[This is an important post by Ellen Seidler from her VoxIndie blog. Ellen has much to teach us about DMCA abuse and blatant piracy profit by Big Tech.]
The DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) was signed into law nearly 20 years ago….yet here we are today, same old tired law but with an online ecosystem vastly different from what existed 2 decades ago. Despite this, no one in Congress seems in any great hurry to update law and as they drag their feet, creative artists continue to pay the price.
For creators trying to safeguard their work from online theft this leaves them with only one option, the DMCA takedown notice. This antiquated process works ok in very limited instances, but for most filmmakers (and musicians) dealing with a large volume of infringements, it’s like using an umbrella to stay dry beneath Niagara Falls. Not only is it inadequate, but the truth is– it’s a joke. Why? Because the DMCA’s safe harbor provision provides loopholes allowing many of tech’s piracy enablers–U.S. based companies play a significant role in allowing pirates entrepreneurs to pimp their stolen content across the globe–to sidestep any legal liability and happily accept the tainted profits filling their cash drawers…
They may be outside the reach of U.S. law, but they seem to have no problem depending on U.S. companies for parts of their infrastructure. Peel back more layers of the onion and you’ll find that in fact, there are U.S. based companies that provide a crucial services to efficiently deliver the pirated movies to viewers around the world. One of the major players in this ecosystem is Cloudflare, a CDN (content delivery network) that currently handles about 10% of internet requests.
Artist Rights Watch--News for the Artist Rights Advocacy Community 