Harlan Ellison Can Sue AOL Under DMCA

mbstone writes "The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that sci-fi author Harlan Ellison can go ahead with his DMCA lawsuit against AOL. Seems somebody posted some Ellison stories to Usenet, AOL made 'em available, Ellison complained, and AOL blew him off."

Comments

Pray the jury is sensible.

[sudog]

If an author can sue every single ISP for damages, everywhere, we enter a nasty realm of "okay time to shut anything that might be infringing down."

What ISP can afford to filter every newsgroup manually? What ISP can sit there and act on anything but complaints?

An author deserves protection, but the person responsible for posting it is the one liable--not the ISPs who provide the avenue by which an author's works are distributed.

What's the matter, Harlan? Not enough money lining your pockets from your successful writing/consulting/speaking career?

Bah.

Re:Pray the jury is sensible.

[cathouse]

Harlan has always been, to phrase it gently, a rasty,prickley little SOB, but he is most certainly no lunatic.

Considering the years he's been working in Hollyweird and the number of times he's been forced to resort to 'CORDWAINER BIRD'in order to keep a minimum of self respect, I'd say that he is amazingly mellow and even tempered.

It can't be stolen

[Anonymous Coward]

I know he wants to protect his property but why not write material people such as myself would pay for (I don't download copyrighted music or books) rather than steal

There is no theft involved in duplication of files. It does not meet the definition of theft. Copyright infringement is something different.

Did I steal your car if I created an exact duplicate of it, and drove away (in the duplicate) leaving your car sitting, still untouched, in the driveway? Of course not.

Re:Absurd

[squiggleslash]

No he doesn't. As the article write-up points out, he asked AOL to remove the (clearly) infringing articles, and AOL blew him off.

You could infer that he plans on suing every NNTP server operator on "the web" (you mean the 'net, right?) if he has asked every single NNTP server operator, individually, to remove the files from their servers, and every single one of them has refused.

It strikes me as a reasonable request and I think Ellison is within his rights to go to court over it.

Re:Compliments to whoever wrote the document!

[kabocox]

Um. No one outside of Techies knows usenet exists. Because of all the RIAA whining, everyone has started to know that P2P is used to share copyrighted materials, and thats about it. I doesn't matter what Techies call their toys; The Lawyers, Lobbists, and Politicans will label it P2P and use that label to limit usenet how they want it limited. Remember, Napster was slammed down because they were a central server. I think someone wants some laws limiting all client/server transfers. Usenet isn't one server, but if they could limit AOL; they could limit any small time ISP, and any university.

Unfair and Unreasonable Legislation

[clonebarkins]

Is it really that surprising that a stupid lawsuit is the direct result of unfair and unreasonable legislation such as the DMCA? Wouldn't it be nice if AOL took the DMCA all the way to the Supreme Court on the grounds that it is unconstitutional? Of course, that's unlikely because AOL/TW actually want the DMCA -- they just don't want it to apply to them.

It still would not be stealing

[Anonymous Coward]

If I have copyrighted or patented my car, then yes it would be stealing

The only difference copyrighting/patenting your car would make is that the situation would now be one of infringement. There STILL would be no theft involved.

Taking ones ideas if you patented or copyrighted them is protected under current law.

Certainly, but it still isn't theft. Also, the use of "taking" is misleading, as it does not meet the definition of "take" actually: the original remains, it is not moved.

Re:It still would not be stealing

[Sheetrock]

Hypothetical situation.

I write a novel. It's not a particularly good novel, but I'm proud of it. I have a copyright on the novel which I do not relinquish or alter, and I publish and sell copies of the novel.

A reader somewhere thinks it's the best novel he's ever read, or at least in his top 100. He scans the book to HTML and uploads it to a filesharing network. He has stolen my right to distribute my work on my terms.

A user of the filesharing network downloads the scanned copy of my novel. He too has stolen my right to choose the means and scope of my distribution.

My novel is still there, but I have lost something. See also the Merriam-Webster definition, transitive senses 1b-1d.

Please put this argument to rest. It's used as a particularly moronic crutch by some avid P2P fileswappers, and eclipses the better points that could be made (such as that we should reduce the copyright term in order to promote competition and innovation in content).

Ellison is going after the "deep pockets" - AOL

[Anonymous Coward]

I could *maybe* see some validity to the suit if the original poster had used AOL to post the stories *and* Ellison had sent something more substantial than an email to AOL (say, maybe a cease and desist letter) *and* AOL *then* blew him off, before bringing suit.

But it seems to me he first acted against the user's ISP to get him bounced and the source articles taken down, then looked around for the deepest pockets he could find so he could get some money.

So, be careful of gloating about AOL - as much as people love to hate them, it sounds to me like they are an innocent party to this fiasco, and if they go down the rest of the net's ISPs could go with them.

P.S. - it doesn't seem to me that AOL "blew him off" - as far as I can tell AOL never got the email.

Re:A prolificly ironic writer...

[squiggleslash]

Not really. The aspect of the DMCA he's applying is hardly draconian - a part that where someone presenting themselves as the legitimate copyright holder (on force of law) asks for something to be taken down because it infringes on their copyright, that that something be taken down.

Most people do not see a conflict between the notions of copyright and of sharing thoughts. Copyright is about a direct implementation, not a thought per-se, though some have tried to move copyright in that direction (software being the most obvious example.) The only case I've seen where Ellison dealt with an issue of a thought in this way was the Terminator case, where Ellison wanted little more than a mention in the credits that there were a bunch of his ideas used in the movie. Not cash, not for the movie to not be made, just recognition.