EFF Warns Proposed Law Could Create 'Life-Altering' Copyright Lawsuits (forbes.com) 117
Forbes reports:
In July, members of the federal Senate Judiciary Committee chose to move forward with a bill targeting copyright abuse with a more streamlined way to collect damages, but critics say that it could still allow big online players to push smaller ones around -- and even into bankruptcy.
Known as the Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims Enforcement (or CASE) Act, the bill was reintroduced in the House and Senate this spring by a roster of bipartisan lawmakers, with endorsements from such groups as the Copyright Alliance and the Graphic Artists' Guild. Under the bill, the U.S. Copyright Office would establish a new 'small claims-style' system for seeking damages, overseen by a three-person Copyright Claims Board. Owners of digital content who see that content used without permission would be able to file a claim for damages up to $15,000 for each work infringed, and $30,000 in total, if they registered their content with the Copyright Office, or half those amounts if they did not.
"Easy $5,000 copyright infringement tickets won't fix copyright law," argues the EFF, in an article shared by long-time Slashdot reader SonicSpike: The bill would supercharge a "copyright troll" industry dedicated to filing as many "small claims" on as many Internet users as possible in order to make money through the bill's statutory damages provisions. Every single person who uses the Internet and regularly interacts with copyrighted works (that's everyone) should contact their Senators to oppose this bill...
[I]f Congress passes this bill, the timely registration requirement will no longer be a requirement for no-proof statutory damages of up to $7,500 per work. In other words, nearly every photo, video, or bit of text on the Internet can suddenly carry a $7,500 price tag if uploaded, downloaded, or shared even if the actual harm from that copying is nil. For many Americans, where the median income is $57,652 per year, this $7,500 price tag for what has become regular Internet behavior would result in life-altering lawsuits from copyright trolls that will exploit this new law.
Known as the Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims Enforcement (or CASE) Act, the bill was reintroduced in the House and Senate this spring by a roster of bipartisan lawmakers, with endorsements from such groups as the Copyright Alliance and the Graphic Artists' Guild. Under the bill, the U.S. Copyright Office would establish a new 'small claims-style' system for seeking damages, overseen by a three-person Copyright Claims Board. Owners of digital content who see that content used without permission would be able to file a claim for damages up to $15,000 for each work infringed, and $30,000 in total, if they registered their content with the Copyright Office, or half those amounts if they did not.
"Easy $5,000 copyright infringement tickets won't fix copyright law," argues the EFF, in an article shared by long-time Slashdot reader SonicSpike: The bill would supercharge a "copyright troll" industry dedicated to filing as many "small claims" on as many Internet users as possible in order to make money through the bill's statutory damages provisions. Every single person who uses the Internet and regularly interacts with copyrighted works (that's everyone) should contact their Senators to oppose this bill...
[I]f Congress passes this bill, the timely registration requirement will no longer be a requirement for no-proof statutory damages of up to $7,500 per work. In other words, nearly every photo, video, or bit of text on the Internet can suddenly carry a $7,500 price tag if uploaded, downloaded, or shared even if the actual harm from that copying is nil. For many Americans, where the median income is $57,652 per year, this $7,500 price tag for what has become regular Internet behavior would result in life-altering lawsuits from copyright trolls that will exploit this new law.
Too many lawyers (Score:5, Interesting)
We're gonna see more of this. Lawyers will continue to turn our legal system into a weapon to extract cash from us. And no "tort reform" is not the answer. That'll protect big businesses, not consumers. We need to start voting pro consumer people into office. That means no more voting for politicians that take PAC money and it means showing up to your primary. It also means no more "values voting". We need to vote on issues, not feels.
Re:Too many lawyers (Score:5, Interesting)
How so (Score:3)
The new breed of trolls have been driven to find new sources of revenue by competition. It's the worst elements of the free market and government working together. Corru
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The Prenda Law trolls just got sentenced 14 and 5 years each. Actual jail time for their abuses.
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I don't see how the current batch of trolls demonstrate that. In the past trolls went after big corporations.
Dude, have you been paying attention at all? Prenda Law [wikipedia.org]
There wasn't enough money to make it worth going after you and me.
The whole premise of Prenda Law was to go after thousands of ordinary people. Then they would offer settlements for thousands of dollars. The settlement amount is small enough that hiring a lawyer was way more than settling even if you completely innocent. Unless you had a lawyer friend or were a lawyer, the cost of litigation was much more than most people could pay. If you couldn't pay to settle or pay for a lawyer, you could get a default judgment.
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Snafu
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I've read stories of law grades, $100k+ in debt, working as legal aids for $15/hr.
Is it because they couldn't pass the bar?
Nope, I thought I made this clear (Score:3)
Re: Too many lawyers (Score:1)
William Shakespeare has the ideal quote for how to deal with lawyers. They are actively killing civilization.
Re:Too many lawyers (Score:5, Insightful)
Ouch. You're so wrong my brain hurts. Where to begin:
Your argument is equivalent to saying we're graduating too many kindergarten teachers and that's why class sizes at Harvard are rising. Just no. Those two things aren't even in the same stratosphere. Logic fail - abort, retry, ignore?
You do understand a a huge part of law school (Score:3)
And there is a world of difference between a teacher and a lawyer. Teachers are powerless. If we were graduating too many teachers it would just mean lower pay for them (which is hard to imagine). Lawyers have been taught a skill that can easily be abused.
I've known lawyers who's only "job" was suing major insurance companies. But as mentioned there's only so many of those lawsuits to go around. But the supply of lawyers with the _skills_ needed for those laws
Re: Too many lawyers (Score:1)
This shows a misunderstanding of the poster's position. I think their point is best illustrated by the extreme: "Imagine if everyone except one person, farmer Joe, were a lawyer". In this case, it is easy to see that farmer Joe would soon find himself the subject of litigation, because that's what some proportion of lawyers do, and there are too many for the system to reasonably support. By varying gray areas, there is some point at which we have the optimum number of lawyers. If there are too many, the
Re: Know what sucks? (Score:3)
Hook it to an inkjet printer. You'll have to start buying stuff only from stores with nearsighted cashiers, of course.
big online players to push smaller ones around (Score:1)
Well yeah.. That's the idea. We have to protect the internet from user input.
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The internet is trash now. Everything great is gone.
I.T. is trash. Everything that made it fresh and interesting is gone.
All the big name companies have shitty reputations. The days of new, innovative products that are game-changers are gone. There won't be products like spreadsheets and word processors and email that literally changed everything. Where's the next paradigm shift that actually empowers users, instead of exploiting them?
The web browser doesn't count. We already had electronic bulletin boards that weren't a Trojan horse to turn much of the
Re: Welcome to the darknet (Score:1)
So a whole new DNS system needs to be devised so that people can continue to shuffle around the same little snippets of a few people singing and dancing and acting? Isn't there a better use for our time than endlessly transferring passive content around?
This is the discussion. (Score:1)
The public doesn't respect copyright because the length has become so long nobody alive today will recieve the benefit of the public domain, nor can they proove concretely that a future generation will recieve that beneift; this system can't work until that is fixed, and it isn't meant to.
It's meant to maximize profits for a cabal who thinks the public is so stupid and they are so gifted that they can take anything they want or who are betting technology will make them fully obsolete so they profit-maximizi
Re: This is the discussion. (Score:1)
People are going to rise up with their guns because they can't shuffle around torrents anymore?
I copyright the letter E! (Score:2)
I copyright the letter E!
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You're welcome.
Oligarchy (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the word you're looking for is Oligarchy. As in "The United States is functionally an Oligarchy."
If the small time players want to have laws favor them, they need to purchase their own representatives and senators. To paraphrase Lawrence Lessig, we have a system of legal and organized corruption. It's called campaign finance and political action committees. Corporations and the wealthy can spend unlimited funds to influence our political system.
A $5000 per plate dinner isn't about supporting a candidate, it's about purchasing access to the candidate, so that you can tell them your point of view. The $100,000 you give to a Super PAC that supports that candidate hangs on their future support of things important to you.
Re:Oligarchy (Score:4, Informative)
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You'll pardon people for seeking to control politicians via donations and "donations", when the reason people go into politics is the corruption of passing harmful laws so they can get paid to reduce or eliminate the prospective new laws.
This isn't some abberation behavior. It's standard operating procedure worldwide. It's just hidden better in the west.
And life-altering it needs to be... (Score:1)
People using content created by others against their will are leeches and do need to have something life-alteringly bad to happen to them.
How is this controversial?
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The action link is broken (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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Sadly good old Abe Lincoln saw this coming 150 years ago and nobody listened...Abraham Lincoln, Nov. 21 1864 "I see in the near future a crisis approaching; corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed."
Actually, he didn't. See http://www.abrahamlincolnassoc... [abrahamlin...iation.org] pages 4-6.
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I have heard from actual people in senator's offices that report that many senators and representatives do, in fact, tally up constituent responses in support of/opposed to a bill (I was told that one letter is assumed to represent ten constituents, nine of whom agreed but didn't write a letter), and that this is used to guide decision making. Note that if these totals are somewhat close, the senator may go on his own initiative (or the initiative of whichever lobbyist is paying him most), but if the totals
I am Not One to Support These Laws (Score:1)
It's incredibly common.
The Internet has ushered in an era of eternal middlemen ... I lost count of the number of "aggregators" now that jack my content on a daily basis. One again ... for profit.
I'm very lucky that I don't depend on any of this stuff for my livelihood, because it's
Learn to cartoon (Score:2)
Buy a book on how to draw a face as a cartoon.
Practice.
Publish your own funny political meme.
Wait for nation to pass a no funny political art work law.
Link fails... (Score:1)
That's not Forbes (Score:2)
That's not Forbes. It's a blog site for Forbes contributors.
Re: Fix the gun problem in the US first (Score:1)
The big gun problem that I see is the high price of ammo. I am just a plinker; the cost of a box of 50 .22LR shells has skyrocketed. I remember a box of 50 being about a dollar. It should still be only a few bucks.
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Zip it, Putin.
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the major gun problem is inner city savages with no morals shooting thousands per year. Let's solve the inner city savage problem and then the violent crime rate will be like typical european country.
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they live in subsidized housing, their "property taxes" share are more than paid for