When the Digital Millennium Copyright Act was signed into law back in 1998, it was seen as a perfect measure that would curb the notorious issue of unlawful copying, reproducing, and consuming or benefiting from works of art without the consent of the artist. The Act anchored itself on the 1996 World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) treaties that sort to make unauthorized access and control of copyrighted work criminal (Levine). During the 1998 enactment of DMCA, the Internet was just making its way into the world. The technology was not as advanced as it is today. Many of the tech companies that we have now which make downloading and uploading of artistic work easy were not known back then (Hassan). There were no smartphones and other download and storage gadgets as there are now. No one knew that 20 years later, it would be so easy to download, use, and even make money by uploading an artist’s work on the internet without their consent. It is, therefore, the reason artists came together to air their displeasure by writing a letter to the Congress to demand the reviewing of the DMCA.

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In their letter, the artists appealed to the Congress to enact “sensible reforms” that would ensure the tech companies do not rob them of their right to full returns from their work (Levine). They complained that though the consumption of artistic work has so much grown in the recent past, artists themselves have not been able to reap from the growth. Their point was that the consumers of their work have for the past few years been downloading their music from the host tech companies without paying for it. Maintaining that they are one of the country’s largest contributors to the economic growth, the artists said that they should not have to struggle with making a living and that the government should come up with appropriate measures against circumvention of access control for the sake of artists of the future (Levine). Writing for Digital Music News, Charlotte Hassan admitted that truly, there are underlying shortcomings with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act as it is now. Hassan said that notices to Google by DMCA for enabling access to copyrighted work have significantly increased lately (Hassan).

In an attempt to protect copyrighted work, the government had previously come up with another part of Digital Millennium Copyright Act that is commonly referred to as DMCA 1201 or DMCA anti-circumvention provisions. According to DMCA 1201, all recording studios should ensure that they have a built-in copy prevention system provided by the Rovi Corporation. This would supposedly curb the copying of artists’ work without their consent. According to Rob Levine, the 1998 DMCA enables sites like YouTube to remain safe from being liable for copyright infringement by giving the “safe harbor.” This gives them an advantage. If they make sure to respond to takedown requests from the artists, they cannot be sued on copyright issues (Levine).

It was surprising to see many artists put aside their usual grievances and come together to fight for a common course. The artists argued that takedown orders to YouTube do not help much as the content is simply uploaded again. As an example, the Universal Music argued that the Taylor Swift album “1989” released in 2014 had about 66,000 takedown notices sent by 2016 (Levine). This shows that even the content ID does not help much.

Following the call by the music world to the Congress to have the DMCA reviewed or replaced, some other entities have come out to try and stop it. Speaking through their website, the Silicon Angle strongly advised the Copyright Office against going ahead with the artists’ demands indicating it was out of sheer greed (Levine). Duncan Riley noted that allowing legal internet streaming of music dealt a death blow to piracy and streaming sites like YouTube and Spotify would simply be inviting it back to the industry (Riley)

YouTube, commenting on the issue, insists that it is not favored in any way by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act saying that it has paid as much as $3billion to the artists (Hassan). YouTube says that its Content ID system is enough to protect artists’ copyrighted material. It adds that most of the people listening to music on YouTube are those who might not be looking to buy it in the first place and, therefore, artists should be thankful that they get something (Higgins). The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has been pushing for the review of DMCA 1201 on anti-circumvention provisions that seemed to suggest even unlocking one’s own mobile phone could be illegal (Laine). Writing on the EEF’s website, Parker Higgins said that forbidding people from searching material on the internet could amount to denying them their freedom of research (Higgins).

As it stands now, this appears to be a topic that will continue to be subject to debate from different corners (Olwan). Artists want to receive every coin for their work that people consume while the tech companies maintain that their business is legal. If it goes on like this and sites like YouTube are rendered illegal, we could find ourselves back in the old piracy days. In which case artists would lose more money that they are currently losing. Such a scenario cannot be allowed to happen and therefore all stakeholders have to collaborate to make things happen.

    References
  • Halloran, Mark. The Musician’s Business And Legal Guide. 5th ed., Routledge, 2017.
  • Hassan, Charlotte. “180+ Music Artists Appeal For Urgent DMCA Reform”. Digital Music News, 2016, http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2016/06/20/180-music-artists-appeal-urgent-dmca-reform/. Accessed 21 April 2017.
  • Higgins, Parker. “EFF to Congress: Get Rid of DMCA’s “Anti-Circumvention” Provisions.” Electronic Frontier Foundation, 17 September 2014, https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/09/eff-congress-get-rid-dmcas-anti-circumvention-provisions. Accessed 21 April 2017.
  • Laine, Carolee. Content Ownership and Copyright. ABDO, 2017.
  • Levine, Rob. “Taylor Swift, Paul McCartney Among 180 Artists Signing Petition For Digital Copyright Reform.” Billboard, 20 June 2016, http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/7408970/taylor-swift-paul-mccartney-180-artists-signing-petition-digital. Accessed 21 April 2017.
  • Olwan, Rami M. “Voluntary Mechanisms, Copyright and Development.” Intellectual Property and Development. Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2012. pp. 265-345.
  • Riley, Duncan. “Greedy artists including Taylor Swift demand DMCA reform as part of an attack on YouTube.” Silicon Angle, 21 June 2016, http://siliconangle.com/blog/2016/06/21/greedy-artists-including-taylor-swift-demand-dmca-reform-as-part-of-attack-on-youtube/. Accessed 21 April 2017.