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How The DMCA Affects Search Engines
An anonymous reader writes "Here is an interesting article regarding the application of the DMCA safe harbor provisions to search engines. This is what causes Google to remove links from its search results and to put a disclaimer at the bottom of the page stating "In response to a complaint we received under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we have removed [x] result(s) from this page." The article is published in the Virginia Journal of Law and Technology, and there is a direct link to a pdf version of the article."
is that these links get extra attention.
For example, search for Kazaa Lite and look at the DMCA link at the bottom. The notice lists the URLs which they've had to remove.
Google's way of fighting the man?
Basically, a law designed to prevent copyright infringement, also prevents archiving infringeing content on search engines...
I'm shocked. shocked I tell ya.
the police telling a newspaper they cannot publish the street corner where drugs are being sold in the city they serve.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
The DMCA Takedown process is really just a way to scare users into backing down. Those familiar with the law would know that users can send a counter-notification swearing that they're not really infringing, and then the provider has to reinstate the work but still gets to enjoy the liability shield of having complied with the DMCA Takedown rules... and then the copyright holder has no choice but to go after the user directly if they want to keep going.
Of course, in a majority of the times, the copyright holder is correct and this actually prevents a needless cause from going into the overworked court systems. The makers of Kazaa Lite could send Google a counter-notification to get back into the system, and then Shawman Networks would be in the uncomfortable situation of having to file a US-based lawsuit, despite trying to otherwise stay out of US jurisdiction.
But a search engine I can't name made me take it down because it includes information on circumventing their search technology to find DMCA information.
Thank goodness the 23 page article has an abstract.
Know why asian economies are leaping ahead by leaps and bounds? You just go out and do things, without millions of lawyers and others trying to leech of the whole business.
And if you thought that was boring you obviously havn't read my Journal ;-)
They'll be using routing tables on major backbones to eliminate traffic they don't like.
I'm turning in my two-week notice tomorrow. How about you?
I disbelieve this horse-patooey.
+++ATHZ 99:5:80
It's crap like this that absolutely works to destroy the usefulness and wonder of the Internet.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
This seems backwards. Kazaa can search for "kazaa" on Google and find "non-kazaa" material, so they tell Google to take it down? Since when is the search engine responsible for the content they generate by just following links on the web (forgive me if I'm unfamiliar with how Google crawls the web)?
Why not send notices to the websites directly? Oh, wait, that would mean that they would have to spend the time and find the people who are actually "breaking" the copyrights and prosecute them directly. That's too much work.
It's the same thing that the RIAA is doing -- going after the end-user in court because it's easier that way. I wonder what happened to the racketeering charges that were brought up.
I just gotta love Google for this. They hide the results, but you can still access them. This means two things:
1. People are made aware of what the DMCA does
2. People from the Free World where the DMCA does not apply can still access the information
I still think prohibiting search engines from linking to certain materials is a bad idea, though.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
sorry for feeding the troll but,
File sharing programs are by no means illegal, sharing files isn't illegal either, just some files whose "owners" don't want anyone to have without giving them money and eff will debate that
The primary effect the DMCA has on Search Engines and other Internet sites that allow user posting is that it forces the site operator to make a decision for themselves over whether a work is infringing before the court case... and then puts its thumb on the scale. If they refuse to comply with a proper takedown notice they'll be liable to the copyright holder, while if the needlessly take take down the piece they will lose nothing or very little unless they're a major paying customer.
No wonder most companies, when confronted with a DMCA Takedown letter choose the path of least resistance.
Kazaa had Google remove several links to Kazaa Lite pages, and not long ago Scientology tried the same against a Scientology-critical site.
While some here cheer that Google put a reference to the the Kazaa Lite pages removed (or rather to the DMCA notice which includes the URLs of those pages), effecly nullyfing the effect, it is worrying me instead.
Fact is that Companies and Organisations can force the removal of Links from Search Engines, and if those Engines don't act as smartly as Google here (be it due to fear of lawsuits from those Organistions or due to simple lazyness) we might not even notice it....
+++ MELON MELON MELON +++ Out of Cheese Error +++ redo from start +++
The parent was moderated down due to a complaint we received under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Thanks for your cooperation.
Dear Slashdot users,
If you would like permission to legally view the content of search engines such as Google, contact SCO licensing where we can provide individual licenses for only $699 per search engine or a bulk license of $10^699 for all search engines.
If you do not comply I will publicly brand you a Linus long-hair and GNU hippy, and will ask Microsoft for money to sue you with.
Yours faithfully,
Darl McBride,
CEO SCO Inc.
Chilling Effects Clearinghouse A joint project of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Harvard, Stanford, Berkeley, University of San Francisco, and University of Maine law school clinics. Do you know your online rights? Have you received a letter asking you to remove information from a Web site or to stop engaging in an activity? Are you concerned about liability for information that someone else posted to your online forum? If so, this site is for you. Chilling Effects aims to help you understand the protections that the First Amendment and intellectual property laws give to your online activities. We are excited about the new opportunities the Internet offers individuals to express their views, parody politicians, celebrate their favorite movie stars, or criticize businesses. But we've noticed that not everyone feels the same way. Anecdotal evidence suggests that some individuals and corporations are using intellectual property and other laws to silence other online users. Chilling Effects encourages respect for intellectual property law, while frowning on its misuse to "chill" legitimate activity.
Nothing like educating the public about the dangers of the DMCA/etal by linking them to EFF and the like :).
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
I'm sick of America being bullied around by the corporations. We are the people. We have the power here.
Fight with you pockets...and your _paper_ ballots (unless of course Diebold has their way with the government.)MY SECRET DIARIES
then you are truly living up to your sig.
I see the term "safe harbor" a lot in American law. What is it actually supposed to mean, what is it's provenance, and where is it applied? So far it seems a very vague and generic catch-all, but it obviously has some specific meaning to the courts, and seems particularly meaningful in the context of the DMCA.
but people who really want to find that information will find it.
If one is interested in studying a "taboo" topic they'll join mailing lists as well. Especially in the case of religion and potential cults, nobody with any sense is going to just talk to one group. You're going to talk to members, ex members, and do your own studying.
You need to join message/news groups for that and the DMCA has no effect on those. The DMCA can't control what somebody sends to my e-mail account in response to a request for information.
Ben
Work Safe Porn
Of course I'm preaching to the choir here but I want ANYONE to point out to me how the DMCA is a GOOD law and what benefits it provides to society.
It stiffles progress. MOST everything in existence is the result of people taking things apart and improving upon previous designs.
DMCA puts that practice to a dead halt.
The DMCA should be abolished ASAP....
Only One String Its Enough To Slayer Freedoom.
A String that Slayer All Of Us.
-Woof woof woof!
Actually that isn't quite correct. There is a split in the circuits. Grokster was ruled legal but Aimster was not. Judge Posner's argument for ruling Aimster illegal was the willful blindness to the activity of your users did not shield you from contributory infringement.
/ In ReAimster(9C6-30-03).htmw eblog/000940/ 000462.html
Clicky:
http://homepages.law.asu.edu/~dkarjala/cyberlaw
http://www.aaronsw.com/
http://www.musicpundit.com/archives
... is a search engine in a free country? ;)
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
I was *first-poster* as a somewhat powerfull positioned man.
I digged Freedom.
At Mount Vernon I spent my last years. And also died, the year 1799.
Today I would suffocate from invisible strings.
Can you guess my name?
--
Google is the man!
idea: the government is now trying people under newer, harsher, more unreasonable "terrorist" laws. Example: trying drug dealers as "manufacturing chemical weapons" instead of the less frightening and less severe "drug trafficing". So if a criminal is caught and is going to be pounded by the "MAN" what he should do is to quickly hire someone to charge him of the same crime but under a less severe law and then he will quickly plead quilty before he is taken to trial for the more severe charges. Then because of U.S.A. 'double jepardy' laws the Gov. will not be allowed to procede with their case. Now IANAL, but I do recall a case where a murderer was found 'not guilty' and then evidence was later found prooving UNQUESTIONABLY that he did do the murder and he then admited that he did, but they could only then charge him for PURGERY (because he said he did not do it) and WOULD NOT/COULD NOT re-try him for the murder, so he spent (a maximum of) 7 years in jail because for purgery instead of 20+ for the murder. So the next time some company or organization cough*RIAA*cough sues one of us under the DMCA we just need one of our friends to sue us under existing copywright laws (when it applies), hand the pittance over to whoever is suing us and then tell them to shove the DMCA up their RJ45 plug.
Try canada. Downloading music is free. No DMCA, and basically legal pot. The new land of the free. Untill our laws catch up to your draconian ones I guess... Enjoy :)
It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.
Ok i've got some serious questions here:
1) If I link to a site that links to a site that has DMCA violating speech, does that mean my site is violating aswell? what about google? If so, how far does this chain go?
2) What if someone links to a google cache?
3) Can I say DMCA violating things to my lawyer? What about to a public court?
4) If I violate the DMCA outside America, will the FBI trick me into going to Rome and then drug me and take me back to the USA?
5) If I say something that violates the DMCA on national TV will viewers be breaking the law by watching, and will Tivo be breaking the law by recording it? will these people also require a trial?
6) If I wear DMCA violating clothing can the police confiscate it if it means i would be breaking public nudity laws? (ie it could be underwear too)
7) Im i allowed to violate the DMCA while engaged in sexual intercourse in the state of Florida? What if its consensual?
8) When praying, is it ok to attempt to tell God that the shift key will disable some CD copy-protection systems?
9) On violating the DMCA, certain evidence would be submitted to court, such as video/audio tapes containing said violation. Who owns this evidence, who can see it and how does the freedom of information act apply to it?
10) I thought of a way to circumnavigate X device, am I liable under the DMCA if the thought is in my head? what would happen if i talked about it in my sleep? Could i write about it in a private diary? an online journal? a letter?
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Land of the free my f***ing ass >:(
There are several other countries that have a democratically elected government, with personal liberties and freedoms protected under their constitutions/charters. The US doesn't have the market cornered on that.
of Kazaa having their lawyers go after people who are violating copyrights.
. SLASHDOT: Home of the vicious nerd.
Otherwise we wouldn't have the DMCA, the patriot act, guantanamo bay, or the federal government harassing medical marijuana operations in states that have officially legalised medical marijuana.
Lady liberty's been taking it up the ass since the arms for hostages scandal, and there ain't jack shit can be done about it. period.
heh
I love this logic: Yeah, the US sucks ass, but at least it's not Soviet Russia. Like that makes it better some how. I have a revolutionary idea, how about we change some of this crap instead of patting ourselves on the back about how not Soviet Russia we are.
oh well....screw it.... I say BUSH IN '04!!!!!! I need a good excuse to move up there....
and would be happy to answer any questions people have about it. --CWW
in spite of your face. What the search engines should do is make *no* mention of the offending sites, in any way. So when a potential cliet/customer goes looking for information then they will only be directed to the competitors we sites!
And, one would hope, this would either cause the scum to abandon the web or go out of business.
``You may not beable to vote, speak your mind or any number of any other things but at least you can access information about hacking et al and that makes you free?''
Nice troll. The USA is not the only country with freedom of the press and elected government. In fact, it's not even that democratic if you consider there are only two parties that can really compete for power, both of which depend heavily on corporate funding for their campaigns. With the press under control of large corporations, and the political parties dependant on them, it's not hard to see how the country could fall under corporate control. That would also explain why you have laws like the DMCA, and patents on software.
In comparison, where I live the government is composed of multiple parties in proportion to how many votes they got. Assuming that the distributor has taken care of legalities, we can freely download anything on offer on the Internet. Google is not in any way being ``shut down'' here. We have the _right_ to reverse engineer software to achieve interoperability. Same-sex couples have the same legal status as heteros. Our country respects international law and human rights. Health care is for everyone, and unemployed get enough money to live on.
I realize I provide an incomplete picture of reality here. There are many more things to mention about the US and about my country, both good and bad. I just hope I have illustrated that your apparent denial of there being freedom outside the USA is utterly unfounded.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
``And unlike much of this other "Free World" you speak of, we can still vote.
And since we can vote, we can work to get rid of it.''
Attacking this point specifically:
Yes you can vote, but you may not be able to get rid of the DMCA. To do that would require there being a party that would abolish the DMCA, and that party getting elected (or at least powerful enough to abolish the DMCA). Since politics is about much more than the DMCA alone, such a party would likely have other things in its programme that you don't like. And that others don't like. And then either not get enough votes to kill the DMCA, or introduce other laws that you would not want to have.
Since the US' political system is ill-suited to more than 2 parties, the chance that you (plural) can vote for a party that 1) will abolish the DMCA, and 2) otherwise suits your tastes is quite slim.
The issue is that you can't vote for or against one issue, you vote for a party and it's entire programme.
Did I mention that the corporations will probably try to influence public opinion in such a way that they become more powerful?
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Indeed - Europe (circa 450 million) and India (1 billion), Canada, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Chile, Argentina, Israel, etc are now democratic. It probably totals to 2.5 billion people enjoying a reasonable level of democracy.
I know google is a US based company, but if you want to register a .ca domain you have to be located in Canada... WTF? This isn't the US based site... Urrgh, this just makes me mad...
Instead of saying "due to DMCA blah blah blah"
say "Enemies of free speech and opponents of a free press in your governmnet blah blah blah"
This message brought to you by a left-wing liberal openly opposed to the current order.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
I tried this with both mozilla and firefox, and neither got a page with the letters "DMCA" anywhere. The bottom of the page doesn't seem to have any links except the usual google boilerplate links. Other replies say something about a Chilling Effects Clearinghouse link, but I don't see anything like that, either.
What might I be doing wrong.
Oh, also, following this link seems to have done something that really hosed both mozilla and firefox. They became only semi-functional, unable to follow links or find strings in the text. The ^F "find" window didn't work at all, and couldn't be dismissed. Also, neither was able to raise their windows to the top of the stack. I had to kill them both and restart them to get them working again.
This was on OSX. Maybe I'll try in on linux and see what happens. I'm curious to see this thing that google has done, but I it doesn't seem to work at all with mozilla or firefox on OSX.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
And unlike much of this other "Free World" you speak of, we can still vote.
What the hell are you talking about? By "Free World" he/she was talking about free countries with democratically elected governments, basic human rights, liberty, and freedom of speech which are upheld by the laws in those countries.
How exactly did you manage to read and interpret "Free World" as meaning "countries without even voting rights"? What bizarre definition of "Free World" did you use? This is not sarcasm, please explain, I'd like to understand it.
Use A9.com instead (snicker)
Trolls dont like to be Flamebait, because they burn so well. Protect our Troll heritage!
My argument would be that if those users downloaded just one legal track, that would be enough to confirm any belief that they were going to be used for legal purposes. I know I use my uni's filesharing hub to download linux distros, as the Computer Dept gets shirty about downloading from outside the uni. And there are plans, if the hub ever gets shut down, to start meeting up and swapping CDs as an alternative. If filesharing software is banned, CD burners will take up a lot of the slack. Should we ban those too?
For the love of God, please learn to spell "ridiculous"!!!
exactly how much is it that i do not know that i do not know? forest? trees? grilled cheese? sleep.
|plastic....or gasoline?|
Name a single Free country where the citizens cannot vote ?
Sure, you can vote, but your Supreme Court will throw away the votes it doesn't like.
I caught something in the DMCA complaint letter. In order for material to be copyrightable, it must be original and must be in a fixed medium.Fixed medium? Boxes aren't fixed, people write in and crumple them all of the time. Video and music aren't fixed formats, the medium could be scratched, or you could be running out of batteries or there could just be some source of noise. If I write a book, and place a copy on my webpage and place a copyright notice, but I have Slashdot headline in the sidebar, is it not copyright anymore?
Which is why elected representitives should be made to represent the interests, wishes and view of the people whom they represent. The representitive should not vote according to "the party line" or his/her own views but according to the (majority) views/wishes of the community which elected them.
If any publicly traded company can invoke DCMA
to force the removal of search engine links, how
long will it be before SCO or MS gets away with
stripping out OSS or Linux links?
As SCO is involved in protracted and unjustified
(IANAL) lawsuits against Linux vendors and their
corporate users, what is stopping SCO from
blocking all access to Linux or any "derivative"
works?
Or from stopping M$ (or their buddies at DHS)
from blocking access to any sites that offer
applications and/or operating systems that help
circumvent your computer being "owned" by some
3 letter government agency?
"So sorry, but Uncle Sam has decided
to issue a C&D letter to all search
engines that link to software that
violates PA-II, TIA, and MATRIX.
Sincerely,
John Poindexter,
John Ashcroft,
Tom Ridge"
Looks like it is nearly time for the revolution
on November 02, 2004. Get out the vote!
Well, I haven't read /. yesterday, so this is probably going to be the last post in this thread ;-)
This nice line: "In response to a complaint we received under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we have removed [x] result(s) from this page." reminds me of old communist times here in Poland, when you could read in a newspaper something like that (translated): "removed under the Control of Publications and Performations Act". So, the Soviet Union is no more, Eastern Block collapsed and now we see something like this in the Land of the Free...
Sad...
Raf
a) The RIAA/MPAA (and others that misuse DCMA) aren't the police, although they'd like to think otherwise. In truth the police are putting way too much focus on fighting copyright/IP violations though...
b) Newspapers have certain rights with respect to the police etc. While "freedom of the press" has had to fight to stay alive sometimes, there is no "freedom of the search engine"
Gee, a /.'er who fails to understand the difference between "medium" and "content". Never would have seen that coming!
:). But seriously, substitute the word "recorded" for "fixed", servers are full of recorded information, much of which is subject to copyright. Are you saying that just because something can be erased, it isn't "fixed" and therefore not subject to copyright? I think any copyright lawer in the world would disagree with that.
i
A fixed medium, for the purposes of copyright, is "a way of recording concepts in a reproducable form". "Fixed" does NOT mean "permanent", "indestructable" or "uncorruptable". Let me explain this as simply as possible: if you can record it, in any way, it is fixable; if it has been recorded in any way, it is fixed.
"Boxes aren't fixed..."
Not if they run Windows
"Video and music aren't fixed formats..."
Legally, yes they are. Again, you misunderstand the word "fixed".
"...the medium could be scratched, or you could be running out of batteries or there could just be some source of noise.
This is degradation of the format, which is a QA issue. Copyright protects the concepts in a work, not the format the work is distributed on, so if the work is still conceptually the original work the original copyright applies. Signal degradation does not contribute to the status of "derivative work", nor does conversion to MP3 (which, legally, is "transcription").
"If I write a book, and place a copy on my webpage and place a copyright notice, but I have Slashdot headline in the sidebar, is it not copyright anymore?"
No, you retain copyright of your book. However, you would possibly be infringing Slashdot's copyright by including their work in your site. Your book and your website are, for the purposes of copyright, two seperate works (since your book is "fixed", and may or may not be distributed in other manners, but a website is web-only), so Slashdot would only be able to force a change in your site. If the text of your book contains no infringements, then there is no challenge to your copyright ownership. Simple? Good
Stop perpetuation the ill-informed FUD, and do some research:
http://www.chillingeffects.org/copyright/faq.cg
Make you a deal: you learn the law and I'll learn HTML