Repeat Infringers Can Be Mere Downloaders, Court Rules (torrentfreak.com) 121
A 10-year-old copyright case has prompted an interesting opinion from a US appeals court. In determining the nature of a "repeat infringer" (which service providers must terminate to retain safe harbor), the court found these could be people who simply download infringing content for personal use. The case was filed by recording labels EMI and Capitol against the since long defunct music service MP3Tunes nearly a decade ago. The site allowed, among other things, the ability to store MP3 files and then play it remotely on other devices. The site also allowed users to search for MP3 files online and add them to MP3Tunes service. This is what the recording labels had a problem with, and they sued the site and the owner. TorrentFreak adds: The case went to appeal and yesterday the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals handed down an opinion that should attract the attention of service providers and Internet users alike. The most interesting points from a wider perspective cover the parameters which define so-called 'repeat infringers.' [...] Noting that the District Court in the MP3Tunes case had also defined a 'repeat infringer' as a user who posts or uploads infringing content "to the Internet for the world to experience or copy", the Court of Appeals adds that the same court determined that a mere downloader of infringing content could not be defined as a repeat infringer "that internet services providers are obligated to ban from their websites." According to the Court of Appeal, that definition was too narrow. "We reject this definition of a 'repeat infringer,' which finds no support in the text, structure, or legislative history of the DMCA. Starting with the text, we note that the DMCA does not itself define 'repeat infringers'," the opinion reads. Noting that 'repeat' means to do something "again or repeatedly" while an 'infringer' is "[s]omeone who interferes with one of the exclusive rights of a copyright," the Court of Appeals goes on to broaden the scope significantly. [...] The notion that the term 'repeat infringer' can now be applied to anyone who knowingly (or unknowingly) downloads infringing content on multiple occasions is likely to set pulses racing. How it will play out in practical real-world scenarios will remain to be seen, but it's certainly food for thought.
and if I shoplift a rack full of CD's it's just s (Score:5, Insightful)
and if I shoplift a rack full of CD's it's just one change of shoplifting.
Re:and if I shoplift a rack full of CD's it's just (Score:4, Interesting)
Just wait until they find infringing content on a server that supports HTTP byte-range requests. Just using a download manager to get a single file could be 10-15 counts.
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The byte is just an arbitrary abstract boundary, but individual bits are a hard limit. A single 5MB file will be a bit over 41 million counts of infringement.
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Copyright infringement isn't stealing.
If you steal a rack full of CDs on Tuesday and go back and steal another rack full of CDs on Wednesday, aside from stealing from a very stupid shop, I'm pretty sure you would get two separate shoplifting charges.
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But in this case, acquiring the song the first time would be the only act of infringement. After that, you're only utilizing content that was previously infringed. You aren't charged with shoplifting every time you listen to a stolen CD.
Re:and if I shoplift a rack full of CD's it's just (Score:5, Insightful)
Because copyright law is bunch of crude analogies hacked together that used the physical encodings of information as a proxy for a creator's financial interests in a work. It worked great in the age of print when mainly you were talking about books which were cheap to mass produce but expensive to copy.
But today, conceptualizing an author's rights to a work as a monopoly on copying leads to nonsensical results. Suppose I download a song to the same computer twice, as can easily happen. Technically because the thing I did wrong was copying, I infringed *twice*; however it hardly does twice the harm to the author's interests. On the other hand if I copy that song once but listen to it a thousand times, you could reasonably argue I'm doing more harm to the author's interest than if I downloaded it a thousand times but *never* listened to it.
It's all just a way to get content creators paid; a ridiculously complex and arcane way, but it's familiar because it's traditional. You can't expect it to make sense, especially by trying to draw subtly different analogies.
Abandonware and right to repair need to fixed as w (Score:4, Interesting)
Abandonware and right to repair need to fixed as well.
Hell there have been places that have bought out the rights IP of some place and then they go after people who are selling repair parts / shunting down websites with free repair guides. Some even want people to pay aging for software that own just to be able to run it in a VM on newer hardware.
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Abandonware and right to repair need to fixed as well.
Right to repair needs to be fixed so that we can preserve our precious resources, I'm with you there. Abandonware can be fixed by just saying no to closed source software, and the cultural impact of losing some games is pretty minimal.
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For many things, you can't avoid closed-source software. There's more than games that can be abandonware; there's books, music, videos, and more, and losing them can have cultural impact. It wasn't as bad back when we had reasonable copyright duration, since if you had a copy of something and couldn't find the copyright holder you could wait for 14 or 28 years from the copyright date (and I believe the copyright extension would be a matter of public record, if you cared to check). Nowadays we have ridic
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Suppose I download a song to the same computer twice, as can easily happen. Technically because the thing I did wrong was copying, ...
No, you're making the same mistake as the judge in the article. The one who makes the copy and distributes it across the Internet is always the uploader, not the downloader. You didn't make a copy, the person who uploaded the file to you made a copy. The DMCA should not be considered applicable to "mere downloaders" because "mere downloaders" aren't doing anything which would infringe on copyright, namely making or distributing copies or publicly performing the work. That's all on the uploaders.
You do make
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Well, I'm presuming the downloader is making a copy on his local storage for later use. If he's streaming it's different (sort of).
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IANAL, but I've heard that actions are never performed by machines. They're performed by humans. If I download something, I'm the one performing an action that causes a copy. Consider it something like the host having a copy machine sitting around with a copyrighted document in it. The person who pushes the button is the one who makes the copy.
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Woah there pardner. I went to an outlet, they said we own this and watch this commercial and you can have it, exchange of labour for the product. So I provided them with the use of my time, something I consider to be of valuable worth and in turn they let me download the free copy they promised me in return for my time. Consider anyone, absolutely any can buy a copy of that content and should they so choose sell it by what ever means possible and to whom ever possible, keep in mind the actual real value of
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I simply can't understand what you're trying to say in your first paragraph, but someone who makes a copy without a license (or other authority; for example, if you have a legitimate copy of software you can make all necessary copies necessary to run it) is infringing copyright, and it's normal to sue for statutory damages if it's a registered copyright, regardless of whether there was any actual loss.
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Actually, that's unlikely to be true.
They're liable to charge you individually for each on if they're in a mood. The DA may simplify it down, but it's quite common to have many booked charges related to a single 'charge' as people see it. Just ask anyone who's been charged for 14 counts of this and 137 counts of that which happens all the time. Hell, punch someone in the face and you'll probably see 4 or 5 charges as a result.
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I get you're trying to make a point, but you are likely incorrect. When was the last time you saw a single crime ever get only one charge? They usually have half a dozen charges in order to force you to plea.
Not Unexpected (Score:4, Insightful)
[Fascism Intensifies]
When you give government all these powers to do all this social-engineering and other crap, you can expect that they will be corrupted and conspire against the people with those with wealth and power in the private sector. It's human nature and why the founders did not want the government having the sort of scope and power it does today. The results speak for themselves.
Strat
Re:Not Unexpected (Score:5, Interesting)
Really, they are only strictly interpreting the text of the law as written - legislating from the bench is against the separation of powers defined in the Constitution. What needs to happen now is an updated law to clarify this to the original intent (and hopefully grant amnesty to anyone wrongly covered). Doubtful that will ever happen, but that's what should happen.
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Really, they are only strictly interpreting the text of the law as written - legislating from the bench is against the separation of powers defined in the Constitution. What needs to happen now is an updated law to clarify this to the original intent (and hopefully grant amnesty to anyone wrongly covered). Doubtful that will ever happen, but that's what should happen.
I'm not sure what needs to be clarified, a repeat offender seems like a common and trivial concept that the District Court completely messed up by tying it to a particular action. The entire point of using the word repeated is to punish a consistent pattern of behavior, it applies to everything from shoplifters to serial killers. Why should downloaders be an exception? For that matter, why should uploaders be singled out in particular? If I screw up and put something in my shared folder that I shouldn't ha
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Why should downloaders be an exception? For that matter, why should uploaders be singled out in particular?
Because the uploader is the supplier, they are the one infringing the copyright. You might be creating the copy because I'm asking you to, but that doesn't change the fact that it's you making the copy, and that is the part of the transaction that is copyright infringement.
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This is an absurd position to take and simple technical details fail to support it. The copy doesn't exist until it appears on the downloader's system, the uploader is never in possession of it.
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I doesn't appear by magic. I (or my bittorrent, http, ftp, gopher, etc client) say "give me a copy of that" and you provide me the bits.
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More precisely, I set up a server on the net that will send you a copy of something when it receives a request. I'm setting things up so that you can make a copy. If nobody tries to download it, no copies are made and I may well be in the clear legally. If you send the request, you are initiating the action that creates the copy.
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I'm not sure you are correct. The court itself said the term was ambiguous and undefined by the legislation. Claiming that a change from an earlier interpretation is "only strictly interpreting the text of the law as written" does not, therefore, seem a valid statement.
OTOH, it may well be easily within a reasonable interpretation of the law as written. But the summary didn't present an argument that the earlier interpretation isn't also within a reasonable interpretation of the law as written..it just
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A district court judge said the law meant one thing. The appeals court decided that it meant another, similar, thing. In the case of an ambiguous law, this is normal procedure. As long as laws are ambiguous and the US court system works like it does now, this is going to happen.
There are cases where Federal law isn't the same across the country, because circuit courts have ruled differently in different circuits, and the Supreme Court hasn't taken a case to establish a national precedent.
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Laws have been completely struck down for the kind of broad and vague legal language they just happily applied.
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It's not unknown for the courts to enforce exactly as written to force the legislative branch's hand.
Bad laws that are selectively enforced are a big mess and if you find them being used like that then the solution is to force the state's hand by challenging the selectiveness.
At that point they either enforce on everyone or the law gets rewritten.
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At that point they either enforce on everyone or the law gets rewritten.
Or they suddenly and mysteriously discover you've got CP on your PC after they conduct a no-knock raid where, sadly, you were 'accidentally' fatally shot multiple times by a 'weapon malfunction' affecting the entire entry team.
Strat
Re: Founders / Hamiltonians (Score:1)
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Hamilton and Madison however both also believed government should be as big as it can be, and democracy with it (which may have been an early stab at arguing for universal suffrage). Madison wrote in the federalist papers that making democracy and government as big as possible was a crucial vanguard against corruption (the exact opposite of what libertarians think) - because big organisations get filled with competing interests, and the more competing interests there is the harder corruption becomes - there
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To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.
As a filmmaker, I DL them for parody usage (Score:1)
Which, as we all know, is a protected usage.
Sadly, I'm a bit lazy about finishing the parody versions, but aren't we all?
Re:As a filmmaker, I DL them for parody usage (Score:4, Interesting)
Copyright isn't stealing. Since property rights are the rights to control a scarce resource, they cannot apply to "creative" works since they are not source. It would make no sense to have property law if there was unlimited land with identical value. If I took a fruit from a fruit vendor but the basket had infinite fruit, he cannot claim I have done anything wrong.
Copyright law itself is a violation of property rights. It tells people that they cannot use their pen and paper to write a copy of someone else's work. It forbids people from writing certain data to their hard disks.
For a more complete explanation of why property rights for "creative" work makes no sense, see: The Case Against IP: A Concise Guide [mises.org] or Against Intellectual Property [mises.org] (73-page Book).
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I looked at your first reference. The author, Stephan Kinsella sets down a system of moral principles that I don't agree with, and says that strict adherence to them is more important than anything else. The fact that I don't agree with his system isn't all that important, but most people disagree, as most people aren't libertarians and Kinsella says quite a few libertarians wrongly sacrifice those principles for ways to get society to work better. At this point, it hardly matters if Kinsella's argument
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When I linked to that article, I wasn't necessarily trying to convince anyone that intellectual property should be abolished. I just wanted to point out that copyright infringement is in no way "stealing."
While the idea that "even if utilitarianism is not a good basis for ethics, that doesn't mean that a fundamental ideology should rule everything, even when the results aren't good for people," is a matter of opinion, I can address your note about slavery. Most libertarians claim that voluntary slavery is n
Sony rootkit (Score:1)
how many Sony root-kit related individuals went to prison?
Interesting, but probably irrelevant (Score:5, Insightful)
First, technically, it's difficult to identify a leecher or someone who only downloads - due to the nature of file transfers and how the various protocols work, you can easily discover uploaders and download complete copies from them (e.g. by finding Napster hosts, bittorrent seeders, etc., and then blocking transfers from everyone except your 'target'). To discover a leecher, however, you have to be a seeder or host and wait for them to download the file from you. And with so many other seeders out there for any file, that doesn't happen often.
Second, even if you did manage to get someone to download the file from you, if you're the copyright owner or acting on the copyright owner's behalf, you put the file online for public distribution! So the downloader can easily argue that they have at least an implied license from you, and they actually obtained a legal copy. Ooops.
Third, even if somehow you get over those two hurdles, a leecher actually can use the "a download only costs 99 cents, so the actual damages due to my infringement are tiny" argument to mitigate the label's giant statutory damage request. This doesn't work for uploaders who are distributing copies, as a distribution license typically costs tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, depending on the work (Michael Jackson paid about $45k each for the distribution licenses for several hundred Beatles songs back in the 1980s, for example). But a mere downloader isn't distributing to anyone.
And finally, though it would be illegal and unethical, if you were accused of downloading something, you could rush out and buy a copy of it with cash, and then claim you were just legally format shifting (albeit by proxy). Maybe your proxy that you got it from is liable for infringement due to their distribution, but if you can legally rip your own CDs for archival purposes, then simply using someone else's drive (and computer, and network connection) to do it shouldn't create liability for you.
So, yeah, could a label go after a mere downloader for infringement? Absolutely, and that's always been true. Are they going to do so, and potentially spend millions knowing they're going to run into those four potentially insurmountable barriers? Hell, no. Not when moviebuff6969 is seeding 50 films on bittorrent.
Disclaimer: I am an IP lawyer, but I'm not your IP lawyer. This is not legal advice, but is purely for (my own) entertainment purposes.
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Is the recipient of a mix CD a copyright infringer? If not, it doesn't make any sense that a downloader would be either.
The one who started out in possession of the media, made and distributed a copy of it, is violating the right to control copying and distribution, i.e. copyright.
Someone who started out with nothing, copied nothing, distributed nothing, but ends up in possession of something that someone else illegally copied and distributed, has done what exactly that violates what law?
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Is the recipient of a mix CD a copyright infringer? If not, it doesn't make any sense that a downloader would be either.
Your argument relies on some sort of distinction between "who makes the copy." In the mix CD case, where it's given to you, yes, you obviously didn't make a copy.
However, if you load up your torrent manager and say "download please!" you are making your own copy, which is then stored locally, just like pushing the button on a copy machine.
The one who started out in possession of the media, made and distributed a copy of it, is violating the right to control copying and distribution, i.e. copyright.
To continue the analogy, it's like a library places a book on a public shelf. You are the one choosing to take it off that shelf, walk over to the copy machine, push t
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However, if you load up your torrent manager and say "download please!" you are making your own copy, which is then stored locally, just like pushing the button on a copy machine.
Only if you actually made a durable copy of the file, and they won't have any evidence of that from the network traffic. All they know is that someone else sent a copy of the file to you. That would support a case against the uploader, but not the downloader. It might be enough to get a warrant to examine the downloader's device for a stored copy of the file, but it's unlikely anyone would go to the effort of actually serving a warrant to recover, at most, a small multiple of the retail value of one copy of
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To continue the analogy, it's like a library places a book on a public shelf. You are the one choosing to take it off that shelf, walk over to the copy machine, push the button, and then take the photocopy home with you.
That's not analogous. A closer analogy would be if I could walk into the library, browse the book titles on the shelf without being able to touch them, and then ask the librarian to photocopy one of them for me to take home. When you download something from a remote server, you're sending it a request to transmit a copy to you. It's up to the other party (and how they've configured their server) whether to comply with that request or not. You're not even in possession of any media to copy until they've alre
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Is the recipient of a mix CD a copyright infringer? If not, it doesn't make any sense that a downloader would be either.
How many mp3s do you download by accident? You're not a "recipient" as a downloader, you're actively infringing on copyright.
I read TFA, and decision is really common sense:
If downloading copyrighted material is infringement, then
downloading copyright material multiple times or habitually is repeat infringement.
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> How many mp3s do you download by accident?
On the modern web, I download plenty of stuff "by accident".
Some of us even alter our web browsers to put somewhat of a lid on the madness.
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If downloading copyrighted material is infringement, then
This antecedent is the matter in question here. Of course it's common sense that the consequent follows from it, but asserting this antecedent is the new thing here. Previously it was held (rightly) that being the recipient of someone else's illegal distribution of an illegal copy was not illegal copying and distribution on your part, but on theirs.
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Is the recipient of a mix CD a copyright infringer? If not, it doesn't make any sense that a downloader would be either.
The one who started out in possession of the media, made and distributed a copy of it, is violating the right to control copying and distribution, i.e. copyright.
It's not about possession, it's about who's in control of the "make a copy" process. If I put something on a server, and you (via your computer) send a GET request, then you're initiating the copying. If you don't have a license to do that, then you're infringing copyright. I may also be infringing copyright by distributing it - it's not a you xor me requirement.
So, this becomes:
Someone who started out with nothing, and directed a system to make them a copy, distributed nothing, but ends up in possession of something that someone else illegally copied and distributed, has done what exactly that violates what law?
Directly infringed copyright, and the law is 15 USC 101 et seq.
Be reasoable (Score:1)
And what happens when you go to any website with copyrighted content? You download it, making a copy, adding it to ram, making a copy, adding it to your web cache, making a copy. Yet no one considers any of those unlicensed acts copyright infringement.
Look, Slashdot claims that the words posted here are owned by the poster. I do not give you the right to copy these words into your memory, your web cache, your network, or your stream. Does that mean I ought to enforce my lawful rights and sue you for up to 1
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Unlike you, the law has concepts such as 'normal operation'. If you post something on the web, 'normal operation' of the web involves those things, and so you can't claim infringement.
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Sure. If I make something I have copyright to available for public torrenting, I can hardly complain if someone torrents it (although I'm sufficiently old to think of anonymous ftp servers instead). Similarly, if I post this on Slashdot, I don't have a complaint coming if someone downloads it and reads it. However, if I take something I have neither the copyright for nor an appropriate license and make it available for torrenting, we're into illegitimate copies, and the law pertaining to those is differ
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If the content in question were kiddie porn, though, a majority would say the user is responsible for the user-agent's behavior. So while you didn't infringe the child pornographer's copyright, you did commit some sort of child pornography offense.
What this t
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It's not about possession, it's about who's in control of the "make a copy" process.
So if I first ask my girlfriend to make me a mix CD, then I become party to her copyright infringement, but if she just does it of her own accord I'm fine?
If asking for a mix CD still leaves me innocent, what if instead I email her asking her to email me a ripped copy back?
What if she has a script in her email that will read properly-phrased incoming emails and email ripped MP3s back?
I ask because I'm not in control of the "make a copy" process when downloading either. I'm asking someone else in possession
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It's not about possession, it's about who's in control of the "make a copy" process.
So if I first ask my girlfriend to make me a mix CD, then I become party to her copyright infringement, but if she just does it of her own accord I'm fine?
Yes. It's called induced infringement - where you induce another to infringe on your behalf.
The rest of your questions have the same answer.
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Find a torrent you want to investigate.
Join that torrent. Don't seed. Just advertise you have the whole thing.
Log any requests, but serve up bum content; fail checksums, or hit protocol errors, simply time out, seed bad data at 1B/s, whatever. You're not giving that tacit license, since you're not feeding proper data.
It's a good thought, but there's the problem - you're not serving up the copyrighted work, so therefore, you don't know that the accused recipients downloaded the copyrighted work... and in fact, you explicitly know that they didn't, because they got crap. Like, if I record myself farting into a microphone for five minutes and then upload it to a network with the label "Creed - new hot single!.mp3", even though you may not be able to tell the diff
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Copyright is one of those weird things where it is or is not a crime depending on the circumstances. It can also be a tort. Clearly a manifestation of the obvious cognitive dissonance inherent in imaginary property.
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I was under the impression that downloading is illegal, but uploading is not, and that is why it is handled in civil, not criminal, court. Is that correct?
Nope, both are illegal, both criminally and civilly. Specifically, 15 USC 504 has civil remedies for copyright infringement, including both copying and distribution. 15 USC 506 has criminal punishments for copyright infringement, including both copying and distribution. The difference? The criminal penalties only attach when the infringement was committed "for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain"; "by the reproduction or distribution, including by electronic means, during any 180
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The braindead law has acquired a body... (Score:3)
Run from the zombies, and be careful not to infringe trademarks and copyrights on zombies while you leg it.
not just uploaders? (Score:2, Interesting)
So I have to verify the copyright status of everything I view on the internet before I view it lest I commit a crime?
Note to Self (Score:3)
Do not seed torrents.
Let me guess... (Score:2)
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put him on the bartman list
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So if you use a copy of Microsoft Office that you didn't pay for but got from "a guy", you can't have civil action against you?
I think you'll find that's not how copyright works, has ever worked or will ever work.
Because at that point, it's not really *copy*right you have to worry about, it's licensing for the original work. To copy it would have been infringement, and you're using an unlicensed copy whether you were the one to copy it or not.
The problem is exactly that judges spent too long reading the la
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Actually, they are correct.
Copyright is about copying and distribution, not about use or consumption. It is quite specific. This decision far overreaches that.
There is a VERY solid natural; law reason for this.
If it were otherwise, and you purchased (or were even gifted) an original looking item, that ended up being a copy, YOU would be
responsible for that fact. That would be a legal disaster to say the least.
However, the court has missed that rather important distinction in this case, and extended responsi
Contradicts the definition of copyright infringeme (Score:5, Interesting)
If you throw all that out the window and instead argue that it's the act of downloading a song which is infringement (which current copyright law does not support), then this becomes really easy. Each downloader becomes liable for a single copy (the one they downloaded). And an appropriate fine would be, say, 3x or 5x the cost of buying the song from a legitimate source. So about $3-$5 per song. Frankly I think that's a much more sensible approach to copyright enforcement than ruining people's lives and depriving them of Internet service because they shared some music files.
But I suspect the *AA is going to want their cake and eat it too, and want to assess hundred-thousand dollar judgments against downloaders as well. This is a slimy and illogical (should be illegal) tactic of turning n crimes into n^2 crimes. If 10 people share a file and each copyright violation costs $100, then there are a total of 9 illegal copies made, and the total damages should be $900. But by the *AA's nonsensical reasoning, each person is responsible for 9 counts of copyright violation, so each person should pay $900, resulting in $10,000 in damages awarded. The math simply doesn't add up - they'd be getting $10,000 in court awards when the law has determined that they've only suffered $900 in damages.
You can't have it both ways. Either one person is liable for all the copyright infringement and you can ruin them financially. Or each person is responsible for a single copyright infringement (the file they downloaded) and you can only fine them a few times what it would've cost to buy the file legitimately.
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I want RIAA to eat a bag full of dicks as much as anyone else.
But if a burglar robs my house and they catch him and his fence in the act of selling my stuff, I want both of them to go to jail.
Is this a thing with civil suits? There's like a zero-sum for damages incurred or something?
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I'm not sure of copyright law here, but it's possible to identify either the uploader or downloader as the creator of the illegal copy and the other as involved in the infringement. Pass that one by a copyright lawyer before trying it in court.
As far as damages go, if there's statutory damages specified the wronged party doesn't have to establish actual damages. The MAFIAA doesn't have to establish that there was any harm suffered as long as the law says they don't have to. My idea of statutory damage
Pay day for Rick Astley? (Score:2)
Who is defending MP3Tunes? (Score:3)
They went bankrupt in 2012. Who's paying for the layers? Or did it take 4 years for the court to issue a ruling?
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"Who's paying for the layers?"
This is likely to be one of the reasons this ruling is so overwhelmingly in favour of the plaintiff. Without a defendant's lawyer to argue the case the court has to proceed on what's in front of it coupled with established law.
For that reason this is a horrible precedent which is likely to be overturned at the next level and ordered returned to the lower court for rehearing.
Interesting copyright infrigement definition (Score:3)
Quoting the article:
Noting that ‘repeat’ means to do something “again or repeatedly” while an ‘infringer’ is “[s]omeone who interferes with one of the exclusive rights of a copyright,” the Court of Appeals goes on to broaden the scope significantly.
“Copyright infringement is a strict liability offense in the sense that a plaintiff is not required to prove unlawful intent or culpability, and a user does not have to share copyrighted works in order to infringe a copyright,” its opinion reads.
That's an interesting copyright infringement definition. I know the MPAA or RIAA are not liable under the DMCA when they misuse it to take down the video of a bird singing or a Ubuntu iso file. But in doing so they are interfering with the copyright holder's exclusive distribution right and thus are 'infringing' based on plain copyright law and thus could be sued on that basis. Furthermore we know they abuse the DMCA regularly and thus they are 'repeat infringers' so their ISP should cut off their Internet access, even if they don't illegally share copyrighted works. Sounds promising...
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The DMCA is the law that allows companies to host user-supplied content without facing horrifying legal liability, so that part is good in principle.
Your exclusive right to distribute your copyrighted work doesn't mean you have the right to use any possible means to distribute it. You have no right to key your haiku into the fender of my new car. You have no right to distribute your book by throwing it through my window. More to the point, you have no right to have someone else distribute it for you.
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A DMCA takedown request doesn't prevent you from distributing your work. It informs somebody else that continuing to distribute your work is legally risky, and the somebody else has to decide whether to take your stuff down or face possible liability.
By this definition nobody distributes their copyrighted work themselves: editors, printing companies and transporters do it for book authors, music companies, cd printing plants and transporters do it for musicians, etc. So by your definition it's essentially impossible to interfere with the author's exclusive distribution right. That's nonsensical.
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I've distributed my own copyrighted work myself. A few friends want to read my Nanowrimo novels. As far as editors, printing companies, et al., they're doing what they're doing with a license from the copyright holder. If I hire you to clean up "Heinrich von Sturm and the Russian Underground of Science" (which has gotten such praise as "readable") and publish it on Amazon, you're doing it under license and it's legal. If you get a copy and do that by yourself, it's illegal.
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If I hire you to clean up "Heinrich von Sturm and the Russian Underground of Science" (which has gotten such praise as "readable") and publish it on Amazon, you're doing it under license and it's legal. If you get a copy and do that by yourself, it's illegal.
According to your first post Amazon would be the one doing the distribution, not me. So Amazon would be infringing on your exclusive distribution rights, not me. A lot of "pirates" would love your interpretation of copyright law!
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No, if I hired someone to push my novel on Amazon, and Amazon distributed it, they'd be acting under license. If you told Amazon to distribute it, without a license from me or someone authorized to issue them, Amazon would not have a valid license. It's not that difficult.
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" when they misuse it to take down the video"
There's a penalty of perjury in DMCA claims.
The problem is that the claim is akin to the Chewbacca defense - it frequently has nothing to do with the item being taken down.
IE: "I assert copyright on X, therefore I demand you take down Y"
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