Alex

There is already third-party liability for copyright infringement. If you enable someone to infringe copyright and you profit from that enabling, you can be liable.

The DMCA that the bloggers all hate, provides a “safe harbor” for the ISP from that third party liability; if certain procedures are followed, the ISP is not liable for the copyright infringement done by the customer. It is the only reason that YouTube, et. al. can do business. If an international treaty has a similar provision they are safe. http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92appb.html

Also, nobody is attacking the free sharing of information. They are attacking the sharing of stolen, copyrighted expressions of that information.

If you separate the two concepts- “using other peoples intellectual property to communicate ideas” from “creating your own expression,” you will see that nobody’s right to express themselves is affected by copyright protection. If anything, copyright makes it possible for professional communicators (i.e. professional First Amendment’ers ) to stay in business.

The solution for bloggers is simple. Just restate the information in your own words and your own pictures and you won’t be sued.

@ A Photo Editor. Fair use is unfortunately a balancing test, which means it often escapes clear cut answers. But the four factors considered are these:

- The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes
- The nature of the copyrighted work
- The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole
- The effect of the use upon the potential market for, or value of, the copyrighted work

http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html

-Alicia Wagner Calzada

If there is no recourse for those who spend the money and time to produce copyrighted material of interest to the public, the future of the most sophisticated creative efforts will all be sponsored by advertisers and special interests. Individual expression should be protected for the sake of individual expression. As civilized human beings we should have the right to benefit from our efforts and the choice to share our efforts in a manner that we choose.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Counterfeiting_Trade_Agreement

Seems to me that the most controversial proposal is to make ISPs release information on a suspected infringer upon request. Depending upon how the final version is worded, such a treaty might conflict with many existing laws in many countries.

I see a larger issue trying to be addressed: should content creators be able to profit from their creative works? I think the answer to that is YES. I do feel that something needs to be done to curtail infringement for illicit profit, but I don’t necessarily think ACTA is the best way to do that. Besides, those who want to infringe could simply do their activities through ISPs in countries not a part of any Treaty, much like spammers now operate.

To your point, I don’t think it’s possible to define fair use anymore that it is to define parody or pornography. It requires case-by-case human judgement. The problems with a treaty like this are mechanical—changing the system in such a way that the intent of the law has been circumvented. Fair use, being an ‘affirmative defense’ requires the usual machinations of justice—you must be accused and then defend yourself with fair use, which of course is expensive. It seems the treaty is designed specifically to transfer this expense to the party least willing to bear it and to remove those who might be willing to incur the cost of defense from the system thus moving them from the relatively familiar legal system to a Kafkaesque labyrinth of mid-level clerks working at your ISP.

I am the first generation of my family born to be born outside of the former Soviet Union so I am MORE than aware of my civil liberties and what we have here. I don’t see this as a rights grab or an erasure of fair use, I honestly see this as a way for the owners or controllers (rightfully) of content to be able to charge for it. They have to make it profitable somehow.

The treaty proposes the following:
1) Gives corporations police powers.
2) Circumvents your right to fair and speedy trial.
3) Asserts guilt until proven innocent.
4) Ignores personal accountability by punishing household rather than the individual.

The ramifications of this law are further amplified as we see the merger of internet providers and content creators.

A hypothetical.. Recently, you may have read about Comcast’s proposed purchase of NBC/Universal. Being a fair and balanced individual yourself, you set out to correct inaccuracies in MSNBC reporting. You upload a video to the internet with excerpts of a recent broadcast along with your analysis of the program’s truthfulness. This critical exercise in free speech is protected by “Fair Use”, an important element of the First Amendment. However MSNBC doesn’t see it that way, so through accelerated channels of expedition your Comcast internet is promptly shut down. For months. You have been blacklisted without a speedy right to recourse.

While this scenario may seem extreme, it is currently the status quo in France, as they have passed a three strikes law governing internet access and copywrite.

So two questions.. What do you have against the American system of personal liberty? And why should we model our rule of law after a socialist country like France? ;)

I won’t be losing any sleep if flickr and youtube go away, at least in their current form. So many online providers rely on cheap to free content and help.

I just had to force someone else on a volunteer committee I serve on NOT to go to Flickr. I was the office joke for forcing my last publisher not to steal images from the internet and needless to say I no longer have that job.

The idea of free content kills those of us trying to make a living a little more everyday. That’s much I do know.

Something has to happen or we are all done. Except as hobbyists.

Everyone in the big media companies like Microsoft and such are trying to keep the level of piracy down. If you had the time and watched the recent 20/20 or 60 minutes piece on piracy of movies (not sure which did it-sorry), you can see there is a concerted effort to slow it down. I was stated that they don’t think that piracy can be eliminated.

I think education, respect, ethic/morals, personal responsibility should be brought to the public eye. There have been many issues that have been media blitzed, like campaign for volunteering to help out the less fortunate and giving back to the country. This is an issue that can benefit from the same kind of media campaign.

This is an issue where those who create content need to become educated. I know that I will bone up and find out all that I can. IMHO.

Yes you can try to control, regulate , embrace and live with it, and prob should.
But Flickr Blogger and other sites who use images without caring for copyright – these won’t go away – we can all get excited about it, but it just wont happen.

As a photographer I am a staunch supporter of copyright, but as human being who values my right to free speech I support fair use even more. Since fair use needs to be actively defended it is appropriate that I except the liability for using material under fair use, but expecting a third party corporation like an ISP to also stand up for my right in a context that requires judgement and an active defense is expecting too much. It is not in their best interest to do it. If this treaty is real and becomes law it will inevitably become a tool to suppress free speech.

You are correct, it is NOT compulsory to post information, however the general consensus of the users/viewers is that if the information is online, it belongs to the “community” and should be shared “freely”.

The general population feels that if they pay for internet access that the information is free for them to use.

Even if the charges are baseless, it’s guilty unless proven innocent, with no court oversight, recourse, or remedy for lost business (or your customers’ lost business).

as The Wallbanger says, these companies represent the democratization of content creation. sure there are other online outlets, but many of those represent an investment of time or energy to get working, which can be prohibitive to less experienced users.

a framework that allows everybody to create content is extremely valuable. not only does it enable a community to develop for people to share ideas and content with each other (which, in addition to simply being enjoyable, improves the work of all its members), it gives a voice to talented content creators who might not otherwise have been able to find their way into such a notoriously difficult market.

of course there are pitfalls with these changes. with ease of use comes the increased risk of theft, not to mention a saturated market with a plummeting signal-to-noise ratio. but as you said, Mr. Editor (or can i call you A?), people are resourceful. i’d never suggest that people don’t still deserve ownership of their content, or shouldn’t be able to profit from it. but the nature of intellectual property is changing rapidly, and old models are simply no longer sufficient. the question isn’t “how can they be preserved,” it’s “how can they be improved?” a new policy that precludes the existence of social media networks is in no way an improvement.

I was speaking of everyone generally. Everyone would benefit if content creators made a living.

I assume you mean “think twice about [illegally] downloading …”

But who is this “us” you talk about? Photographers, content providers, or everyone generally?

These companies don’t represent the “democratization of information” they represent the communistic sharing of information, the belief that the property should be freely shared. The problem is that the platform/pipeline profits and the property holder suffers.

But hammers don’t kill people. People kill people.

By your line of reasoning, maybe content providers like photographers should start selling hammers, instead of trying to lease them ;)

Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t APhotoFolio a lot like Flickr in that it provides a structure, and users provide the content?

Essentially, you could be liable if a photographer uploaded a copyrighted image to their APF site. And you would have to come up with a system to keep that from happening (and not just contractual language). That sounds like a real pain in the ass.

You explain that these services are of little value because you’ve been able to earn success through self-publishing. Congratulations, you’ve navigated through the dense jungle of ISP contracts, domain appropriation, web publishing software, and countless other hurdles. How would my 60-year old mother fare when she simply wishes to send a webcam congratulations to my daughter for a first lost tooth? I suppose she could email a video, but by your own description of self-reliance wouldn’t that transmission be built on the backbone of corporate email providers?

Where does it end? At what point do we admit that we can’t go it alone?

And a final point regarding the democracy of website ownership vs. social network participation. Both are democratic. In each instance you have the freedom of choice. Unsatisfied with a provider or terms of service? Then move on.

You lose these freedoms when the arm of the government and these proposed laws overrides the will of the people or their constitutional right to due process. The blocking of internet access without fair trial does a disservice to the individual as well as the content providers.