DirecTV tells Heritage, Industry of efficacy of notice-and-takedown to combat piracy

Copyright regulations that allow the quick takedown of infringing web sites are critical to combating black market satellite TV theft, says U.S. satellite TV giant DirecTV Inc. On April 11, at the copyright reform consultation hearing in Ottawa, DirecTV assistant general counsel Chris Murphy told participants that the company has found that a notice-and-takedown regime is its most effective tool in removing web sites selling, for example, devices intended to illegally receive satellite TV. He noted that while the actual act of stealing satellite TV, which takes place "in the home and out of the public eye", is difficult to trace, it’s far simpler to track sites selling devices that have no "significant commercial use other than circumvention." To that end, Murphy said the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) notice-and-takedown regime is the "most efficient way to combat infringing devices." The potential for notice-and-takedown rules in Canada is one of the most controversial proposals on the table for copyright reforms (see story in this issue). Under the regime, implemented in the U.S. under the 1998 DMCA, Internet service providers are freed of liability for hosting potentially infringing material if, upon receipt of a DMCA notice from the copyright holder, they remove the page. It’s by no means certain that Canada will adopt the same provisions, and another avenue being explored is the "notice-and-notice" regime being touted by this country’s largest ISPs. Under its provisions, ISPs pass along copyright infringement notes from the copyright holder directly to the alleged violator. That system, noted Bell Canada’s senior counsel Suzanne Morin, is responsible for an 80 per cent success rate in removing content identified as infringing by the Canadian Recording Industry Association and other rightsholders. Notice-and-takedown has come under fire from a broad spectrum of groups both here and in the U.S. concerned that material is being removed by ISPs without any legal decision about the merits of rightsholders’ claims to infringement. To drive his point home, Murphy presented the charts below to highlight the greater success rate in the U.S. at removing offending web sites than in Canada, where there is currently no notice-and-takedown regime.

DirecTV tells Heritage, Industry of efficacy of notice-and-takedown to combat piracy

Broadcast | April 19, 2002

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