This week we take a look at a dangerous new bill that will stifle the voices of independent creators under the guise of copyright protection.
We all know how broken automated copyright bots are. But that isn’t stopping Congress from investigating a new law called the “SMART” Copyright Act to have them work across the Internet. If passed a corporation can not only remove content but prevent anyone, anywhere from seeing it by blacklisting them from every ISP in the USA.
It’s SOPA / PIPA all over again.
As any YouTube creator knows, false ContentID copyright claims are a very common occurrence. Sometimes a small piece of music playing in the background will trigger one. Other times big media organizations fail to apply the proper duty of care and automatically claim ownership of public domain footage or other media they don’t own.
Now just imagine all of those issues getting applied to the Internet at large. That’s exactly what this proposed law will do. It will have the Library of Congress deploy an army of copyright bots that will not only pull down content from websites but also require ISPs to block traffic going to those sites. A master blacklist with no recourse for a creator to appeal.
It’ll also stifle speech. Here’s a great example:
YouTube creator PushingUpRoses often does funny commentaries on classic TV shows. Each time she makes a video about “Murder She Wrote” for YouTube it’s immediately flagged and blocked by NBC Universal even before she hits the publish button. She has to file an appeal – essentially asking for permission – to publish a piece that is clearly within fair use.
Now think about this example applied to the rest of the Internet. Want to criticize a big corporate media outlet? You need to ask permission first. And they’ll have the power to effectively take you off the entire Internet – not just YouTube – if they don’t like what you’re saying.
So far the bill hasn’t made much progress but I expect the big money corporate interests behind this to quietly push it along. Big media sees an opportunity to silence independent creators now that big tech companies are not as popular among members of Congress as they were a decade ago during the SOPA/PIPA debate.
Keep up to date on what’s happening with the EFF. This fight is only first beginning.