Net Neutrality Links
I’m adding this link to the Net Neutrality Page.
. . . Buried deep within the legalese and copyright mumbo jumbo of the DMCA is a single but little read clause that could, in theory, have a dramatic impact on the net neutrality fight, especially if net neutrality never passes.
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When the DMCA [Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998] (PDF) became law in 1998, telecoms breathed a sigh of relief. After years of uncertainty, it was revealed that they could not be held liable for any copyright infringement that passed through their network. As a “transitory communications” provider, all they had to do was meet a few simple requirements and they never had to worry about being held accountable.
However, it’s one of those requirements that may now prove to be a sticking point. The second requirement for a “transitory communications” provider reads as follows (emphasis added):
“The transmission, routing, provision of connections, or copying must be carried out by an automatic technical process without selection of material by the service provider.”
In short, the DMCA gave telecoms a pass on copyright infringement suits so long as they didn’t make any selection of the content that passed through their service. As long as telecoms are blindly routing requested content to its end destination, they could not be held accountable for that material.
However, the minute they start intelligently discriminating one type of material from another, their situation becomes in doubt. They no longer meet the qualifications of “transitory communications” provider and now have no clear status under the DMCA.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
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NET NEUTRALITY PAGE
