By now, everyone knows that Netflix is under fire from copyright holders for blocking “Mad Men” episodes from its library of TV shows.
But the same doesn’t hold true for the other Netflix shows that the company has been censoring.
And that’s because Netflix has been using its power to control what people see online.
For instance, last year, the company blocked users from accessing “MadMen” episodes because the show was written by creator Don Draper.
The company has also censored “Mad Women,” a Netflix original series from actress Melissa Leo that explores gender dynamics in modern day America.
And while “Mad Dogs” was an exception to Netflix’s censorship, the practice of “blocking” shows and movies from a platform that many people use to watch TV and movies has been a long-standing practice in Hollywood.
But now, with a new bill that would ban copyright holders from censoring content from other companies, this practice is becoming a lot more widespread.
In its introduction, the Stop Online Piracy Act of 2017 (SOPA) calls for the “blocking” of content by copyright holders, “including by blocking, suspending, de-indexing, or removing access to content by means of an Internet Protocol (IP) address.”
But in the bill, copyright holders also have the power to block specific types of content.
The legislation does not define what types of sites could be blocked by the bill.
The problem is that this definition is vague.
The bill states that it will “block the transfer of any digital or other property or service of any entity to, from, or through a site or service that infringes copyright, including any use of that digital or physical property or the services of that entity that are connected to the transfer, distribution, or receipt of copyrighted works,” but the definition is also vague.
In an email to BuzzFeed News, the American Library Association, which represents libraries, said that it has been trying to narrow the definition of what constitutes a “content provider” in the U.S. Copyright law gives copyright holders the right to block certain types of services, but there is no specific legal requirement to do so.
Copyright holders could block content by simply making sure they have a “good faith belief” that such content is infringing.
But even when a copyright holder has a good faith belief that a service or service is infringing, that doesn’t automatically make that content a copyright infringement.
So even if a copyright owner has good faith knowledge that a particular service or a particular site is infringing a copyright, it could still block the service or site.
The Copyright Office defines a “service or service” as any “process, method, device, or content that provides access to, or is used in connection with, a copyrighted work, including but not limited to an online platform.”
It goes on to define “service” as “a tangible object that enables access to or provides access or access to a work or its derivative works.”
But that definition is unclear and could easily be misconstrued as requiring a service provider to “offer access to” a specific service or the particular service to which it is offering access.
The Office also stated that a “person” would not necessarily include an individual who uses the service for his or her own personal use.
But in reality, this definition leaves a lot of discretion to the copyright holder, which could make it harder for copyright holders to determine whether certain content is “fair use” or not.
“If it is clear that a given service or content provider is a ‘service provider’ in the Copyright Office’s definition of ‘service,’ the Copyright Act can be interpreted to give the Copyright Holder the ability to block access to that service or to prevent access to the particular content,” the Copyright Offices website explains.
“But even if the Copyright Officer is able to determine that a specific content service or specific content provider does not infringe a copyright or a service-related right, it may not be able to use that determination to block the content provider from providing access to infringing content.”
The Copyright Offers website also notes that if the copyright holders did not have to provide proof that the service was infringing, the Copyright Officers “could still rely on their own general assessment of whether a service is a service to infringe the copyright.”
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which has been fighting the SOPA bill, says that while it is important that copyright holders have access to every piece of content on the Internet, the copyright law is not perfect.
“The law should be amended to include a more precise definition of the term ‘fair use,'” the EFF’s executive director, Sarah Anderson, said in a statement.
“In the meantime, copyright owners should focus on removing any harmful use of content that is not the direct or obvious purpose of copyright infringement, such as ‘blocking’ sites or services that provide access to pir