NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] Re: [IP] a wise word from a long time network person -- Merccurynews report on Stanford hearing
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> [ Apart from other issues, it's not clear to me that the DMCA
> protects ISPs from copyright violations that *they themselves*
> commit. That is, they are not held responsible for materials
> that their subscribers run through the ISPs that may be
> copyright violations, but I don't believe that the intent of
> the DMCA is to insulate ISPs from their *own* actions that
> might be actionable as copyright violations, however those are
> defined. The idea of the DMCA was the assumption that ISPs
> couldn't reasonably a priori control what their subscribers
> might post, but presumably ISPs are supposed to be able to
> control themselves.
> -- Lauren Weinstein
> NNSquad Moderator ]
>
>
ISPs are clearly given safe harbor for automatic caching mechanisms, see
section 512(b). I can see no reason why the BitTorrent protocol (or any
other P2P protocol) would be treated any differently than HTTP in this
regard. (eg, the Squid caching proxy) ISPs must respond to notices of
infringing material, and are required to remove it to keep safe harbor
protections, similar to section 512(c).
I think that the DMCA is very reasonable in this regard, if an ISP is
caching for efficiency reasons, their cache is automatic and they don't
control it anymore than they control content requested by their clients.
-Nick
[ I agree with your interpretation of the DMCA in regards to
many forms "automated caching" (however, I will note that
some caching -- due to poor implementations and other reasons,
can cause a variety of problems, even though they wouldn't
typically be copyright violations).
The sort of potential copyright violations I was referring
to don't relate to such caches, but rather to ISPs
injecting their own content (particularly commercial
content) into end-to-end communications between Web
services and the users of those services. I don't think
that the DMCA was intended to provide ISP immunity from
copyright disputes in such situations (which may not have
even been really foreseen at the time that the DMCA was
drafted).
-- Lauren Weinstein
NNSquad Moderator ]