Should Websites Charge To Process Copyright Takedowns?

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Charging a fee to process copyright takedowns is quite possibly one of the stupidest things I have heard in a long time. Seriously?

Every day copyright holders send out countless notices which order BitTorrent indexes, cyberlockers, forums, blogs and search engines to remove links to allegedly infringing content. The process is time consuming for everyone involved. So, since time is money, shouldn’t those being burdened by the actions of third parties be compensated for their work? One anti-piracy company says charging for takedowns amounts to extortion.
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Meh, they're just trying to make a buck like everyone else.:rolleyes:
 
Should Websites Charge To Process Copyright Takedowns?

Yes. And the charge should go to the individual who put copyrighted information up in the first place. However, if it is proven that the individual who uploaded the content had the right to do so, then the charge should rest on the head of the person who submitted the takedown notice.
 
TeeJayHoward said:
Yes. And the charge should go to the individual who put copyrighted information up in the first place. However, if it is proven that the individual who uploaded the content had the right to do so, then the charge should rest on the head of the person who submitted the takedown notice.
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That's actually not necessary, as the DMCA already has a world of hurt in store for companies sending out bogus takedown notices.
 
The current system leaves virtually no recourse for victims of false claims. Almost nobody gets prosecuted for false claims, and even if they do, it's just a slap on the wrists.

When a joke review of Terraria was put up, the Terraria creators made a false DMCA claim. The video has since been reinstated, but the joke reviewer lost potential revenue and was falsely slandered because of it.

Then there was the thing with Jay Leno, where NBC perjured themselves and claimed a video that clearly wasn't theirs.



Why should copyright holders be careful with their claims? They know won't get punished! If they wanted to kill off a company, they could send a whole boatload of false claims and bury them, without ever having to bother with the justice system.
 
I guess on a more serious and thoughtful note; we have to pay to use to court system (court fees), maybe it's not that big of a stretch to charge a fee for acting upon a DMCA take-down notice.
 
funny thing is....I'm not against this idea though it should be applied to those with high-volume and especially to those who don't follow the rules required to properly submit a takedown.

I have to deal with copyright trollsrepresentatives on a daily basis and it can get crazy some times mainly due to the lack of technical knowledge some of them have as well as the inability for some of them to follow basic instructions (including those required by law), let alone the grammatical "mistakes" and utter volume of frivolous crap that comes out of their mouths (or keyboard). :D
 
How is this any different than UNITED who charges 50 dollars per ticket to refund your money if the price drops on a ticket you bought within 30 days, 150 if it is over 30 days? While not exactly the same issue it is the same principle.
 
Sounds dumb, but it might be a good way to curtail frivolous abuse of the take down process. The amount of stuff that gets pulled despite it being user created under fair use is pretty crazy.
 
Pirate sites exist because they earn money selling ads that appear on their sites. Who is earning that money is not particularly interesting. Who is buying those ads is a much more interesting question that is rarely asked. I've only ever seen one or two articles about that, and not recently. Why are anti-piracy groups and the media so uninterested in who is buying those ads?
 
InorganicMatter said:
That's actually not necessary, as the DMCA already has a world of hurt in store for companies sending out bogus takedown notices.
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Doesn't stop them...

I think so, but if the process shows that there was copyright infringement, then the cost should land on the uploader (hard to do with torrents and such, though).
 
Ur_Mom said:
Doesn't stop them...
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That's the big problem today, in my opinion.

The DMCA's "world of hurt" is rarely, if ever, enforced. If you're a copyright holder, you're practically immune from any repercussions and get to run a para-justice system where, in your court, it's guilty-until-proven-innocent. The DMCA handed the copyright holders the titles of judge, jury, and executioner.
 
I see nothing stupid about that. An ISP really has no business dealing with copyrighted material, unless the ISP owns said copyrighted material. To send their customers a letter would need extra paper work they don't wanna pay for. Not forgetting that they just panicked their customer.

Not to forget that said person may not have stolen. God knows how easy it is to accidentally leave ones router open for your neighbors. I was big into mac address filtering, but I get so many people that come over that need to use it, I find it easier just to disable it for a while. Then realizing a week later I disabled my only security method. That's why I use WPA2 only now.

Lets be honest here, those letters do nothing. The only reason people in America infring less then other countries is because Americans are too lazy to wanna try. To them it's easier to run to the store.
 
Steve said:
Charging a fee to process copyright takedowns is quite possibly one of the stupidest things I have heard in a long time. Seriously?
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This sounds like one of the best ideas I have heard in a long time? I don't see how anyone could in good conscious not support something like this.

There are regularly massive amounts of DMCA requests submitted by the various copyright groups (RIAA, MPAA, Universal, etc) that target legitimate content, or content protected under the safe harbor provisions of the DMCA.

Unfortunately, due to the costs involved in fighting a take down notice, many choose not to.

For these company's there is absolutely no incentive to carefully review content, as they can simply send thousands of takedown notices..

If you put some kind of "fee" into the system, it encourages more fair play.
 
I don't see why there shouldn't be a fee. Most places charge fees for information (background checks, data lookups, etc). The fee would to research the claim for authenticity, not to take the offending material off.
 
Well that would be one way to prevent scientology from using BS take down notices. They just love their money.
 
I think EVERY take down notice should be required to include exact information on what copyright is being infringed on. Whatever it is, only the copyright holder should be able to request takedowns. They also need to provide legitimate documentation showing that they hold the copyright as well as legitimate documentation on why it is not fair use.

And websites should charge a fee to process the takedown notice unless it is the webmaster or one of the site owners that personally posted the infringing content.

As for the copyright holder recovering fees for takedown notice fees, the webmaster can give them the info on the person who posted the infringing content.

All this would probably stop most takedown notices.
 
You get exactly 1 strike, if you ever screw up and request something you had no right to request be taken down, you will forever be charged a $10 fee every time you need something processed.
 
Not stupid at all. Very smart and savvy as well as a counter balance to all the big media lies.

Too many stories out there, many in fact that I've read about bullshit take down notices. Start making them pay. Hell of of a plan.

Charge them $50 - $100 a take down notice. Make them think twice before they pull some poor guys home video or music that he hand made off Youtube because of some BS lie. Kinda like what Leno did.
 
Well, imagine [H] getting hit with 1000 requests a day, its possible... according to Google's submission on the NZ copyright law which was introduced, about 70% of DCMA notices filed to youtube were false.
 
BloodDonor said:
Well, imagine [H] getting hit with 1000 requests a day, its possible... according to Google's submission on the NZ copyright law which was introduced, about 70% of DCMA notices filed to youtube were false.
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Hmm, they could do that it's a fee to process, if it turns out to be legit then the fee is reversed.
 
SixFootDuo said:
Not stupid at all. Very smart and savvy as well as a counter balance to all the big media lies.

Too many stories out there, many in fact that I've read about bullshit take down notices. Start making them pay. Hell of of a plan.

Charge them $50 - $100 a take down notice. Make them think twice before they pull some poor guys home video or music that he hand made off Youtube because of some BS lie. Kinda like what Leno did.
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Put it closer to $1,000-$3,000. Not like they can't afford it.
 
sfsuphysics said:
You get exactly 1 strike, if you ever screw up and request something you had no right to request be taken down, you will forever be charged a $10 fee every time you need something processed.
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"1 strike" or "3 strike" laws are rarely a good idea. I think the fee should scale with the severity of the offense, and to the size of the company that's trying to squash content.
 
ballistic90 said:
"1 strike" or "3 strike" laws are rarely a good idea. I think the fee should scale with the severity of the offense, and to the size of the company that's trying to squash content.
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Or a fee that varies with how many false takedown requests a company makes in a given time period.

Original Article said:
One anti-piracy company says charging for takedowns amounts to extortion.
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So they're whining because if a fee were to be instated they would have to play fair and actually vet the content in question (in turn, driving up their "costs") before sending a takedown notice. I'd say I hear the worlds smallest violin playing for them but I'd be lying since they already sent the violinist a takedown notice.
 
That's exactly what I've heard for years now. That most of the take down notices, %70 to %80 world wide were false take downs. I read this on Wired.com sometime ago.

These are the same people that lobby and want to get laws passed that control everything. Big Media absolutely hates youtube for the freedom and choices it gives everyone. eBay and paypal hate craigslist. I could go on and on.

It's all related, trust me.

Society is moving away from controlled content. We already have many artists out there that release their music on their own. This scares the hell out of the people that have been making a living off the backs of artists for years.
 
I have to agree with the guy running H33T. If it's worth that damn much to them that they pay an outside agency to do their legwork for them then why not skip the middle man and pay the host to take care of the issue? It seems to me they don't want the problem to really go away. After all, if piracy did disappear they'd have nothing to bitch about and then how would they make money suing people? They'd have to actually produce talent-driven content to make sales again. It's in the interest of the RIAA and MPAA for piracy to remain a "problem". It gives them an excuse to abuse the legal system so they can continue to extort money out of people.
 
I think they should pay a nominal fee also, make them actually research what they are taking down hopefully. Might actually mean a little more equality in copyright vs free speech issues instead of shoot first, ask questions later.
 
Phoenix333 said:
I have to agree with the guy running H33T. If it's worth that damn much to them that they pay an outside agency to do their legwork for them then why not skip the middle man and pay the host to take care of the issue? It seems to me they don't want the problem to really go away. After all, if piracy did disappear they'd have nothing to bitch about and then how would they make money suing people? They'd have to actually produce talent-driven content to make sales again. It's in the interest of the RIAA and MPAA for piracy to remain a "problem". It gives them an excuse to abuse the legal system so they can continue to extort money out of people.
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Exactly.
 
Steve said:
Charging a fee to process copyright takedowns is quite possibly one of the stupidest things I have heard in a long time. Seriously?
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This must be an Ex /. employee here writing these titles.

I would LOVE if the entity making the claim had to pay a nominal fee. They would think twice before requesting a take down and give it a little more thought if the use is indeed infringing or not.

If the take down is determined legitimate by a court of law then the wronged party would recover all their expenses in judgement.
 
I think there should be a fee.I tried to find a Crazy Guggenheim clip from the Jackie Gleason show in the '50s to show my wife. I followed about 50 or 60 links from YouTube, and every one of them had the removed because of copyright violation notice. These clips aren't even available for purchase, anywhere. I looked. If you are not selling them, how can you claim a monetary loss? These were from the '50's, for whatever diety's sake you observe. They will only lose popularity/profitability withholding them.
 
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