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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.
" 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
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
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
"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."
Leaders who wear sunglasses.
Guys who sit in big chairs.
Vats.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
When a "church" endorses or causes harm to members and critics, I say to you, they deserve zero protection from the government. I'm a major fan of free speech and seperation of church and state, but their free expression ends when it causes harm to another.
Talk to a few ex-scientology 'church' members and you'll find some of them fear for their lives. The US government is in the business of protecting its citizens, even if from themselves and against their will. I fully support investigation of any illegal activities by any "religious" organization, regardless of its name or popularity. All citizens are equal under the law and therefore deserve the same protections, whether from a sadistic killer, or from a "church" member/leader. Calling yourself a church does not give you an impeneratrable shield with which to beat your members, even if they ask for and accept it.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
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.
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.