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Google vs. DMCA and Scientology
Uebergeek writes "This article at the NYTimes (free registration, blah blah) details how google is dealing with the many complaints it gets from organizations when one of its links potentially violates a copyright (or just irritates the copyright's owner).
Specifically, it talks about how Google is dealing with the Scientologist's complaints about the list of the Operation Clambake site... now Google features a prominent link to another site that shows the complaint that the Scientologists filed, along with the delisted links."
God Forbid that Google should accurately reflect what's on the internet. People should attack sites if they have a problem, not take other user's right to find the page away from them. This impedes everyone from having an idea of free speech on which the internet was built on. Awful.
Are you going to financially back a lawsuit if one is filed?
THIS is what Google is attempting to avoid.
They may be the best search engine around, but like everyone (sans Microsoft) they have very limited "off-topic" funds to fight "pointless" lawsuits.
Karma? Karma? I don't need no stinkin' karma.
It really makes you ponder after you read this article about why Google did what they did. I'm sure it was just to pass the buck, or lower publicity about it.
The fact is, Xenu.net (the site in question here) is based in Norway. I highly doubt they could use the DMCA to have the links removed legally. Luckily for Google, however, this incident has put the DMCA on the spotlight. Now, more than just geeks care about it, especially when it ends up in the New York Times.
The speed of time is one second per second.
" How long will the DMCA be used to trample freedom of speech, expression, and fair use, until Congress gets it into their thick skulls that this is BAD LEGISLATION, and repeals it?
Maybe the overwhelmingly negative response to CBPTBA (or whatever) will act as a wakeup call."
All I can say is that if these sorts of laws continue to be passed and abused, methinks the IP hoarders will be "the first against the wall when the revolution comes" (to "fair use" some Douglas Adams).
The fact that the DMCA *IS* most definately being used to stifle free speech, in the terms of POLITICAL speech (as $cientology IS a religious lobby), should ALONE merit review....
But, alas, so long as the RIAA/MPAA/$cientologists, et all, get to INITIATE the cases, they will continue to get to handpick the judges and courts.
Which will get us more sham trials like the DeCSS case.
What is needed is for us to somehow file a CLASS ACTION against those enforcing the DMCA, on a first amendment basis, and based on the copyright/fair use provision of the Constitution.
I had such high hopes for the Felten case, because for once our side would be the initiator, instead of the defendant... I beleive it was a mistake for him to go ahead and GIVE his speech, because to not do so would have made it easier to show that he was INTIMIDATED into silence by DMCA saber rattling.
=== The price of freedom is eternal vigilance
This took about .5 seconds, try searching news stories on yahoo.
Huh?
Isn't this what chillingeffect.org was founded to do? I thought that it was some academic lawyer types who were looking for problems, and google was just helping them out.
http://www.majcher.com/nytview.html
If they believe it should be listed, they should have the courage to list it themselves.
I disagree. Google has the correct proceedure. I don't want individual companies taken down simply because they can't afford the legal fight...
If it was just google doing this, I would have a problem. However I think google has shown other companies how to handle these type of issues....
"Only one thing, is impossible for god: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." Mark Twain
It's rather Ironic that the NYT article discussing the right to link in such a balanced and enlightened manner, itself contains no hyperlinks to any of the sites that it is discussing.
From news.yahoo.com is the same story, no registration required.
Whoever stated that signature sizes should be limited to one hundred and twenty characters can just go ahead and kiss my
Seeing as Scientology fits all the classic signs of a cult, why has it not been properly labled and dealt with? Simply reclassifying it properly would give law enforcement agencies much greater access to investigate and prosecute abuses within the "church" of Scientology and would serve to protect the members from themselves.
The only people who lose when you call Scientology what it is - a cult - are the profiteering people who run it.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
While I agree that the DMCA should be shot down ...
How will cases that the plaintiff claiming violate the DMCA actually get to court with the apparent collusion of keeping cases using the DMCA out of the court?
I believe that the case that Blizzard had initially claimed DMCA violations, but when the actual case was filed, there wasn't a mention of the DMCA.
If Scientology actually does go through with suing Google (which Google is attempting to avoid), will there be actual reference to the DMCA? Or will they pull those arguements and replace them with trademark/copyright infingements?
Karma? Karma? I don't need no stinkin' karma.
Scientology isn't really much of a religion at all, really. It's an MLM scheme that has found posing as a religion to be highly conductive to its fraudulent business practices.
The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
--Henry Kissinger
"I think if they want to get people's cooperation, then they should refute Operation Clambake's information in an orderly and intelligent manner. "
What you fail to realize is that there's no information in the entire church which can be presented in an orderly, intelligent manner. They're claiming that we humans are Gods and that a cosmic warlord has fooled us all into thinking we're not. But we have a science fiction writer (Hubbard) to the rescue, as he's recently discovered the truth and is battling the evil warlord from his plush multi-million dollar mansion, while his followers learn to use their mystical powers.
If you could, please show me how that can be presented in an orderly, intelligent manner. I would suggest a comic book for guidance, but I don't think you'll be able to make it work.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
Agreed, but this one isn't pointless to them. Nothing to do with pro or anti-scientology, any attempt to force controls on content threatens the essence of a pure-bred search engine.
Cheers,
Ian
I agree. Google is using the system against itself. What better way to kill 2 birds with 1 stone (DMCA & $cientology) than to use their own weapons against them. They've succeeded in getting more people talking and asking questions.
One point the article made is that the original controversy caused lots more people to link to xenu.net, pushing it up from 4th in the Google results for "Scientology" to 2nd. I'd like to encourage everyone who hasn't already done so to also do this - maybe it can be pushed up to 1st :-)
Move the "In response to a complaint we received under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we have removed one result(s) from this page. If you wish, you may read the D.M.C.A. complaint for these removed results." notification to the TOP of the page.
I'm having trouble believing that you really wrote that.
The US government is not supposed to be in the business of "labeling" or "dealing with" cults; or small, emerging religions, to use an unbiased term. I like to think that the government shouldn't be "labeling" or "dealing with" anybody.
Scientology, which is no more of a scam than many well established religions, is as entitled to exist without government persecution as any other group. I may not like them, in fact, I despise them, but a line has to be drawn - the government has no business applying any other investigative standard to the Scientology cult than has been applied to the Roman Catholic church.
In Russia, and in much of Europe, where controls on government intervention in the religious/ideological sector of the economy are not so stringent, the government is free to oppress scientologists, and does so. Read about it at the OCRT website. Other governments use these same powers to quell political dissent, which is why in our society we have had the good sense to deny the government these powers.
There is no way to grant the government the right to protect scientologists from themselves without granting the government the right to offer the same "protection" to other dissidents or nonconformers.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
These days, having moral courage usually means having the cash to back it up. Granted, Google has more cash than most high-tech companies these days, but not enough to shrug off Scientology. Also, Google could face a second, potentially more expensive investor lawsuit, should the Church of Scientology sue. Not taking proper steps to protect your investors' dollars is grounds for legal action; and the ultimate result, if and when you lose both lawsuits, could be the end of your company, with all those jobs lost and all your intellectual property on fire sale. This is the same reason why Slashdot resorted to similar indirect means a year ago.
The simple fact is that corporations exist to increase shareholder value -- not to make moral stands, employ people, heal people, or do all those other fuzzy things that they sometimes do in the process of making money. I don't like it either, but that's the state of the world.
Finding God in a Dog
The notice includes a link to Scientology's complaint on chillingeffects.org, which lists the Web addresses of the material to which Google no longer links. The result is that a complaint could end up drawing more attention to the very pages it is trying to block.
In related news the sales of bullet proof boots has skyrocketed dramatically...
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
- Linking to another site is ok. Unfortunately, the MPAA v 2600 was bad for this one
- Linking to another site absolves the linking site from liability of the content to the linked site. This would be where Google would be protected
- Fair Use is not limited, however, possibly a limit of the amount of material may need to be implemented. IOW, don't paste all 144 pages up to make your point, take selected phrases
.. this may keep the copyright lawyers at bay.
Another problem is the current Copyright / Fair use debate. This one is much larger than any of the aforemented possible solutions to the problem.This isn't a exhaustive, comprehensive fix for all of the woes ... just my thoughts on the issue.
Karma? Karma? I don't need no stinkin' karma.
The most recent complaint given to Google from the COS deals with Googles own Usenet archive. The process of transferring the burden over to the original web site owner works for web pages. What about the potential for copyrighted material in Google's own Usenet archive? Do they have to contact the original author of the messages which in turn would have to file a counter complaint to keep it in the archive?
This whole thing seems to be going in the direction of the MS case, abortions rights, and campaign finance reform. A lot of time and money put into both ends but nothing coming out. The winner will be the one that had largest resource pool.
Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.
This also illustrates why we need many search engines. Google, whose size and popularity makes it a prime target, also makes them a prime place to publicize the censorship. Other engines can still link to the articles. For instance, it is still possible to find these links.
http://www.scientology-lies.com/
http://www.primenet.com/~cultxpt/cos.htm
http://www.xenu.net/
If we have many search engines, and other places to find links, it will be difficult for the oppressor to squash the resistance.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Cryptonomicon notwithstanding, does anyone have some links to these myriad of investor lawsuits that everyone in Silicon Valley is so terrified of? Because in 15 years of reading the WSJ daily I have read of one or two, all of which were thrown out by the court. US corporate law seems to be pretty much "pay your money and take your chance" when it comes to investors and their ability to actually affect the direction of a firm that they have invested in.
sPh
I call that a clever legal hack. It is legal and imagistic judo at its finest; the more the CoS tries to chill free speech about their actions, the better this technique works (using your enemy's strength against your enemy) and it is all specifically allowed under the current DMCA rules.
Furthermore, it is a technique which even the least-funded pointer site can use. If and when challenges to this method of fighting for free (linking) speech hit the higher courts, I have no doubt that Google will contribute financially as well to the cause, if only through self-interest.And so will I, through the EFF.
If you'd read the whole article, or informed yourself about the DMCA, you'd know that delisted sites can file a countercomplaint and be added back into the listing. The countercomplaint just says that the posting site (not Google) is legally responsible for the content. So there is a mechanism for the real protest sites like xenu.net to shoulder responsibility for their content, rather than letting Google shoulder it all.
This case is a little weird, since the site proprietor is saying that filing the counterclaim would put him under U.S. jurisdiction. I'm not sure if that's a legal interpretation, or if the DMCA says that, or what. I don't see how just affirming that the contents of your site do not infringe on the DMCA somehow automatically renders you liable to suit under U.S. law, but maybe that's just me.
Really, Google is showing a lot more spine than most ISPs/publishers/etc. - at least they are informing people about the DMCA and the complaints at the same time that they are following their legal responsibility to delist the items. Most publishers would just drop the whole thing without a trace and go on with their lives.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
Are you going to financially back a lawsuit if one is filed?
... a tool to find stuff. Nobody should be help liable if the search engine turns up stuff that someone doesn't agree with.
Someone ought to. Seriously. We need court precedents to say that search engines are not liable for linking to sites...a search tool is just that
Hello? EFF? CDT? CPSR? Are you guys listening???
My journal has hot
They're the premiere web search engine right now, with multiple companies (like Yahoo) using them as their own search engine.
What kind of power does Google have? It can make a web presence disappear.
Think of it like this: how do most people find sites on the internet these days? Search engines, right? Sometimes they'll find them indirectly but that's only by chance. When they're actually looking for something, they'll use a search engine. Which usually means they'll use Google.
So by removing all references to a particular site, Google can essentially make that site disappear.
And so Google should do exactly that to any web site that belongs to any entity that threatens Google with a lawsuit.
It should prove especially effective against companies, which rely more and more on their web presence.
Use 'slashdot stuff' in the subject line in any email you send me if you want to get past the spam filter.
Let's revoke the church of scientology's tax exemption.
Silly? I don't think so; consider:
Churches in America don't pay taxes. They're recognised as non-profit, socially befeficial institutions and as such, it's historically been seen as worthwhile to afford them tax free status (given that they meet certian requirements).
The Church of Scientology is tax exempt. This despite the fact that they charge for their teachings and venomously attack those that provide these teachings for free (unlike other religions). This makes them more like corporation than a religious organization. Thus, they should be treated as one. Require them to file tax documents like any corporation and be subject to audit by the IRS.
The CoS is a cult; and there's nothing wrong with that. Cults have existed for years throughout the world, and the distinction between "legitimate" and "cult" beliefs is at best a tenuous one. But the behaviour of the church of scientology is that of a corporation (evil and vindictive, but a corporation). Let's let them have their trade secret teachings and go after people with lawsuits for publishing secret teachings and critical views of their religion; but let us also not passively fund this corporation by making it tax exempt.
First, if Google's management has any sort of head on its shoulders it's not going to compromise its integrity as a web-searching tool in such a way.
Second, if they ever did that to /., say, in response to disparaging comments about them, we'd all scream bloody murder.
Why would you want to advocate "disappearing" scientology websites? Like our civil liberties, what you let them do to the scientologists, you let them do to us. Fight their misuse of the DMCA and the injustice of the DMCA itself to preserve our freedom to speak, don't advocate shutting them up because they want to shut us up.
The only tool you've got against psychosis is experience.
Well, if these folks want to get the links taken off chillingeffects.org, they can sue the EFF and the law clinics that run it. They'd certainly be glad to fight.
[Scientology is] an MLM scheme that has found posing as a religion to be highly conductive to its fraudulent business practices.
I suspect Multi-Level Marketing was copied from proselytizing religions rather than the other way around. I'd match my grandparent's Jehovah's Witness study group of about a dozen fanatics against an entire Amway marketing convention. (Of course, there's no financial payback for recruiting more JW's, but it gets you higher in the queue for those 144,000 seats in heaven, and JW's should be so focused on heaven they don't mind a little poverty now...)
From what I've heard of the origins of Scientology, it began approximately 1950 as an alternate form of psychotherapy (Dianetics) invented by science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard. The medical profession tried to get it banned. I don't see any scientific basis to Dianetics, but then I don't see any scientific basis to the medically approved psychotherapy of that era either, nor anything to indicate that Dianetics was more harmful than orthodox treatments of that time such as lobotomies, electroshock, or endless discussions of the patient's toilet training. So it's possible the MD's just didn't like the competition...
When L Ron Hubbard found out he wasn't going to be able to beat the AMA in court, he reconstituted Dianetics as a "religion", making it untouchable by the law. The problem is twofold:
To make it qualify as a religion, Hubbard apparently felt it had to have beliefs just as wacky as Christianity (Noah's ark, for instance). So he tossed in a bunch of science fiction about ancient alien civilations (like running the worst of Doc Smith through a blender 8-). The problem: some people actually _believe_ this bull****.
As a religion, Dianetics doesn't need any scientific research to back it, and AFAIC no research has been done. The only obvious change in 50 years was more sophisticated versions of the "e-meter" (sort of a single-channel lie detector) used in "counseling". Meanwhile, psychiatry has done a lot of real experimental research, and is much more effective than it used to be. In 50 years, medically approved psychotherapy has gone from the equivalent of leeches (just 200 years ago the leading doctor in the USA thought bleeding cured _everything_, but at least he didn't do lobotomies), to the equivalent of sulfa antibiotics (pre-penicillin, dangerous and only sometimes effective, but a hell of a lot better than nothing). Meanwhile dianetics has pretty much stood still.
>>Are you going to financially back a lawsuit if one is filed?
>Someone ought to.
This has come up before, I'm sure of it.
While I agree that linking out with an extra layer of indirection to chillingeffects shows less balls than either showing the anti CoS links or showing the cached contents of the anti CoS links, I can see where the mere threat of the costs of the legal battle are enough to cast a chill on Google's management.
I thought there has been legislation, at least proposed, in various states that is intended to combat such legal tactics.
Essentially, if someone uses suits that turn out to be dismissed as frivolous as a way of encumbering you with legal bills to the point where your behavior effectively becomes constrained to their wishes, then you have an additional legal recourse.
But you can tell IANAL, and I don't know which states, if any, have statutes like this, nor do I know how far you have to go before you get to take advantage of them. I doubt they apply to the problem of intimidating DMCA letters, though.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
More info here for those of you who aren't familiar with the case. Short story: Canadian citizen living in the US was convicted of the horrible crime of selling water filters to Cuba.
A damn shame. If only he sold guns to South American terrorists, he'd have been fine.
I used to have sympathy for you Americans. Sept 11 was a terrible crime, and hurt so many people. But between the Cuban embargo, crippling our industries for being too efficient and too high-quality, and violating the basic human rights of our citizens because they're not Americans, continuuing to use anti-personnel land mines, and basically pissing all over the Kyoto treaty and anti-ballistic missle treaty, you're doing your damnest to screw the world. You can all go fuck yourselves. (For those of you who actually vote and try to change how the US government acts, I apologize. But you're in the minority.)
And that's not even mentioning the DMCA and SSSCA, which have gotten plenty of airing here and don't even need explaining.
Do your worst moderation, you jingoistic sheep. I've got plenty of karma to burn.
I agree that the DMCA is being used to unfairly trample free speech and is being distorted to attack those that the law itself was supposed to exempt (e.g. reverse engineers working on interoperability and ISP's). I also agree that we Slashdotters need to ally with whoever we can to make a strong a legal challenge as possible to this law. However, obviously it won't be easy to do financially, and even if we were to gather enough resources to defend ourselves, victory would be by no means guaranteed.
IANAL, but it seems that you bring up a couple of legal issues that are by no means clear-cut in forming a successful attack of this law. First, to the best of my knowledge, there is no Constitutional guarantee of fair use. Fair use rights have been at times granted by Congress (e.g. the Audio Home Recording Act) and at other times courts have decreed that current American law regarding commerce dictates that certain uses of copyrighted material are in fact legal.
However, if a law were passed by Congress that absolutely prohibited time shifting of television programs, it would probably pass constitutional muster with the courts unless it could be proved that time-shifting materially affected individual Constitutional rights such as the right to free speech, bearing arms, being free from unreasonable searches and seizures, etc. I do think that there is hope of Congress guaranteeing additional fair use rights. Even the Crap-BDTPA would have ensured time-shifting were legal; there are still some in Congress that would be in favor of guaranteeing additional, more important rights like the right to excerpt copyrighted materials in derivative works. The main issue is Congress has been rather slow in awarding additional fair use rights to U.S. citizens, and that laws like the DMCA are being used by technology companies to prevent people from using content in ways that were commonly thought (by both the public and policy-makers) to be fair use but in fact had never been made expressly legal or illegal by previous law.
The second, and more disturbing point, is that large portions of the DMCA may be exempt from constitutional challenges. Aricle VI of the Constitution includes the statement "This Constitution...and all treaties made...under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land." I tried some searches on Google, but could not find any good evidence one way or the other to determine whether treaties could override the Constitution. If treaties can in fact take precedence, anything in the DMCA that parrots language in the WIPO treaties that it was meant to implement would be exempt from constitutionality reviews. If it turns out that such language in fact conflicts with the first Amendment, then in effect the First Amendment's scope will have been reduced. In this case, there would be only two ways to overturn the DMCA: (1) pass a constitutional amendment guaranteeing rights taken away by the DMCA, or (2) withdrawing from the treaty as was done several months ago by President Bush with the ABM treaty. Neither of these actions would be easy, and would be even more difficult than having a court nullifying a unconstitional standard law.
Are there any lawyers out there that could either support or rebut the concerns I made in this post? Hopefully my concerns about the WIPO effectively amending the constitution turn out to be just paranoid ranting. Like I said, I don't mean to imply that getting together and fighting this DMCA in the courts would be useless. It's just that people should understand that there may be legal hurdles to overcome in addition to financial ones involved in lawsuits, and that we should be prepared to do other things in addition to giving money to groups like the EFF in order to get offensive parts and interpretations of the DMCA overturned.
I hadn't thought about this before, but this draws from a long line of precedent. I'm taking a class in late Romantic Literature right now, and we're studying Pierce Shelley. We just read his epic "Prometheus Unbound", which actually shares some of the same tenents. The idea that we are masters of our own destiny, and that we have created our own God in order to enslave ourselves was formulated here as a refutation of Christianity. While Shelley's work would also defy Scientology, which places the external force of an cosmic warlord from "outside" as enslaving us, the idea of breaking free from enslavement is still present.
So while Hubbard's load of crap may seem funny and stupid, it does bear some baggage from the best thinkers of the Enlightenment. I think this is some small part of what makes it attractive to many people now, despite its obvious stupidity.
That said, Shelley and all his ilk would have hated Scientology because it degrades its members in to the lowest form of slavery imaginable, which is why we need great sites like xenu.net (which I've been telling everyone I can about) in order to really get the word out.
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
M. Scott Peck, MD in his book, Further Along the Road Less Traveled came up with these 10 criteria for a cult:
1. Idolatry of a single charismatic leader
2. A revered inner circle
3. Secrecy of management
4. Financial evasiveness
5. Dependancy (followers become dependant)
6. Conformity
7. Special language
8. Dogmatic doctrine
9. Heresy (Peck's definition of this is a little vague; something about the relationship between God and man not being proper)
10 God in captivity (Peck defines this as claiming to know everything about God)
I would add an 11th criterion: You have to give an excessive ammount (perhaps all) of your personal wealth to the organization. Maybe Peck would fit that under conformity or dependance.
Peck notes that prior to Vatican II, the Catholic Church met most of these criteria, and still meets many of them. I suppose that one of the dangers of trying to find an objective measure of something is that you risk placing things you hold to be of value in a less positive light. Exercise for Slashdot readers: Apply these criteria to the Free Software Foundation, and/or the Free Software movement in general.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Irrespective of the validity or not of their claims (clams? :-) Scientology claims to be a legitimate religion. And I'm wondering what might be (or should be) the implications of that. As far as I'm aware, churchs in the US, Canada and Britain enjoy a tax exempt status. Scientology also claims copyright over their beliefs and writings and uses copyright as a weapon to silence their critics and apostates.
What I'm wondering is if official religous writings should even be entitled to copyright protection. Society is providing a benefit to the churches in making them tax-exempt. Thus I think that their beliefs and official exegesis of those beliefs should automatically be in the public domain, open to scrutiny, discussion, publication and criticism.
Spirituality seems to be a fundamental need for many, if not most, people and liberal democratic societies have set up strong constitutional protections and freedoms for the expressions of spirituality. But those protections and freedoms must go in both directions by organised religions or we wind up with abuses such as Scientology.
This leads to another question.
I don't know when corruption will be interupted long enough to adress fundemental differances in what property is valuable and it's effect on distribution of wealth, but I do know we aren't comming out of this recession until such an interuption occurs.
This sixy year cyclical downturn will last as long as our government does not represent the people in it decisions.
To put it another way (roughly)...
Novel theory: Modern Man evolved from psychopath