{"id":20565,"date":"2022-04-28T01:13:22","date_gmt":"2022-04-28T08:13:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/?p=20565"},"modified":"2024-01-23T08:43:20","modified_gmt":"2024-01-23T16:43:20","slug":"how-new-copyright-laws-threaten-privacy-and-freedom-of-speech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/how-new-copyright-laws-threaten-privacy-and-freedom-of-speech\/","title":{"rendered":"How New Copyright Laws Threaten Privacy and Freedom of Speech"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s a new US bill that everyone in the privacy world should know about \u2014 it goes by the name of \u201cStrengthening Measures to Advance Rights Technologies Copyright Act of 2022\u201d or the \u201cSMART Copyright Act of 2022\u201d for short.<\/p>\n

Although the bill is mostly geared toward tackling copyright infringement, the way it does so would have serious adverse effects on both privacy and freedom of speech.<\/p>\n

SMART Copyright Act of 2022: Explained<\/b><\/h2>\n

The bill itself<\/a> is written in legalese. But Eric Goldman \u2013 Associate Dean for Research and Professor of Law at Santa Clara University School of Law \u2013 has written a clear explanation of what the SMART Copyright Act would do<\/a> and why it\u2019s so dangerous. The short of it is that the bill gives the Copyright Office power to designate the technology \u2014 \u201cdesignated technical measures\u201d (DTMs) \u2014 to be used as mandatory content filtering algorithms.<\/p>\n

The aim of the bill is clear. It forces all the main services that you use to upload material \u2014 sites like YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram \u2014 to install upload filters that check uploads for alleged copyright infringement. Those filters look at every upload, meaningthat everything you upload to Facebook,Instagram, and other sites is inspected.<\/p>\n

While these checks are automated rather than carried out by humans, automated surveillance is still surveillance. In some cases, automated surveillance can also lead to excessive blocking. The UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression<\/a>, David Kaye, wrote in 2018:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cStates and intergovernmental organizations should refrain from establishing laws or arrangements that would require the \u201cproactive\u201d monitoring or filtering of content, which is both inconsistent with the right to privacy and likely to amount to pre-publication censorship.<\/p>\n

\u2026<\/p>\n

In particular, automated filtering may be ill-equipped to perform assessments of context in the application of complex areas of law, such as copyright and counterterrorism.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

As well as the privacy issue, Kaye\u2019s comment highlights another major problem with automated upload filters.<\/p>\n\n\n