The Authors Guild would like it very much if the nation's broadband providers began monitoring the Internet and filtering it of all pirated materials. In a letter (pdf) sent to the House Judiciary Committee as it considers changes to copyright law and the DMCA, the Guild proclaimed that current broadband ISPs have been profiting on the back of piracy for years, and they should lose their safe harbor protections as a result.
Although Google and other Internet services providers ("ISPs") clearly have the means to keep their sites free of most pirated content, the Section 512 safe harbor rules have been applied to allow these wealthy commercial enterprises to sit quietly and private from pirates who use their platforms to traffic in stolen content," the Guild said.
"In reverse Robin Hood fashion, the safe harbor rules allow rich companies to become richer at the expense of the poor, robbing creators of hard-earned income and the creative economy of hundreds of millions of dollars a year," it stated.
The solution? The Guild wants ISPs to implement technology that monitors the Internet and filters it of all pirated content. Since ISPs pass on all costs to consumers, you, the broadband customer, would of course be funding this expanded game of Whac-A-Mole.
"It only makes sense, then, that ISPs should bear the burden of limiting piracy on their sites, especially when they are profiting from the piracy and have the technology to conduct automates searches and takedowns," the Guild declares.
·
