The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and other copyright holders have long requested revision of the two decades old of Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Musicians and many artists have requested the US Copyright Office to revise the safe harbor provision in the DMCA.
At first, the RIAA requested ISP to monitor the copyright implementation. Recently, according to Ars Technica, RIAA and 14 other groups has declared the DMCA is not working to protect the copyrights. They pointed out the safe harbor provision need to be fixed.
Safe harbor is the metaphorical term used by the bill issued in 1998 to define the substantial limits the liability for copyright infringement. There are four harbors according to DMCA, they are the transitory digital network communications, system caching, information that reside on systems or networks at users’ direction and the information location tools.
The safe harbor requirement demand ISPs to be proactive in monitoring the copyrighted content in their sites to prevent them for being liable for copyright infringement. They also must remove copyrighted content upon notice of the rights holders. However, the safe harbor is deemed to be insufficient, therefore the new protection must be put in place to replace the two decade old digital copyright protection.
RIAA and 14 other groups has requested a better rule to supplant the archaic DMCA. They filed a request to US Copyright Office to provide more copyrights protection against online piracy. The coalition argued the notice-and-takedown process in the safe harbor provision provided legal immunity to ISPs while they took profit for the pirated content before taking it down.
Musicians including Cee Lo, Evanescence, and Canadian rock band Rush, according to Billboard, have submitted filings with video message, requesting ther U.S. Copyright Office to take immediate action regarding the digital copyright.
Watch the report regarding RIAA original idea to make ISP the copyright police below:
