I'd love to hear more about #1. I don't know the history of the DMCA, and as a non-American I never heard about it before I saw it in action on Youtube.

What were the (subjectively worse) alternatives being talked about at the time, and what do you think the best way out of this mess from today moving forward would be?

You seem to hold a unique perspective on copyright issues I haven't hear before!

During the debate of the DMCA the media lobby was bribing congress to insanity to make sharing copyright material online a felony, and that any site enabling it be liable as an accomplice and enabler.

We might not be in great shape in terms of intellectual freedom, but things could have gone much worse if big media got their way.

That's the Overton Window/door-in-the-face tactic -- introduce extreme rhetoric (felonies for uploaders) in order to get a "compromise" that's basically what they wanted all along (forced takedowns at their discretion).

Well, a big part of the DMCA was providing "common carrier" protections for sites that were hosting content others uploaded. So, YouTube, for example, an stay alive even when people post blatantly infringing material, so long as they respond to requests to take it down. Prior to DMCA, there was the very real danger of sites being sued out of existence as being accessories. (Or sites switching to manual confirmation of everything posted before it was visible, a system that doesn't scale). And while we're at it, ISPs themselves could have been liable for any illegal activity done over the internet by one of their customers.

(As a non-American, you may not be aware that the first question the average American has when something goes wrong is "who can I sue?". Sad, but tragically common)

Previous laws were the Communications Decency Act (CDA) and the Child Online Protection Act (COPA), both of which got killed in court. They focused more on (trying) to prevent pornography from reaching the delicate eyes of children, but still touched on liability issues.

Alternatives to the DMCA went somewhat like Encryption talks now: INCREASE liability, give the govt lots of controls, etc. Sure the DMCA favors the copyright claimer, but if I'm a content host, you provide content, and I'm not liable. Then someone complains, and I let you know. You can dispute it, in which case I can keep it up without liability, or I can take it down. Alternatives didn't let it stay up, or would require that I prove your material isn't infringing myself, or other such things that fell even more heavily on the copyright claimant-side.

I don't think my perspective is all that unique - most of us that were around for the insanity that was CDA/COPA watched the DMCA with interest and had a "Well, this is progress" attitude even though we didn't really LIKE it, it was just a step in the right direction.

As for how to move forward, that's a multi-part issue:

* The places where DMCA is inadequate need to chafe so people get it changed. That's been happening for years, mainly in areas of general public concern, such as cellphone unlocking, takedown abuse, and format shifting.

* attitudes about "IP" need to change. That's been happening, but more slowly. I see non-legal people talking about IP as a wrapper for "this setting and associated characters" rather than "copyright/trademark/patents". News about patent trolls and related legal woes are becoming mainstream.

* One attitudes shift enough, the idea that "I thought of this, I can deny anyone else similar thoughts while being heralded as a hero" that currently drives copyright/patent policy will become more nuanced and allow for the idea that the legal protections afforded are for the public benefit, not private benefit.

It'll be slow going though.