One Of These Things Is not Like The Other...

Adam Holland, April 15, 2013

Abstract: Conflicting reports on the current state and activities of the copyright-dependent industry call certain assumptions in to question.

Here at Chilling Effects, we wanted to call your attention to a few interestign pieces of news that have recently emerged in the DMCA-related world.

We've written before about how the big players in the content industry have been upset with Google for not allowing them to send as many DMCA takedown requests as they like. Apparently 10,000 a day, or a a million a week just doesn't cut it any more. I mean, who cares about false positives resulting from massive overreach? Also, BPI's wish for Google to downrank some sites is frankly bizarre. Maybe they'd like Google to identify up-and-coming successful artists, too? That would certainly make it easier for BPI to make money.

Well, for whatever reason, it looks like Google is listening to the complaints, or maybe they're just getting better at dealing with the numbers. We have to wonder, though, about a change that both Google and the RIAA (normally a huge Google critic) think is a positive change. Makes us wonder about the effect on John Q. Public.

But regardless, all right, it looks like the content industry, or at least the entities who are at the top of it's food chain, are really committing big-time to getting the most out of the DMCA.

Why? Is it just rational utility-maximizing behavior? Are they worried about revenues?
Whatever they might say, it apparently isn't because the industry is withering in the Internet era. Far from it, in fact. The number of jobs in the motion picture and sound recording industries is accelerating upward. So were the movie and recording industries simply uninformed, or obfuscating, when they vehemently claimed otherwise? Note that Matthew Lasar, over at Ars Technica, actually predicted the increase that the labor statistics show.

Of course, maybe all the new jobs are people sending DMCA notices...

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