No citizen is crying out in favor of Internet censorship of content that they want to be able to access. So when governments want to censor certain websites because of the content that is on them, they need to come up with a good reason for why they are preventing their citizens, who are entitled to and pay for Internet access, from visiting the web pages that they go online to view. State authorities have found that one of the easiest ways that they can go about this deception is to claim copyright law because they know that this provides them with the basis for taking a website away from potential illegal downloaders. But this is not the real reason behind most websites that get censored.
Copyright Infringement is the
Using copyright complaints is by far the fastest way to get a website censored in a country, or even taken offline entirely. Content owners have pushed on governments and Internet service providers and Internet companies for years to get stricter guidelines and harsher penalties for those who steal and distribute their protected content. Many of these owners are rich and powerful companies like music labels and movie makers. They have gotten what they wanted, and now all it takes is a single call or email about an illegal copy of some of their material. Within a matter of hours, that content can be made unavailable to the public. Because of this, governments have seen an opportunity to exploit copyright law to hide their attempts to censor the Internet.
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, popularly known to Internet users as DMCA, was the earliest law that was instituted in the United States to protect content rights holders in the digital age, particularly for content that was being illegally spread through the Internet. The DMCA details very stringent rules for dealing with instances of copyright infringement. Content owners have a specific process to follow when complaining about illegally obtained material that they have found to be available on a website. When a DMCA notice is received by a company, they must follow the strict rules about takedowns unless they want to be held liable for the copyright infringement. The safe harbor that the law offers to these companies makes them comply to avoid being made part of the whole mess.
The DMCA provides one of the most easily exploitable means for manipulating the law to commit otherwise unlawful acts of content censorship. It was specifically worded so that it would facilitate the removal of content that violated content owners’ rights. Because it has done its job so well, it can also be levied by state authorities to quickly and conveniently enforce their censorship policies. This allows them to censor whatever content they want without arousing suspicion and the inevitable rash of protests that would ensue if the people found out that what they were actually doing was censoring the Internet.
Using the DMCA takedown notice is really a crafty way to impose Internet censorship because no one investigates or complains about enforcing it. Internet companies will willingly comply with these notices for fear that if they protest, they will be prosecuted for copyright violations that they had nothing to do with. They are blind to the reality that they are actually helping governments to institute and carry out authoritarian agendas. If anyone asks about the block, they will simply be informed that it was necessitated by a copyright violation. People won’t normally complain about not having access to content that is known to have been illegally obtained. It is a perfect guise for the establishment of a secret censorship system that will never be challenged.
The DMCA is a law of the United States and not a law that has international power. But again because of its success, many countries have used it as a basis for the creation of their own anti-piracy policies and practices. This law is also very useful for governments because a lot of big Internet companies have offices that are located on US soil. This means that these companies have to follow the guidelines and processes outlined by the DMCA. The DMCA is virtually everywhere, and it opens up all the doorways for any government to manipulate it to smoothen out the path for their censorship plans to work quickly and effectively.
This use of DMCA to cover up acts of content censorship s not a theory. There have been several incidents that show that it is real. YouTube in the US has been hit twice. Once, in 2008, the Cyber Command of the Air Force ordered an ad for recruitment taken down even though these types of material are by law considered public domain. In 2012, Homeland Security ordered some alleged videos taken down even though this agency has no content rights.
In Canada, there were two cases in 2009. First, Friends of Canadian Broadcasting had to take down recordings of House of Commons Parliamentary proceedings. Next, Scribd and The Globe and Mail were ordered by the Auditor General to take down an official report on immigration on the grounds of crown copyright. There were also two cases in Canada in 2012. Scribd again had to remove the reply that Transport Canada gave to a reporter on the record. Then PublicIntelligence.net had to remove a copy of the Canadian Land Force Counter-Insurgency Operations Manual that had already been spread around because the Department of National Defense issued a DMCA notice.
In Ecuador this year, several websites, private citizens and companies have already received notices from government officials via the Ares Rights law firm for documentaries and tweets. YouTube was again asked to take down a video satire in Saudi Arabia when government-run TV station Rotana demanded it be removed. They also sent a takedown notice to a Lebanese television show that talked about the incident. The videos were put back up later. Brazil’s presidential candidate this year, Aécio Neves, issued DMCA notices to force the removal of videos that criticized him.
Clearly, these are abuses of copyright takedowns for the benefit of the accusers and have nothing to with real copyright violations.
