OUR DIGITAL FUTURE: A CROWDSOURCED AGENDA FOR FREE EXPRESSION
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CONTENTS
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS |
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“Our Digital Future” was a multi-platform initiativelaunched in July 2012. It was only possible because ofthe involvement and support of countless groups andindividuals around the world. While they are far toonumerous to mention individually, our agenda buildsupon the grassroots and public policy initiatives thathave created such a compelling case for the need forcopyright reforms. We’ve tried our best to give thatbody of work consideration during this process. |
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We are, in particular, indebted to the contributionsof the Our Fair Deal coalition members, whoseexpert input has helped shape our crowdsourcingproject as well as our final report. We owe specialthanks to Article 19’s “Principles on Freedom ofExpression and Copyright in the Digital Age” andthe Authors Alliance’s “Principles and Proposalsfor Copyright Reform,” which helped us craft moreconcrete policy proposals that can translate thewishes of our community into law. |
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We also thank peer reviewers who provided critical,in-depth comments and suggestions, which servedto strengthen the quality and overall presentation ofour agenda. Any shortcomings or oversights are inspite, not because, of their generous contributions,and are entirely the responsibility of the authors. |
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Lastly, the pro-Internet community has alwaysbeen at the heart of this project. This report isprimarily based on the invaluable input of the 40,079people who participated in our drag-and-drop toolto crowdsource a vision for sharing and creativityonline, and the energy of over 300,000 peoplearound the world who have used OpenMedia as aplatform for action on free expression. Their concernfor their rights to share and create in the digitalage is the driving force behind our work – so, to ourcommunity, thank you so much <3 |
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AN AGENDA FOR FREE EXPRESSIONTHAT RESPECTS CREATORS, ANDEMBRACES DEMOCRACY |
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At its best, the Internet encourages us to share, use our creativity, and expressourselves freely. It fosters the same key experiences that help us preserve ourimaginations and our capacity to learn as we grow from children into adults. What we’veheard from the hundreds of thousands of Internet users worldwide who have participatedin OpenMedia’s projects is that the Internet has the power to bring people together aroundthese common learning experiences and shared values. This includes both those who wantto share, and those who want to create – the Internet provides us all with new ways toexercise our right to freedom of expression. As Chris, an OpenMedia Internet Voice participantfrom Sweden, states: “On the Internet, free expression, creativity, education, public discourseand debate thrive like never before…The people of the world finally have a voice.”1 |
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Supporters like Chris inspired us to create “OurDigital Future,” an initiative to amplify and unitethe voices of Internet users who are seeking newways to protect and nourish creativity, sharing, and free expression online. Beginning in July 2012, when we launched our first online action against anti-Internet provisions in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement, OpenMedia has been rallying people worldwide to fight Internet censorship. When we asked our community in March 2013 how to best continue this work on free expression, reddit user HouseGray exemplified the feedback we were receiving: “[A]ttempts to legalize restrictions on the Internet will continue ceaselessly until laws are passed that guarantee freedoms... lobbying for laws that cement Internet freedoms and rights [will] be the only solution that will work long-term.”2 Guided by this type of community input, we designed a consultation process with multiple stakeholder groups to decide what these pro-Internet laws might look like. |
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After a process design phase that saw input from Internet users, civil society and community organizations, and impacted businesses,3 in October 2013 we launched our interactive drag-and-drop tool. Our intensive outreach work surrounding this tool – which took participants through a set of 9 questions about copyright law in the digital age– brought together over 40,000 Internet users in less than a year to crowdsource a new vision for free expression.4 Overall, our work on free expression has engaged over 300,0005 eager Internet users all over the world through multiple platforms. |
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The 40,079 participants in our crowdsourcing tool, who came from an impressive 155 countries around the world [Image 1], felt urgency to craft a plan for a fair deal for users and creators. They felt this urgency in light of some of the worrying copyright and IP provisions being proposed in several regions,6 and in international agreements such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)7 – a multinational trade agreement involving 12 countries in the Asia-Pacific Region, which account for nearly 40 percent of global GDP and about one-third of all world trade.8 Participants in our crowdsourcing initiative also joined over 3,000,000 supporters of diverse international civil society organizations who have expressed grave concerns about secrecy and censorship in the TPP.9 |
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Image 1: Participants in our drag-and-drop crowdsourcing tool, by anonymized IP address |
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1 “Internet Voices” come from the approximately 30,000 people who have used OpenMedia’s “Internet Voice Tool” (found at openmedia.org/facetoface) or OpenMedia’s social media platforms to submit comments to the TPP negotiators. We quote these OpenMedia supporters throughout the report to bring more attention to the lived experiences of Internet users with copyright and free expression. See the chapter on “The Process” for more information about the “Internet Voice Tool” and the hundreds of thousands of people worldwide who have spoken out for free expression. 3 See “The Process” for more information on our consultation process. 4 See “Appendix: Methodology” for full results for the drag-and-drop crowdsourcing tool. 5 Total numbers from all OpenMedia actions on free expression include: stopthetrap.net ~ 112,145 signatures, ourfairdeal.org ~ 19,694 signatures, openmedia.org/froman ~ 22,867 signatures, openmedia.org/censorship ~ 141,130 signatures, stopthesecrecy.net ~ 161,026 signatures, openmedia.org/expression ~ 62,670 signatures, openmedia.org/letter ~ 912 supporters, who used our Letter to the Editor tool, openmedia.org/facetoface ~ 29,041 participants (with duplicate actions removed, the number of unique supporters is ~ 316,000) 6 Other notable examples of attempts to use copyright policy to censor the Internet include the U.S. Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), a bill pushed through by lobbyists who sought to criminalize alleged copyright infringement, force ISPs to block websites suspected of promoting online sharing, and even ban companies from conducting business with “blacklisted” websites. (theglobeandmail) Iterations of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), an international intellectual property agreement, also included provisions which seek criminal charges for copyright infringement. 10 openmedia.ca |
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InternetVoice* “On the Internet, free expression, creativity, education, public discourse and debate thrive like never before – The people of the world finally have a voice.” – Chris, Sweden
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THREE KEY RECOMMENDATIONS |
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While media conglomerate interventions in copyright and intellectual property law have envisioned (and sometimes created) regimes where the needs of these conglomerates trump the possibilities of the open Internet, our crowdsourcing participants envision a regime where both sharing and creativity flourish. From their input, and the many other elements of the “Our Digital Future” process, we’ve distilled three key recommendations: |
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1. RESPECT CREATORS Participants in our crowdsourcing process indicated strong support for those in the creative industries – a significant majority (67 percent) wanted to see creators receive at least 75 percent of the revenue from their work, and an amazing 89.2 percent of respondents noted that we should always give credit to the creator of a work when sharing.11 Given the strong beliefs of our community, our first recommendation focuses on the need to respect creators. We outline ways to respect creators by ensuring they have access to: new ways to share their work; to fair use/fair dealing; to any compensation resulting from copyright infringement; and finally, to a rich public domain. By first ensuring creators have access to the tools they need to create and share in the digital age, we can design a copyright regime that serves the needs of 21st century knowledge and culture creators. |
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2. PRIORITIZE FREE EXPRESSION When asked to rank a list of six priorities for copyright laws in the digital age, the majority of participants in our crowdsourcing process (i.e. 26,894 out of 40,079) selected “Protecting Free Expression” as their first priority. As such, in this report, to prioritize free expression we propose an agenda for copyright with four components: prevent censorship; protect fair use and fair dealing; promote access and affordability; and create clear rules to govern the sharing of knowledge and culture online. |
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3. EMBRACE DEMOCRATIC PROCESSES The results of our crowdsourcing process were clear: over 72 percent of respondents wanted to see copyright laws created through “a participatory multi-stakeholder process... that includes Internet users, creators, and copyright law experts.” We therefore strongly recommend that political leaders abandon closed-door processes like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), and instead focus on designing participatory, democratic and transparent forums for the creation of copyright laws that can keep pace with our rapidly changing technology and culture. |
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We believe that by fostering the key elements of free expression in the digital age outlined above, we can truly unlock the potential of the open Internet to democratize knowledge and culture. There are undeniable challenges that come with a rapid shift to a new medium of expression; but what we’ve found is that, in contrast to stereotypes, Internet users are very respectful of the unique needs of creators and knowledge producers in the digital world. |
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As digital technology is increasingly a driving force in the way we interact as a society, copyright rules will play a more fundamental role in our lives. Making rules that are fair, easily understood by everyday Internet users, and created with the input and approval of the many groups and people whose lives will be directly affected, is the best way to ensure that the digital future belongs to all of us. |
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11 See “Appendix: Methodology” for full results for the drag-and-drop crowdsourcing tool. |
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OUR POLICY AGENDA |
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The following are the concrete policy proposals of the “Our Digital Future” project.12 The full report gives more plain-language explanations of how these policies would work, and the impact they (or their absence) could have on everyday Internet use. We also encourage readers to consult the glossary at the back of this report for further demystification of terms used here. |
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1. No forced disconnections from the Internet for copyright violations; no three-strikes rules that could harm culture and knowledge creators, and everyday Internet users. 2. Protection for safe harbours, like those in Section 230 of the US Communications Decency Act, that allow creators to access new audiences / no intermediary liability for infringing content disseminated by third parties. 3. Notice-and-notice systems for preventing infringement, like that created by Canada’s Bill C-11, as opposed to notice-and-takedown systems. 4. Promotion and protection of Creative Commons – in takedown systems, no takedowns without adequate consideration of users’ rights and due process, and penalties for false infringement claims. 5. Clear process for creators to dedicate their works to the public domain. 6. Broad protections for fair use/fair dealing – in takedown systems, copyright holders required to take fair use/fair dealing provisions into consideration when issuing takedown notices. 7. Fair use/fair dealing exceptions for transformative commercial remixes; copyright exemptions for amateur and non-commercial remixes. 8. Reasonable, civil (not criminal) penalties for sharing copyrighted materials – civil liability geared towards compensation for culture and knowledge creators (i.e. warnings and fines, tied to reasonable copyright terms as in point 9). 9. Copyright terms focused on compensating creators during their lifetime, and enriching the public domain at their death. 10. No criminal penalties for DRM circumvention; no penalties for DRM circumvention to allow legal uses of content (i.e. circumvention of regional zone access protection); ensure vision-impaired Internet users are not prohibited from creating or format shifting their content. 11. Clear, simple copyright rules, designed to be accessible to the people theyare intended to serve. 12. Copyright rules created through an open, transparent & democratic process. |
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12 See “Appendix: Methodology” for full results for the drag-and-drop crowdsourcing tool. |
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For more images of our ReMix This: A Copyright Cabaret event, head to pages 56–57. |
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THREE KEY RECOMMENDATIONS |
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RESPECT CREATORS PRIORITIZE FREE EXPRESSION EMBRACE DEMOCRATIC PROCESSES |
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Recommendation One: RESPECT CREATORS |
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We believe in respect for artists. Having a fair and flexible copyright system means that artists can make a living off their work, while users have the freedom to share, collaborate and create online. Copyright ruless hould therefore support platforms, business models, and alternative licensing systems – like Creative Commons –that give content creators greater control over distribution, while also encouraging citizens’ rights to share with others. Copyright law should balance fair compensation with ensuring that artists have access to the content they need to remix and build new works. |
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"Evidence shows that as users share and connect more directly with creators, the possibility for grassroots financing and distribution of cultural and knowledge production grows.” |
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In order to fully unleash the possibilities of the open Internet, there are two things digital policy must foster: the potential for Internet users to share and remix knowledge and culture quickly and easily on a global scale; and the potential for creators to access livelihoods not controlled by gatekeepers, the Big Media companies that have traditionally monopolized financing and distribution. These gatekeepers have the ability to create “winner-take-all” economies dominated by a few big celebrities in the creative and knowledge production fields. |
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By contrast, the Internet allows for a much greater range of amateur and emerging artists to reach large audiences. While we are often led to believe that in the digital age, sharing and creativity are diametrically opposed, the right approach to copyright understands that these two things can be mutually reinforcing. Unfortunately, Big Media gatekeepers and their lobbying organizations, like the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA),1 have had a disproportionate influence over copyright policy in recent years, and have pushed forward the idea that Internet users pose an existential threat to creators and creative industries. But, as we explore here, evidence shows that as users share and connect more directly with creators, the possibility for grassroots financing and distribution of cultural and knowledge production grows. Similarly, as creative and intellectual works enter the public domain and can be freely shared, the field for cultural and knowledge production that builds on past experience and tradition gets infinitely richer. |
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At its best, the Internet helps us return to the experiences and values we were likely encouraged to have as children: sharing and creativity. Our first recommendation is that we continue to nurture these values and experiences by respecting creators, and fostering a sharing-first culture that creates an atmosphere that is conducive to creativity. We can do this through a copyright agenda with four components: ensuring creators have access to new platforms; promoting approaches to copyright that allow creators broad scope for sharing and fair dealing / fair use; ensuring reasonable penalties for copyright infringement that prioritize compensation for creators; and finally, creating a rich public domain. |
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CREATIVE INDUSTRIES, TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION, AND THE SHIFT TO ONLINE DISTRIBUTION |
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Past experience with technological innovation demonstrates the need to take industry claims about the harms caused by innovation with a grain of salt – one of the best examples comes from the 1980s, when there was a coordinated effort by the film industry to have the VCR prohibited. Then-head of the MPAA, Jack Valenti, told a House of Representatives Subcommittee: “I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone.”2 As Forbes magazine points out, “Of course, home video (and later DVD) went on to become a hugely profitable delivery channel for movie studios. Far from decimating the industry, it grew profits, especially for studios like Disney with valuable back catalogs. It just goes to show, disruptive technologies can have different effects than you expect.”3 |
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Now that more than a decade has passed since the shift to online music, studies have emerged challenging industry claims about the threat of this shift: piracy does not “kill” the industry and the negative impacts reported are either unfounded or exaggerated. A ground-breaking study by the London School of Economics (LSE) discovered three important counter-points to the music industry’s reactions to the online shift: 1) that though lobbying organizations claimed otherwise, the music industry was doing reasonably well, and that much of their data was misleading; 2) that declining sales of recorded music should be explained not just by file-sharing but also by decreasing disposable household incomes for leisure products and other shifts in patterns of music consumption; and 3) that increasing revenue from live performances and growing digital revenue, including from streaming services, were offsetting the declining sales of recorded music (Figure 1).4 |
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SOURCE: “Copyright & Creation: A Case for Promoting Inclusive Online Sharing,” by Bart Cammaerts et. al., lse.ac.uk |
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Not only do streaming services bring in increased income for the industry (suggesting that if the music industry had adapted to the digital environment earlier, rather than investing in lobbying to protect a dying business model, record companies could have enjoyed much earlier growth in the sector)5 these services also seem to help curb piracy quite dramatically.6 And the real effects of piracy are open to a very lively debate: a 2013 report by the European Commission showed that piracy did not displace legal music purchases in digital format, and that the majority of music consumed illegally would not have been consumed if it was not freely available.7 |
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SOURCE: “Copyright & Creation: A Case for Promoting Inclusive Online Sharing,” by Bart Cammaerts et. al., lse.ac.uk |
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We also know that most creative industries are doing quite well: despite the MPAA’s claims about the devastation of online piracy, Hollywood achieved record-breaking global box office revenues of US$35 billion in 2012, a 6 percent increase over 2011. Though revenue from DVDs declined in the decade from 2001 to 2010, total global revenue increased by 5 percent.8 |
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Similarly, in the publishing industry, though revenues from print book sales have declined, increased sales of eBooks have offset this, and despite the alarm about the “end of the book,” the rate of industry growth is not declining.9 |
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The music industry, which has been hardest hit in terms of decline in traditional revenues (Figure 1) demonstrates not only growth in revenues from live performance, but also strong growth in digital revenues (Figure 2). These now account for more than a third of global music industry revenues and helped the music industry increase revenue year over year between 2011 and 2012, the first time since 1999 that industry revenue has grown.10 This growth has been predicated on innovations that deliver content to users in a format that is easy and desirable to them, something the older Big Media companies have neglected while instead focusing on efforts to suppress technological advances and protect their out-dated business models.11 |
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4 www.lse.ac.uk p.5 5 www.lse.ac.uk p.5 7 ftp.jrc.es p.2 |
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Respect for Creators 1: ENSURE CREATORS CAN ACCESS NEW WAYS TO SHARE THEIR WORK |
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The growth forecast for digital music revenues is all the morereason to ensure we get the business model for online musicservices right – that is, we ensure that it harnesses the possibilitiesof the open Internet for easier sharing and more creativity.Though labels are fighting a rearguard action that focuses on an“Internet users versus artists” frame, what we’ve found in the “OurDigital Future” process is that Internet users are very invested inrespecting creators. In fact, Internet users who participated in ourcrowdsourcing process would very much like to see creatorsget a greater share of the revenue generated by their work: |
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Overall, 92.5 percent of respondents to a question about howmuch digital music revenue should go to the artist, believe thatat least 50 percent of the revenue should go directly to the artist;67 percent wanted to see more than three-quarters of therevenue go directly to the artist. The “Our Digital Future” processprovides evidence that Internet users believe in a businessand revenue model where artists and content creators are fairlycompensated. |
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SOURCE: “The New Economics of the Music Industry,” by Steve Knopper, October 25th, 2011, rollingstone.com
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We also see new possibilities for creators to benefit in thedigital environment, and insist that copyright law shouldprotect those possibilities. According to research done byRolling Stone magazine, distribution through CDs or the iTunesstore should both result in about the same royalties to theartist – a typical record contract gives the artist approximately16 percent of sales.12 However, in the offline market, labelshave been cutting into artist’s royalties for years, “withdeductions marked ‘free goods’ (usually 10 percent of theartist’s royalty) and ‘packaging’ (usually 25 percent)” droppingthe royalty down to about 11 percent.13 These deductions don’tapply to digital sales – so there is reason to believe that in theiTunes store an artist inches closer to the revenue-split ratioour crowdsourcing participants would like to see. Though inthis scenario, the label still takes the majority of the revenue:out of the $1.29 paid for a song, “a grand total of 60 centsgoes to Sony to pay for marketing, publicity, videos, executivesalaries and obviously, profit.”14 And this is all assumingthat the artist has paid off their debt to the record label forexpenses like videos, tour support, etc. |
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By contrast, though there are very legitimate concerns aboutthe small amount of royalties per play15 on a streamingservice like Spotify, the amount of royalties paid to the artistrelative to the label looks closer to what our crowdsourcingparticipants wanted (Figure 4). And as the plays accumulateso does the revenue to the artist. Spotify also aims to grow theamount it gives to both niche and breakthrough indie bands,creating new sources of revenue for artists that may have had a hard time competing in the pre-digital era (Figure 5). |
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SOURCE: “How is Spotify contributing to the music business?” spotify.com |
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As Rolling Stone points out, the artists that do the best interms of the percentage of revenue that they can keep, arethose who choose to go without a label: “Of course, many artists don’t want to share nearly half of theirrevenues with a major label like Sony, which is essentiallya middleman. Before the Internet, and stuff like ProTools,an artist had to sign with a label even to be heard. That’sobviously no longer true. Today, an artist can pay a service likeTuneCore to be included in the iTunes Store. At that point, afterApple takes its cut, the entire 90 cents goes to the artist.”16 Distribution channels like iTunes, or the even more openplatform (in that users can upload their videos directly)YouTube, are creating new possibilities for artists to eschewlabels and keep more of their revenues for themselves. RollingStone cites the case of “video kings” OK Go, who chose to splitwith their longtime label EMI. The band’s blog announcingthe departure reads: “OK Go has struck out on its own. Theband has left the EMI family of corporations to form theirown enterprise, a homemade upstart called Paracadute [...] |
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12 http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/the-new-economics-of-the-music-industry-20111025#ixzz393yh31iV p.213 ibid., p.514 ibid., p.215 http://www.businessinsider.com/what-spotify-pays-artists-for-songs-in-royalties-2013-1216 http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/the-new-economics-of-the-music-industry-20111025?page=2 |
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Paracadute is really just a way for the boys to continue doingwhat they’ve always done. Which is whatever they want.Being OK Go just got a little bit easier.”17 This also leaves theband much better positioned to bring in significant revenuefrom their YouTube videos. Rolling Stone quotes Eric Garland,the CEO of an online metrics company, who claims: “I knowindividual artists who make tens of thousands of dollars amonth on YouTube [...] And I know of individual artists whomake more money on an individual basis from YouTube thanthey do from iTunes.”18 |
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Online platforms not only allow artists to cut out the labelmiddlemen – they have also allowed for experiments inletting fans set their own price for content. Lead singer ThomYorke of the UK band Radiohead found that making theiralbum “In Rainbows” available for whatever fans believedto be appropriate actually increased sales: “In terms ofdigital income, we’ve made more money out of this recordthan out of all the other Radiohead albums put together,forever — in terms of anything on the Net. And that’s nuts.”19Other big name entertainers to start using technology totheir advantage include comedian Louis C.K., who made hiscomedy special available for stream and download for just US$5, in an experiment he considered a huge success: |
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“As of Today, we’ve sold over 110,000 copies for atotal of over $500,000. Minus some money for PayPalcharges etc, I have a profit around $200,000 (aftertaxes $75.58). This is less than I would have been paidby a large company to simply perform the show andlet them sell it to you, but they would have chargedyou about $20 for the video. They would have givenyou an encrypted and regionally restricted videoof limited value, and they would have owned yourprivate information for their own use. They would havewithheld international availability indefinitely. Thisway, you only paid $5, you can use the video any wayyou want, and you can watch it in Dublin, whateverthe city is in Belgium, or Dubai. I got paid nice, and Istill own the video (as do you). You never have to joinanything, and you never have to hear from us again.”20 |
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In both these cases, there was still significant file-sharing andunpaid downloading of these works – but the artists consideredthem a success regardless.21 Online crowdfunding platformslike Kickstarter have also allowed artists like Amanda Palmer– an advocate of alternative, more negotiated and consensualcompensation arrangements between artists and fans22 – tovastly exceed targets for funding projects like records, books,and tours.23 And as business models in the music industry change, particularly as live performance revenue increases(see Figure 1 in this chapter), many artists may find that thebenefits of increased exposure from free sharing of their workoutweigh the costs of foregone revenue from digital sales -as did Counting Crows, who released their album for free viaBitTorrent, commenting: “It’s not just about getting music to thepeople who would buy it anyway – even though that is, of course,very good – the hardest thing to do is make new fans.”24 |
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This is not to claim that the current digital era is perfect– direct distribution to fans and crowdfunding are mucheasier for celebrity artists with name recognition value, whileemerging artists still struggle. As Nicolas Suzor and DanHunter point out, “Since the 1990s the copyright systemhas been made more and more onerous – but most artistshaven’t been getting any richer.”25 In Australia, for example,the majority of people who identify as professional artistsmake less than A$10,000 per year from their primary creativeactivity.26 Alternative proposals like a Creative Contribution,27or a basic income,28 are worthy of serious consideration toovercome the challenge of financial security for artists – achallenge that long precedes the digital age. |
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The important thing to keep in mind when considering theonline era is that we don’t know what the business models ofthe future will look like: as Amanda Palmer says “The truth isthere is no next model. Show me 1,000 talented musicians,each with a unique style and personality, and I’ll show you1,000 ways to make a career in music… there is no longer anoff-the-shelf solution.”29 The uncertainty surrounding futurebusiness models, and the possibilities of the open Internet tobring the creative industries closer to what our crowdsourcingparticipants wanted (i.e. a majority of revenue going to artists)lead us to draw two conclusions with regards to copyrightand free expression: that real protection for safe harbours isneeded, and that “three-strikes” style copyright policy will beharmful to creators. |
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“Safe harbours” are online service providers, such as YouTube,which under the US Communications Decency Act’s (CDA)Section 23030 are exempt from liability for copyrightinfringements by third parties who use their services. They areoften used by emerging artists that don’t yet have access todistribution channels like television and radio – safe harboursprovide the artist with a way of reaching audiences that wouldhave been impossible in the pre-digital era. Protections for safeharbours like those outlined in CDA Section 230 are thereforecrucial. Current copyright regimes, however, compromisethese safe harbours by permitting dragnet-style takedownsof content, which often sweep up legitimate uses and reuses of content by artists, and disable their access to crucialaudiences, as we will explore further in the next section. |
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The crucial nature of Internet access to artists in a digitalera also highlights the folly of three-strikes rules, whererepeat copyright infringers would have their Internet accessdisabled. Given the possibility for unknowing infringement,for false infringement claims, and the reality of copyrightprotections that seem overly broad and detrimental to thesharing of knowledge and culture, we strongly recommendagainst three-strikes rules. Less than 2 percent of ourcrowdsourcing participants agreed that users should bedisconnected from the Internet for copyright infringement.31 |
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Given the results of the “Our Digital Future” project, wesupport London-based human rights organization Article 19’sPrinciple 8 on free expression and copyright in a digital age:“Disconnection from access to the Internet on grounds ofcopyright is always a disproportionate restriction on the rightto freedom of expression.”32 In countries like France wherethree-strikes policy has been tried, it has ultimately been seenas overly expensive, bureaucratic, and ineffective, and hasbeen abandoned in favour of relatively small fines instead.33Unfortunately, however, leaked drafts of the TPP suggest thatthe chapter on intellectual property would seek to imposethree-strikes rules on the 12 countries currently negotiatingthe agreement.34 Because three-strikes rules are just aslikely to target creators as they are to target regular Internetusers, and remove them from what is increasingly a crucialmeans of making a living as an emerging artist, these rulesshould be rejected in favour of civil liability that focuses oncompensating creators (see the section “Respect for Creators3” in this chapter for further discussion of this issue). |
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InternetVoice“ I want to be able to dictate the terms of my ownwork; not hand everything over to a publisher[...] I don’t want [fans] to have to worry abouttheir [fan fiction] sites or stories being takendown simply because publishers get hurt overmoney they’re not making on something thatwas my intellectual work to begin with. Theselaws were originally put in place to protect therights of the artist, yet in these days, it’s onlythe producers/publishers/etc. that benefit.”– LaTora Prince |
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17 http://okgo.net/2010/03/10/onwards-and-upwards/18 http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/the-new-economics-of-the-music-industry-20111025?page=319 http://archive.wired.com/entertainment/music/magazine/16-01/ff_yorke?currentPage=all20 https://buy.louisck.net/news/a-statement-from-louis-c-k21 http://www.nme.com/blogs/nme-blogs/did-radioheads-in-rainbows-honesty-box-actually-damagethe-music-industry22 http://www.ted.com/talks/amanda_palmer_the_art_of_asking23 https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/amandapalmer/amanda-palmer-the-new-record-art-book-and-tour24 http://mashable.com/2012/05/14/counting-crows/.25 http://theconversation.com/why-australians-should-back-turnbull-in-the-stoush-over-copyright-3019826 http://theconversation.com/why-australians-should-back-turnbull-in-the-stoush-over-copyright-3019827 http://www.oapen.org/search?identifier=409602;keyword=Aigrain p. 7628 http://www.basicincomeireland.com/if-you-do-artistic-or-creative-work.html29 http://www.nme.com/blogs/nme-blogs/did-radioheads-in-rainbows-honesty-box-actually-damagethe-music-industry30 https://www.eff.org/issues/cda23031 See “Respect for Creators 3: Ensure Reasonable Penalties for Copyright Infringement – Those thatPrioritize Compensation for Creators” in this chapter for further results from this question.32 http://www.article19.org/data/files/medialibrary/3716/13-04-23-right-to-share-EN.pdfhttp://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2380522 (layperson’s summary: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/01/study-of-french-three-strikes-piracy-law-finds-no-deterrent-effect/)34 http://tppinfo.org/resources/whats-in-the-tpp/ |
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Respect for Creators 2: PROMOTE APPROACHES TOCOPYRIGHT THAT ALLOW CREATORSBROAD SCOPE FOR SHARING ANDFAIR USE/FAIR DEALING |
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Box 1: Creative Commons Licenses Creative Commons (CC) is a non-profit organization that creates its own licenses to provide a more balancedapproach to copyright. By creating flexible licenses, CC gives content creators and users more freedom whenit comes to sharing and remixing works. The licenses serve as a positive alternative to current copyrightrules, which focus on punishing acts of sharing, as opposed to supporting online collaboration. By usingCC licenses,35 you, as a creator of content, can make it clear that you would like to be acknowledged, andcommunicate ways you would like the public to reuse your work – you can choose to permit derivatives andcommercial uses, and can insist that any reuses of your work are also themselves CC licensed. Not only dothese licenses let Internet users know what rights the creator has given them, they also encourage innovativeknowledge reproduction and distribution, making our online culture richer and more interactive. |
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As noted above, changing business models mean thatsharing work freely is often desirable for knowledge andculture creators - hence the rapid growth in the use of CreativeCommons licenses, from 50 million in 2006 to over 450million in 2011.36 While Creative Commons licenses allow fora great degree of customization and flexibility (see Box 1), thefundamental component of all the licenses is attribution, orgiving credit for the original creation. |
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This was also a principle of sharing online that theparticipants in “Our Digital Future” strongly supported – 89.2 percent of 9,020 respondents to the question in our drag-anddroptool said that when using the content of others online,we should always give credit to the creator of the work.37 Asthe Authors Alliance, which represents the interests of authorswho favour accessibility and dissemination, notes, attributionserves not only the author’s or creator’s interest, “but alsothe reading public’s interest in knowing whose works theyare consuming and society’s interest in an accurate recordof the intellectual heritage of humankind.”38 Yet again, wesee evidence that Internet users want this kind of healthyculture of sharing – the majority of users in our crowdsourcingprocess want to ensure that creators receive credit. |
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One challenge with regards to Creative Commons and currentcopyright law is that notice-and-takedown regimes oftenrely on automation: many copyright holders use catch-allstyle systems, such as YouTube’s ContentID (see Box 2) or theMPAA’s list of infringing terms, that result in creators who useCreative Commons having their works summarily removedfrom the Internet, and from their largest potential audience.For example, popular (and now defunct) torrent site isoHuntwas forced to use a site-wide keyword filter provided by theMPAA, which included word combinations like “The Kingdom”and “The Heat.”39 Along with copyrighted works, this filter blocked content from independent artists like musician ElliotWallace and film-maker Brian Taylor, whose CC licensed workstriggered the overly broad & generic keyword filters. To quoteTaylor: “My original material being blocked in the US hurtsmy chances of: being discovered, making money, makingmore art.”40 Companies like Microsoft use similar automatedsystems to send takedown notices to Google, removing linksto their open source competitor OpenOffice,41 blocking accessto one of the only real alternatives to their expensive software. |
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The scope of these types of claims is mind-boggling:Google receives requests to remove tens of millions of URLseach month.42 Even well-known Internet freedom and freeexpression advocates Corey Doctorow and Lawrence Lessighave been the targets of this kind of system. In Doctorow’scase, his novel “Homeland” was ordered taken down fromGoogle by Fox, the copyright holder of a television show alsocalled “Homeland.” Doctorow noted: “The DMCA makes it easyto carelessly censor the Internet, and makes it hard to getredress for this kind of perjurious, depraved indifference”.43 |
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Box 2: YouTube’s ContentIDSystem YouTube has been forced to put in place a ContentIDsystem – a technology that scans videos forcopyrighted content using reference files (movies,songs, etc) and then allows rightholders to issuenotices to either takedown, claim or block theallegedly offending content. As a result, users canhave their videos removed even for having a songplaying softly in the background that was pickedup by the ContentID software. ContentID alsomakes no exceptions for fair use or fair dealing. AsAshkan Karbasfrooshan, owner of a popular YouTubechannel called WatchModo that was targeted by anillegitimate takedown notice writes: “Having just beengiven access to ContentID to protect our own videosfrom copyright infringement, it was instantly clearonce I logged in why there are so many false alarms.I personally feel that ContentID adds an impersonalelement of anonymity that has led to a lack ofcommon sense and civility. A robot can brand us asa rogue operation with no due process.”44 The systemappears to be the result of Youtube obeying theproblematic notice-and-takedown law, but like othercopyright rules, it has the effect of censoring legalexpression and content. |
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The proliferation of dubious copyright claims is not justcatching Creative Commons licensed works in a dragnet,it is also sweeping up other legitimate instances of sharedcopyrighted works, such as those protected under fair dealingor fair use. In Lessig’s case, one of his lectures was removedfrom YouTube after a takedown notice from Liberation Music,regarding clips of the song “Lisztomania” of which Liberationis the copyright holder. As the Electronic Frontier Foundation(EFF), which represented Lessig in the lawsuit he filed againstLiberation, explains, this was a “classic example of fair use,[as] the clips were used to highlight emerging styles ofcultural communication on the Internet.”45 Liberation Musicsettled with Lessig for an undisclosed amount, and alsorevealed their takedown system: they had allowed a singleemployee to use YouTube’s automatic ContentID system tostart the takedown process, and then to threaten a lawsuitwhen Lessig challenged the takedown. The employee did nothave a legal background, and did not actually review Lessig’svideo before threatening a lawsuit.46 Liberation agreed tochange this policy to include human review and fair useconsiderations, but clearly it is not reasonable to expectInternet users to take every single rights holder to court to forcethem to adopt what may be only a moderately better system. |
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This is yet another strong piece of evidence that notice-andnoticestyle copyright regimes are much more respectful ofcreators. In a powerful article titled “Why I No Longer GiveAway My Music for Free,” digital musician Bob Ostertag notes:“It is strongly in the interest of the big corporate labels toover-detect rather than under-detect. The result is a systemin which the interest of the handful of superstars of the worldin not missing out on a penny of their millions in royaltiestrumps the interest of the vast majority of musicians ingetting their music heard.”47 |
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35 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/36 http://www.lse.ac.uk/media@lse/documents/MPP/LSE-MPP-Policy-Brief-9-Copyright-and-Creation.pdf, p. 937 See “Appendix: Methodology” for full results from this question.38 http://www.authorsalliance.org/principles-and-proposals-for-copyright-reform/principle-1/39 https://torrentfreak.com/mpaas-court-ordered-piracy-filter-censors-many-legitimate-files-130915/40 https://torrentfreak.com/mpaa-filter-censors-legit-torrent-files-on-isohunt-120406/41 https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130814/17501024181/microsoft-uses-dmca-to-block-manylinks-to-competing-open-office.shtml42 http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/removals/copyright/?hl=en43 http://boingboing.net/2013/04/22/fox-sends-fraudulent-takedown.html44 http://www.tubefilter.com/2013/12/23/youtube-contentid-reflects-reality/45 https://www.eff.org/cases/lawrence-lessig-v-liberation-music46 https://www.eff.org/press/releases/lawrence-lessig-settles-fair-use-lawsuit-over-phoenix-music-snippets47 http://onthecommons.org/magazine/why-i-no-longer-give-away-my-music#sthash.BwFNp14l.dpuf48 http://onthecommons.org/magazine/why-i-no-longer-give-away-my-music |
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Ostertag, who makes his income off of concerts and was licensinghis recorded work under Creative Commons in order to reach newaudiences, cites numerous instances of “netbots,” or automatedtakedown systems, unjustly removing the content of musicianswho are “trying unsuccessfully to give away their music for free.”48As he observes, these musicians have few resources, in termsof time or money, to fight unjustified takedown notices. Theproblem with putting in place an automated takedown procedureis, first, that these systems do not differentiate between truecopyright infringement versus fair dealing, fair use or CreativeCommons-licensed works that incidentally resemble copyrightedworks. Second, these systems place an unfair burden onemerging artists to fight takedown notices and, as Ostertagnotes, are a disincentive to using the Creative Commons. |
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As Article 19 states in its principles on copyright and freeexpression: “Measures such as Creative Commons, wherebycreators waive some of their rights in their works, allow greateraccess to culture for the wider public and should therefore bepromoted.”49 Given the value of Creative Commons, and theharm that automated takedown procedures are doing to thecreators who employ it (and/or fair use/fair dealing) the “OurDigital Future” project strongly favours notice-and-notice overnotice-and-takedown. In light of the effectiveness of noticeand-notice systems50 (see Recommendation Two for a fullerdiscussion), the evidence clearly shows that they are superiorto notice-and-takedown – particularly when takedownprocedures rely on the impersonal, anonymous automatedsystems described here. |
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Respect for Creators 3: ENSUREREASONABLEPENALTIES FORCOPYRIGHTINFRINGEMENT– THOSE THATPRIORITIZECOMPENSATIONFOR CREATORS |
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When asked about penalties for copyright infringement,a majority of respondents to the question in the “OurDigital Future” tool (i.e. 71.2 percent of 10,245) selectedeither payment of a small fine (50 percent) or a warningand instruction about the laws surrounding copyright (21.2percent). Less than 8 percent selected harsher penalties,like disconnection from the Internet (1.6 percent) or a fineranging from $250 to $15,000 (5.5 percent). These resultssuggest that Internet users favour copyright regulations thatemphasize education and compensatory damages – mostInternet users we engaged are in favour of consequencesfor copyright infringement (including warnings or noticesthat, as we will demonstrate in Recommendation Two of this report, are effective at preventing repeat infringement).But, unsurprisingly, they would like to forego unnecessarilypunitive systems in favour of reasonable penalties. |
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49 http://www.article19.org/data/files/medialibrary/3716/13-04-23-right-to-share-EN.pdf50 http://www.michaelgeist.ca/2011/03/effectiveness-of-notice-and-notice/ |
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Though we’ve focused in this chapter mainly on the needsof creators in the cultural industries - i.e. musicians, filmmakers,etc. – the detrimental effects of copyright policy onknowledge creation are also strong cause for sober secondthought before pushing ahead with excessively punitivecopyright regimes, like that envisioned in the TPP. In 2013,in response to the suicide of Internet freedom advocateAaron Swartz,51 hundreds of academic authors published over1,500 links to their own copyright-protected material, in anawareness-raising act of civil disobedience.52 The fact thatthese authors were opening themselves up to penalties forcopyright infringement highlighted the ways in which thecurrent copyright system for digitized materials does notserve knowledge creators, who often do not retain a license orrights to share their own works.53 In fact, these creators mustthen pay archives simply to access the material that theyproduced.54 The disjunct between the creator and the rightsholder,who are often not the same person or entity, providesyet further justification for eschewing highly punitive systems– these could punish creators, like academic authors, forsharing their own work. |
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As the Authors Alliance argues, these types of authors, andothers who write not just for pay but also to make theirwork available to the broadest possible audiences, havenot been well served by misguided efforts to strengthencopyright. These efforts have not resulted in meaningfulfinancial returns to most authors, and have “unacceptablycompromis[ed] the preservation of our own intellectual legaciesand our ability to tap our collective cultural heritage.”55 Wetherefore join with our crowdsourcing participants in insistingthat there be reasonable penalties for sharing copyrightedmaterials – this means civil, not criminal, liability, andcivil liability geared towards compensation for culture andknowledge creators, not Big Media companies. |
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We can see clearly in the case of academic publishing thatcopyright regimes are not designed with penalties thatcompensate creators in mind. In fact, as with three-strikes rulesand automated takedown systems, creators can become thetargets of copyright infringement penalties that unnecessarilyimpede the sharing of knowledge and culture. As Philippe Aigrainpoints out, “the effect of the recent evolution of copyright law, inthe real world, is to concentrate power not in the hands of authorsand artists, but in those of the stock owners of copyright.”56 |
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Insisting that penalties should prioritize revenue for creatorsalso has clear implications for copyright terms, as copyrightsthat extend beyond the life of the creator clearly have noimpact on the compensation the creator receives. Therefore, aswe will argue in the next section, these should be abolished infavour of a richer public domain of cultural works for creatorsto reference and remix. As participants in the “Our DigitalFuture” project suggested, a copyright regime that respectscreators will be one that prioritizes reasonable penalties forinfringement combined with maximal freedom to share, and toparticipate in creating an increasingly global digital culture. |
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InternetVoice“ Free expression is the glory of the Internet andthe right of the people. As an author, I havea website with extracts of my books markedcopyright. That’s enough. We display ourwork for people to see. If someone chooses todisregard this, they are outnumbered by themany who honour the system. No decisions ofthis magnitude should be negotiated secretly,nor should access be denied to the Internet. Itis unreasonable to expect service providers tocensor content and remove websites. Pleaselisten to the people.”– June Birch, United Kingdom |
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49 http://www.article19.org/data/files/medialibrary/3716/13-04-23-right-to-share-EN.pdf50 http://www.michaelgeist.ca/2011/03/effectiveness-of-notice-and-notice/51 http://www.forbes.com/sites/walterpavlo/2013/01/14/aaron-swartz-hacker-case-ends-with-suicide/52 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/13/academics-tweet-tribute-aaron-swartz_n_2468272.html53 http://www.authorsalliance.org/principles-and-proposals-for-copyright-reform/54 http://techcrunch.com/2013/01/13/pdf-tribute/55 http://www.authorsalliance.org/principles-and-proposals-for-copyright-reform/56 http://www.oapen.org/search?identifier=409602;keyword=Aigrain p. 74 |
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Respect for Creators 4: FAVOUR A RICH PUBLIC DOMAINOVER A LIMITED ONE |
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When asked how long copyright terms should last, themajority of respondents to the question in “Our DigitalFuture” indicated that they do not want copyright to lastbeyond the death of the creator, with the majority at 53.3percent indicating they believe copyright should last either10 years (28.7 percent) or until the death of the creator (24.6percent).57 Only 15 percent of respondents voted for a copyrightterm beyond the death of the creator, and less than 4 percentvoted for the term length proposed in leaked drafts of the TPPor longer (i.e. the death of the creator plus 70 years).58 |
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By voting for shorter copyright terms, the participants in“Our Digital Future” are voting for a richer public domain. Thepublic domain is comprised of works that are not restricted bycopyright and do not require a license or fee to use. Works canenter the public domain automatically because they are notcopyrightable, can be designated in the public domain becausethey are being used under fair dealing/fair use provisions, canbecome part of the public domain because the copyright termhas expired, or can be made public domain by the creator/rightsholder. As the Authors Alliance points out, the public domainmaximizes the potential for creators’ works to be accessible -therefore, the process for dedicating works to the public domainshould be easy and clear.59 |
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The public domain is important not just because it allowscreators to reach audiences – it also creates a vast store ofworks that creators can freely draw from and reuse. Whetherworks we likely consider as part of our common culturalheritage or folk tradition are in the public domain or not canhave a very significant impact on creators. For example, forthose in the English-speaking TPP countries, we can feel therealism of a film or television show where characters sing“Happy Birthday” at a birthday party - and the unrealityof a scene in which they sing anything else. Yet in order torepresent this everyday reality, creators currently need topay royalties to Warner Brothers, which collects over US $2million per year from a disputed claim to the copyright on thesong.60 The existence of a public domain for cultural workslike “Happy Birthday” has a significant impact on the abilityof creators to reference and reuse works without incurringsignificant additional production costs, or running the risk ofharsh penalties for copyright infringement. |
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InternetVoice“ I want the rights of users to be protected.Format shifting of content should be protectedby law. There should also be requirements todisclose when the major portion of contentbeing sold is public domain.”– David |
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The ability for creators to affordably represent, referenceand remix our culture is not the only reason to support a richpublic domain; worryingly, without provisions where worksautomatically enter the public domain after a reasonable timelimit, the vast majority of recorded 20th century culture is lostas “orphan works,” and will likely be entirely inaccessible tocreators.61 The majority of books, for example, go out of printshortly after their original publication, and are long forgottenby the time they enter the public domain – they will likelynever be re-printed, and the limited copies in circulation willbe difficult or impossible to access.62 For many other works,the copyright owner cannot be found, and/or their date ofdeath is unknown, so uncertainty over their copyright statusmeans they will never enter the public domain, in a regimewhere publishers, archivists, scholars, etc. are fearful of beingheld liable for copyright infringement of up to $150,000.63As the Authors Alliance notes, “the specter of such cripplingliability can chill even non-infringing and socially beneficialacts of authorship, dissemination, archiving, and curation”– yet another reason to ensure reasonable penalties forcopyright infringement.64 |
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The scale of the orphan works problem, and the diminishmentof publicly accessible culture, have led dedicated advocatesof the public domain like Mark Akrigg, the founder of ProjectGutenberg Canada, which preserves and makes availablepublic domain ebooks, to raise the alarm about the risks ofthe TPP and the proposed copyright term extensions in theleaked drafts.65 |
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Participants in the “Our Digital Future” project join withlibrarians, archivists, scholars and others in rejectingexceedingly long copyright terms. Copyright terms havesteadily increased in length since the creation of copyright;when copyright was first established in Britain with theStatute of Anne, it lasted just fourteen years.66 The firstefforts to extend it by the booksellers were rejected on thegrounds that they would make the public into “slaves” of thepublishing industry, and lock up knowledge and science in“cobweb chains.”67 In this report, we join with the majorityof our crowdsourcing participants in seeking copyrightprotection that focuses on livelihoods and protectionsfor creators – and ends with their death. This strikes theappropriate balance between the needs of individual creatorsfor compensation for their work, and the needs of the creativesector as a whole for cultural goods that are not locked awayfrom the public. |
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"The existence of a publicdomain for cultural workslike “Happy Birthday” hasa significant impact onthe ability of creators toreference and reuse workswithout incurring significantadditional production costs,or running the risk of harshpenalties for copyrightinfringement.” |
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57 For full results from this question, see “Appendix: Methodology”58 https://www.eff.org/issues/tpp59 This is a challenge in US copyright law http://www.authorsalliance.org/principles-and-proposalsfor-copyright-reform/principle-1/. An opt-out rather than opt-in model for copyright would be oneapproach to solving this problem: http://www.law-democracy.org/live/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Final-Copyright-Paper.pdf p.3560 http://abcnews.go.com/WN/story?id=541356161 https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/orphanworks.html62 http://gutenberg.ca/documents/Mark_Akrigg_Bill_C-32_brief.pdf63 https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/orphanworks.html and http://www.ala.org/advocacy/copyright/orphan64 http://www.authorsalliance.org/principles-and-proposals-for-copyright-reform/principle-4/65 http://www.gutenberg.ca/documents/tpp-comment-markakrigg-120212.html66 http://www.copyrighthistory.com/anne.html67 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_law_copyright |
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Recommendation two: PRIORITIZEFREEEXPRESSION |
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The results of our crowdsourcingproject demonstrate thatparticipants value the principle of freeexpression above all other prioritiesfor copyright. Copyright rules mustsafeguard freedom of expressiononline. There are four components topreserving free expression: preventingcensorship; protecting fair use and/or fair dealing; promoting access andaffordability; and creating clear andsimple rules to govern the sharing ofknowledge and culture online. |
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| In defining free expression for the purposes of the “Our Digital Future” project, we were inspired byArticle 19 of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights: “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinionand expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receiveand impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”1Given the increasing importance of the Internet as a primary medium for free expression, the UnitedNations Human Rights Council, along with more than 80 co-sponsoring states, in June 2014 adopteda resolution on the Internet and Human Rights. This resolution “recognises that the global and opennature of the Internet is a driving force in accelerating progress towards development, including theimplementation of the right to education. It also calls upon states to address the digital divide andto promote digital literacy and access to information on the Internet.”2 It recognizes that the samerights that people have offline, particularly freedom of expression, also apply online. Our work on the“Our Digital Future” project seeks to actualize these rights. With this goal, we are supporting a growingglobal coalition of experts, civil society advocates, and everyday Internet users who see online freeexpression as a crucial civil liberties issue. |
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prioritize free expression 1: PREVENTCENSORSHIP |
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In our drag-and-drop tool, our first question askedparticipants to rank a set of 6 priorities: 1) protectingfree expression; 2) clear and simple rules; 3) rules madedemocratically; 4) compensation for creators and artists;5) privacy safeguards; 6) and protection for mediaconglomerates. Participants were instructed to rank theirpriorities in ascending order, with 1 indicating the highestpriority and 6 representing the lowest priority. |
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When asked to rank the six priorities, a clear majority (67percent) chose “protecting free expression” as the highestpriority with 26,894 votes out of 40,079.3 These supportersjoin 141,111 signees of “Stop Internet Censorship,” a targetedaction to world leaders and decision makers with authorityover the TPP, asking them to protect the rights of all people toaccess the Internet (see Box 2). |
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These thousands of citizen-advocates have good reason tobe concerned about the priority placed on free expressionin the design of our copyright laws. In the most extremecases, copyright law can have such chilling and punitiveeffects on free expression that it acts as a form of censorship.Unfortunately, as we will explore further in this section, cases with extreme, unintended consequences are becoming moreand more common under copyright regimes like the takedownprovisions of the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA),the original incarnation of France’s HADOPI Law4 or Finland’sLex Karpela,5 or that envisioned in leaked drafts of the TPP.6 |
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Box 2: Say No to InternetCensorship: Action Text Dear Heads of State:1. Protect the right of everyone to access theInternet in their daily lives.2. Do not force ISPs to act as “internet police”monitoring our Internet use, censoring content,and removing whole websites.3. Preserve the democratic rights of sovereigncountries to draft their own copyright laws. |
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1 http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/2 http://www.article19.org/resources.php/resource/37602/en/unhrc-rejects-attempts-to-diluteinternet-freedoms3 See “Appendix: Methodology” for full results for Question 1.4 http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-195974295 http://rt.com/news/police-copyright-child-laptop-690/6 https://www.eff.org/issues/tpp |
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Because of the nature of notice-and-takedown regimes, (asseen in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia,and Singapore, among others) where content hosts mustremove content immediately upon receipt of a notice from apurported copyright holder to protect themselves from legalaction, and there are few to no consequences in practicefor false notices, copyright holders can easily use weak ornon-existent copyright claims to silence political speechthat wouldn’t otherwise be as vulnerable to censorship. Forexample, NBC Universal removed a viral clip of U.S. SenatorElizabeth Warren shutting down a CNBC co-anchor,7 anddeleted an Obama campaign video because of a copyrightcomplaint.8 Multiple news networks such as CBS News, theChristian Broadcast Network, and Fox News launched DMCAnotices on John McCain’s presidential campaign ads in2008,9 while BMG Management Group used a DMCA claim totake down a campaign video for presidential candidate MittRomney, in which President Obama sings a few bars of “Let’sStay Together.”10 These were not singular examples; in fact,in 2010, the Centre for Democracy and Technology produceda white paper detailing the threats that “meritless copyrightclaims” from both sides posed to online political speechduring the 2008 US presidential election.11 Such abusesare certainly not limited to the American context: a recentexample from South America saw several Ecuadorian officialstargeting documentaries, tweets, and search results thatinclude images of those officials for illegitimate takedowns.12 |
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InternetVoice“ On the Internet, free expression, creativity,education, public discourse and debatethrive like never before. The courts of theUnited States are already acknowledgingthat patent reform is needed. Copyright lawsare also in desperate need of reform. The bigcompanies scream infringement when none isintended. Do not simply hand the Internet tomultinational corporations and lawyers. Thepeople of the world finally have a voice.”– Chris Snyder, Sweden |
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In another worrying example of censorship of politicaldiscourse, voting software company Diebold used cease-anddesistletters and the DMCA to force grassroots activists to takedown leaked internal documents from the company.13 Thesedocuments included “statements that appear to suggest manycontinuing security problems with the software that runs thesystem, and last-minute software changes that, by law, aregenerally not allowed after election authorities have certifiedthe software for an election.”14 Diebold was using a dubiouscopyright claim to try to silence public debate about voting,and cover up evidence of its own malfeasance. |
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Among the accused activists were two college students whowere unwilling to be silenced. In partnership with the ElectronicFrontier Foundation (an Internet freedom advocacy group andFair Deal coalition partner), they successfully sued Diebold,which was ordered to pay damages (the software company paid$125,000).15 Unfortunately, the Diebold case is the exceptionthat proves the rule: most fraudulent copyright claims willnever result in penalties for the offending rights holder. In apresentation for a US House of Representatives Subcommittee,Paul Sieminski, General Counsel for Automattic, a bloggingplatform with 48 million websites attracting approximately400 million visitors and 13.1 billion page views each month,discussed Automattic’s own efforts to hold fraudulent copyrightclaimants accountable, telling subcommittee members: |
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“While there are statutory damages for copyrightinfringement (even if very minor) there are no similardamages, or clear penalties of any kind, for submittinga fraudulent DMCA notice. The lawsuits that we filedrepresent the only recourse for abuse of the DMCAtakedown process. The lawsuits were expensive to bring,time consuming to prosecute, and promise very little inthe way of compensation in return. We brought theselawsuits, alongside our users, to protect their importantfree speech rights and send the message that abuse of theDMCA process has consequences (at least on WordPress.com). Cases like these are extremely rare, and I’m confident insaying that the users would not have the time, resourcesor sophistication to bring the suits on their own. The DMCAsystem gives copyright holders a powerful and easy-to-useweapon: the unilateral right to issue a takedown notice thata website operator (like Automattic) must honor or risk legalliability. The system works so long as copyright ownersuse this power in good faith. But too often they don’t.”16 |
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As Sieminski pointed out, Automattic has 251 staff includingonly one lawyer, and a team of seven people just to respondto DMCA takedown notices, of which they received 825 in themonth preceding Sieminski’s testimony.17 |
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Misused DMCA notices to Automattic included but were notlimited to: a physician demanding removal of newspaperexcerpts by falsely claiming to be a representative of thenewspaper; an international corporation seeking removal ofimages of company documents posted by a whistleblower;a frequent submitter of DMCA notices seeking removalof a screenshot of an online discussion criticizing himfor submitting overreaching DMCA notices;18 and, mostdisturbingly, a scam in which someone tried to underminethe work of science journalists by copying their work,backdating it, and claiming copyright in order to take downthe original content.19 Automattic also made headlines whenStraight Pride issued a takedown notice for an interviewposted on Automattic’s blogging platform Wordpress.com, in which Straight Pride, a heterosexual pride organization,spoke favourably about Russian President Vladimir Putin’scrackdown on gay rights.20 |
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"The abuses of copyright policyfor the purposes of censorshipare too numerous to list here,and are not just limited topolitical speech – they extendeven to deleting opinions,feedback, reviews, criticism,or opinions the complainantsimply doesn’t like.” |
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Clearly, participants in the “Our Digital Future” project have everyright to be worried about free expression: the abuses of copyrightpolicy for the purposes of censorship are too numerous to listhere, and are not just limited to political speech – they extendeven to deleting opinions, feedback, reviews, criticism, oropinions the complainant simply doesn’t like.21 When, as PaulSieminski points out, the targets of a takedown notice canonly protect their free expression rights through recourse tothe criminal justice system, which requires significant timeand resources, the threat to freedom of expression is graveand urgent. Far from allowing this copyright censorship to spreadvia the TPP (Box 3), we need to take immediate action to protectfree expression and limit copyright abuses. |
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7 http://gawker.com/nbc-censors-video-of-elizabeth-warren-taking-cnbc-to-th-8374117828 https://www.eff.org/takedowns/nbc-issues-takedown-viral-obama-ad9 https://www.cdt.org/files/pdfs/copyright_takedowns.pdf10 http://www.project-disco.org/intellectual-property/052313observations-on-dmca-reform-and-noticetakedown-abuse/11 https://www.cdt.org/files/pdfs/copyright_takedowns.pdf12 https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/05/state-censorship-copyright-spanish-firm-abuses-DMCA13 http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/03/business/media/03secure.html?src=pm&pagewanted=214 http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/03/business/media/03secure.html?src=pm&pagewanted=115 https://www.eff.org/press/archives/2004/09/3016 http://judiciary.house.gov/_cache/files/b343eabe-0bf1-44e9-8c85-b3478892b8e1/031314-testimony---sieminski.pdf17 http://judiciary.house.gov/_cache/files/b343eabe-0bf1-44e9-8c85-b3478892b8e1/031314-testimony---sieminski.pdf, p.218 http://judiciary.house.gov/_cache/files/b343eabe-0bf1-44e9-8c85-b3478892b8e1/031314-testimony---sieminski.pdf p.419 https://torrentfreak.com/time-to-punish-dmca-takedown-abusers-wordpress-owners-say-140313/20 http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/aug/13/wordpress-straight-pride-uk21 https://openmedia.ca/blog/five-ways-extreme-copyright-rules-can-be-used-censor-internet |
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Box 3: Internet ServiceProviders andthe Trans-PacificPartnershipAgreement “ The [leaked] draft chapter of the Trans-PacificPartnership Agreement on Intellectual Property insiststhat signatories provide legal incentives for InternetService Providers (ISPs) to privately enforce copyrightprotection rules. The TPP wants service providersto undertake the financial and administrativeburdens of becoming copyright cops, serving acopyright maximalist agenda while disregarding theconsequences for Internet freedom and innovation.TPP article 16.3 mandates a system of ISP liabilitythat goes beyond the US Digital Millennium CopyrightAct (DMCA) standards and US case law. In sum, the TPPpushes a framework beyond ACTA and possibly thespirit of the DMCA, since it opens the doors for:· Three-strikes policies and laws that require Internetintermediaries to terminate their users’ Internet accesson repeat allegations of copyright infringement· Requirements for Internet intermediaries tofilter all Internet communications for potentiallycopyright-infringing material· ISP obligations to block access to websites thatallegedly infringe or facilitate copyright infringement· Efforts to force intermediaries to disclose theidentities of their customers to IP rightsholderson an allegation of copyright infringement.”From “TPP Creates Legal Incentives For ISPs To Police TheInternet. What Is At Risk? Your Rights” by Kurt Opsahland Carolina Rossini, August 24, 2012, eff.org“ The leak of the Trans Pacific Partnership intellectualproperty chapter generated global coverage as fullaccess to the proposed text provided a wake-up callon U.S. demands and the clear opposition from manyTPP countries. [...] ISP liability in the TPP is shapingup to be a battle between Canada and the U.S., withcountries lining up either in favour of a generalnotification obligation (Canada) or a notice-andtakedownsystem with the prospect of terminatingsubscriber Internet access and content blocking (U.S.).” From “The Trans Pacific Partnership IP Chapter Leaks: TheBattle Over Internet Service Provider Liability” by MichaelGeist, November 13, 2013, michaelgeist.ca |
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Fortunately, notice-and-notice regimes like the one formalizedin Canada through Bill C-11, which requires that online serviceproviders notify subscribers when a potential rights holder hassubmitted a notice claiming copyright infringement,22 haveproven to be effective at preventing repeat copyright violations.Under the notice-and-notice system, in 2006 the BusinessSoftware Alliance sent out 60,000 notices and reported theyhave been “most effective.”23 The Entertainment SoftwareAssociation of Canada reported in 2010 that 71 percent ofnotice recipients do not reinfringe.24 Internet service provider(ISP) Rogers noted in 2011 that only five percent of subscribersreceive notice, and that 68 percent stop infringing after onlyone notice, 89 percent after two notices.25 As Professor MichaelGeist, the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerceLaw, notes: “If there are a couple of outliers in the population –the Rogers data showed about 1 in 800,000 at the extreme endof the spectrum of several dozen notices to a single household– there is absolutely nothing to stop the rights holder fromtaking legal action against those individuals. There is no needto threaten tens of thousands with cutting off Internet access,when rights holders are perfectly capable of taking actionagainst the (literally) handful of people that repeatedly infringeat the extreme end of the scale.”26 |
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Given the effectiveness of notice and notice, and the realitythat copyright laws are being used as a new censorship tool,the consensus of experts and civil rights advocates in the FairDeal coalition is that notice-and-notice regimes better protectthe interests of Internet users. In an open letter to Ministersand lawmakers of TPP negotiating countries, the coalition hascalled either for the wider implementation of notice-and-noticeregimes, or judicial involvement in the takedown system, toensure the application of due process.27 |
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Attention to due process, privacy rights, and the presumptionof innocence are essential to prevent censorship in the nameof copyright law. Allowing rights holders an unfettered abilityto take down material on a whim encourages abuse of the law;such a regime is detrimental to the health and vitality of globalpublic discourse. |
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PRIORITIZE FREE EXPRESSION 2: PROTECT FAIR USE AND/OR FAIR DEALING p.31 |
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Participants in the “Our Digital Future” crowdsourcing project were also strong believers in a range of rights to re-use and modify aspects of a creative work. The majority of our respondents – 84.8 percent of 9,020 – agreed that users should “be able to create parodies, remixes and fan fiction without having to break the law and face penalties.” A similar number – 86.2 percent – agreed users should “be able to excerpt from works to share commentaries and reviews without fear of legal penalties.”28 |
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Copyright laws typically protect these rights through provisions like fair dealing (Canada, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore) or fair use (the US, Poland, and South Korea) (see Box 4). Unfortunately, the Internet community has a very legitimate cause to be coming together to speak out about the importance of these rights at this time, as takedown notices are also used to remove content that should be protected under fair use or fair dealing. For example, in June 2013 the Church of Scientology forced a domain registrar and website host to take down cheerupwillsmith.com, a parody site that used satire to make fun of the Church, its relationship to the actor Will Smith, and its alleged control over its members.29 The website was pulled down without challenge, despite the fact that it had no commercial purpose and was clearly permitted within the fair use doctrine.30 |
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Box 4: Fair Dealing versus Fair Use Under the fair dealing system (found in Canada and the United Kingdom), use of a work must fall into a specific category of purpose for the exception to apply, such as education, parody, research, news, or criticism. Only once the use qualifies for one of these categories does the analysis move on to decide if it was actually fair, through a six-factor test. If an instance of copying cannot fit into one of the set out categories, then it is not exempt under fair dealing. By contrast, fair use (such as in the United States and Israel) does not require fitting the use into an explicit category before analyzing its fairness. While U.S. copyright law also sets out categories, or purposes, they are listed as mere examples of fair use, not its boundaries. Courts may add any other purpose they see fit, if they find that the use is fair. This leads to much greater flexibility than fair dealing offers, though some argue that Canadian courts’ increasingly expansive approach to fair dealing has shifted its system towards the open-ended model of fair use.31 |
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22 www.entertainmentmedialawsignal.com 23 www.eff.org 24 www.eff.org 27 openmedia.ca 28 See “Appendix: Methodology” for full results for this question. 29 www.eff.org 30 openmedia.ca |
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"Even Canadian-based entities that might otherwise be under a notice-and-notice regime have attempted to censor parodies and other content that offends their sensibilities.” p.32 |
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