I follow a number of news feeds relating to free speech and internet censorship, focusing primarily on the battle for free culture and corporate abuse of copyright law to silence / punish those exercising fair use.
TorrentFreak.com publishes numerous stories of internet censorship. Two days ago, they reported about
Fox’s latest DMCA takedown notice -
Similarly, the
Electronic Frontier Foundation is one of the best sources for news of this nature and fights as an advocate for the preservation of internet freedoms.
Recently they published
a short write up on how Sony Music filed a DMCA takedown notice to an educational YouTube video by the Hudson Valley Bluegrass Association which used small clips of bluegrass music to teach the history of the genre, (clearly fair use). But when the webmaster wrote to Sony Music and asked them to withdraw the Content ID match, Sony responded by asking for a $500 “administrative fee” and detailed information about HVBA’s use of the song clips.
Of course, this fee is complete bullsh*t and is a tactic used by corporations to force people to take down content without proper due process. Fortunately, in this case, the HVBA webmaster understood this, contested the fee, and Sony quickly withdrew their request. But thousands of other citizens of the internet are not so lucky, and corporations like Sony often frighten individuals into taking down perfectly legitimate content.
The founder of the EFF famously published a document in 1996 in response to the passing of the Telecommunications Act in defence of the freedom of the internet. The short piece outlined many of the assaults on internet freedom which followed in the 20 years that followed. Check out
"A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace" by John Perry Barlow.
And finally, techdirt.com just published a frightening article detailing
A Dozen Bad Ideas That Were Raised At The Copyright Office's DMCA Roundtables. The hearing focused on perpetuating the copyright status quo and forcing its antiquated policies on the digital world. They argued for a number of Orwellian policies such as
"Service providers shouldn't be allowed to reject takedown notices", silencing public comments, and creating
"Punishments for false counternotices" to give even more power to the domineering monopolies than they already have.
And the battle rages on.