{"id":24457,"date":"2016-04-04T16:16:25","date_gmt":"2016-04-04T16:16:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shapeways.com\/blog\/?p=24457"},"modified":"2016-04-05T17:22:12","modified_gmt":"2016-04-05T21:22:12","slug":"trademark-and-copyright-safe-harbors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shapeways.com\/blog\/trademark-and-copyright-safe-harbors","title":{"rendered":"Trademark and Copyright Safe Harbors"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Friday we, along with our colleagues at Etsy, Foursquare, Kickstarter, Makerbot, and Stratasys, filed comments<\/a>\u00a0with the United States Copyright Office regarding how copyright works online.\u00a0 The Copyright Office had requested the comments as part of a study<\/a> it is doing in the laws that allow websites like ours to let anyone with an account share their work with the world.<\/p>\n

Specifically, the study was on what is known as Section 512 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).\u00a0 This provision is what gives structure to our copyright complaint process<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The provision is important, but imperfect. It was drafted in 1998 \u2013 eons ago in internet time \u2013 and it is good that the Copyright Office is taking the opportunity to ask questions about how the provision is working in the real world.<\/p>\n

While there are plenty of things that we could have mentioned in our comments, our focus was not strictly on copyright.\u00a0 Instead, we collectively decided to explain to the Copyright Office how trademark is impacting copyright online.<\/p>\n

We have raised this issue before.\u00a0 Back in October, as part of a similar group we filed a similar set of comments<\/a>\u00a0with the White House Intellectual Property Coordinator. We also highlighted the impact that trademark complaints have in the Shapeways transparency report<\/a>\u00a0released in February.<\/p>\n

At its core, our concern is that Section 512 establishes a carefully calibrated balance between users, rightsholders, and online platforms.\u00a0 It incorporates checks and balances designed to give everyone an opportunity to be treated fairly.<\/p>\n

However, the entire system is limited to the world of copyright.\u00a0 When rightsholders incorporate trademark claims in their takedown requests \u2013 something that, as we highlight in the\u00a0transparency report<\/a>, happens often \u2013 those balances disappear.\u00a0 As a result, no review of the Section 512 system is completely without an understanding of the broader context that it operates within.<\/p>\n

This is not the last word, or the only word, on this issue.\u00a0 As mentioned earlier, even the parts of the Section 512 system that are directly tied to copyright are imperfect.\u00a0 Many of the other comments submitted to the Copyright Office draw attention to those imperfections. Similarly, the just released study by Jennifer Urban, Joe Karaganis, and Briana Schofield on this process<\/a> contributes important data about how the system operates day-to-day to the conversation.\u00a0 If you are interested in this issue it provides a fantastic resource.<\/p>\n

For now we will continue to operate within the current legal structures and balance the rights of everyone connected to the Shapeways platform.\u00a0 At the same time, we will work to make sure that policymakers understand how the systems designed in law operate in practice.\u00a0 As with the previous comment<\/a>, we hope that this provides an opportunity to policymakers to reexamine the scope of safe harbors and reevaluate them in light of the goals they were intended to achieve.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Friday we, along with our colleagues at Etsy, Foursquare, Kickstarter, Makerbot, and Stratasys, filed comments\u00a0with the United States Copyright…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":73,"featured_media":24488,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[481],"tags":[477],"class_list":["post-24457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-shapeways","tag-1-whats-hot"],"thumbnail":"https:\/\/www.shapeways.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/512CommentCoverPage.png","yoast_head":"\nTrademark and Copyright Safe Harbors - Shapeways Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"On Friday we, along with our colleagues at Etsy, Foursquare, Kickstarter, Makerbot, and Stratasys, filed comments\u00a0with the United States Copyright Office\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, 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