RIAA Says That U.S. Copyright Law Doesn’t Work For Content Creators

The Recording Industry Association of America stated that U.S. copyright law is broken and isn’t working for content creators. RIAA President Cary Sherman said that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) has loopholes that allows web companies to conduct unlawful activities without having to worry abut legal consequences.

“The DMCA isn’t working for content people at all,” said Sherman at the Technology Policy Institute Aspen Forum. “You cannot monitor all the infringements on the Internet. It’s simply not possible. We don’t have the ability to search all the places infringing content appears, such as cyberlockers like [file-hosting firm] RapidShare.”

The DMCA law essentially says that web companies are not responsible for illegal content that is uploaded, but is responsible for removing it once contacted by the content owners. YouTube product counsel Lance Kavanaugh disagrees with Sherman. “It’s our view that the DMCA is functioning exactly the way Congress intended it to,” said Lance.

[CNET]