European ISPs need a ‘put-back’ regulation similar to that in the...
European ISPs need a “put-back” regulation similar to that in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), several participants said Fri. at the Organization for Security & Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) conference in Amsterdam on guaranteeing media freedom on the…
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Internet. Under the DMCA, material wrongly claimed to be copyrighted or trademarked, and blocked by ISPs under notice-&- takedown provisions, must be put back online. No such provision exists in the e-commerce directive, which contains a notice-&-takedown provision similar to the DMCA’s, said Christopher Marsden, from the Oxford U. Programme in Comparative Media Law & Policy. The lack of a put-back law leaves Internet speakers at the mercy of individual ISPs, he said. Marsden cited a comment by Internet guru Steve Bellovin to the effect that when confronted with questionable material on their networks, ISPs “shoot first, don’t even bother to ask questions later.” To see how ISPs handled copyrighted material on both sides of the Atlantic, Marsden posted copyrighted material and then complained of infringement to a European and a U.S. ISP. The European ISP automatically pulled the content, he said, while the U.S. company sent a long list of lawyerly questions aimed at ferreting out whether the material was in fact copyright-protected. The result highlighted one positive note in the DMCA, Marsden said. A put-back provision could be of interest to ISPs, said Stephane Marcovitch, exec. dir. of French ISP association AFA. As things stand now, he said, European ISPs have no incentive to put such a provision in their self-regulatory codes of conduct and would be liable for restoring content. With the European Union’s e-commerce directive up for review next year, Marsden said, free speech activists will likely press for a “put-back” provision in any revision of that law or the copyright directive. “Private censorship sounds a bit hysterical,” he said, but that’s what the lack of a put-back provision means.