How the DMCA made YouTube

Happy birthday YouTube! The Digital Millennium Copyright Act sends its love.

Read the whole story

 

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Tiernoc[/url]":2vi3ymtc]So I've always heard from the commonly represented side (at least here) about the blatant and massive abuses of the DCMA. What I don't often hear about are the positives that the DCMA provides (outside of the vague term "Safe Harbor").

Is there a valid case for the DCMA to exist as it currently does today? Is there anyone here who would argue that it SHOULDN'T be changed or repealed?

I don't think anyone would say that it's perfect, but as this article demonstrates, we need a law similar to the DMCA to allow for user-generated content on websites. IMO, imposing real penalties for abuse of the notice-and-takedown system would go a long way towards fixing the DMCA...that, and removing the blanket restrictions on removing DRM.

 

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smunter6[/url]":hxqbfged]So DMCA is a good thing for YouTube, even though when it did operate explicitly within the bounds of the safe harbor, it still got sued, racked up $100 million in legal fees, and then settled out of court (failing to set any precedent about the legality of its operations) after implementing a take-down scheme that is incapable of differentiating fair use from infringing?

I don't buy it.

The scary part? That *was* the good case. Without the DMCA, it could have been a lot worse.