Category Takedown

Mexican Senate Passes Changes to Copyright Law That Would Censor Content Online

April 27, 2018: Digital rights organisations in Mexico are sounding the alarm after the Senate approved changes to the copyright law that would censor information online. The measures would allow for the preemptive removal of content without having to prove that a copyright infringement has actually taken place. Yesterday the Senate approved the modifications to the Federal Copyright Law, with 63 votes in favor, 11 against, and 23 abstentions. The Senate voted with little internal discussion, and without the knowledge of or input from civil society organisations or the public.

My CRTC Submission on the Bell Coalition Site Blocking Plan: Why it is Disproportionate, Harmful, and Inconsistent With Global Standards

The CRTC’s deadline for submissions on the Bell coalition website blocking plan closed last week, with more than 10,000 people and organizations filing directly with the CRTC. The interventions including a warning from the U.N. Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression that the blocking plan “raises serious inconsistencies” with Canada’s human rights obligations, fears from ISPs that the plan will increase Internet costs for consumers, expert analysis on the technical risks of site blocking, and detailed reviews of the many problems with the plan. My submission has not yet been posted online, but is available in full here.

‘This Video is Unavailable’: Analyzing Copyright Takedown of User-Generated Content on Youtube

[Kris Erickson and Martin Kretschmer] This research investigates factors that motivate takedown of user-generated content by copyright owners. We study takedowns within an original dataset of 1,839 YouTube music video parodies observed between January 2012 and December 2016. We find an overall rate of takedowns within the sample of 32.9% across the 4-year period. We use a Cox proportional hazards model to investigate the factors that lead to removal of videos. The variables analysed include commercial substitution, artistic/moral concerns, cultural differences between firms and YouTube uploader practices. The main finding is that policy concerns frequently raised by rightholders are not associated with statistically significant patterns of action.

David and Project Goliath

The name the Motion Picture Association of America used for its anti-Google campaign—“Project Goliath”—may be more self-revelatory than the MPAA expected. It has been widely reported that the hacked Sony Pictures emails reveal that in early 2014, MPAA launched Project…