1. Filtering and Site Blocking: Necessary Reforms for the Digital Marketplace
- Author:
- Steven Tepp
- Publication Date:
- 09-2021
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Hudson Institute
- Abstract:
- Business models and technology have changed dramatically since the 1990s; nowhere more so than online. Those changes, alongside some key judicial decisions, have distorted the operation of the US copyright law provision specifically designed to address online copyright infringement. Today, even a platform that knows that 80 percent of what it hosts are unlicensed copyrighted works, it can be shielded from accountability by the safe harbors in the Copyright Act. Copyright owners are left to send millions of takedown requests with little actual effect on piracy. This, along with other factors, led the US Copyright Office to conclude that the cooperative environment the law was meant to create has not and will not be realized without amending the law. And while dozens of other countries have successfully adopted measures to address online infringement from beyond their borders, the United States has not acted to implement similar procedures.
- Topic:
- Intellectual Property/Copyright, Law, Reform, and Criminal Justice
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus