p2pnet news | Politics:- While Hollywood and the Big 4 record labels try to force Canadians to adopt US-style copyright restrictions via a Canadian DMCA, Hollywood Howard Berman, the US congressman who chairs the House Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property, believes the US version needs serious revision.

Says Ars Technica:

“Berman believes that the DMCA, in particular, needs reforming, but not in the ways that consumers have clamored for.”

You can almost hear the cartels whispering in his ear.

“The ideas could not be more pleasing to companies like Viacom, which is currently suing YouTube over the issue of takedown notices, claiming that simply adhering to the DMCA takedown notice system is not good enough,” says Ars Technica, adding:

The MPAA, which has been pushing for ISPs to adopt video filtering on their networks, should also be thrilled.

Big Content has been touting fingerprinting and filtering technologies as the solution to the problem of having their copyrighted content posted online. In October, Viacom and a handful of other companies issued a set of principles governing how user-generated video content should be handled. Signatories to the manifesto would be forced to beyond the boundaries of the DMCA—in the same direction Rep. Berman wants the DMCA to go, in fact.

Gutting the Safe Harbor provision of the DMCA, as Berman appears to be advocating, would also provide a massive boost to the rights-holders. Conversely, it would have a chilling effect, not only on the likes of YouTube, but on any site that hosts any sort of user-generated content. The Safe Harbor is arguably one of the very few worthwhile provisions of the DMCA. Rewriting it to favor the interests of Big Content would be a gigantic mistake.

Not at all incidentally, Hollywood Howard’s history on OpenSecrets.com makes very interesting reading.

Slashdot it!

Also See:
force Canadians – Canadian DMCA brings Canadians together, December 14, 2007
Ars Technica – Congressman Hollywood: It’s time to revisit the DMCA, December 13, 2007

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This entry was posted on Friday, December 14th, 2007 at 8:05 am and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

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