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DMCA In Need Of An Upgrade

Google is only "partly right" in its public response to Viacom's $1 billion copyright infringement suit, during which the search giant claims that doing away with the protections of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act would unhinge many consumers generated content sites. On the one hand, it's impossible to ensure that all the content uploaded to user-generated content sites doesn't violate copyright law. Even if the technology existed to guard against this, BusinessWeek said it would be "prohibitively expensive."

On the other hand, Viacom doesn't want to do away with the DMCA, it merely wants to address one of its shortcomings: that copyrighted content that's taken down is often immediately put back up again. As Viacom notes in its complaint: "Even after it (YouTube) receives a notice from a copyright owner, in many instances the very same infringing video remains on YouTube because it was uploaded by at least one other user, or appears on YouTube again within hours of its removal."

As such, BusinessWeek declares that the DMCA, which was enacted nearly ten years ago now, needs an upgrade to reflect the advances in Internet speeds and video technology that make it possible for consumers to continually and easily repost videos that have been taken down. "Media companies like Viacom shouldn't have to file notice after notice to the same site concerning versions of the same piece of content."

Read the whole story at BusinessWeek »

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