On December 10, Republican Senator Thom Tillis has submitted the Digital Millennium Copyright Act or DMCA proposal into the latest omnibus bill that is expected to be reviewed and passed by Congress.
If the proposal passed, all DMCA violators will be charged with felony and may face possible jail time.
Because of this, the proposal received heat online and #stopDMCA has trended on Twitter, calling out Sen. Thom Tillis and the massive corporations that backed the bill such as Sony Pictures, Motion Picture Association, Universal Music Group, ASCAP, NBCUniversal, Comcast, Television Association, The Internet, Warner Music, Salem Media Group and others.
DMCA petition
Twitch streamers, YouTube content creators and other figures online may lose their livelihood and may also lose their freedom as they may get charged for copyright infringement, whether the used a material deliberately or not. Also, being banned from the platform means that there will be a loss of revenue and a stricter transgression in the future.
Also Read: Twitch Launches Soundtrack for Streamers to Enjoy Licensed Background Music Without DMCA Notices
The thousands of dollars in donations that Sen. Thom Tillis received from numerous entertainment companies has caused people to point out that he may have a bias.
The petition in Change.org is seeking 5,000 signatures to help content creators and make their voices heard.
What is DMCA?
In the 1990s, file sharing and other digital technologies had facilitated widespread illegal access to copyrighted materials such as music, movies, TV shows, games and more.
In response to this, the Recording Industry Association of America or RIAA and other industry organizations lobbied for the creation of a formal process by which copyright holds could fight for their rights over contents posted to third-party platforms and have copyrighted materials removed.
The is where DMCA comes in, it is a collaboration between media companies, legislators and consumer advocates. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act or the DMCA is a law in the United States that was enacted by the Congress in 1998 and was passed and signed by President Bill Clinton.
Journalist Claire Broadley from Who is Hosting This wrote that the DMCA implemented two 1996 World Intellectual Property Organization or WIPO treaties that criminalize the unauthorize the distribution of copyrighted works and the act of circumventing access control, it does not matter if there was any copyright infringement or not.
The DMCA exempts internet service providers or ISP and all of its intermediaries of any liability for any violations that may happen on their networks, whether it is direct or not.
According to dmca.com, it has been 22 years since the DMCA copyright law was created. Much has changed about the internet since then and there are now numerous platforms in which users can share their contents and post videos.
Additionally, they are also ways to improve the system by making it easier for stakeholders to defend their fair use of content without turning it to an expensive Federal court case and without leaving thousands of content creators without profit.
For now, if you receive a DMCA notice all you need to do is to comply with the instructions listed. It is also best that you remove the content that got the copyright strike in order to prevent the suspension of your account on Twitch, YouTube, Twitter or other social media platforms.
This article is owned by Tech Times
Written by Sieeka Khan
