We use internet as a media, rather than a product itself. If someone makes 100 phone calls to 100 different people with dirty words, should these telephone companies be liable? Certainly not, because internet and telephone are just “tubes”.
Should we monitor them? Certainly yes, anything has two sides. If internet is wrongfully used, it could cause damages. Then who should be liable for these damages? Wrongdoer should be. However, if the media already burden reasonable obligations to monitor, it does nothing wrong. Like the rational behind DMCA, as long as the ISPs remove the contents on its website diligently and monitor these diligently, it is simply wrong to render them liable.
Many people would question whether what Youtube has done is enough. Maybe not, someone would say Youtube developed this technology to disseminate videos while failing to develop a counterpart technology to monitor whether each video infringes others’ copyright. However, first, under the current law, Youtube has done more than what the law requires; second, I doubt it is reasonable to require Youtube to develop a counterpart monitoring technology, since it seems copyright holder should bear more burden to protect their own rights, others which provide service with substantial non-infringing use have a little burden on this.
Anyway, it’s just tubes. To give more control on the source would be better than just to break up or block tubes.
Friday, April 24, 2009
It’s just tubes
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