Section 506(c) [1]:
Fraudulent Copyright Notice. — Any person who, with fraudulent intent, places on any article a notice of copyright or words of the same purport that such person knows to be false, or who, with fraudulent intent, publicly distributes or imports for public distribution any article bearing such notice or words that such person knows to be false, shall be fined not more than $2,500.
Section 512(f) [2]:
Misrepresentations. - Any person who knowingly materially misrepresents under this section —
(1) that material or activity is infringing, or
(2) that material or activity was removed or disabled by mistake or misidentification,
shall be liable for any damages, including costs and attorneys' fees, incurred by the alleged infringer, by any copyright owner or copyright owner's authorized licensee, or by a service provider, who is injured by such misrepresentation, as the result of the service provider relying upon such misrepresentation in removing or disabling access to the material or activity claimed to be infringing, or in replacing the removed material or ceasing to disable access to it.
Why does issuing a DMCA counter-notification not automatically trigger an investigation by the FBI?
Then there is the problem that DMCA is woefully inadequate to deal with Fair Use. Fair Use is often cited inappropriately to justify unauthorized copying that does not rightfully fall under Fair Use exceptions. However. DMCA makes no such distinction, and it is up to the entity hosting the allegedly-infringing content (i.e., the one to which the DMCA notice is sent) to determine whether the content is actually infringing. Even when an unauthorized copy of a work passes each of the four parts of Fair Use test with flying colors, the DMCA takedown requester is still not in violation of the law you cited. So there is no disincentive to issuing spurious take-down requests.
He was stupid, but a friend lost a load of legitimate, original work; he'd been using it as an external hard drive and sharing mechanism for his large project files.
Megaupload may have been tuned toward being a 'piracy product' but that does not mean it was anything other than user-generated piracy.
A few minutes later: Okay I just skimmed through the indictment again and I can't find what you're talking about. There's points 54 and 55 about how they didn't cancel the affiliate accounts of people that had uploaded infringing files, but I can't find anything about them actually arranging pirated material, or specifically encouraging its upload. Also point 69d says out that copyright-violating uploads were disqualified for rewards, though Megaupload rarely terminated the accounts.
This isn't reading-between-the-lines stuff. It's there in black and white.
If you uploaded a popular infringing file, you might get $100, or you might get disqualified.
If you uploaded a popular non-infringing file, you would definitely get $100.
Megaupload knew about some of the piracy. That does not mean they arranged it. They treated it like any other file.
This is called "Doing it right."
If Showtime would sell me a license to view their content, I wouldn't even be tempted to download it for free. Since they refuse to, it's going to be tough to work up any righteous dudgeon towards Schmitz and crew, especially when they go out of their way to adopt a customer-oriented approach.
Copyright is a government entitlement that we spun from whole cloth. Capitalism, on the other hand, comes naturally. You can't fight Mother Nature.
That's... novel.
As humans we've always had the concept of "property" to some extent, independent of government. That's not true of copyright law. That was something we invented in response to a specific need, but we invented it at a time when few/no other legal or intellectual tools were available. Copyright should never be treated as the sacred cow that property rights in general are, IMO.
This "natural rights" talk sounds like theology to me. From an anthropological perspective, humans invented intellectual property around the time it became useful, just as humans invented land ownership around the time that became useful. You can say the same about owning shares of a business or owning currency. These are exactly the artificial property rights you need for capitalism, and you need government for those rights, and hence capitalism, to actually work.
As does the idea that governments are a magical prerequisite for property rights.
... just as humans invented land ownership around the time that became useful.
Try taking a bone away from a dog, and my point might seem clearer.
What you need for capitalism is centrally enforced rights to things like land and corporate equity. That is not a simple extrapolation for protecting one's personal possessions any more than copyright is. And like copyright, they require a government.
I just finished a Law 101 class so I'm by no means an expert, but I think the above explains the theory behind why we need laws. Whether you think the theory is legitimate or not is up to you. When I started the course, I was surprised to learn that our entire legal system was designed around the concept of property rights.
Here's the recent HN example of how idiotic these have gotten: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4867216 (Movie Studios Ask Google To Censor Their Own Films, Facebook and Wikipedia (torrentfreak.com))