Commerce DMCA Meeting Looks to Tackle Standardized Takedowns First

The Obama Administration launched its latest multistakeholder process on standards and best practices for improving the notice and takedown system for infringing Internet content.

The goal is to come up with voluntary standards and avoid the scorched earth debate that took down the Stop Online Piracy Act legislation in 2013. The day-long meeting, which was overseen by the Department of Commerce and hosted by the US Patent and Trademark Office, appeared to find common ground on the need to focus on one issue rather than tackle several at once. That issue was a standardized template for the notice and takedown regime under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which is the way content rights holders and ISPs inform Web users of allegedly infringing content.

A representative of the Motion Picture Association of America agreed that standardized templates was a good topic to start with. He also said that the focus should be on a process that was effective, not just efficient. The point is not to generate millions of notices, but to cut down on the need for them by cutting down on infringement, he added.