Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Executive Summary
The Wikimedia Foundation operates one of the world's
top websites
.
Yet, in contrast to
other major global websites that are built on user contributions,
we are a non-profit
organization with a small staff and limited resources. Our
mission
is to empower and
engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a
free license
or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally. Our
contributors are rightsholders themselves who choose to share their works under a
free license for the benefit of the world. Our ability to provide a platform for their
contributions is only possible because of section 512.
In many ways, the section 512 system of safe harbors and a notice-and-takedown
process is working well for us. Because our community of volunteers takes copyright
seriously and removes infringing material quickly, the Foundation receives only a
handful of takedown notices41 in 2015.
That said, the system has flaws. We reject, unchallenged, over half of the notices we
receive as improper and contrary to the mandates of the DMCA. Changes to the
section 512 system should focus on reducing the current high proportion of bad
noticesa state of affairs which results in real staff and monetary costs. Changes that
would place a greater burden on online service providers (OSPs), such as mandating a
so-called notice-and-stay-down procedure, risk upsetting the balance of the system.
Such changes are not necessary given other DMCA mandates on websites like ours,
yet they would hit small and non-profit providers with non-profit missions the hardest,
despite our proven commitment to copyright compliance over the years, by demanding
resources that we do not have.
Introduction
The Wikimedia
vision
invites us to [i]magine a world in which every single human being
can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. The Wikimedia movement strives to
enact that vision by enabling people to share and reuse their work. Participants in the
movement have created a number of
projects
for collaboratively and freely sharing
knowledge. Those projects include an encyclopedia (
Wikipedia
), a media database
(
Wikimedia Commons
), a dictionary (
Wiktionary
), a repository of quotations (
Wikiquote
),
and the open-source software on which all of the projects run (
MediaWiki
). The role of
the Wikimedia Foundation is to promote the projects, ensure their continued operation,
and support the millions of volunteers who contribute to building and maintaining the
projects.
Copyright is a central component of the Wikimedia projects. It comes into play in two
ways. First, users contribute vast amounts of original copyrightable content that they
have created themselves. They write encyclopedia articles for Wikipedia; they take
pictures for Wikimedia Commons; they create educational course materials for
Wikiversity
. Wikimedias users, called
Wikimedians
, make all of these individually
copyrightable contributions available to everyone under a
Creative Commons
license.
Like many authors of creative works, Wikimedians tend to care deeply about copyright.
They respect copyright as a tool for deciding how others can access, use, and remix
their works.
Second, many of the projects include user-contributed works created by others, where
that is legally permitted. For example, users may upload
photographs that are in the
public domain
to Wikimedia Commons. Many of the projects require all works that
users upload to be freely licensed or in the public domain, while other projects allow
all rights reserved copyrighted works to be uploaded as fair uses in appropriate
circumstances.
Given these user contributions, the section 512 safe harbors are crucial to the
continued operation of the Wikimedia projects. Wikimedia Commons alone contains
over 30 million media files, with over 12,000 added every dayfar more than the
Wikimedia Foundations small, non-profit staff would be able to review and evaluate for
copyright infringement. For the Wikimedia projects to grow, or even continue to exist
as they currently do, the section 512 safe harbors must continue to protect projects
like these that allow volunteers to share and collaborate.
Wikimedians passion for copyright is also crucial to the Wikimedia Foundations
continued operation. Volunteer Wikimedians diligently remove material from the
projects that does not meet the projects standards, including their copyright rules.
When someone flags a potential copyright issue on the projects, volunteer
Wikimedians are usually the first responders, evaluating whether it is permissible to use
and removing the file if necessary. If Wikimedians encounter material that does not
comply with the copyright rules on the Wikimedia projects (which encompass, and are
sometimes more strict than, the law), they will remove files preemptively, without
copyright owners needing to send a DMCA notice. Due to these efforts by
Wikimedians, we receive very few noticesand over half of the ones we do receive are
unfounded. In 2015, we received only 41 notices and complied with 12 of them.
As the above indicates, the current safe harbor system is working well for us and our
projects. However, changes to section 512 could jeopardize the current systems
effectiveness at supporting free expression on online platforms and other projects like
Wikipedia. Placing additional requirements on intermediaries to monitor for copyright
violations would significantly increase the burden of complying with the
notice-and-takedown process. This is particularly so for small or non-profit
organizations like the Wikimedia Foundation. Considering we regularly receive DMCA
notices that are illegitimate in one way or another and our projects have a strong track
record of removing copyright violations, reducing the number of improper notices is a
more important goal than making OSPs monitor for infringing material.
At issue, though, are not just the resources we have to spend to comply with the law,
but the ways in which changes to the law could interfere with Wikimedians work and
the processes they have developed for the projects. Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia
projects are built and maintained through the effort of volunteers. The incentive for
them to continue to participate is not monetaryit is the satisfaction of knowing they
are freely creating and sharing knowledge. If it becomes more difficult for Wikimedians
to participate in the projects, they will be discouraged from doing so. On a large scale,
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it will harm Wikimedia's mission and potentially harm other online collaborative
communities, to the detriment of the publics access to knowledge.
Subjects of Inquiry
1. Are the section 512 safe harbors working as Congress intended?
On the whole, the section 512 safe harbors seem to be working as intended. They
allow online platforms, including Wikipedia, to exist as places for users to spread
knowledge, share their creative works, and build communities. Without the section 512
safe harbors, online platforms, out of fear of litigation, would not be able to allow the
same level of freedom of expression.
3. How have section 512's limitations on liability for online service providers
impacted the growth and development of online services?
The section 512 limitations on liability have allowed a great number of online services,
including Wikipedia, to exist in the first place. These services would not have been able
to grow and develop to their current levels, with millions of users, without section 512s
limitations on liability. Without those protections, online services would need to more
actively and preemptively approve user content submissions. Such a system of private
sector prior restraint would not have allowed online services to grow at the rate they
have.
The Wikimedia projects could not have grown to their current sizes without volunteers
contributing massive amounts of content. In the past 15 years, millions of users have
written and edited the over 38 million articles on Wikipedia. Users created, found, and
uploaded the over 30 million free media files on Wikimedia Commons. Section 512
recognizes this reality, and the limitations on liability it provides to OSPs allow for the
existence of Wikipedia and other collaborative platforms built on user-posted material.
The limitations on liability also provide the breathing room the Wikimedia Foundation
and Wikimedians need to remove copyright violations from the projects. There are
vastly more users than there are professional staff at the Wikimedia Foundation.
Wikimedians are able to find files and remove them from the projects without needing
input or supervision. Moreover, we can then use our limited staff resources to focus on
responding quickly and effectively to the notices of alleged copyright infringement that
we receive from rights holders. As a result, the Wikimedia projects have been able to
mechanism to prevent indiscriminate infringement, the section 512 safe harbors strike
a good balance between copyright owners and OSPs.
6. How effective is section 512s notice-and-takedown process for addressing
online infringement?
Section 512s notice-and-takedown process is effective for addressing online
infringement. If anything, it is
too
effectiveout of fear of losing safe harbor
protections, OSPs will take down material even if it is arguably (or unquestionably1 ) a
fair use, and even if they have not evaluated the material for infringement at all.2
8. In what ways does the process work differently for individuals, small-scale
entities, and/or large-scale entities that are sending and/or receiving
takedown notices?
We are a small-scale non-profit entity that hosts large-scale projects. The process
works differently for us as compared to large for-profit corporations or organizations
running websites that have significantly fewer users and less traffic. Wikipedia ranks
among the Internets
most-visited websites
, and the Wikimedia projects contain tens of
millions of
encyclopedia articles
and
media files
of all kinds. However, the Wikimedia
Foundation is able to operate with a small professional staffwe do not have hundreds
of lawyers to process and evaluate notices. We are able to support such extensive
projects with so few people for two reasons: (1) volunteers on the projects review the
material that users contribute to ensure against violation of site policies or the law,
including copyright law; and (2) the current notice-and-takedown process is
appropriately but not unduly burdensome on us.
Wikimedians work to ensure that the projects content does not violate copyright law.
The projects, under their user-created policies, generally only allow works that are in
the public domain or released under a Creative Commons license. When they do allow
1
See, e.g.
, Lenz v. Universal Music Corp, 801 F.3d 1126, 11291130 (9th Cir. 2015) (in which a music
publisher sent a takedown notice over a barely-understandable song that played in the background of a
29-second home video).
2
Jennifer M. Urban, Joe Karaganis, and Brianna L. Schofield, Notice and Takedown in Everyday Practice
(2016),
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2755628
(The vast majority of infringement
claims [categories of large] OSPs receive are not substantively reviewedeither by the senders, who rely
largely on title matches and similar proxies to identify copyrighted material, or by the recipient OSPs, which
can, at best, triage small percentages of notices for human review. Though substantive review of claims is
limited, the notices still generally trigger OSP knowledge. Unable to evaluate every takedown request or fail
to act on valid ones without risking their safe harbor protection, OSPs may take down material even where
there is doubt about the substance of the claim.).
Categories of illegitimate notices that we receive regularly, often because the notice
was sent via an automated process, include:
Notices that contain major omissions, such as failing to identify the original
copyrighted work that is allegedly being infringed.
Notices improperly sent to us, asking for the removal of material that is not
hosted on the Wikimedia projects.
Notices that contain no legitimate claim of copyright infringement, seemingly
intended for antagonistic purposes.
Even if a perfect (or very good) automated process could be created for sending
notices, it would still not be feasible for organizations like ussmall, non-profitto
implement and comply with automated processes. We do not have the engineering
resources to create or purchase an automated system for identifying problematic
material (or even for evaluating and processing notices) in a manner that still protects
free expression. It would be prohibitively expensive to hire professional staff to review
the many more notices that we could receive in an environment that allowed for
widespread, unchecked use of automated notice-sending systems. In addition, it
would be unnecessary to make it easier for rightsholders to send more automated
notices to sites where there is no evidence of widespread copyright infringement.
Our (human) attorneys review all notices we receive and evaluate whether they are
proper notices and whether the allegedly infringing material is actually (or plausibly)
infringing. If we need to devote our limited time and resources to helping rightsholders
in their copyright enforcement, it is not unreasonable to require them to first devote the
same amount of time, resources, and human attention to sending proper notices.
10. Does the notice-and-takedown process sufficiently address the
reappearance of infringing material previously removed by a service
provider in response to a notice? If not, what should be done to address
this concern?
The current notice-and-takedown process sufficiently addresses the reappearance of
infringing material. It allows copyright owners to request that multiple files be taken
down with one notice, and it requires repeat infringer policies so there is a limit to the
extent a single user can re-upload the same file.
I
d
.
Id.
at 44.
Id.
at 4445.
frankly do not have. We would need to develop new technological mechanisms and
provide the staffing necessary to implement and maintain those mechanisms. Large
and for-profit OSPs may be able to shoulder those additional burdens, but we would
struggle under the weight. Additional burdens also serve to privilege existing and
well-funded OSPs over newcomers and organizations like us with limited resources.
Any proposed changes to the notice-and-takedown process should ensure appropriate
balance of enforcement rights, provide substantial protections for legal and fair use,
and be considerate of new costs for platforms.
12. Does the notice-and-takedown process sufficiently protect against
fraudulent, abusive or unfounded notices? If not, what should be done to
address this concern?
The notice-and-takedown process does not sufficiently protect against fraudulent,
abusive, or unfounded notices. As we report in our
semiannual transparency reports
,
we reject, without significant challenges from notice senders, over half of the notices
we receive because they are invalid for one reason or another. We reject many of these
notices because they request the removal of works that are properly and legally part of
the Wikimedia projects. If the process were sufficiently protecting against bad notices,
our compliance with notices should be close to 100%, rather than below 50%. We
would also need to spend much less time complying with themas it is, evaluating
and rejecting bad notices is an unproductive drain on our limited resources. Moreover,
the sending of bad notices has been used by antagonistic parties to pressure the
Wikimedia Foundation and intentionally attempt to waste our resources.
As the court in
Lenz v. Universal Music Corp
clarified, it is imperative that rightsholders
engage in a fair use analysis before sending takedown notices.6 Such an analysis
should prevent many bad notices from being sent, but only if it is comprehensive. To
ensure that rightsholders consider fair use in good faith before sending notices, the law
needs to provide for actual penalties for sending bad notices. Existing penalties seem
to be ineffective at deterring bad notices, especially if the dispute never winds up in
court. Penalties for repeatedly sending bad notices could be particularly effective at
stopping entities that are abusing the notice-and-takedown process for fraudulent or
inappropriate reasons.
Lenz v. Universal Music Corp, 801 F.3d 1126, 1129 (9th Cir. 2015).
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14. Have courts properly interpreted the meaning of representative list under
section 512(c)(3)(A)(ii)? If not, what should be done to address this
concern?
We frequently receive notices that contain a representative list of files to be removed
that is insufficiently specific for us to evaluate or comply with the notice. Usually that is
because the list fails to specify either the allegedly infringing material or the original
works that are allegedly infringed. Copyright owners should be required to provide
specific links to each file they want taken down, as well as provide links to the
copyrighted works they claim are infringed. For sites like ours that contain millions of
files, it is difficult or impossible to find and evaluate the material at issue based only on
vague claims of infringement. Especially considering our projects have robust systems
in place to ensure compliance with copyright law, and most of the notices we receive
are improper, we should not have to waste our time contending with poorly formed
representative lists of works.
16. How effective is the counter-notification process for addressing false and
mistaken assertions of infringement?
The counter-notification process is fairly ineffective for addressing false and mistaken
assertions of infringement. A significant proportion of the notices we receive are for
noninfringing files. While counter notifications can be effective in individual cases,
preventing noninfringing files from improperly being taken down, the existence of the
counter-notification process does not prevent sending notices containing false and
mistaken assertions of infringementnor should it need to. It is inappropriate to rely on
the counter-notification process to fend off all bad notices. The burden of preventing
abuse of the notice-and-takedown process should not fall to individual users, requiring
them to individually resist every bad notice.
17. How efficient or burdensome is the counter-notification process for users
and service providers? Is it a workable solution over the long run?
The counter-notification process is overly burdensome on users, particularly when they
have to respond to bad notices. In sending a counter-notification, a user must state
under penalty of perjury that they believe the material was improperly removed. Many
users are not knowledgeable about copyright law, and would be reluctant to go
head-to-head with a major copyright owner over whether their use of a work qualifies
as infringement. Even in cases where a user is confident of a win, the user often does
not have the financial resources, connections, or knowledge to obtain legal
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representation and pursue their case in the limited window offered by the
counter-notification procedure. Users outside of the United States, which is a
significant portion of Internet usage for any site, are even less likely to be well-versed in
U.S. copyright law or to be able to obtain legal representation. International users may
also be reluctant to submit to jurisdiction in a U.S. federal court.
Due to these considerations, users are likely to decline to send counter-notifications,
even in response to improper takedowns, in order to avoid conflict and expense. As a
result of the disincentives for users to provide counter-notifications contributes, OSPs
remove noninfringing material. The high incidence of bad notices compounds this
problem of over-removal.
23. Is there sufficient clarity in the law as to what constitutes a repeat infringer
policy for purposes of section 512's safe harbors? If not, what should be
done to address this concern?
The law should specify that repeat infringer policies should not count unsuccessful
notices that do not result in the removal of content. If the OSP rejects the notice, or if
there is a successful counter notification, then it should not count against the user.
28. Are the remedies for misrepresentation set forth in section 512(f) sufficient
to deter and address fraudulent or abusive notices and counter
notifications?
The remedies for misrepresentation are not sufficient to deter and address fraudulent
or abusive notices. As noted above, we reject most of the notices we receive. Stronger
remedies for misrepresentation could be a more effective deterrent. There is currently
no real recourse for misrepresentation unless significant harm results from a single
case of misrepresentation. While that may be appropriate on the small scale of an
individual notice, it does nothing to curtail rampant widespread misrepresentation on
the larger scale of the entire notice-and-takedown system. Given the international
nature of websites, it is also important that penalties are effective against abusive
notice senders outside the United States. Section 512(f) could be a more effective
deterrent if it increased penalties for entities or individuals who repeatedly send bad
notices, provided for some form of statutory damages not tied to actual costs, or held
notice senders to a higher standard than subjective good faith.7
See
Rossi v. Motion Picture Ass'n of America, 391 F. 3d 1000, 1007 (9th Cir. 2004).
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Conclusion
The system embodied in section 512 has its faults, but has proven to be effective at
both enabling the existence of online platforms containing large amounts of
user-posted material and enabling rightsholders to effectively protect against copyright
infringement. For the most part, it would be best to preserve the current system with
these benefits. Any changes designed to make it easier for rightsholders to have
material taken down are likely to harm the system overall. Such changes would have
an outsized impact on organizations like the Wikimedia Foundation that are responsible
for large amounts of content but have a small number of professional staff to address
alleged copyright infringement. If there are to be any changes to the current system,
8
Jennifer M. Urban, Joe Karaganis, and Brianna L. Schofield, Notice and Takedown in Everyday Practice
(2016),
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2755628
.
13
they should be aimed at reducing the number of bad notices that are sent and
protecting users ability to engage with copyrighted works.
Sincerely,
Wikimedia Foundation
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