Using data from the Chilling Effects Project (which collects cease-and-desist orders related to Internet activity), Jennifer Urban and Laura Quilter have documented rampant abuses of the WIPO Copyright Treaty (the bulk of which is in effect in the US and Europe), primarily related to the treaty's "guilty until proven innocent" rules. The Web version
In this study, we traced the use of the Section 512 takedown process and considered how the usage patterns we found were likely to affect expression or other activities on the Internet. The second level of analysis grew out of the fact that we observed a surprisingly high incidence of flawed takedowns:
- Thirty percent of notices demanded takedown for claims that presented an obvious question for a court (a clear fair use argument, complaints about uncopyrightable material, and the like);
- Notices to traditional ISP’s included a substantial number of demands to remove files from peer-to-peer networks (which are not actually covered under the takedown statute, and which an OSP can only honor by terminating the target’s Internet access entirely); and
- One out of 11 included significant statutory flaws that render the notice unusable (for example, failing to adequately identify infringing material).
In addition, we found some interesting patterns that do not, by themselves, indicate concern, but which are of concern when combined with the fact that one third of the notices depended on questionable claims:
- Over half—57%—of notices sent to Google to demand removal of links in the index were sent by businesses targeting apparent competitors;
- Over a third—37%—of the notices sent to Google targeted sites apparently outside the United States.
As Cory Doctorow at Boing-Boing adds,
WIPO is now considering an even more sweeping version of the treaty that gave us this regime: the new proposals floating around on ISP liability could force ISPs to not only delete material, but to shut off the Internet access of those who are baselessly accused of infringement.
[via Boing Boing]
Posted by johndanseven at November 23, 2005 03:45 PM