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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."
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.
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."
Yep--Google's complying with the law, and giving the "rights" holder the finger by providing a copy of the C&D letter that contains more than enough information to find the "content" on a P2P network.
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
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 +++
This is ridiculous. I think the US (government) should stop pretending their laws apply to online material just because people can access the internet from their country. I mean, why on earth do I have to have censored search results?
It would be just as silly if people in the US couldn't do searches on certain words because my country thinks it's not OK for the search engine to provide such results.
If they want filterning then they should run such filters on google.com only. I can't see how the DMCA should apply to google.it or google.com.ar or any other such domain.
Diego Rey
diegoT
What legal grounds do you think you have to prosecute Kazaa? They don't advocate drug use or murder. File-sharing? OOOOOOH! Lord save society.
The legal ground is contributory infringment. They know they are profiting from copyright infringment, that that is the basis of almost all their userbase and therefore their profits. When a manufacturer makes a product that is explicitly designed to be used to commit a crime, they are responsible for that crime.
The sad fact is that the parasite-to-"honest"-host ratio is almost the same in society as it is nature: pretty damn high.
--
Power to the Peaceful
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.
"We don't prosecute the makers of rolling paper just because people roll joints. Plenty of pre-rolled cigarettes are available at low cost."
Pre-rolled ciggarettes make me feel sick and the rolling tobacco I buy is a fraction of the cost of even the cheapest pre-rolled ciggarettes that I can buy here.
I think your analogy would be more accurate if rolling paper had drug dealers phone numbers printed on them.
Just thought I'd point that out.
Silly rabbit
``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.
The problem is it's not explicitly designed to be used to commit a crime. It's explicitly designed to allow people to share files. What files those people choose to share is what determines if there is a crime. And can you proove in court that they know they are profiting from copyright infringement? I doubt they monitor the network and cross check all the files for legitimacy.
The darkness... controls the music. The music... controls the soul.
Kinda like when France forced Yahoo Auctions to remove Nazi memorabilia from their American auction site on the off-chance that Frenchmen might buy from them?
At least in this case Google is domiciled in the US. It is an American company, and thus the US is within its rights to enforce US laws, stupid as they might be, against it.
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"!!!
That's REALLY cool. Go Google! The DMCA is a farce, and people ought to vote out the idiots who voted it in!
Lindows Steals Copyrighted Art and Promotes Porn
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