Slashdot Mirror
Chilling Effects Cease & Desist Clearinghouse
Wendy Seltzer writes: "The Berkman Center for Internet & Society, EFF, and other major law school clinics have launched ChillingEffects.org to combat the chilling effect of Cease & Desist letters with ungrounded legal threats. (Slashdot readers got a site preview in the story on the Bnetd Cease & Desist, already in our database.)
If you have received a Cease & Desist, we invite you to add it to the database, where law students will analyze the legalese and annotate the C&Ds with Frequently Asked Questions and answers. The site already offers several sets of general legal FAQs."
Hey slashdot crowd, you all should be excited about this. We finally have a place to go check out what the laws really mean (and how they're really applied), as opposed to talking out our asses all the time. This is indeed a Good Thing (tm) and I only hope the best for the affiliated schools.
Witty quotes suck.
because I am working :)
At first glance, this looks like a great thing. In fact, what the internet was supposed to be. My only question is - how long will they remain available and maintained? Operations like this tend to get their funding mysteriously cut. Sounds like a job for the EFF to fund?
political_news.c: warning: comparison is always true due to limited range of data type
How long until this site itself gets it's own Cease and Desist for whatever unfounded reason?
Lost his faith in democracy,
Don't Tread on Me
This is exactly what the internet is for: obscure information easily available to the masses. Be sure to tell your friends etc., as the only way the internet can remain a free place is through active individual self-education. A disturbingly low number of people actually read things like the DMCA or cease and desist letters; we need to be smarter and more aggressive if we want to stay free.
visit the hwky website for a lyrical genius infusion.
If the "Clearinghouse" manages to stay up, it will certainly become very useful. One of the worst things about cease-and-desist letters is that the lawyers throw all kinds of threats at you, which you then have to spend time checking into. If you're a small operation, this means a big company can basically bludgeon you to death with cease and desist letters. In fact, we've seen this happening a lot more in the past year.
I'm glad to see this site go up, IMHO it's a victory for the little guy. It'll be interesting to see what happens to the cease and desist climate after word of the site gets around; maybe people will stop throwing cease & desist at everything they don't like. (Heh, that's probably a pipe dream.) Anyway, just my $0.02.
---Crash Windows XP just by viewing a simple text file!
Join me in protesting for our freedoms! Remember, information (and especially movies like Good Will Hunting) want to be free!
If guns kill people, then CmdrTaco's keyboard misspells words.
Why do I have the feeling that some featured organization will issue a C&D onto ChillingEffect.com?
Mod Karma -1: I sed bad wurds. If I cep my mouf shut, I wud be at riyses.
The Berkman Center for Internet & Society, EFF, and other major law school clinics have launched ChillingEffects.org to combat the chilling effect of Cease & Desist letters with ungrounded legal threats.
Yeah, those lawsuits hurt me a lot too when they're not grounded - They build up lots of static.
How about groundless?
"Mod, mod, mod...and another troll bites the dust."
Slashdot effect is stronger than the chilling effect.
Yes but every time I try to see it your way, I get a headache.
It's nice to see that after all the talk and jokes about open-sourcing the law, that it is happening.
Is this that much different from submitting a patch to a peer-maintenance group and having it reviewed by various persons of various qualifications? Or from submitting an Ask Slashdot, for that matter.
I've been involved with businesses that have been threatened by letters about various things. Upon receiving the first of those letters, I started expanding my knowledge of legalese, law application, etc. A lot of google and a few dead trees later, and I'm much more informed... and can now spot the bullshit much easier than I once could.
This database should provide a short circuit, so that people can quickly learn about things that pertain to them, and get assistance on resolving them.
I think this sort of idea is important to free speech in an increasingly corporate medium. It's heartening to see that people care enough to actually devote their time to it.
-l
How about the chilling effect of putting up a site and being instantly slashdotted?
/. readers have had another prequel to this with the attack of Barney, the purple Tyrannosaurus rex.
Their tag line: "monitoring and protecting your brand equity."
Check the connotations of the individual words:
Again, I may be [and probably am] wrong.
Along that line of thinking: How long do you think it will be before C&D letters contain language specifying that you cannot publish them? (And even if you say that is not possible/legal/whatever, how many will try anyway?)
Unforunately I think it would only be helpful for those living under US law. Therefore not applicable to many people. Getting law students involved from many other countries would be a good thing.
It's kind of funny how the relationship between technology and the law have changed. Four years ago, who would have expected to see an archive of legalisms as a /. front-page story? I mean, this is a tech news site, right?
Ah well, at least there are still white hat lawyers on our side, for the moment at least.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
Assuming you got one, and I'm pretty sure I know someone who did, if they aren't signed by a member of a state bar or plaing fantasy, any recourse, other than telling them where to shove it?
Examples may include, "Dear Sir/Madam, our attorney has advised us that what you are doing violates etc etc etc...", which, IMHO is hardly a C&D rather wishful thinking.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I wonder if EFF et al will be sending /. a Cease & Desist letter for a premeditated DOS attack on their web server? :)
Asikaa
Come in, twenty-seventy-seventy, your time is up.
Dear Sir,
It has come to our attention that you maintain a web site operating under the moniker "chillingeffects.org" and through that service are engaged in the provision of legal services.
Since you are not licensed to provide legal services, we respectfully ask that you cease and desist from providing such services.
Respectfully yours,
Joe Q. Lawyer and associates.
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
But as a defense, you could argue that publishing these threats with analysis are of public importance.
Fight Spammers!
Unless the sender and recipient are under NDA, this would be laughed so far out of court it would land in the ocean. And not just in the Ninth Circuit.
Of course, some unscrupulous shark might push Congress for a law saying C&D letters are confidential, but I can't imagine that passing 1st amendment scrutiny.
sulli
RTFJ.
Slashdot Effect: The virtual equivilent of a C&D
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Slashdotted...
main(i){(10-putchar(((25208>>3*(i+=3))&7)+(i ?i-4?100:65:10)))?main(i-4):i;}
Now as soon as the Slashdot effect fades, I can use the site.
watching 200 episodes of "Ally McBeal" doesn't make me a legal expert? I'm flabbergasted. Gotta go have to have a hallucination about a dancing baby...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Copyright infringement is NOT theft.
Yes it is a crime or at least a civil violation (tort). It may or may not be immoral - but it is NOT THEFT. Calling it theft does not make it so.
Theft involves obtaining something, and taking it away from someone else - not illegally using, making or distributing a copy.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
He smart enough to know to let the expert witness answer those lines of questioning by playing dumb...
Too many people aren't smart enough to play dumb...
"Communism is like having one [local] phone company " - Lenny Bruce
It it legal to put C&D letters on a public website, or could the sender claim copyright infringement?
In Germany, there is something similar to C&D letters ("Abmahnung", slightly worse because you must pay a few hunderd dollers, or they'll go to court).
There is a database about it, but you must never quote the Abmahnung on a website - you'd get another one for copyright infringment.
I read of a very good reaction to this: The guy told the company that he couldn't sign it without having it looked over by a lawyer beforehand, and since it was a work requirement, he demanded that the company pre-approve the expense claim for the fees. Never had to sign. And if they do, then you've got a lawyer's read on the form. Win both ways.
Complexity is Easy. Simplicity is Hard.
Don't try this at home kids: apparently even Groucho's humor was lost on those dour lawyers.
BTW, does anyone know which Marx Brothers movie has something like the following exchange?
It's a great idea, but you really can't call it annotated. There are links in each C&D letter to a FAQ, but it's all boilerplate stuff - for example, the EnronOwnsTheGOP C&D and vivendiuniversalsucks.com C&D basically have the same annotation, such as "what constitutes trademark dilution."
It's a great introduction to those who aren't familiar with the difference between copyright and trademark, for example. It'd be nice to have some actual annotations by lawyers. A good site with this kind of content is Consumer Affairs. They have Real Live Lawyers who read consumer complaints and give their opinion on who's at fault, what the relevant laws are, etc. I'd love to see one of these C&D letters ripped apart by a lawyer, e.g. 'this is clearly a parody that falls under fair use.'
So what she's basically saying is, she wants us to make the players of our game stop using any kind of military insignia/unit name in their online names. She's also been emailing various DoD "clans" asking the same thing. As you might expect of flame ready teens, some have started bombarding her with some pretty interesting (as I'm guessing) responses.
Now she's writing to us (the DoD Team) and Sierra (who we have ZERO connection with) asking us to make them stop emailing her.
Sheesh!
So - thank GOD for that website. I feel like we're not alone anymore after having it to read!
That being said, I wholeheartedly wish this site the best: a little knowledge about the law can go a long way in shielding oneself from abusive practices. I'm pleasantly surprised, also, to see that /.ers are not flaming the hell out of the idea, given the prevailing "why should I need a professional to explain my legal rights to me - life is supposed be simple, obvious and unfailingly fair" world view often expressed here.
No, no, no. This is not a sig.
I sure would like to issue quite a few Cease & Desist letters myself. What legal footing do I have to stand on if I send a spammer a Cease & Desist for harrasment?
My Cease & Desist
Dear Sir,
My penis is already too long, and I already know everything about my neigbor and don't need a net detective. I am already married so I don't care about finding a perfect mate, and my mathematical skills make it extremely unlikely that I will visit your on-line casino. I don't need your on-line porno, or your Nigierian.
Your repeated attempts to market to me are it harassament. If you were doing this over a phone I would already be seeing your sorry but in jail. Since you are hiding I must send this to everyone that has helped you in your endeavour.
Please remit 1,000 dollars to my swiss bank account or I'll sick my laywer on you.
Sincerely
Penis is to large and doesn't need to add another inch.
"Science is about ego as much as it is about discovery and truth " - I said it, so sue me.
Civil disobedience would be to use Microsoft Office on your laptop and desktop.
How is this different from copying DVDs? In both cases you're depriving the corporation of potential additional sales, which is what you consider to be theft.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
What about posting a letter for the purpose of receiving legal advice? Wouldn't that have to be allowed? Are they going to say you can't show it to your attorney? You can't show it to non-attorneys? You can't post it on a bulletin board with a note attached asking if anyone can advise you on a course of action? You can't post it on a website with your own comments attached and a request for legal advice? Where would the line be drawn, and why?
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
It'll probably get whacked down by the big boys if it becomes a nuisance. I remember reading a while back about the law firms for some big industry types getting some law passed to prohibit law students from helping low-income families deal with legal paperwork and filings in order to save their homes from being destroyed to make way for factories and industrial plants. The students were making it too easy for the families to fight the big companies, so they just got the practice outlawed. Suddenly the resistance dropped dramatically and they could move in a their leisure.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Too bad he's usually talking out his ass. Tho' in this case, he's pretty much right. The industry hasn't released content to the net because they know people will just steal it. Enough theft occurs already with the relatively difficult processes (you need a number of "hacker tools" to rip DVDs, copy stuff off your DTivo, or trick your Replay 4000 into sending content to your PC) They aren't going to release anything until they have some means of keeping their fingers on their content. However, they have no incentive to develop any meaningful technology to prevent copying (which can be proven to be impossible or at minimum highly complex and very expensive) unless they can make circumvention punishable by immediate death.
The current set of laws are sufficiently laughable. It's already (and long since been) illegal to duplicate a copyrighted work weither that be photocopying a magazine or molecular duplication of a CD. Now we have a set of laws that make it legal to break the law.
Everyone seems to have long since missed the point: If you make something that's work buying, people will buy it.
No, no, no. This is not a sig.
First of all many of you have commented on the possibility of some large law firm trying to shutdown the Chilling Effects Clearinghouse. I find this highly unlikely. It is run by divisions of the Harvard, Standford and Berkley Law Schools, whom have incredibly power. I doubt its possible for any law firm to intimidate Harvard. Its current alumni consist of 5 of the 9 supreme court justices and many members of Congress. So needless to say if any legal action was attempted against this site it would be met with a very powerful defense.
A rabbit in the hand is worth 4 in the cage
Does this only look at how american law would interpret the evidence, or international law. I know that many countries share that same policies, but if I live in Australia, and get a cease and desist, can I post it to this forum and get a response showing what rights I have avaliable to me based on Australian or international law.
Has any attorney ever actually gotten in trouble because he posted legal opinion to the Internet and some butthead thought that it created an attorney-client relationship or constituted legal advice? I am a lawyer, and I post stuff from time to time, and I don't choose to .sig my posts with long disclaimers -- because commmon sense should tell you that my post, however opinionated or lawyerlike, doesn't create any duty or liability to readers. If someone knows of a court opinion that says otherwise, please cough it up.
I live in Europe, where the legal climate is slightly different from the US. But corporate legal intimidation is not a purely US phenomenon. The KaZaA case was filed in The Netherlands, the KIllustrator case in Germany, etc..
Remember many of the corporations in question are truely global. Though some of them have different trading or simply well known names in different parts of the world. It's more common in the US because they have more experience of using US laws and quite probabaly at manipulating them there.
The domination of the Democrat and Republican parties in the US at all levels of government makes things easier. In many European countries you find not only a more diverse range of political parties, but also differances between national, regional and local government.
I agree that anyone who thinks they are my client because I post something on the Internet is probably a "butthead." But I'm not sure all courts would agree, particularly because the context of /. is that one person states a position, and then others reply to it. Unlike generalized internet posting (e.g., on my own web site, addressed to no one in particular), I can't see that a "reply" to a particular individual's comment is categorically different from other informal discussions where atty-client relationships have been found. So I don't feel insulated from "buttheads" without the disclaimer, and we all know there are lots of "buttheads" around. (Maintaining strict anonymity and declining to post any email address, even an anonymous one, increases my comfort level also. If someone really wanted to consult me as their attorney based on what I've said on /., how would they ever find me? Even the "reasonable butthead person" probably wouldn't be justified in assuming they have an attorney-client relationship with an anonymous, unreachable creature known only as "raresilk.")
Although I don't know of cases where individuals have sued an attorney based on legal advice posted on a web site, I am aware that many state bar organizations are cracking down on what they view as unauthorized practice of law over the internet. Again, I see nothing about posting to a web site that makes it categorically different from other printed legal materials, all of which must conform with applicable state law rules on admission to practice. Although I make specific disclaimers in my posts where appropriate (e.g., I haven't read the court's opinion yet, I'm most familiar with California law, I'm not an expert in trade mark law, you should consult your own lawyer before making any important business decisions, blah, blah), I feel more comfortable with a general disclaimer that plainly indicates I do not intend to practice law or give legal advice anywhere I'm not authorized to practice.
No, no, no. This is not a sig.