[bestbits] Fwd: Online Retransmission Consent and DMCA Liability Protections

[Seth Johnson]

Right, that was the closing date of the comments period.

On the DMCA see the House Judiciary Committee in March of last year:
http://judiciary.house.gov/index.cfm/2014/3/section-512-of-title-17
http://judiciary.house.gov/_cache/files/22c3acda-551c-41ba-b330-8dd251dd15fd/113-86-87151.pdf

On Sun, Mar 22, 2015 at 2:42 AM, Joly MacFie <joly at punkcast.com> wrote:
> Last Wednesday I video'd a Copyright Society lunchtime panel on the
> aftermath of aereo, which included the lead litigator in the Cablevision
> case.
>
> The current MVPD cases and the changing FCC landscape were only touched on
> tangentially and there was no mention of the DMCA at all that I can recall.
>
> I will post it early in the week.
>
> I also reprocessed the FCC budget hearing on Thursday but I haven;t indexed
> it yet. If you have any hot timecodes please feed them back or put them in
> the comments.
>
> https://youtu.be/sawGxJ8d2Kk
>
> On Sun, Mar 22, 2015 at 12:01 AM, Seth Johnson <seth.p.johnson at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>>
>> (Sort of US-centric, but of note for those concerned about the
>> broadcaster's treaty or modalities of online
>> stewardship/governance, or what the US is up to in general.  :-)  )
>>
>>
>> Hello all, at the following link you will find the FCC's NPRM for
>> establishing a "retransmission consent" regime online for a specific
>> class of online services called Multichannel Video Programming
>> Distributors. It addresses all services that make multiple linear
>> video programming streams available online on a subscription basis:
>> >
>> > https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2015/01/15/2014-30777/promoting-innovation-and-competition-in-the-provision-of-multichannel-video-programming-distribution
>>
>> It would establish the first formal exception to the broad protections
>> against copyright infringement liability provided to online service
>> providers under the DMCA's Notice and Takedown procedures -- and it is
>> being proposed by the FCC, not by Congress.
>>
>> In addition, I was informed in an email exchange a week before this
>> NPRM was initiated that the US sees retransmission consent as a basis
>> for the national implementation that would be required for the
>> Broadcaster's Treaty, a treaty proposing to establish a new
>> international layer of rights for broadcasters online that is not yet
>> formalized or ratified, but which has been regularly resurrected
>> despite ongoing opposition and concern voiced by many organizations.
>> With the national implementation already in place, treaty negotiators
>> could readily ratify and implement the Broadcaster's Treaty without
>> the domestic public and legislative debate that it warrants.  The FCC
>> makes no mention in this NPRM of this relationship between
>> establishing retransmission consent online under domestic law and the
>> Broadcaster's Treaty.
>>
>> Here's my submission, submitted on the final day of the Reply Comments
>> period (They were extended to this past Wednesday):
>> > http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/comment/view?id=60001027037
>>
>> It encourages the FCC to recognize this as a proposition that should
>> be taken up through legislative channels that hold the power to
>> address, as a matter of copyright, the scope of the DMCA's liability
>> protections, and to be forthright about the implication of this
>> regulatory act serving as a national implementation, before the fact,
>> of the Broadcaster's Treaty.
>>
>> Most of you know that we not only rely on our telecommunications
>> environment to assure our ability to to freely enter the network of
>> networks, peer among ourselves and offer services online, but we also
>> benefit from protection from copyright liability which would otherwise
>> hamper our ability to make the most effective and valuable use of the
>> Internet's potential, as we act as intermediaries.  Otherwise we would
>> all become liable as soon as we open a port and run a server of nearly
>> any kind that involves users exchanging information.
>>
>> While the online safe harbor the DMCA created in 1998 might have
>> served to provide a space in which we could deliberate the types of
>> policies that are appropriate for the new medium, this is not how
>> things have developed.  It would seem to me to that now, when we are
>> in the midst of a process of contemplating a transition to new modes
>> of stewardship and governance for the Internet, that we should make
>> sure that actions like this don't occur without our making sure we
>> have the opportunity to address them properly.
>>
>> I encourage everyone to ask the FCC, the State Department, various
>> relevant agencies and Congress to open up the discourse on the full
>> implications of the proposal to establish retransmission consent on
>> the Internet.
>>
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>
>
>
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