Access Copyright v. Staples
Michael Geist and Howard Knopf blog about the Access Copyright v. Staples case. I haven’t been following the case closely enough to provide my own perspective of the case, but this will certainly be an interesting one to watch.
Tags: access copyright, copyright, howard knopf, law suits, michael geist, staples
I am curious what you feel about the general theme, even if you ignore the specifics of their claim. If someone provides the technical capability for someone to infringe copyright, should the provider of the technology be held partly liable?
There are different levels of this:
- Mere provision of technical capabilities, with clear warnings that people are responsible for their own activities, should respect copyright, etc.
- Mere provision of technical capabilities, no warnings/documentation/etc
- provision of technical capabilities, encouraging people to infringe copyright
- providing full service where staff will make copies on behalf of someone else
Given copyright is so complex I believe it is impossible for the average citizen to know where the lines are drawn in the huge number of cases where the law is vague. Even past Heritage Ministers interpreted copyright cases entirely wrong, so how can Joe Six-pack get it right?
I believe that the courts should side with the citizen on cases where things are vague, partly as a way to incite copyright holders to make “clarification and simplification of the act” a top priority for them as well. Ignorance of Copyright law should be a defense given it is currently a law that is not able to be understood by the vast majority of people it regulates.
I think that when someone else who might be expected to know better helps them that this makes a difference. I think if staff at a store makes copies without asking the person whether they are legally allowed to make the copies, then the store should be partly liable.
On the other side, a provider of multi-purpose technology should always be able to presume that their technology will be used for lawful purposes. If some individual person abuses this access to technology to infringe copyright, it should be the responsibility and liability of that individual alone.
This is the same dangerous logic that gives us DRM: the idea that if technology can be abused by private citizens to infringe copyright, then private citizens should not be allowed ownership or control of this technology. Both DRM and the nonsense coming out of Access Copyright is based on trying to revoke control over technology from private citizens.
Authors and all creators should be strongly opposed to this logic given revoking control over technology from private citizens includes revoking control over technology from *THEM*.
As much as the companies would tell me this wouldn’t be feasible, I think that companies in the business with providing people with duplication services need to have staff who are aware of at least the basics of copyright law and some training on how to identify duplication which could potentially be in violation of copyright. If these companies (be it photocopy centres, VHS-to-DVD transfer shops or hardware developers) wanted to distance themselves from liability, they could enforce a policy where users sign something to indicate that the users are taking full responsibility for any copyright violation.
This, of course, would not be a very good business model unless enough companies did it, because customers could more easily take their business elsewhere.
I totally agree that copyright law is currently not easy to penetrate. And as you know, I think that part of the solution is better education. Naturally, improving the Copyright Act would help too!
I am on your side with DRM. The problem is not everyone understands enough of the technology to fully appreciate its ramifications. I’ve been trying to explain them to others, but often get glossy looks (possibly because I have a tendency to break into an unrehearsed speech when I talk about things like that!).