Google Publicizes DMCA Takedowns

dmarti writes "In an apparent response to criticism of its handling of a threatening letter from a Church of Scientology lawyer, the popular search engine Google has begun to make so-called "takedown" letters public. DMCA-censored pages are now two clicks and a cut-and-paste away from the regular search results."

Comments

I heart Google.

[agent oranje]

It seems as though Google has realized that the majority of people using their search engine are home users, who want to find good pages with information they want. By telling people that the DMCA has resulted in the removal of said pages, it's informing the average user of what laws such as the DMCA actually mean to them!

I think its a fairly bold statement on Google's part, saying that the end user is more important than the corperate jackasses.

Will google ever get into real trouble?

[fireboy1919]

I've been wondering about this for a long time. They cache possibly illegal content, and are certianly distributing some stuff that the authors aren't giving them permission to, as well as possibly linking to sites which violate DMCA (and if they recieve too many letters about this, it could take forever to take down all the sites that are apparently violating the act).

It seems that Google might be breaking some of the current laws, or may break some in the future. IMHO, this is a good thing, because there are so many people who think that Google is an innocent, noble and pure search engine. The law may just be changed so that Google no longer violates it. I would certainly hate to see such a mechanism slip quietly into the night.

Google DIDN'T pull the pages

[somethingwicked]

Just to be clear, Google DID NOT pull the pages. They simply removed the challenged results that would normally appear in that search...

WHY???

Because they were following the law to the T...

They are only protected by the Safe Harbor provision if they honor the Notification letter.

And it can be simply reversed by a Counter-Notification.

This REALLY is the most logical way for this to work. It moves the responibility off of the indexer and puts it on the party publishing the information vs. the party claiming the info is copyrighted.

If "the man" ever shows up at Google's offices, they just whip out the documentation from each party and a copy of the law and say "goodday" to the badge.

Agreed

[BLKMGK]

I'm not sure I could think of any other response that Google could've made that would have been any better. By doing this they protect their interests, provide information to the public about why they've taken the actions they have, and if you read the letters you should be able to figure out what site was removed! They effectively sidestep this legal manuever, expose the twits who've harrased them, and give us enough information to find the site we wanted.

Actually, it's a bit of a shame that they are hiding telephone numbers etc. on the letters in question. I understand why - to prevent harrasing calls etc. - but hey the letter is apparently public record why not expose them? Seems fair enough to me! :-)

I applaude Google for doing this, it's just a shame I can't read the article in question :-( Score one for my favorite search engine!

Exposing them...

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Actually, it's a bit of a shame that they are hiding telephone numbers etc. on the letters in question. I understand why - to prevent harrasing calls etc. - but hey the letter is apparently public record why not expose them? Seems fair enough to me! :-)

Fair, yes. B-) But also an excuse for the Church of Scientology's lawyers to demand the letter be taken down. With the contact info removed they can't hide behind a harassment claim. They must expose their REAL reason for trying to get it down: censorship of any negative information about the behavior of CoS and its members.

I'm glad to see Google standing up in this manner. One of the major problems with the DCMA is that, in order for an anonymous poster to keep his site/links up, he must expose his identity. If the web page is critical of a criminal or gang which will harras the poster with extralegal actions once they FIND him, this requirement has a major chilling effect on anonymous speech.