Save Canada's Internet from WIPO
Published November 8, 2004
We call upon the Government of Candada to ignore the recommendation of the standing committee on Canadian Heritage to ratify the WIPO Copyright Treaty (WCT).
Doing so would create a notice-and-takedown system which would be a step backward for internet users and ISPs in Candada for the following reasons:
Lack of Expertise in ISPs.
ISPs aren't equipped to evaluate what's infringing and what isn't. Operating a server doesn't qualify you to understand and evaluate copyright law.
No Incentive for Evaluation of Claim
Most ISPs just do the math and decide that sending a single counter-notification letter will cost them more in lawyer-hours than the customer in question will ever make for them. They just invoke the termination clause in nearly every ISP contract and shut down the account.
Censorship by Any Other Name
This creates a situation where organizations use notice-and-takedown as a tool for censorship. The takedown notice is the favourite tool of the crank, the censor, and the bully.
Software Can't Do the Job Right
Big business interests can send out automatically generated takedowns by the thousands, using software that does half-assed pattern-matching on files available on the net and then sending off letters to universities, ISPs and other entites demanding the takedown of book reports about Harry Potter, Linux distributions with the same names as movies, and academic work by professors with the same name as musicians.
Anonymity at Risk
Notice-and-takedown is almost always accompanied by systems for peircing Internet users' anonymity: if you want to find out your stalking victim's new address and number, you need only find the message-board where she's posting about her troubles and write to the ISP as an infringed-upon rightsholder, demanding her info.
Note: Most of this text was originally written by Cory Doctorow, licensed under a Creative Commons license. He made a great argument and his post inspired this petition. Thanks Cory.
Doing so would create a notice-and-takedown system which would be a step backward for internet users and ISPs in Candada for the following reasons:
Lack of Expertise in ISPs.
ISPs aren't equipped to evaluate what's infringing and what isn't. Operating a server doesn't qualify you to understand and evaluate copyright law.
No Incentive for Evaluation of Claim
Most ISPs just do the math and decide that sending a single counter-notification letter will cost them more in lawyer-hours than the customer in question will ever make for them. They just invoke the termination clause in nearly every ISP contract and shut down the account.
Censorship by Any Other Name
This creates a situation where organizations use notice-and-takedown as a tool for censorship. The takedown notice is the favourite tool of the crank, the censor, and the bully.
Software Can't Do the Job Right
Big business interests can send out automatically generated takedowns by the thousands, using software that does half-assed pattern-matching on files available on the net and then sending off letters to universities, ISPs and other entites demanding the takedown of book reports about Harry Potter, Linux distributions with the same names as movies, and academic work by professors with the same name as musicians.
Anonymity at Risk
Notice-and-takedown is almost always accompanied by systems for peircing Internet users' anonymity: if you want to find out your stalking victim's new address and number, you need only find the message-board where she's posting about her troubles and write to the ISP as an infringed-upon rightsholder, demanding her info.
Note: Most of this text was originally written by Cory Doctorow, licensed under a Creative Commons license. He made a great argument and his post inspired this petition. Thanks Cory.
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