[vox] What's On the Blacklist? Three Sites That SOPA Could Put at Risk [EFF]

[Eric Rasmussen]

I read that as EFF saying "we don't believe websites that let users post
potentially copyright infringing content should be subject to legal threat,
but under the new law they will be".

If I start an Etsy shop reselling goods from Acme and use Acme's original
copyrighted product photos, Etsy could be at risk, even if they don't
reasonably have a way to automatically filter out that content. Etsy is
then put in a position where they have to put unreasonable controls on the
majority of non-copyright-infringing customers to prevent potential legal
action.

Acme could always ask Etsy to remove the copyright-infringing content, but
with the new law they could go straight to the payment processor and
prevent Etsy from collecting funds they might need to continue running,
regardless of the eventual outcome of the investigation.

If I'm understanding it correctly, this means that any of us that one day
start a site where users can freely post photos, text (copyrighted
lyrics/slogans/etc.) would also be at risk. Sites like Tumblr that host
blogs for many users are very concerned about the law for this reason.


On Thu, Dec 1, 2011 at 11:44 AM, <timriley at appahost.com> wrote:

> > -------- Original Message --------
> > Subject: [vox] What's On the Blacklist? Three Sites That SOPA Could Put
> > at Risk       [EFF]
> > From: Brian Lavender <brian at brie.com>
> > Date: Thu, December 01, 2011 11:18 am
> > To: vox at lists.lugod.org
> >
> >
> > What's On the Blacklist? Three Sites That SOPA Could Put at Risk
> >
> https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/11/whats-blacklist-three-sites-sopa-could-put-risk
> >
> > Don't let well intended idealists fool you. EFF put together some details
> > regarding unintended consequences and SOPA.
>
> The key sentence is, "To be clear: we don’t believe that the way
> these websites operate is or should be subject to legal threat."
>
> In other words, the author of this page doesn't believe these websites
> are
> violating copyright laws. But the author is still going to present these
> websites as unintended consequences.
>
> The reason for one website's unintended consequence is described as,
> "That’s a problem, because  under SOPA, anybody who is a 'holder of an
> intellectual property right harmed by the activities' of even a portion
> of the site, could serve Etsy’s payment processors with a notice that
> would
> require them to suspend Etsy’s service within 5 days."
>
> I can't make any sense out of this. Explain again why SOPA could put
> Etsy at risk?
>
> <snip>
>
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