Record Label Lawsuit Against Vimeo Threatens Free Speech Online

Activist Post

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and a coalition of advocacy groups have asked a federal appeals court to block record labels' attempt to thwart federal law in Capitol v. Vimeo—a case that could jeopardize free speech and innovation and the sites that host both.

In this lawsuit, the record labels sued online video site Vimeo, alleging that dozens of sound recordings were infringed in videos posted on the site. A ruling from a district court judge earlier this year found Vimeo could be responsible for copyright infringement, and in doing so imposed new, impossibly high standards for websites hosting user-generated content. In an amicus brief filed Wednesday, EFF argues that the decision undermines the safe harbors created by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and the innovation and expression those safe harbors make possible.

Copyright Trolls' Bogus "Negligence" Theory Thrown Out Of Court Again

Mitch Stoltz
EFF

Judges on both coasts of the U.S. have now rejected one of the copyright trolls' favorite tactics - suing an Internet subscriber for "negligence" when someone else allegedly downloaded a movie illegally. Judge Phyllis Hamilton of the Northern California federal court threw out a negligence suit by a Caribbean holding company against a Californian, Joshua Hatfield. The company, AF Holdings, had alleged that Mr. Hatfield allowed unnamed third parties to use his Internet connection to download a pornographic movie using BitTorrent, infringing copyright. Judge Hamilton ruled that Hatfield was not responsible for the actions of strangers. She joins Judge Kaplan of the Southern District of New York, who reached the same conclusions in another case in July.

The "negligence" strategy had three fatal flaws, according to the court. First, an Internet subscriber like Mr. Hatfield has no legal duty to police his Internet connection to protect copyright owners like AF Holdings. Second, even if AF had a valid "negligence" claim against Mr. Hatfield under state personal injury law, federal copyright law would override it. This is called preemption. And finally, even if copyright law didn't trump a negligence claim, Section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act probably would. 

Copyright Trolls Censor Internet Content with False Claims of Infringement

Editors's Note:  The following article explains, in part, what happened to us last week when we submitted one of Susanne Posel's  articles, "DHS Amassing Arms for Secret Forces to be Used Against American Citizens?",  to AllVoices.com,  The article was taken down by AllVoices.com in response to a fraudulent copyright infringement claim.  We immediately contacted AllVoices to provide them with written authorization from Ms. Posel to publish her articles.  Fours days later, the article has yet be reinstated. We have sent a request to AllVoices for an explanation concerning the claim.

Susanne Posel, Contributor

The battle over free speech on the Internet has been uphill for those who are victimized by the US government and professional trolls.

The entertainment industry, namely the RIAA and MPAA have been at the frontlines, claiming copyright infringement as they have employed Internet providers as spies to look for potential violators.

As cited by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, SOPA and PIPA came together to create the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) which “effectively creates a ‘cybersecurity’ exemption to all existing laws”. 

This big brother legislation would have given the power to the corporations to allege copyright infringement which would empower them to spy on users online activity, personal data, ISPs, search engines, social networks, text messages, phone calls, emails and all other digital correspondence.

CISPA inspired protests across the nation while over 3 million corporations in the domestic US supported the bill.