<nettime> One-stop censorship tool for content providers

[Amy Alexander <plagiari@plagiarist.org>]

Article at:
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,40816,00.html

on new software ("Copyright Agent") that proposes to automate the "take
down and removal" policies of the DMCA. In other words, based on the
content-providers' criteria for identifying infringing material, it
automates the sending  of cease-and-deists letters, to which the ISP's are
pretty well pressured to comply under DMCA. If they don't comply, they
risk being sued.

While the focus is largely on people trading MP3's on Napster, etc., this
can and likely will also automate the censorship of content which is
merely unpopular with the content-providers under the guise of protecting
intellectual property. There is of course quite a lot of this going on
already, with corporate satires, protest sites, etc., constantly
wrestling with corporate IP legal teams. However, Copyright Agent
eliminates the time and expense of having a legal team invent stories and
send letters to the ISP; instead, it reduces the process to a bulk listing
of "infringing" materials. The ISP's are obliged to either summarily
remove the materials or disconnect the allegedly-offending users.

The last paragraph of the article is kind of entertaining:
> "The whole issue is that if you are making available something that is
> infringing, you lose all rights to privacy," Hill said. "It doesn't concern
> me that the this might not be infringing. That was the whole reason
> behind the DMCA and if it's found that the language isn't clear enough,
> believe me, they will fix that quickly with new legislation." 

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