canada] The Government of Canada is committed to ensuring the Copyright Act remains consistent with modern realities and that revenues of web giants are shared fairly with Canadian creators. Building on the stakeholder engagement and committee reports from the 2019 Parliamentary Review of the Copyright Act and other research, the Honourable Steven Guilbeault, Minister of Canadian Heritage, and the Honourable François-Philippe Champagne, Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, are launching a public consultation today on Canada’s copyright framework for online intermediaries to make sure it reflects the evolving digital world.

Publishers Sue Sci-Hub and LibGen in India for Copyright Infringement, Seek to Have Websites Blocked

Three major academic publishers sued Sci-Hub and Libgen for copyright infringement in the Delhi High Court on December 21. Both sites provide unauthorized downloads of academic works to students and researchers. The publishers - Elsevier, Wiley and the American Chemical Society - are asking the judge to require dynamic blocking of the websites.

Monitoring and Filtering: European Reform or Global Trend?

[Giancarlo Frosio and Sunimal Mendis] Abstract: ...Article 17 of the newly enacted EU Directive on the Digital Single Market has come under fire for the heightened level of liability it imposes on online services providers (OSPs) for copyright infringing content stored or transmitted by them. Based on an analysis of case-law from multiple jurisdictions and an overview of industry practice, this chapter seeks to locate the new European reform within a much wider global trend that aims to impose proactive monitoring and filtering obligations on OSPs.

Search Site Blocking – Hiding in Plain Sight

I am spending this week in Lisbon for the Creative Commons 2019 Global Summit. It has been a great few days of conversation, sharing, meeting new friends and exchanging ideas with friends new and old. A lot of the focus in the copyright discussions has been on the enforcement provisions in the recently passed EU Directive. However it, has been clear during many of my discussions that a recent Australian reform expanding the site blocking regime to search engines may have “slipped through to the keeper” (Australian slang for ‘we missed that one’, or ‘that one fell through the cracks’!).

A Final X-Ray of Article 13: Legislative Wishful Thinking that Will Hurt User Rights

[Communia Association] The final version of Article 13 continues to be so problematic that as long as it remains part of the overall package, the directive as a whole will do more harm than good. This is recognised by an increasing number of MEPs who are pledging that they will vote against Article 13 at the final plenary vote. The flowchart below illustrates the main operative elements of Article 13. These include the definition of the affected services, the types of services that are explicitly excluded from its scope (the green box in the top right corner) and the reversal of the liability rules for the services covered by Article 13.

Behind the Scenes of Online Copyright Enforcement: Empirical Evidence on Notice & Takedown

[Sharon Bar-Ziv and Niva Elkin-Koren] Abstract: Copyright enforcement was one of the early challenges to the rule of law on the internet and has shaped its development since the early 1990s. The Notice and Takedown (N&TD) regime, enacted in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, offered online intermediaries immunity from liability in exchange for removing allegedly infringing materials upon receiving notice from rights holders. The unequivocal power of rights holders to request removal and the strong incentives for online intermediaries to remove content upon receiving a removal request have turned the N&TD regime into a robust clean-up mechanism for removing any unwarranted content. The N&TD procedure applies to private facilities, makes use of proprietary software, and is administered by private companies. This enforcement procedure is nontransparent and lacks sufficient legal or public oversight. Unlike copyright enforcement in court, where decisions are made public, we know very little about the actual implementation of the N&TD regime: Which players make use of the system? Who is targeted? What materials get removed and why? How effective is the removal of infringing materials, and does it comply with copyright law?

Internet Shutdown Stories

[CIS-India] Aside from the waves of innovation that the digital revolution brought with it, the ever increasing pervasiveness of the internet has had a tremendous impact on empowerment and freedoms in society. We are seeing unprecedented levels of access to information, along with ademocratization of the means of creation, production and dissemination of information to anyone with an internet connection. ... Simultaneously, however, we are seeing Indian states discover and experiment with their power to clamp down on these new modes of communication for a variety of reasons, ranging from the ill-intentioned to the ill-informed. ...This book seeks to give a glimpse into the lives of those directly affected by these internet shutdown experiments. From Jammu and Kashmir to Telangana, from Gujarat to Nagaland, we have collected 30 stories from across the country for an up-close look at how the everyday lives of common citizens have been impacted by internet shutdowns and website blocks.

“This Video is Unavailable”: Analyzing Copyright Takedown of User-Generated Content on YouTube

[Kristofer Erickson and Martin Kretschmer] Abstract: What factors lead a copyright owner to request removal of potentially infringing user-generated content? So-called “notice-and-takedown” measures are provided in the United States under Section 512 of the U.S. Copyright Act (as amended by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act 1998) and enabled in the European Union under the Directive on Electronic Commerce (2000/31/EC). While the combination of limiting liability (“safe harbor”) and notice-and-takedown procedures was originally conceived as a means of balancing innovation with the interests of rightholders, there has been limited empirical study regarding their effects. This research investigates, for the first time, the factors that motivate takedown of user-generated content by copyright owners.