Text 13704, 88 rader
Skriven 2006-11-04 05:30:56 av /m (1:379/45)
Ärende: How to gag your enemies using the DMCA
==============================================
From: /m <mike@barkto.com>


http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/11/04/eff_fights_bogus_dmca_case/

===
The Register received our first DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act)
take-down notice in September.

We had in good faith published a photograph supplied to us by the subject of an
otherwise uncontroversial article. A few days later, one very annoyed
photographer emailed us claiming copyright for the picture and demanded its
removal, or a fee.

We asked the article's author to check his claims. We established that the
angry emailer was indeed the copyright owner and duly removed the photograph.

But we were not quick enough for him. In the meantime, he had fired off a DMCA
take-down notice to our webhost in the US. The company in turn sent us a letter
telling us to remove the photograph - which we had already deleted - and set us
a deadline of a few hours to confirm in writing that we had done so.

Otherwise it would "suspend network access to the server hosting the website".
The deadline was 2AM GMT, not a time when our techies in Edinburgh are usually
at work. A suspension would have affected all our servers - including those
hosted in the UK, as well as the US.

So our entire site could have been closed for business, all because of one
photograph - which admittedly was not ours to republish. This did not strike us
an entirely proportionate response, and it brought home to us how easy it is to
use the DMCA to ambush websites housed in the US or hosted overseas by
companies headquartered in the US. We are considering our options for ensuring
that we do not face such a situation again.

The DMCA is supposed to protect copyright owners, but as our example shows, it
can be an enormous hammer to crack a very small nut. Its safe harbor provisions
mean that US webhosts and ISPs feel they have to remove entire sites from the
web, to protect themselves from punishment. Take down first, ask questions
later, is the order of the day. This gives copyright holders enormous scope to
browbeat ISPs into acting as censors-by-proxy. Mischief-makers and bamboozlers
can join the fun too.

Pissed off with an article published online? Does it have a picture in it?
Claim copyright and file a DMCA takedown notice. This is not a theoretical line
of attack.
10 Zen Monkeys

In September, Jeff Diehl of the website 10 Zen Monkeys wrote an article
criticizing Michael Crook, the publisher of craigslist-perverts.org, for outing
the respondents to fake ads he had run, claiming to be a young woman seeking
casual sex. Diehl's piece included an image of Crook being interviewed by Fox
News. Crook issued a DMCA take-down notice to 10 Zen Monkeys's ISP, claiming
copyright of the Fox News picture. Diehl writes on his website:

"I was personally given an ultimatum to remove the material cited in the notice
(a TV screen capture of Crook's appearance on Fox News Channel), or have my
account canceled. Needless to say, Crook did not own the rights to the image,
and even if he did, there's a little thing called
'fair use' in the context of critical commentary."

Diehl removed the picture, upped sticks and moved to another ISP - more
expensive, but one who could "understand and respect free speech at least to
the point of asking me for details before threatening to pull the plug on my
site". He then returned the Fox News picture to the article.

Again, Crook sent a DMCA take-down notice, but Diehl's new ISP, San
Francisco-based Laughing Squid, was made of sterner stuff. On its advice, Diehl
sought the help of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). He struck lucky:
for the digital rights lobby group has decided to go to war for him.

This week, the EFF filed civil suit against Crook for his bogus DMCA claim.

"The internet is home to passionate debate on countless important issues. It is
too bad that some people find the robust exercise of free speech so frightening
that they use intimidation to try to silence it," said EFF Staff Attorney
Corynne McSherry.

Quite. The Register is not an entirely uncritical fan of the EFF. But in this
case, it has identified an important cause to fight, and one that it should win
easily enough.

Will this give America's spineless ISPs some more backbone? We can but hope. R
===

 /m

--- BBBS/NT v4.01 Flag-5
 * Origin: Barktopia BBS Site http://HarborWebs.com:8081 (1:379/45)