Court confirms DMCA 'good faith' web site shut down rights
By Ashlee Vance in San Francisco
Posted: 30/05/2003 at 05:39 GMT

A U.S. court has extended the power of the DMCA even further with a ruling this week that backs up copyright holders' ability to shut down a Web site on "good faith."

InternetMovies.com had asked the District Court for the District of Hawaii to require that copyright holders investigate infringing Web sites before shutting them down. This rational request was rejected by the court, as its granted the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) and any other DMCA zealot the right to put the clamp on Web sites at will.

"This decision rules that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) does not require a copyright holder to conduct an investigation to establish actual infringement prior to sending notice to an Internet Service Provider (ISP) requiring them to shut-down an allegedly infringing web site, or stopping service all together to an alleged violator," InternetMovies.

Oh crap, does this mean that Major League Baseball could shut down my website about MLB history, even though the stuff on my site was up long before MLB started putting it up. Or I guess a competing site could do the same thing, saying I took everything. This is more bullshit than I can handle.

Well, they're up again.

I have no idea what service they're selling, as as far as I can tell, they just stream trailers. Not actual movies.

The problem with this case is that I have no idea whether or not the site was streaming movies - and if so, that means that the MPAA wasn't acting "in good faith."

-- Funky.

Neither the MPAA nor the RIAA have ANY good faith. They also do not understand the legal definition of "fair use."

The supreme court should take on this and see that it disregards the CONSTITUTION!!!
Hopefully this will go all the way.
"Good Faith", thats incredible! More reasons to not go see movies with my girlfriend!
I think we have only seen 3 movies in 6 months.

And i havn't bought a CD from the major labels in probably 2 years or so!!!!

The DMCA has been used as an excuse to shut down websites for years. The problem is it provides immunity from infringement claims for ISPs and webhosts providing they take down the site quickly when contacted. Obviously that means they will take down any sites they recieve complaints about instantly, no investigation. Its been used a few times in personal arguements by people who want to take down websites they dont like. The scientologists also used it as an excuse to shut down a few sites criticiseing them. The temporary soulseek shutdown a few months ago was done the same way. A no-name trance group noone likes didn't like soulseek so they complained to their ISP, which immediatly disconnected them without even a warning. Im surprised I havn't had a complaint about my website yet.

This ruleing adds legitimacy to a practice that is far from uncommon. The DMCA doesn't explicitly require an investigation, ISPs and webhosts wont because if they delay they could become liable for the infringement. The copyright holders makeing the complaint dont investigate because they may not find anything. The procedure for getting a website back up after a DMCA complaint is long, complicated and expensive, usually involveing a move to another ISP or server.

let's FOCUS on the person of Jack Valenti (leader of MPAA) and his stealthy lobbying. It will hamper them a little (or even stop them).

While RIAA is like an elephant - big, noisy, heavy -- MPAA is like a snake, crawling on the ground and biting. When their lobbying for 'super-DMCAs' at the state level has been detected and focused on, there were no more 'super-DMCAs', as they are plainly anti-freedom, anti-reason, anti-American and (I suppose) unconstitutional. For example, Oregon's Governor (hail for him!) has vetoed the passage of 'super-DMCA' in this state. On the other hand, while there was no attention (in 2000,2001 and 2002), few of those crappy bills have passed and been enacted in some states. It sharply stopped when EFF and some media focused on the matter. So it pays for us to _sometimes_ focus on something else than RIAA (which, I agree, is our biggest enemy, along with MPAA).

Yours in Liberty,
Critto, http://www.libertaryzm.prv.pl

PS. I sometimes _do_ go to the cinema, but I _never_ buy movie vendors (VHS, DVDs, VCDs) other than independent or second-hand (if you buy anything second-hand, the labels get NO money from it, so it pays to buy the original, legal vendors without making those bastards richer).

Wow, hope this doesn't result in bye bye Dmusic.....

TO THE AVERAGE AMERICAN CITIZEN AND MUSIC LISTENER
ABOUT ISSUES CONCERNING MUSIC DISTRIBUTION IN THE MODERN MEDIA MARKET

FROM ALL SIDES WHO RESPOND

(TO BE AND ADMITEDLY BUT FAIRLY EDITED FOR PERTINENCE AND BREVITY!)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

After some consideration I have decided to take time off from my day job, and even more painfully, from my independent music career to work on a project that hopefully will highlight some very important issues that I feel strongly about. You may feel strongly about them as well. You may agree with me, or you might feel differently. I am trying in my own way to give the average American music listener/fan/consumer an educational and informative way to decide for themselves about these views.

Even thought I am biased (and admit it up front!) I am going to rely on the views of the responders to make up the project I propose.

You are all hereby invited and challenged to a debate. You are hereby invited to participate in a national discourse.

I am going to keep it simple too.

Almost everyone has access to a camcorder in America. Get in front of one and spout/shout/opine/sublime/ your views about music and the distribution as it pertains to the modern culture and media. All who respond please understand and know that this is an intentional “shot to the arm” of the general public about these issues.

NOBODY, will make money off of this. YOU might even have to pay for your own time/comments and the VHS tape used to make your views known. And if you truly care about discourse in America, YOU may end up having to take the final product to your own local public access station to get it aired.

BUT in response, you WILL receive MY edited tit for tat of YOUR views as compared with those of the others. This is NOT a corporate project. ABSOLUTELY NOBODY will make any money from this. (And yes, even corporate music industry lawyers and spokespersons are invited to respond and provide their own comments!)

I may be one of the least qualified people to do this, but it needs to be done. I can only promise my best to get it aired on my own local access channel, and hope that all who participate do the same in their own local community.

The point is that we need to make the people educated on these issues.

No one else has stepped up to the plate in the TV world and this needs to be done! We (the public) NEED your comments!

(Duh?)

(For, or against, WHAT?)

1. Conglomerated corporation domination of the media.
2. P2P down-loader rights.
3. Independent musicians who are the majority of the copyright owners in America.
4. Copyright necessity.
5. Who should own the airwaves and other channels.
6. Mp3 technology and other digital compression formats.
7. Fair use.
8. Napster, then and now.
9. KaZaa, Grokster, etc.
10. SR/PA performance royalties.
11. Music/media distribution history in general.
12. Yes, HISTORY of media.
13. The internet and/or technology advances that make new music distribution possible… at least for now!
14. Downloading music a crime?
15. Do you buy the CD anyway?
16. Tell me the name of the sites you use for news about all this!
17. Tell me the name of YOUR band/group that is caught up in this transition from the old to the new way (yet to be decided) of music distribution and YOUR VIEW!
18. YES, all legitimate artists who have at least 1 comment WILL be if at least one comment is submitted and they want that view shown on the tape.
19. ALL respondents WILL be identified by NAME, STATE, and OCCUPATION (unless they indicate that they wish not to be!)
20. ONLY coherent opinions will be included. I will ONLY include the BEST STATED and UNDERSTANDABLE of what you say… PLEASE speak your mind and only edit out what you DON’T WANT SHOWN!
21. ANYTHING YOU THINK IS ON TOPIC!


I reserve the right to show or NOT show anything and everything you send me. ONCE AGAIN, there is NO MONEY INVOLVED IN THIS!!!
It is a true grass roots effort. YOU MUST EDIT YOURSELF! I am only going to edit your submitted content in balance with everything else I receive. I am going to TRY to be fair to all sides as possible, but I FOREWARN YOU that I am an INDEPENDENT MUSICIAN with a VERY cynical view of the way things are as of now in the industry of music distribution. I predict that I will get more disaffected views (along my own line of thinking) than those in the opposition… but I WANT THOSE OPPOSING VIEWS TOO!

The average American music fan/consumer has access to a video camera, even if they can’t personally afford one. Get to that camera and TELL ME what you think!

All who DO send me a vhs that includes a response to this will receive a vhs of the compiled and edited/arranged presentation that I am sending to the local public access, c-span, NPR, local cable company, etc.

YOUR job is to take that tape to YOUR local access and do whatever it takes to get it aired.


(Good luck, the FCC just ruled “local, shmocal”)

TODAY IS THE 2’ND OF JUNE IN 2003

…………..

This IS a serious proposal, I DO have access to an (un-named by request) a/v production studio to make this possible if enough of YOU respond! It WILL be up to YOU to make the final version of the program available in YOUR area. (That means you got to get off your ass and take it down to the public access tv channel office and ask them to air it… if you want it aired in YOUR community! But guess what, YOU are the judge of THAT!)

IT IS UP TO YOU WHAT YOU WANT ON YOUR PUBLIC ACCESS
TV/RADIO CHANNEL

USE IT OR LOOSE IT

IF YOU WANT TO PARTICIPATE,
OR WANT MORE INFORMATION ABOUT IT,
E-MAIL ME! (You probably have better ideas than I do about this!)

Independentmusician@yahoo.com




Independentmusician@yahoo.com

They always said the Commies would take us over without ever firing a shot!!.
Guess it's time to start working on New Mexicos new Governor to veto anything put before him by the communist legislature.

This is a major reason why lots of the good entertainment sites have shutdown over the years.

Hmm, I've never actually seen anything like this on TV, or heard it on the radio.
Why? Because the people who want to convey these messages were spreading the truth?

Yeah, that's what I thought. The media is all about control. I'm going looking for a video camera.

This is BS. All I need is some idiot to file a complaint about my site and it gets shud down. I don't have anything even close to breaking any laws on it. Hmm.. this gives me an idea! Let's report riaa.com and mpaa.com