'Notice And Staydown' The Latest Fad In Copyright Enforcement
from the dedicated-follower-of-fashion dept
Among governments, bad digital policy ideas have a habit of spreading. For example, after France pioneered the “three strikes” approach, it was picked up by a number of other countries, but it is now finally dying a long-overdue death — except in Australia, which evidently missed the memo that this approach demonstrably doesn’t work. Now the latest fashion seems to be “notice and staydown“, which Mike wrote about a couple of months back. After largely abandoning “three strikes”, France may be signing up for this latest hot trend, as TorrentFreak reports:
French anti-piracy agency HADOPI handed the government a long-awaited report on the development of “operational tools” for dealing with online piracy. Several key areas are outlined, including the creation of a new type of takedown notice designed not only to take content offline, but keep it offline for up to six months.
Here are some details:
These notices would oblige a host to “stop and prevent, for a specified period, the reappearance of content that has been identified as constituting an infringement of copyright or related rights on the site.”
It’s suggested that these kinds of orders could be valid for up to six months but at least initially would only be directed at sites hosting actual files, not links to files such as in the case of BitTorrent indexes.
Although the “staydown” would be for up to six months, rather than forever, as proposed in the US, it’s easy to predict future demands from the copyright industry to extend that limit when it doesn’t have the desired results, and to include BitTorrent indexes as well. And there’s no way smaller companies and startups could cope with the huge task of monitoring uploads for things that have to “staydown”. All-in-all, then, this seems destined to join “three strikes” in the digital dustbin of history, along with all the other failed enforcement approaches. The question is: what will be the next bad idea governments adopt?
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Filed Under: copyright, enforcement, france, hadopi, notice and staydown
Comments on “'Notice And Staydown' The Latest Fad In Copyright Enforcement”
This is just like gun control. Every time it looks like gun control will take place, it is a boon for gun sales when everyone runs out an loads up on their favorite weapon.
When I see stuff this this for copyright, I go out and load up on my favorite shows.
Maybe the MPAA and the RIAA are actually trying to get us to download their shows and music.
.gov sites
Can I just do one for every .gov site and be done with it?
The content industry has no idea of how to defeat piracy, or even reliably identify their own works, so they are getting governments to pass the task on to other people. When these others fail to solve the problems, just like the content industry has, they will be sued out of existence, which will solve the on-line piracy problem by eliminating the Internet.
/Almost sarc but …
How is this supposed to actually work?
Presume that content X1 (let’s say, a video in mp4 format) has been so tagged. Its checksum is computed and it’s added to a database which is checked when content is uploaded; if anything comes along matching it, the content is rejected.
So the uploader now trims .1 seconds of video off the end, generating content X2, whose checksum will not match, and uploads that. How is any host supposed to figure this out? (Note that the modification could be even smaller: changing a single pixel in a single frame would also modify the checksum.)
Sure, differential comparison would reveal that X1 and X2 differ only slightly, but unlike a checksum, which can be computed once and reused, determining that X1 and X2…and X3 and X4 and Xn are or aren’t likely the same would become computationally intractable as n becomes large.
I wonder if the proponents of this measure have thought through all this and have realized that the only way to comply will be full manual review — which will slow the posting of content to a crawl. I wonder if that’s really their goal.
Re: How is this supposed to actually work?
you could also append junk data to the end of a file to change the checksum, put it in an encrypted archive or a bazillion other things.
Re: How is this supposed to actually work?
Of course the proponents haven’t thought anything through. They might as well not have brains at all for all the thinking they do.
Re: How is this supposed to actually work?
God, pirates really are stupid. It’s simple. You just use magic. That also takes care of fair use issues: you just have to word your incantation properly. Have none of you ever pirated Harry Potter?
Shooting the messenger
“It’s suggested that these kinds of orders could be valid for up to six months but at least initially would only be directed at sites hosting actual files, not links to files such as in the case of BitTorrent indexes.”
The most laughable part of all. You’re going to go on sites like Youtube and take down what’s probably legitimate content while the people who don’t give a f#@! continue to actually watch your content for free.
At least in the past, as weak as their strategies may have been, at least it aimed toward the actual problem of piracy. It seems now you’re just attacking everything and anything for the sake of attacking it.
The question is: what will be the next bad idea governments adopt?
No, the real question is: How much damage will governments do before they realize Hollywood is lost in its own fantasy world.
I think from now on when people get arrested, they should then just be let go later that day. I mean, that’s how the DMCA works, right?
Re: Re:
no, that is corporate law you are think of.
They can have ‘notice and staydown’ when they actually abide by the rules they wrote.
stay down is an impossibility technologically. Not to mention its not a websites job to act as the copyright police.
Next
Unfortunately stay down is not impossible. Just ban the individual from uploading anything for the stay-down period–easy.
“The question is: what will be the next bad idea governments adopt?”
It will be equally bad, or worse, whatever it is; there is no bottom to this hole. MCAA and RIAA won’t be happy until you pay for every second of music you sing in the shower for your own enjoyment, and every scrap of dialog you repeat.
Re: Next
That will not achieve stay down because other people can upload the same content, and probably will.
Re: Next
“Just ban the individual from uploading anything for the stay-down period–easy.”
How is that easy?
Oh please, cry me a river… “And there’s no way smaller companies and startups could cope with the huge task of monitoring uploads for things that have to “staydown”.
It’s easy to “cope” just employ the the innovative you so routinely tout. It ain’t that hard to employ fingerprinting tech to UGC sites (and that’s really what we’re talking about.
So tired of this crap that somehow infringing content (whether music, movies, e-books, etc.) have a right to be online without permission of the rights holder. Keep using the same old tired whines about the RIAA/MPAA….They don’t represent the majority of creators who are negatively impacted by content theft. Creators are sick and tired of piracy apologists trying to rationalize what is inherently (organized) theft for monetization. I don’t give a crap about the little guys….just the sites (new or old) that are created using a business model built on theft.
Re: Re:
That’s true – but when there is literally no legal availability in some countries because the media companies will not license their works….what else is someone to do?
There’s plenty of stuff that itnerests me on Hulu, that I would happily pay for…but it’s not available in my country.
Also, you seem to have stolen those talking points. Did you pay for them?
Re: Re:
“somehow infringing content (whether music, movies, e-books, etc.) have a right to be online without permission of the rights holder”
This is an argument almost nobody is making.
Re: Re:
Who provides the originals, and via what means so that the fingerprinting can be carried out. Further are official releases identified, and how is fair use provided for. Fingerprinting is not easy, and distinguishing legal from infringing copies is even harder, even if a license database is provided.
Re: Re:
Yup – just force someone else to play the game of “whack-a-mole” that’s worked so well in combating piracy so far.
Can’t see how “innovation” like that would fail…but then again, what do YOU care? It’s not like YOU have to pay for another failed experiment.
No go cry ME a river, and while you’re at it, produce something worth buying.
Re: Re: Re:
And sell it at a price worth paying!
Re: Re:
Finally someone who sees through these pirates. These thieves are so stupid. In fact, I can even guess their next argument: “But what about fair use, waaaaaa!” It’s simple. You just innovate an AI that’s as knowledgeable as IP lawyers and the Supreme Court combined that will detect if a use is fair or not. Haven’t any of you ever pirated Electric Dreams? All you have to do is spill some soda on a keyboard. How hard can it be?
Re: Re:
They don’t represent the majority of creators who are negatively impacted by content theft
Yet this is exactly what they claim in half their media campaigns. (Don’t expect them to actually follow up though; that would require actually paying the artists with the money from RIAA settlements.)
created using a business model built on theft
So you would be against a business model designed to lock content creators out of their profits via contracts and legal coercion?
“it’s easy to predict future demands from the copyright industry to extend that limit when it doesn’t have the desired results, and to include BitTorrent indexes as well.”
According to what i have just seen in my crystal ball the notice and stay down period length will be for more than the copyright duration length that we have now i.e. lifetime of owner plus 90 years (or whatever the number of years it is at the moment) which will be increased to lifetime minus one day if piracy still exists.
Isn’t this really receive one notice, block France. Because that’s how I’d implement a solution.
Re: Re:
I wouldn’t even both with the ‘receiving one notice’ bit. Just block France.
Great Staydown
I think it should be Life +70 years, that will for sure help innovation, and creativity. I wonder what ISP would do if they couldn’t have customers due to an infringed copy of Beastie Boys GIRLS song.