EU Parliament Debates a DMCA Equivalent 73
bs0d3 writes "Right now what is lacking across Europe is a standard law to handle notice-and-take-downs of illegal sites like the U.S.'s DMCA. Right now illegal content across Europe is subject to non-standard takedown letters, some of which include no mention of what law was allegedly infringed, nor in which jurisdiction in Europe it's infringed, or who to contact in your jurisdiction to challenge the claim, or even which company it is that is being represented by the law firm that gets in touch with the [site owner]. They need a system so that the notices would have to include information that makes them verifiable as correct." Perhaps that will change; "The EU is holding a public consultation discussing notice-and-take-down laws."
Easy, abolish takedown notices (Score:2, Interesting)
A hosting site or a service provider should not be responsible for the actions of their users, nor should they be forced to prove their innocence. In a real legal state, takedown notice laws can't exist.
DMCA = "Guilty until proven innocent" (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem with the DMCA is that, in every case where I have seen it used, ones content is blocked on the internet after lawyer are involved.
It is then completely up to the owner of the site to prove that they have no infringing content on their site.
The process of sending a DMCA complaint was free, the last time I checked. Go to DMCA.com... and fill out a form, quote from the site "The DMCA.com Takedown claim form takes about 3 minutes to fill out."
If one is a victim of a bogus DMCA complaint, there is no easy help to find on their site. Once one finds the correct page one can read that a counterclaim can only be sent "after the DMCA Takedown has been submitted and after the content has been removed."
Once on sends the the counterclaim to the ISP "they must wait 10-14 days" before they may unblock the content.
Accused = sentenced immediately :( :(
Exonerated = sorry, you got to wait 10-14 days