In a hearing in front of the Intellectual Property Subcommittee of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee held Tuesday, elected officials heard from both copyright owners and the technology community on whether the Safe Harbor protection of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), first enacted in 1998, is still working or needs to be updated.
As expected, creators in the music industry -- including Don Henley of the Eagles -- labeled Safe Harbor an outdated clause that encourages piracy, suppresses financial renumeration and puts the burden of policing infringement on individuals, rather than the deep-pocketed, sophisticated-technology-enabled big corporate digital service providers.