February 4, 2021 at 1:30 PM
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As one wades deeper into the turgid waters of 2021, one is heartened to see the dovetailing of two welcome copyright trends. First, our elected representatives in Congress are working to revise the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the turn-of-the-century statute that Big Tech has hijacked over the past two decades to build billion-dollar valuations while trampling the rights of artists and creators. The most devastating provision of the DMCA is Section 512, which was originally promulgated to protect online bulletin board operators against claims related to files uploaded by readers. Companies like YouTube seized on this section to stream music videos and films without consent and with knowledge that its site was popular because it was a hotbed of pirated content. And companies like Amazon exploited the same section to sell counterfeit and knock-off product with impunity.