Category: Mass Communication Law

ACTA and ISP immunity

World, get ready for the DMCA: ACTA’s Internet chapter leaks (Ars)

Ars offers an interesting interpretation of the leaked ACTA documents. They point out that it would be a globalization of what is already pretty established American law: ISPs are not liable for the infringing content of their subscribers, so long as they take the allegedly offending material offline. This would be a departure of the law of other countries.

Canadian law professor Michael Geist notes that the current draft would mean big changes for Canada. To take one example, Canada currently has no “takedown” law. Rather than “notice-and-takedown,” many ISPs rely on “notice-and-notice”—they pass notices along to the subscriber in question, but take no other action. But even this is not currently required by law.

What’s more, this would make bringing change to American law even more difficult. There have been plenty of cases where “notice and takedown” has not worked that well. Making it the default around the world wouldn’t be a good thing for us or them.

Most valuable -digital- asset

AppleInsider | NYT execs struggle over iPad edition subscription pricing – rumor.

Here’s an interesting rumor about debates over the electronic subscription model at the Times.  Most interestingly:

The news follows another recent report that some publishers are skeptical of Apple’s iPad business model, which sees the company giving 70 percent of revenue to content providers, but not sharing any personal information about subscribers. Those in the publishing world, particularly in newspapers, view that information — called “their most valuable asset” — as crucial for selling advertising.

This is an important distinction between print and digital.  Newspapers know their audience well enough to tell advertisers about the demographics of their readers.  This is why you see all of the “high end” ads in the Times. If they don’t have access to this information, it could have grave implications for the funding model of free and low-cost online journalism.