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Testing ISP Censorship
ryants writes "As part of a research project, Christian Ahlert ran an interesting experiment. He posted John Stuart Mill's On Liberty, which is clearly in the public domain, on different ISPs. He then sent the ISPs phony copyright violation notices. The results are troubling, with ISPs "acting as judge, jury and private investigator at the same time.""
FP censored by my ISP
While the fact that a UK ISP folded immediately, without further investigation, is somewhat troubling (mostly for customers of that provider), the size of the sample does not justify any sort of conclusion. I'd be really interested to know which ISPs have NTD policies, and which do not. The US ISP responded in precisely the manner that I would want my hosting service to employ. Exactly how widespread is the problem?
Of course, if we want this kind of behavior on the part to ISPs to stop, then they have to have some kind of legal shield from copyright damages while they investigate claims of copyright infringement. Normally, I would say that a reasonable approach would serve everyone well, but the legal system seems anything but reasonable these days, particularly in regard to intellectual property. So it would seem (if there is not such a shield already available) that there ought to be some kind of law or ruling that explicitly specifies the duty and liability of ISPs in the event that a copyright violation is alleged. Meaning, of course, that I draw pretty much the same conclusion as Ahlert does. I would prefer that he had documented the problem a little more thoroughly, however.
I remember your eyes, on the twelfth of July...
There really needs to be some sort of check to counter ISPs being able to do this. Perhaps some sort of law that defines a procedure for preventing things like this, maybe?
The actual results are presented in detailed form in a PDF file:
How 'Liberty' Disappeared from the Internet
Or see the Google text version.
My work even censors me from reading the results of the survey.
Evolution or ID?
Shouldn't that be possible somehow? To be your own ISP. I totaly understand if the ISP don't want to be sued because information violating copyright are traveling trough their servers. But why can't I be my own ISP, and thus take responsibility for what I do with my connection?
This flagrant abuse of the "public domain" system has to stop. If people start reading and sharing intellectual property simply because it is no longer covered by any form of valid legal restrictions, how are people like myself supposed to continue to earn a living? Who's thinking about that?
Remember, EOB today! (Tick, tick, tick)
I might be evil but when I read this it made me think "wouln't this be a great way to remove websites you don't like". If it is that easy to remove websites it would be pretty easy to abuse as well.
99 bottles of beer in 175 characte
ISPs tend to have a limited staff and I would imagine, get a lot of flack from RIAA/MPAA etc... Instead of using (sometimes limited) resources to ferret out real offenders, they just rubber stamp any request that comes in. Survival mechanism perhaps, prob. gets the RIAA off their backs.
Remember, an ISP can do (almost) whatever it wants with it's own network, it's a private company, not the government. So technically it isn't censorship. If you don't like the way they handle speech, start your own ISP, make free speech a cornerstone of your service. If ISPs lose enough business because of how they patrol their networks, maybe then the attitudes will change.
I am waiting for the day when people start sending(read: abusing) these kind of take down notices in order to shut down a site they don't like, or even worse, competition. Granted, he tested only 2 Internet Providers, but this could become a new form of DoS if providers just started shutting down sites without doing some research. The provider should follow up as the US provider did, give the site owner a chance to defend his/her work.
The time, it is to be hoped, is gone by, when any defence would be necessary of the "liberty of the press"', wrote John Stuart Mill nearly 150 years ago. But his hopes have not been fulfilled. In the vast digital land of cyberspace, private companies regulate, eliminate and censor what we want to say, publish or communicate.
As part of a recent research project, I posted a section of Mill's On Liberty on the internet (which is clearly in the public domain), then issued unfounded copyright complaints against it (1). One internet service provider (ISP) removed the chapter almost immediately. This illustrates the problem with self-censorship procedures, which rely on hidden judgements being made by unaccountable bodies.
There is a murky context behind this peculiar form of private censorship. On the internet, millions of websites have been created by individuals who post all kinds of content - and some argue that this justifies the current system of regulation. But there is a mistake in this chain of logic: just because the internet is big, diverse, decentralised and digital it isn't true that public bodies can't police it.
Of course, policing would be difficult, but this should not be a reason to be in favour of private governance and regulation. Governments, companies and individuals have taken the easy route to regulation, by relying on ISPs. Everyone who wants to publish, post and propagate content on the internet needs the services of ISPs, which host most of the content available on the World Wide Web and are often also hosting providers. This is why ISPs have been identified as the agents in the internet's communication chain who should be responsible for removing illegal and harmful materials, ranging from copyright infringement to cases of defamation, racist websites and pornographic content.
ISPs have been made responsible for removing illegal and harmful content under so-called notice and take down (NTD) procedures, once they have been put on notice by a complainant. Because it comes under the rubric of internet self-regulation, this kind of censorship is seen as less intrusive. But why private governance should be less intrusive than government regulation is something I have never quite understood. State censorship, while clearly problematic, is at least open to questioning and accountability. Notice and takedown is censorship without debate.
The quantity of complaints and websites removed under NTD is unknown, and the process by which ISPs determine whether or not a website contains illegal or harmful content remains obscure. Once an ISP disables access to a website the content disappears from the internet, undoubtedly an effective form of censorship.
My research project attempted to unpick the workings of NTD, using a method termed the 'mystery shopper'. This consisted of a complaint to an ISP about alleged copyright infringement on a website that actually contained perfectly legal material. One website was set up with one of the most established US ISPs, and another with a major UK-based ISP. The identity of the person who uploaded the site was fictitious.
For symbolic reasons, the material uploaded was chapter two of On Liberty, in which Mill discussed the freedom of the press and the dangers of censorship. This content is clearly in the public domain, because it was published in 1869, and subsequently its posting does not constitute any form of copyright infringement.
The UK ISP took Mill down almost immediately
The US ISP followed up on the dubious complaint, made on behalf of the chairman of the non-existent John Stuart Mill Heritage Foundation, with detailed questions. But the UK ISP took the site down almost immediately, effectively censoring legal content without investigation.
ISPs are acting as judge, jury and private investigator at the same time. They not only have to make a judgement whether a website is illegal or not - they also have to act as a private detective agency, investigating the accusations and deciding
superman runs linux
"The US ISP followed up on the dubious complaint, made on behalf of the chairman of the non-existent John Stuart Mill Heritage Foundation, with detailed questions. But the UK ISP took the site down almost immediately, effectively censoring legal content without investigation."
I believe their policy is on these matters is their Acceptable Use Policy on this.
If they are in violation of that let them know or you can take it to the Better Business Bearu (at least in the US). I worked for an ISP and went through this before.
Evolution or ID?
...It actually mentions a lot about doing just that and how easy it would be. Oh wait.. this is /. ... sorry.
Hmmm.
Considering you're using the ISP's resources, is it really censorship? Nobody's stopping you from copying that text and handing it out to people using your own money and resources; but when you're technically using THEIR bandwidth, don't they have the right to say what you can and can't do with it?
one can only imagine the amount of (valuable) material that we never see due to procedures like this...one could argue that this hinders progress both for individuals and for larger groups. ISPs should really be denied the ability to do this...congressmen?
With stories like these, I don't see how slashdot can possibly justify its pyrric anti-troll pogrom.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Let's see... So, he posted it to two, yes that's right--only two, ISPs. One of them took it down without looking into it, and the other actually researched it. So what's his answer to this "problem"? Government regulation, of course! Hmm... Does anyone else see a problem with both his experiment and his conclusion?
You probably shouldn't click this.
Individual employees just want to save their skin and not have to take the responsibility of taking a wrong decision and being held responsible.
They will continue to do this until the "other path" becomes the path of least resistance, and THAT will only happen when citizens (or consumers in today's parlance) start asserting their rights and bringing companies to boot for unfair suppression of rights.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
read the actual results. Anyone reading /. will already have their opinion and a basic understanding. Save your time reading a redundant, almost circular article, by going straight to the actual results. Don't worry, the actual results will ALSO include the information in the article.
I totally agree, with your first point, and these scare tactics are done because of over zealous lawyers, that will milk you for everything you have. It is much easier to take the information down and deal with one person than a team of lawyers.
/. had a better bogus story/content filter (notice I didn't say censor, because /. is not part of the government, so they are unable to censor anything :) ).
I also on a side note the writter of this story doesn't really under stand the meaning of censorship. Only a government can censor a person, a private company does not have this ability. Even though they allow their servers to be used with public access doesn't mean the servers are public domain. The servers belong to the company, and the company can do what ever they want with them, including deleting files at will. Granted companies don't do this because it is bad PR, but it is totally with in their rights.
So when he wrote, "For symbolic reasons, the material uploaded was chapter two of On Liberty, in which Mill discussed the freedom of the press and the dangers of censorship." I just about lost it because it shows how little this guy actually knows about the issues he is addressing. Also as a side note you cannot censor published content, you can restrict it, but the litteral word of censor is not possible to do on published content. So the government can never censor published content.
I summary, this writer is a moron, and just lobbing un founded accusations out there and hope one hits the wall and sticks. I think both the US and UK ISP did the right thing and it was probably with in their corporate policies.
I really wish
Clearly, he has a cencorship lawsuit. If nothing else, at least for any downtime his site incurred for having his content barred. Good thing he didn't post the Constitution...
This article's message would've had far more value if it was supported by a similar experiment on a much larger scale. So far, it's just an overblown "The sky is falling !" speculation with a couple of quips about 1 (ONE) ISP which happened to have idiots working for it. Few ISP's don't, you know.
As the aleged copyright infringement was textual, the US ISP investigated. But put a piece of music or some open source software on a website and try your experiment again, this time citing the DMCA. I'll wager 10 out of 10 fold before you have time to check your email again.
why not just have the ISP forward the complaint to the "offending" party? why should the ISP be responsible for copyright violations?
The writter of this story doesn't really under stand the meaning of censorship. Only a government can censor a person, a private company does not have this ability. Even though they allow their servers to be used with public access doesn't mean the servers are public domain. The servers belong to the company, and the company can do what ever they want with them, including deleting files at will. Granted companies don't do this because it is bad PR, but it is totally with in their rights.
/. had a better bogus story/content filter (notice I didn't say censor, because /. is not part of the government, so they are unable to censor anything :) ).
So when he wrote, "For symbolic reasons, the material uploaded was chapter two of On Liberty, in which Mill discussed the freedom of the press and the dangers of censorship." I just about lost it because it shows how little this guy actually knows about the issues he is addressing. Also as a side note you cannot censor published content, you can restrict it, but the litteral word of censor is not possible to do on published content. So the government can never censor published content.
I summary, this writer is a moron, and just lobbing un founded accusations out there and hope one hits the wall and sticks. I think both the US and UK ISP did the right thing and it was probably with in their corporate policies.
I really wish
This whole article is effectively a Barbara Walters style rant and rave about how wrong something is but offers very little in the way of a solution or even a call to action for fair laws.
Can you really blame an ISP for quickly acting to minimize its legal exposure? How much would it cost to get sued (even falsely) for allowing a copyright infringement to continue? Last time I checked, lawyers were damn expensive. If the (allegedly) infringing website operator wants to fight it, let him. It's his web site, not the ISP's. Really, the ISP should be the last course of action for someone to remove copyrighted content. If the owner of the site is unresponsive, then the owner should show a court order or some other similarly authorized documentation claiming copyright infringement.
I'm sure there are a million holes in any idea posted here though, and they will be thoroughly discussed later. We're going to need rational laws eventually, it's just a question of whose side they're on.
The real problem is that ISPs don't want to be bothered. They don't want to get sued and have to pay a bunch of money to lawyers because of the actions of a couple of customers. So, when they receive a copyright infringement claim, there is very little chance they will actually investigate it, and even less chance they will fight the demand that the material be taken down. Instead, they will almost always automatically take down the "offending" material, no questions asked.
"So technically it isn't censorship"
Technically, it's not government censorship. Technically, it is censorship.
Censor: to examine in order to suppress or delete anything considered objectionable.
People seem to think that "experiments" like this are a cheap way to come to conclusions. But its only because they are stealing from the companies that they are experimenting on. I see no indication that the author paid for the time that he cost those companies. There was no indication that the letter he received from the US ISP was a generic one. A thought out letter, especially if a legal consult was made, can be very expensive. Even an hour of a senior employee's time would be significantly more than one would pay for a hosting service. This is not a no-harm no-foul situation.
Before encouraging the individual to actually perform a wider "study" and rip off more companies by criticizing the size of their "study", encourage them to be considerate and responsible and not only offer all involved ISPs payment for the unnecessary work he caused, but also state that the companies were at least offered reimbursement to encourage good citizenship of others that might attempt the same type of "low cost" study.
Exactly how widespread is the problem?
I doubt its very widespread, nor is it a "problem". ISPs are a dime a dozen. You can find them to pump your spam, serve your porn, email, whatever. If you don't agree to the terms of use for any reason, simply go to another one.
The slashdot crowd is so wierd about copyright infringements. If I owned an ISP and someone reported that there was a problem with copyrighted material on my equipment, I would take the stuff down too. How much time should I spend seeing if the stuff is a problem. I guestimate 0. If the material is that important and really is OK to redistribute, then a counter from the original person suplying the material will prove to me that its OK to put back up, and I would do it. However, aside from this sample size of 2 "research" experiment, I would guestimate that close to 0.0% of all complaints to and ISP about copyright violations are not copyright violations. I would imagine that most every ISP has a zero tolerance policy (aside from the sleezy ones that will host anything for a price) regarding copyrights, and don't care to spend any time figuring it out.
why is private oppression better than public oppresion.
This is where the small-government rhetoric of the republican party that the libertarians get such a thrill out of becomes an absurdity. Pretending that you have more liberty because a governmental body that has to obey stringent laws has been swept aside and replaced with an unregulated private alternative is a bizarre sort of illusion.
A good example is the arguments against local governments settting up ISPs. The free market fetishest start talking about eavesdropping and censorship, but clearly the opposite is the case as this story illustrates.
Hey, I'm all for reforming socialized bureaucracies when they're bloated and inefficient, but when it becomes a religion where everything has to be deregulated and the myth begins to evolve that a corporate market will take care of all the world's problems then it has gone too far. Privitization is a useful tool, but that's it. It's not a religion and in many cases its a bad idea.
And I have to post this anonymously because the people who support this mythology are, indeed, zealots.
The problem is not that ISPs "acting as judge, jury and private investigator at the same time." . It's rather that they're not acting as jury nor a private investigator. They're not investigating wether the copyright is actually infringed or not.
6 years ago I was hired to track down websites that used my clients copyrighted pictures. It was never a problem to get the pictures removed. Of course, I could prove that my client had the copyright, but it would be a lenghty procedure. So, the ISP's took my word for it, thinking that if my claims where false, the person who uploaded the pictures would complain. I think it's the same reasoning we see today.
While the result is superficially satisfying from the point of view of an American ("America is a land where the right to free speech is well-understood and -respected by the public at large, and dem furriners don't know nuthin' 'bout it"), you're dead-on accurate about the sample size issue. Perhaps there should be an ongoing system of this kind of check, done at random across the world's ISPs, and the results publicly displayed at a centralized web site where people could check on how on-the-ball any particular ISP is (or was, at last checkup).
It would all come crashing down, of course, when someone accused the site of hosting copyrighted material and its hosting company pulled the plug without checking.
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
if their TOS says they have the right to remove content or cancel accounts solely at their discretion.. we shouldnt make laws to stop that. they pay the money for the bandwidth, and then offer their services.. if you dont like their policy, look for another provider (or become one yourself).. don't legistlate them into compliance with your beliefs. (*THIS IS ALL JUST MY STUPID OPINION.. MAY BE RIGHT, MAY BE WRONG)
/. is not part of the government
Give it a few years...
Censorship is, in my opinion, something only the government can do. Or at the very least, censorship by your ISP is not illegal according to the Constitution of the U.S. Me and my ISP are two private entities, if he doesn't want my content on his servers, fine. I'll take my business elsewhere.
Now if the government saw my site with Mills' work posted and shut it down for any reason I would be scared.
Good point. The hysteria over music on the net has made the climate very chilling. (Of course, the DMCA is part of that hysteria)
I remember your eyes, on the twelfth of July...
I hope the UK ISP files a civil action against him for making false accusations and wasting their time.
Clearly this work by Mills uses certain structures of organisation that are part of Unix and hence violate the legal and intelectual property rights of SCO.
You know, like you read it lines going from left to right....
There is a clearly defined procedure in the DMCA for ISPs ... on receipt of the complaint, they MUST notify the site owner and MUST take down the material within a certain time.
On their part, the site owner MUST file a reply to the takedown within a certain time. When the ISP gets the reply, which is a legal document swearing to the ownership of the material, they MUST restore the material or allow its reposting (the ISP's part is over).
The complaining party (the claimant to the copyright) MUST at this point either file a formal copyright infringement suit in the federal court closest to the web site owner's place of business or shut up. Repeat complaints are NOT allowed.
Google reveals that the only web sites with sitebuilder/tandc.htm in their URLs are Freeserve/Wanadoo, and the pdf of the article describing the takedown. Therefore it must have been Freeserve or Wanadoo, who are the same company now. I'm glad I have started to move away from Freeserve, although most of my web site is still on their servers, I haven't migrated most of it yet.
If the ISPs are responsible for policing content, then they are also responsible for all the SPAM and kiddie pr0n and should be shut down. If they are a common carrier like the phone companies, then they should be barred from monitoring traffic or archiving emails without a court order. Obviously the ISPs and regulators want them to play in the middle somewhere - control without accountability.
I'd be careful about calling people idiots if I were you. This is the age where corporate contracts (where you violate a EULA or somesuch) are gaining parity with laws. Might as well call a violation of a EULA a corporate crime or a corporate offense. And who really runs the government? Do you really believe members of Congress or the President get elected just by the goodwill of the people? No, its the funding from companies. In the future censoring by companies will be as bad as censoring by the government.
But why private governance should be less intrusive than government regulation is something I have never quite understood. State censorship, while clearly problematic, is at least open to questioning and accountability. Notice and takedown is censorship without debate.
There are three differences:
1) Choice. Although you can question and debate state censorship, you have no options beyond that questioning and debate. If your government doesn't want you reading Mill's "On Liberty", your only real options are to defect or revolt. But for a private ISP, newspaper, radio station, etc, you have a choice. You have more than one ISP. You have more than one newspaper.
2) Guns. State censorship is backed up by guns, police, armies and navies. If they don't want you to publish a political screed, you're going to be in a world of hurt of you do. Private ISPs can't do anything but cancel your account. The MOST they can do is tell the state that you publishing a political screed, in which case this is an instance of state censorship anyway.
3) Ownership. Who owns the speech that should be free? In the case of state censorship, the state restricts your property of free speech. It has to leave its domain and intrude upon yours. But the situation is the opposite with private ISPs. The website is hosted on the ISPs property. It's their harddrive. They aren't intruding upon your property, but looking after their own. They never have to leave their private domain in order to restrict how their property is being used.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
I wonder why he didn't name names? I don't see much threat of a lawsuit because he is just reporting what happened. Indeed, since he didn't do a very big test, it would be nice to know who failed the test.
http://www.popularculturegaming.com -- my blog about the culture of videogame players
I have two issues with this article.
First, the sample size is pathetic. Let's sample two ISPs, one in the UK and one in the US, and then draw overly broad conclusions based on those two results. Sounds good to me! (Or perhaps it sounds like a quick, insufficient study trying to support a premise rather than gathering evidence for one.)
Second, the article pays lip service to the issue as seen from the ISPs' point of view. (Granted I'm speaking entirely from the US side of things as I am unfamiliar with UK law in this regard.) ISPs have to deal with the DMCA. Okay, the author mentions this in passing. The author also, again in passing, mentions that ISPs carry liability for the information they host. Put the two together and what do you get? Take down first, look at it later.
However, the point is not that internet self-regulation is a bad form of regulation in itself. Instead, it is that the power an ISP has over content on the internet necessitates a clarification of the legal and governance framework. There ought to be rules about process. In other areas of governance it matters who governs and under what terms - this is also the case in borderless cyberspace.
There are rules and there is a process. It just happens that the author doesn't want to confront them dead-on. "ISPs have too much power, watch what happens when I threaten one!" just isn't a valid tactic in today's litigious society. That's akin to saying "Look at this! If I file a phoney report with the Police about my neighbor being a homicidal murderer, sometimes they come arrest him when they catch him holding a knife!" Flakey at best.
Ok, so technically it is censorship, but not government endorsed censorship. Only government endorsed censorship violates the constitution. As long as there isn't any giagantic monopoly in the media world, company's censoring things that are in their domain is legal(I say in their domain because for example a car comapny should not be able to censor a report by the NY Times about how crushed clown skulls are hidden inside the passenger side seat)
- Take it down. If it really is copywritten material, then you won't hear from the user. If not, then the user will contact you and offer facts and their personal attribution that it's legal. (Think due dillgence.) Cost to ISP: $0.
- Leave it up. If it's copywritten, you'll probably be spending thousands of dollars on lawyers in the near future. Cost to ISP: $Lots.
Considering that the cost of any legal action would probably scale with a company's size (bigger company == claim for more damages), even a "major ISP" is would have strong motivation to take the first option.I imagine this holds true with ISP's also, I would assume larger ISP's get hundreds or thousands of complaints per day, and it's just not worth it to investigate each and every one.
A better approach may be to notify the website owner that the content is in question and will be removed without a timely explanation, however, copyright holders can be pretty impatient.
This is a nonissue.
;)
If the point was to demostrate that you could take something off the internet by forging a copyright notice, I'm not too concerned.
You break multiple laws by doing that. No need to invent new ones.
We are also talking about digital content on the internet, which is trivial to reproduce from backups or what have you. Most likely the ISP wouldn't really delete the content but relocate it to unreachable place incase a mistake happens.
I have to admit I would be a bit miffed if this happened to me. Then again, I run my own server so that rather unlikely.
Bot Assisted Blogging
It'd be better off being summarized and turned into a Op/Ed piece. The paper itself seems very sound in structure, setting up methods and procedures for experimenting, developing a hypothesis and all the remaining factors for a good research paper. However, to have spent so much time in preparation for a sample of 2 is like spending a whole year prepping for a 10 second race.
Just my critical view of it, after several Associates, a Bachelors, Masters and starting on a second Masters degree.
Is there a market for an ISP with a TOS that includes "we dont kneejerk takedown"?
This is all we are really talking about; who is going to run a hosting company that has a pair of grapefriuts instead of bbs.
ATH0 Bitcoin: 1DnwFLXczVZV8kLJbMYoheUrpqHesjxrSi
censor
transitive verb
To examine in order to suppress or delete anything considered objectionable
source: miriam webster
Where does government come into this?
Don't blame the isp, as a web host I have to worry about DMCA crap, RIAA, MPAA, piracy, lawyers, lawsuits, and litigation. After a while I simply adopt the attitude of "you guys figure this out, send me a copy of the court ruling, if it's OK to have it we'll put the site back, if it's not OK to have it then the site stays down".
No one wants to get caught in the middle of this crap, it's ALL too easy to make these bogus claims and it's ALL too easy to make GOOD on even bogus claims when things such as the DMCA and Patriot Act are out there to give censorship such a big stick.
I don't like censorship, but I don't like flinging my wallet at some sheister lawyer either. In the end I have to weigh the lesser of two evils and while I hate censorship I hate being bankrupt thanks to lawyers or imprisoned thanks to REALLY BAD LAWS even more.
--- www.f-theocean.com
I own the copyright to all messages posted by your user "hackstraw". Please delete his account and everything in it immediately.
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
You should probably read the correct definition of censorship before you post any more rants. Of course a private company can censor content. Thats why the people responsible for making sure you don't say "shit" on live tv are called censors. In summary: you don't know what the hell you're talking about, and it's not relevent to this discussion anyway, which you would have known had you read the article.
mod parent -1 hairsplitting...
So if you had, say, your masters' thesis, on that UK ISP and I wanted to cause you some trouble, I could sent them a bogus C&D letter and they'd yank your thesis offline without contacting you, or attempting to verify the legitimacy of my C&D letter, and you'd think that's a good thing for them to do?
Please THINK.
the size of the sample does not justify any sort of conclusion
Yes, but imagine how impressive and news-worthy it would be if phrased as "50% of ISPs censored my content!"
I also on a side note the writter of this story doesn't really under stand the meaning of censorship. Only a government can censor a person, a private company does not have this ability.
Very true. A better analogy, though still flawed, would be a store removing alegedly stolen property from it's shelves. Censorship has nothing to do with copyright violation.
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
Lycos - on page 21, where he has shoddily neglected to blank it out. Ironic, as Lycos is actually owned by Terra, a Spanish (EU) ISP.
I agree that this study is a very good idea; I just wish he could have done it a bit better and more thoroughly. Two ISPs, one from the US, one from the EU, is simply not enough to draw any sort of conclusion.
The Web's too valuable to be left in private hands. It should belong to all of us. Since we who live in democratic countries *are* (I know, I know, it doesn't quite work in practice) the government, putting it in government hands would be the obvious solution. I'm envisioning a national ISP run like Canada's CBC Radio which is comercial free and paid for entirely by tax $$, but at the same time kept at "arms length" so that the current ruling party can't control the content. Thus, CBC's *only* goal is to produce quality programs and accurate news, not to make profit. Likewise, a National ISP's only goals might include fairness to users...
There is one large US ISP that has a standard form response to copyright infringement notices
There is one UK ISP that will take down a *free* website after one complaint
In a way, I have to disagree with what the ISP's did in removing/blocking the content. I realize that the ISP's own the network as you've pointed out, but what would stop someone from makng claims about numerous sites over copyrighted material and having those sites shut down. The author doesn't do a very good job explaining the exact setup of the site or the details of the actions by the ISP, so I can't say with certainty that they acted improperly. If the ISP's just pulled the connection based on a bogus claim, imagine the havoc someone could play on web sites.
Picture the ISP for a local politicians website getting a notice that www.somepolitician.org was displaying copyrighted work. Picture that claim coming from www.running-against.org. Without some level of validation, claims could affect legitimate sites.
One would hope that ISP's would require some level of proof indicating the copyright infringement followed by a contacting the website operator to inquire if they can show rights to the use the content. I don't know if this would put too much burden on the ISP though. Maybe not the ideal solution, but seems better than just pulling the connection.
Ignoring the other comments that talk about the sample size being small, and that this "censorship" is being conducted by private companies, not the government, I still think this is off base.
He seems to have the assumption that we should attempt to create some method of governance for this kind of thing. Why is that necessary? Individuals can already self-regulate ISPs that do this stuff - they can switch to another ISP. Governmental regulation or policing of this is problematic. This implies some sort of governmental body. If you don't like the people who are running that body, you can only vote them out once every election cycle. However, in the current system, if you don't like the governance of your ISP, you can vote them out as frequently as you like - there's no law that says you can only switch ISPs once every election cycle.
I disagree with the premise that the only solution to prevent this type of silliness is to create a regulating body. That makes things much worse because it eliminates choice. Instead of rewarding the ISPs with the sensible behavior, they'll all have to behave identically. No more voting with your dollars. Additionally, this will likely lead to price increases for ISP services. Those ISPs that didn't activelly enforce this stuff today (the good ones) now will have to. A cost that will certiainly be passed to the customers.
IMHO: this is a good problem to solve, but the wrong assumption on how to fix it.
Key to financial independence: Spend less than you earn. Save and invest the difference. Do it for a long time.
It's not just music. Ulink.net shut down part of my site when I was still hosted by them after receiving a complaint from the Beverly Hills police department for "displaying children with pornography". It was a background picture of the Trix rabbit saying "tits are for kids". Didn't bother telling me about either. It was shut down for days before I noticed and sent them an email asking what was going on.
7th Heaven sarcasm
Ulink quote:
We have been contacted by authorities regarding your displaying of a child star on a page with pornography. For your own protection we had to take down that page or you could be in serious trouble. In the future, please do not display pornography and children together. It is against the law and Ulink policies.
riding round the world on an old motorcycle
Remember those Scientologists and how they told Slashdot to get down and suck it regarding their IP, AND SLASHDOT DID?!?!?
Slashdot has no right to ever be judgemental about censorship, since they themselves were unwilling to stand up against it themselves.
If they're getting too much requests from RIAA/MPAA to be able to handle them then they're NOT getting them off their backs, they're just telling 'em that "keep 'em coming".
it doesn't matter WHO does the censorshipping.. it's still censorshipping.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
I wonder how much censorship ( loosly using the word, as only a government can censor, by definition ) is taking place due to an ISP's personal views.
Such as a Jew owned ISP filtering out blatant Nazi sites.. but not mentioning it to their customers...
Sure it is their right, but its also the right of the consumers to go elswhere. They should be legally obligated to notify customers of the filtering.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
ISP are private companies - their servers are their property, not yours. If you had a copy of "On Liberty" posted in your front lawn and the government asked you to remove it, that's censorship. If you leave a copy in the door of a local store, and they take it, that's simply their choice. It's their business, and their door, and they can do with it what they please.
----
Bryan Samis
http://www.thesamis.net
And look at counternotices on: this page
There is a formal procedure that ISPs follow, and considerable protection for both the copyright owner and the page owner.
Let me try to explain this to you. It is impossible for companies to censor anything. Period. And you want to know something the company as an entity can only donate the max of $2000 in the US. Now that is not to say there are kooke frindge organizations like MoveOn.org that raise money and then put ads out on the networks.
/.
To answer you questions:
And who really runs the government?
Elected officials. They may cator to donors.
Do you really believe members of Congress or the President get elected just by the goodwill of the people?
In the end that is what it comes down to, because when you enter the booth, it is just you and a lever. So to use an over used quote to demonstrate, "A Person is smart, the people are stupid". Also many polls show that 50% of the people don't really decide who they are going to vote for until they get into the polling both. So I still beleive in democracy, but maybe that is just because I am conservative and beleive the peolpe still have the power.
No it's funding from companies.
I know you are going to hate me using this as an example. George Bush raised 150 million+ for the campaign this year, you want to know the average donation? It's around 200 dollars. So I really doubt companies are funding politices with BIG MONEY.
In the future censoring by companies will be as bad as censoring by the government.
And agains only the government to censor, because a company cannot throw you in jail for talking bad about it. A company cannot lock you away. A company cannot do anything, because they don't have that kind of power. The worst they can do is sue you, and most of those suites are thrown out or not even attembed because of how bad it looks for the company. Remember what happened with the kid from MikeRowSoft.com and when the lawyers went after him. Remember the cry out on
Just one more time so you will remember COMPANIES DON'T HAVE THE POWER TO CENSOR ANYTHING.
Indeed: The key point the US ISP insisted on was the assertion under penalty of perjury. That is the essential accountability measure under the US DMCA; it seems that the EU directive and UK law do not have that kind of provision, so the only possible countering torts would be commercial in nature.
If you make the ISP the final arbiters of what can and cannot be displayed on the Web, then you have to expect this kind of thing, no?
What exactly is the thought process here? Ignoring the debatable need for censorship, since it is occuring, regardless of any one person's utopian ideals, why the hell would anyone rationally choose to put such power in the hands of corporations?
There is ample reason to believe that coporations will chase the buck, and that motivation is completely divergent from the responsible execution of the responsibilities that have devolved to them.
The fact of the matter is, the ISP is vulnerable where the private individual is not. ISP's don't have principles, other than the prusuit of profit, and as such make poor arbiters of content. Any individual/organization with the moxie and money can wield undue influnce over the content an ISP hosts via fiscal and legal pressure. The actual content in question is secondary to the issue of maintaining revenue or avoiding litigation. Particularly in the US.
Given, the issue is not an easy one to resolve, but I have to question the ultility of standing on the sidelines pointing and screaming foul, no fair when corporations act as corporations will. If there is any blame to be laid, it is not on the ISPs, they are grudgingly filling a role they did not ask for, nor one they are suited to. Ultimately, enforcement would be their balliwick, but enforcement is a far cry from judgement, and to date the two have been inextricably tied together.
Instead of even trying to find the right solution, we took the expedient solution, again. Ultimately all this article points out is that (again) the expedient is not up to the task. Unfortunately, I suspect all that will happen is another expedient.
There is a SERIOUS issue at the core here. Until we stop sticking our heads in the sand and insist that there is not a problem, we will probably carry one in true human fashion, flitting from expedient to expedient. So long as we choose to solve the issue that way, why are we continually suprised when it doesn't work?
"Talk minus action equals nothing" - Joey Shithead, D.O.A.
"Talk minus action equals
Only a government can censor a person, a private company does not have this ability.
Merriam-Webster says you are incorrect.
n/t
ISP's are private companys like ebay, ebay's policy is that they remove the an auction item if the IP of an item is questioned in any way (by anyone). No questions asked, no appeal. have your auctions questioned twice and they kick you off. Private company's are in it for the buck not to protect your rights, the real problem is the legal system that instills this level of fear in people and companys.
"It's so convenient to have a system where everyone is a criminal" - A. Hitler
According to research, the ISPs in question are Lycos for the US ISP (mentioned directly in the PDF a few times where he probably meant to x out) and Wanadoo (note in the PDF that their site was johannamuhle.mysite.xxxxx.com, and that Wanadoo hosts sites under that DNS).
Keep in mind that I could be wrong here, this is only from some quick research on Google.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
ISPs this, ISPs that. The writer tested TWO ISPs and only ONE responded in an immediately censoring manner. The other provided a detailed questionaire for more information. I'm not suggesting the author doesn't raise a valid freedom of speach concern, but I wouldn't call a "secret shopper" experiement of TWO ISPs statistically useful.
If you're going to do secret investigation hidden camera secret shopper style journalism, you need to select a larger group than TWO ISPs.
This one gang kept wanting me to join cause I'm pretty good with a bo staff.
Quite aside from the fact that the "liberty of the press" has much more to do with media control concentration than with ISP "censorship", there are lots of problems with this article.
To begin with, ISPs are commercial entities with no legal obligation to allow you to post whatever content you please. If you don't want to use an ISP that is going to capitulate to the first takedown notice it gets, be selective when you choose your ISP.
When I went looking for my last service provider, I looked carefully looked at each of their privacy policies and acceptable use policies. If they said that they would remove any content based on any old complaint, I refused to do business with them.
The other problem is derived from the fact that the author doesn't seem to fully understand the problem. Because he doesn't understand the problem, he doesn't have any solutions to recommend other than some vague notion that ISPs should have some sort of immunity.
Of course, at least he is starting to think about these important issues, which is always a good thing.
As the aleged copyright infringement was textual, the US ISP investigated.
Did the US ISP really investigate? Did they do anything at all? From reading through the PDF, all I can tell is that they read the complaint email (after several resends) and sent back what seems to be a basic form letter response; "you forgot to check box A, initial part B, and sign on line C before we process your request."
Which is the way it should be.
-- If god wanted me to have a sig, he'd have given me a sense of humor.
No basically what you're saying is that, because I am paying a monthly electrical bill for what is essentially the power company's power, they should have a right to disconnect me for any reason the please, however frivolous. Perhaps if somebody complains I have a grow-op at my house, they should automatically pull my plug, because I *might* have a grow up and it's too much of a hassle to actually make a legitimate investigation into the complaint.
How about, as a customer of a service that I have paid for, I expect that reasonable measures to be taken in investigating the legitimacy of a complaint before disconnecting or crippling/changing said services.
And in this article, there was NO legimate complaint. Rather, it was a test of whether the ISP would do a proper investigation of a complaint before acting. They fail that test.
The Merriam Webster definition of censorship is
the institution, system, or practice of censoring b : the actions or practices of censors; especially : censorial control exercised repressively
A private enitity can practice censorship. It used to be that we used to just worry about government censorship because they were the only ones with power enough to block all access. You are correct in one thing though, it is within the rights of the private entity to do this as long as they don't violate a contract.
But we know all the contracts between individuals and large private entities are heavily weighted towards the private entity. So through the laws passed by their lobbying we are handing a lot of power to these private entities.
Umm.. the letter *itself* said it was a generic one. I'll quote it.. Also, I believe he forgot to XXX out a few instances of the ISP name. It seems to have, in fact, been Lycos.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
ISPs are a dime a dozen.
...simply go to another one.
That would give me 0.83333333333333333333333333333333 ISP's.
Easy for you to say. This whole situation makes me so glad about the rapid progress of wireless(WIFI). It will eventually give us the chance to dump all ISP's.
What?
Ok, I know the /. crowd just loves to wear tinfoil hats and believe the government (doesn't matter which one, just The Government) and Big Evil Corporations are out to get them, but this is a non-story.
As others have already pointed out, this isn't censorship because censorship is prior restraint. When you need to submit your blog to the censors and get it preapproved before posting about the cute thing your kitty just did, THEN you can yell about censorship while I'm locking and loading my 'sporting goods.'
But this asshat calling for more government regulation to solve a perceived lack of freedom is so dumb boggles the mind. Find me a government that isn't out to expand its powers at your expense? If you have a problem with your ISP you can get another in a few minutes and be totally switched over in a day or two. Changing governments requires moving.... and then only while they still allow that.
Democrat delenda est
Christian Ahlert perjured himself then? Most copyright notices declare that the sender of the claimed infringement notice owns the copyright or is authorized by the copyright owner to act on his/her behalf, and has the authority to claim infringement and has verified that the site in question does in fact infringe, all this usually declared under penalty of perjury. If the work was in the public domain, Christian could be guilty of perjury or fraud for deliberately making false statements to the ISP in the notice.
But if you were sending a crank complaint just to harrass a site, why would you use anything like your real name/email/whatever? Are they really going to check out all of your contact details, or just shut down the site?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Very well put.
Until the pain of verifying the accuracy of the infrigement claim is less than the pain of 'CYA'...
I never get mod points anymore, but you'd get one if I did.
<grrr>
Seems to me, one way to pump up the visibility of this particular problem is to generate bogus copyright complaints on a couple of choice items that would cause a rucus-- though I can't think of one offhand, I'll bet a little thought would produce some interesting potential candidates. Having some Microsoft marketing announcements pulled, for example, might cause some force to be exerted on the problem.
Of course, there is the slight problem of the liability it might expose the claimer to (fraudulent claims), but I would imagine there are probably a few ways to circumvent that...
Disclaimer: I am not recommending illegal activity here, just pointing out the effect a few targeted cases of fraudulent IP claims might have.
Bah! Don't try to confuse me with the truth ;)
I disagree with your view on government, but so what. Censorship is censorship. Just because you define it to only apply to government (and so does the law) doesn't mean its not as dangerous. There is no coincidence that megacompanies are buying up media outlets (like MSNBC) to minimize their negative appearances. With all of these megacompanies merging and merging, its going to become pretty difficult to put out the word when they violate the laws that are meant to protect us. I guess we could use the Internet (oops, I just read the article--I guess not). Maybe the only way to combat them is to get a loudspeaker and go to a public square (oops, they don't exist anymore only corporate malls and corporate football stadiums, etc). Hmm... Well I guess since the government didn't define corporate censorship in the 1700s its not dangerous, so I might as well give in. I mean, the important tenents of government never change, right? Right?
Yeah, but it's still censorship. Just because it's not unconstitutional doesn't mean it's not bad.
like the darpa challenge?
or a drag race?
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
For example, when working at a local electronics store we would not give out any store prices over the telephone or Internet. We forced the customer to physically come into the store to see the price. We also would not write the price down for a customer either. This was put into effect so that we didn't get other competing stores calling and asking our prices, only to get a better price to the customer at their store.
Hmmm.
It is government encouraged censorship though. The laws are such than this kind of private censorship is often the most reasonable (legally) course of action a private entity (ISP) can take.
Besides, so what if it's constitutional, that doesn't make it right.
Trees can't go dancing
So do them a big favor
Pretend dancing stinks!
Technically, only government-sponsored killing and abuse violates the constition. That's right, if I come to your house and shoot you, I haven't violated a single one of your constitutional rights. Or, say, if I lock you up without reading you your rights. In fact, I am not capable of doing anything to you that violates the Constitution, because it doesn't limit me. That doesn't mean that anything I choose to do to you is okay.
Rapid progress my ass.
More than half of my state still doesn't have DSL/Cable, let alone wifi.
No ISP? who's going to backhaul your traffic to the and from the net?
It sounds like the author expected the ISPs to conduct their own investigaion of whether there was really a Copyright infringement. I really doubt if many (any?) ISPs have enough resources to do that. At some point, they have to rely on the information that is provided to them.
Having said that, it's unfortunate that he UK ISP didn't do any type of verification before yanking the web page. But I don't see how the author can reach any sort of conclusion when the sample size is only two. I hope that this is not typical of the work that his sponsor publishes.
This test is called the Pompous Bastard Test (PBT, for short) and it goes something like this:
First, count how many commas, semicolons or colons a writer uses in his sentences. Second, use the chart below to determine the writer's Pompous Bastard Quotient (PBQ):
x <= 1: Dubyass
1 < x <= 3: Normal
3 < x <= 6: Somewhat Cocky
6 < x: Pompous Bastard
Let's take a few examples from the above mentioned text:
"The struggle between Liberty and Authority is the most conspicuous feature in the portions of history with which we are earliest familiar, particularly in that of Greece, Rome, and England."
3 commas. Seems pretty Normal so far.
"THE subject of this Essay is not the so-called Liberty of the Will, so unfortunately opposed to the misnamed doctrine of Philosophical Necessity; but Civil, or Social Liberty: the nature and limits of the power which can be legitimately exercised by society over the individual."
Ooooh, 4 commas (2 commas, 1 semicolon, 1 colon). Getting a little cocky here.
"It is so far from being new, that, in a certain sense, it has divided mankind, almost from the remotest ages, but in the stage of progress into which the more civilized portions of the species have now entered, it presents itself under new conditions, and requires a different and more fundamental treatment."
7 commas. Pompous Bastard. Could be a fluke.
"First, by obtaining a recognition of certain immunities, called political liberties or rights, which it was to be regarded as a breach of duty in the ruler to infringe, and which, if he did infringe, specific resistance, or general rebellion, was held to be justifiable."
8 Freaking Commas. Wow, he really is a Pompous Bastard.
BTW, I'm not commenting on the content of the writer's work, just on his Pompousness; and whew, this guy, whether he knows it or not, is a real, God-damn, Pompous Bastard.
ooops.
+1 Insightful, -1 Troll. What can I say, I'm an Insightful Troll.
If I owned an ISP and someone reported that there was a problem with copyrighted material on my equipment, I would take the stuff down too. How much time should I spend seeing if the stuff is a problem. I guestimate 0.
It's a good thing not everyone shares your philosophy. All Darl McBride would have to do is call up a few backbone providers and tell them "redhat.com / gentoo.org / kernel.org / whatever is infringing on my copyrighted IP, pull them off the Net please." No substantiation or evidence required.
The UK ISP is almost certainly Wanadoo (note the poorly redacted URL in the UK ISP's letter).
The US ISP is Lycos (they forgot to blank one instance out in the PDF).
Oops.
Become a FSF associate member before the low #s are used
But dude, you can buy magic mushrooms on the high street... its the most civilised country on earth.
When my wife and I started our own message board, a competing board tried to get us to stop perfectly legal activities through extortion; i.e., they threatened to contact our ISP and accuse us of spamming if we didn't do what they wanted.
We didn't do it. They contacted our ISP. I had contacted our ISP in advance with a copy of the extortion email, and it was dealt with appropriately. We never went offline.
Now, that's with a good ISP, that I was in open communication with, and that I warned in advance about the contact, and everything was fine. However, if they had contacted our ISP without first tipping me off to their plans, and had claimed that we were hosting child pornography or infringing someone's copyright, things might have been different.
Chances are it would have taken a couple of days to get it all worked out and back online, but what if the site were politically oriented, and the persons who had it taken down had access to the media?
Imagine this scenario:
1. I post legal, factual information that I feel people should know about before voting for big, powerful mogul;
2. Powerful mogul tells my ISP that I'm doing something illegal (that I'm not doing), and the ISP takes my site down without review;
3. Powerful mogul "leaks" to the news that this site was taken down because of illegal material (let's say child pornography);
4. Most news agencies try to contact me, but a few don't, and run the story as-is;
5. My site is still down, so in the crucial 48 hours after the news story runs, I have no web site to post any kind of rebuttal;
6. Three days later, my site goes back up and my ISP says "it was all nonsense", but it's old news by now. My credibility is shot, and my message is rendered ineffective.
The point of all this, I think, isn't that illegitimate takedown requests can be corrected in a few days, but that illegitimate takedown requests can silence your voice for a crucial period of time that a shrewd, powerful manipulator can leverage for maximum advantage (as in my theoretical example above).
If they are in violation of that let them know or you can take it to the Better Business Bearu (at least in the US). I worked for an ISP and went through this before.
Post the results of the study on your web sites. Name names. Of course, many an AUP will have a clause that says you aren't allowed to dis the ISP itself. When they exercise that clause, explain the Slashdot Effect to them.
" maybe if ISP's responded to complaints about dangerous and obsene/illegal/racists websites..."
We could save lives from what...reading? If a web site is illegal, it should be dealt with in an appropriate fashion. Other than that, the rest of your criteria are based on arbitrary opinion. If we censor what you think is "obsene", dangerous, or racist, we'll have to censor all possible interpretations of those criteria. We'll be left with a bland, tasteless world devoid of the things that make life interesting. Without the bad, you'd never know you had it so good.
Free as in beer? Free as in speech? Free as in free, damn it. It's a word and it has a definition. Let's stop abusing it.
"A man talking sense to himself is no madder than a man talking nonsense not to himself."
"Censorship is censorship. Just because you define it to only apply to government (and so does the law) doesn't mean its not as dangerous."
loose definitions and liberal word usage are just as dangerous
Slashdot, in the face of a threat that tested their supposed claim of being for free IP, simply bowed down, meekly I must add, and showed themselves with no steel in their convictions. Those with brevity for talk have a word for this: hypocrisy. For a moment I had thought Slashdot had become a fully sanctioned division of the U.N. And yeah, they provided some sour grapes commentary and provided links to others who were willing to show the mettle that Slashdot lacked.
Point is, on the main issue of censorship, Slashdot proved themselves as false as those they love to skewer regularly. If you want to talk from a high horse, you have to get on that high horse and stay there.
While slashdot dons their tinfoil hats about a non-issue, how about a real case of someone being FINED for speaking their mind?
Brigitte Bardot fined for inciting racial hatred
So all you eurotrash (and for that matter the moveon crowd here) who crawl out of the woodwork every few days to take pot shots at how "fascist" America is and how Ashcroft is the devil incarnate, care to speak to this REAL human rights abuse as opposed to your fantasies? We have something called the 1st Amendment that means that anyone proposing such a law would simply be laughed at.... and a 2nd that says anyone who managed to do it anyway wouldn't last long.
Democrat delenda est
...which is yet another black hole in his methodology. (See the full report for details of the methodology.)
Quote from the article:
The UK ISP took Mill down almost immediately (in huge letters, as a heading, followed by:)
The US ISP followed up on the dubious complaint, made on behalf of the chairman of the non-existent John Stuart Mill Heritage Foundation, with detailed questions. But the UK ISP took the site down almost immediately, effectively censoring legal content without investigation.
In the full report, he details how the US ISP refused to take down the content *unless he explicitly perjured himself in writing*, acknowledging in writing the phrase "under penalty of perjury". Unsurprisingly he was unwilling to do this and terminated the project - so the US ISP left the content there, and did exactly the right thing - a fact he completely skips over in the summary article.
The reason it did do this was that the DCMA provides a framework for such complaints. While ultimately his point in the article is that government regulation may be preferable to private corporate censorship, he doesn't want to explicitly draw the logical conclusion that in this case the DCMA is working exactly as intended, protecting the alleged infringer against specious claims. Rather he decides to reference "anecdotal evidence" that the DCMA has chilling effects.
Now I believe the DCMA to be one of the most wrong-headed laws ever signed, and I agree with this guy's conclusions, but the report reads obviously that he has started with these conclusions and moulded his data to fit them. His methodology is completely out the window. And that's a problem, because anyone can come up with a "research report"; that proves whatever they want, including the bad guys - and from a methodology perspective this guy could get a job with them.
I made my own ISP. Free speech IS a cornerstone of my service. But if somebody makes a complaint about copyright infringement, I *HAVE* to take down the material. Legally, I can't NOT do something about it without accepting liability for the infringement, which I'm not going to do.
Usually, I contact the site owner and give them four hours to do it themselves, or to LEGALLY respond to the request (saying, "there nuts i can post if i want" is not enough. you'd need to prove you had ownership of the the content). But if they aren't available, I've got to pull the plug.
Free speech is one thing and getting sued for somebody else's copyright infringement is quite another. I don't give a shit what you say until it starts directly affecting my ability to not-have-to-sell-my-house.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
Only two data points? Given the headline I would have expected a larger sample size.
There's really insufficient data to draw significant conclusions.. and if you wanted to spin it another way, "Free speech still better protected in US than in UK" would be just as valid a conclusion.
Sample three: A site offering "Gamez/Moviez/Warez". They also spammed a forum I administrate. A complaint was made exactly one week ago. I've heard nothing from the ISP.
I'm scared of numbers that can't be written as a fraction. It's an irrational fear.
I have taken 10 sites down like this. I used to develop a shareware app 1999 - 2001 and whenever I found a site that contained a Kegenerator or Crack for my app I would send the ISP a polite message saying "Take the site down or legal action will be take". Most of them it was taken down within 24 hours and sometimes the ISP would inform me that the offender was contacted and would have a week to respond/defend themselves before taking it down.
If you feel that you have been a victim of Internet abuse which took place in part or completely on the Comcast Network, please report the incident to abuse@comcast.net. Make sure to include the date and time of the incident, log files, spam examples or any other information that may be useful to the investigation and verification of the incident as well as your name and phone number or e-mail address so we may contact you directly.
Even though the exact nature of the investigation isn't specified, they at least indicate that they will investigate. Unfortunately, not all ISP's will have a policy so users may wish to choose a provider that has a clear policy to avoid disruption. I imagine though that major web sites will get a better investigation than I would running a little "this is what I did on my summer vacation" site.
That is a general meaning. Basically, a colloquialism.
HOWEVER, when we are talking about *LEGAL MATTERS*, all words have a *VERY* *SPECIFIC* *MEANING*. Webster's has zero relevance in legal matters.
These servers are owned by private businesses. They can do whatever the hell they want to them, legally, since it's their property. There is no censorship involved if J. Random ISP doesn't want to publish your anti-corporate screed because it hurts their interests. None. You are not being forced to use their service, and you can find another one. Don't say you can't. Likewise, you have no authority to force them to publish your content. It works both ways, pal, and not in the ways you want it to.
I also on a side note the writter of this story doesn't really under stand the meaning of censorship. Only a government can censor a person, a private company does not have this ability.
Also as a side note you cannot censor published content, you can restrict it, but the litteral word of censor is not possible to do on published content. So the government can never censor published content.
Ok now, from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition:
censor: A person authorized to examine books, films, or other material and to remove or suppress what is considered morally, politically, or otherwise objectionable.
censoring: (1) counterintelligence achieved by banning or deleting any information of value to the enemy [syn: censorship, security review]
(2) deleting parts of publications or correspondence or theatrical performances [syn: censorship]
Nothing about only the gov't having the power to censor. Anyone or group can censor. See the Wikipedia for more info.
I run a small comic book publisher and maintain a website for that and one of our producers. Going through the logs, I found in 2 instances one of our images were hotlinked via online journals.
First we contacted both of the site owners reuesting that:
A) Proper copyright notice be included with the image along with a link to our front page.
*or*
B) Remove said image (s) from the journal pages.
Neither journal owner ever responded so the next step was to contact the site hosts. In both cases it was pointed out that prior attempt at contact had been made along with the A) or B) requests.
One host removed the image from the page (I don't know if they tried to contact the journal owner or just pulled it). The other host sent instructions on how to prevent hotlinking files from outside pages. NOT what I asked for.
The supreme irony in all this is that Mill advocated the utilitarian theory of ethics first put forward by Bentham. This states that the morally correct one is whatever creates the greatest amount of good (or alleviates the most suffering) for the greatest numbers of people. In this way censorship almost seems to be the right thing to do since stifling one person saves everyone at the ISP the pain of dealing with it.
(Author's note: as a Kantian I don't agree with this conception. I'm merely acting as Devil's advocate.)
It's a good thing not everyone shares your philosophy.
Its a damn good thing, but if everyone did, life would be much easier for me. But the world would not be very diverse now would it?
All Darl McBride would have to do is call up a few backbone providers and tell them "redhat.com / gentoo.org / kernel.org / whatever is infringing on my copyrighted IP, pull them off the Net please." No substantiation or evidence required.
Common sense would apply. Like I said, I would imagine that the percentage of complaints about IP infringement being wrongly complained about are close to 0. If someone spends the time to complain about something, odds are it is someone who is particularly bothered by the material being available, and their complaint is valid.
If Darl actually had valid claims to Linux IP, I would imagine that there would be no complaints from the ISPs to take it off. However, being that the odds of the ISP running linux is very high, and ISP owners have some common sense and already know that Darl has been googlebombed as "litigious bastards", me and most people would ignore such a request.
hmm...so it's ok for people to rant about the powers of goverment and Big Brother theories but if they play fast and loose with definitions (like the party did with the ministry of truth) then they can't be called on it because its hairsplitting? what hypocritical rubbish
"Please THINK"
practice what you preach bro...
Could you make the following fine print at the bottom of every webpage that you serve a little larger?
"Your website does not comply with XXXXX's My Site Terms of Use," you'll end up being taken to "http://www.freeserve.com/sitebuilder/tandc.htm" (which does redirect to wanadoo).
They didn't make the same gaffe on the US ISP -- which is too bad. I'd like to know who it was that handled it *correctly* more than I want to know who bungled it.
That said, the text of the response is boilerplate stuff that Lycos sends out. Compare it with the text here and here -- so the US ISP was almost certainly Lycos.
So you have 25/36 cents?
10cents/12ISPs * 5/6 ISP = 25/36 cents.
If you were implying you have a penny, then you have 1.2 ISPs.
The only reason we have the rights we have is that people just like us died to gain those rights. -- Cheerio Boy
In england there was a murder that was sexually motivated due to a website one of our big newspapers gave this massive coverage (daily mail) and has forced several of these websites off the net
If you have nothing useful to say post as AC.
A website I do work for has located a website that not only ripped off our content verbatim, but also leeches bandwidth by deep-linking our images. We've sent multiple e-mails to the domain owner and the ISP with no response. Why? They're in Korea! Nothing like getting blown off when it costs us a few gigs of transfer a month, eh?
There is a difference between "insightful" and "inciteful" other than spelling.
From what I can see, they seem to stand for anything anti-Bush (without question). And fringe?? They have some massive numbers on their side. They can raise 20 million in a few days notice from donations.
Why are there only 19 people folding@home for slashdot?
And stuff for my friends, I have only the law to abide, not somebodies fear for political consequenses when they don't act...
They've been made accountable for something that is
a) none of their business,
b) something in which they have little experience or expertise.
What do we expect?
-... ---
So you're saying that M-W does not define words of the English language? Strange.
Until you post a definition that conflicts with the one I've already given, you're wrong. Pal.
And quit using capitals and bold. Sheesh.
The Church of $cientology, as you should know, owns copyright over various texts (specifically, the OT series.) When an anonymous poster reprinted the full text of the posting, Slashdot was served with a notice of infringement. In this case, Slashdot would be taking the heat here, because they cannot blame an anonymous poster. If, however, a person stepped forward claiming that he made the posting and that the take down notice was invalid, then Slashdot would be allowed to restore the content - AND NOT EARLIER.
In this case, a single ISP is performing a takedown in response to a copyright complaint. The material in question is in the public domain, is traceable to an individual user, and was taken down without having the ISP consult with the user. These three facts make this case distinct from Slashdot's scuffle with Co$.
As for you, if you want to complain about hyprocasy, you should *READ THE FUCKING ARTICLES*.
Slashdot removed the messages, and undermined Co$ by posting many links to Anti-CoS sites, along with information on how to get the OT books. If you bothered to remember those important facts, than you would have known that Slashdot didn't collapse - in fact, they acted very reasonably compared to the UK ISP.
"Besides, so what if it's constitutional, that doesn't make it right."
no, but it makes it legal, "right" is to subjective
Censorship would involve a government. Censorship would occur prior to publication.
In this case it's a private entity (ISP) wrongfully removing content from a client's site. That might be breach of contract, but not censorship. I'm sure if the publisher of the site in question contacted the ISP after it was taken down and explained that the material was public domain it would be allowed to be reposted.
So, nothing to see here...take off the tinfoil hats and move along....
If God had had a computer it would have taken him 7 months to create the earth...if he even bothered to do it at all.
What's up with the "powerful mogul" bit? Are there really people like Bill Gates and Donald Trump out to get you? The only way your little scenario makes sense is if you've ticked off somebody who actually has national media connexions; your typical Bubble Gum Jones doesn't have these kind of connexions.
Condemnant quod non intellegunt.
Just my critical view of it, after several Associates, a Bachelors, Masters and starting on a second Masters degree.
You don't need several degrees to know his sample size is statistically worthless.
Two.
Two.
Even lowly ol' about-to-complete-first-bachelor's me knows this isn't even usable as propaganda, for the very reason pointed out by practically every poster. At most, this could be considered the start of some serious research.
I hope this guy isn't expecting kudos, or grades, or grants to come from this.
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
As a previous poster mentioned, it IS censorship, but not by the government. Governmental censorship certainly is more insidious that private censorship, since it is more pervasive. You can't step out of the government's jurisdiction, but you can stop using the private company's services.
The problem arises when a "private" entities becomes so large and powerful that that they have a monopoly or cartel and a lot of ties with the government. When the only place you can turn for a service is one of these government subsidized/sanctioned companies, then their censorship is just as bad as anything commited by the government.
Imagine if the phone company started censoring your phone calls? What if you couldn't get insurance unless you stopped speaking on some issue? etc...
LS
There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
To paraphrase the NRA... Websites don't kill people. People kill people.
Although it seems a constant theme to claim otherwise, nothing on earth is to blame for your actions other than yourself. A website is no more to blame for a murder than note written on paper. Since motivation is based on interpretation and personal choice, there is no legitimate way to govern what is "dangerous" in graphical form.
A website advocating crime is not dangerous. People who allow themselves to be motivated by such a website are dangerous.
"A man talking sense to himself is no madder than a man talking nonsense not to himself."
Dear hackstraw,
Could you make your sense of humor a littler larger?
XXXX XX XX XXXXXXX XX XXX XXXXXXX XXXXXX XXXXXXXX! XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXXXXX!
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Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
I dunno about the big ISPs he tested this on, but the ISP I work at would probably have taken it down as well.
He posted content written by someone over 120 years ago, and then complained to the ISP that it violated copyright. The part that's not in the Slashdot story is that he complained as a member of the fictional "John Stuart Mill Heritage Foundation." If I saw content posted and then received a complaint from someone who claimed to own the content I would most likely take it down.
I would however keep a copy of the content AND contact the customer as to the alleged violation. It's not up to me to prove or disprove whether or not a customer has legitimate access to publish content, it's up to the customer. We don't have time to research every complaint that comes in.
If we have to take down content and the customer can prove they have legitimate rights to post that content I'd be happy to hear it, and ultimately I'd copy the files back personally. It shouldn't be the ISP's job to police their network dolling out justice as they see fit.
We are happy to work with any customer about an issue like this, but we don't have the resources to investigate each incident.
A sample of only two ISPs!? Statistically, you can't derive any meaningful data from a data set of only two elements. And it's not like you can do a whole lot with only two elements, but why choose only major ISPs? And why only US and UK? It would have been nice to see somewhere around 20-40 elements over a range of several ISP sizes. As many large-scale national ISPs that you can get, at least a dozen regional ISPs, and the rest consisting of (the small and vanishing species of) local ISPs.
Furthermore, I would have liked to see the results from some of the online communities like Geocities that give webspace to users. There just isn't enough detail in this study.
And speaking of little detail, there has also been a lack of attention to detail. Note the following paragraph from the study:
Oopsie! 'X'ing out almost all of the company mentions just doesn't cut it.
Punctanym: alternate spelling of words using punctuation or numerals in place of some or all of its letters; see 'leet'
And you obviously have a very poor, limited understanding of language...have you ever heard the term "self-censorship"? Obviously, your implication that only governments can "censor" is a figment of your imagination, or your language development/education was censored...:-)
Are you saying that your posts can't possibly infringe someone else's copyright because Slashdot say they belong to the poster or are you saying that as long as there's a message at the bottom claiming that messages belong to the poster then the ISP never needs to remove copyrighted material?
If you want to talk from a high horse, you have to get on that high horse and stay there.
Wow, man, that's trippy... a high horse? I got my dog drunk one time, but I never got a horse high before. And get on it and stay on it? Is that like bestiality, or just rodeo talk?
DMCA covers text.
:)
:)
For example, if you decrypt the following and/or post the plaintext I could in theory use the DMCA against you. No, I won't actually do it. I do wonder how soon someone will in fact post a decryption of it here. And how long before someone posts a one-line Perl script decrypter and makes it open-source.
Zpv Tmbtiepu hfflt offe up hp pvutjef npsf.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
In your situation you say it was dealt with appropriately. I'd hope that includes the other party getting arrested for extortion.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
right, definitions have never been changed before
*cough*democracy*cough*
If I owned an ISP and someone reported that there was a problem with copyrighted material on my equipment, I would take the stuff down too.
I have to agree, and I would hope any ISP would do the same. Err on the side of caution, and all. Were I a copyright holder trying to stop my stuff from being scattered hither and yon, I'd be railing to Slashdot if I couldn't get ISPs to cooperate.
Both that and things like the GPL rest on the same principle: copyright holders should be able to control the use of their work. With the GPL, you want to use that control to make it stay freely (speech) available, but that's still control.
Some Slashdotters want to have their cake and eat it, too... copyright control is okay when it means they get stuff free, not okay when it means they can't get stuff free. Waah, waah, waah.
I think the potential harm from having something temporarily taken offline inappropriately is far less than the potential harm from having something left online inappropriately.
Slashdot's token middle-aged housewife
Just because most people couldn't be attacked like this, doesn't make it OK.
"Do not drill any holes in your cat - it will not like it."
-- Nick Davies
You could quite effectively put most web sites out of commission by using a method detailed here. Anecdotal evidence shows that an increase in traffic can effectivly deny viewing of content and, in fact, bring a monetary burden to the web host customer. The results are almost immediate compared to action from a DMCA letter.
Have you Meta Moderated t
This will probably get flagged as flamebait, but fuck it...
Remember that ISPs (and anywhere else you may be posting material) are generally private entities. Therefore, it is entirely legal and within their right to censor/remove/modify any material posted on their private servers as they see fit.
When you sign up for service with an ISP or a webhosting company, do you ever read the fine print or even the terms of service that you have to agree to in order to use the service? Just in case you haven't, let's take a look at Yahoo! GeoCities' TOS:
There you have it, ladies and gents.
My lack of God, it's Trotsky!
You seem to have a pretty active imagination, then. Yes, a complaint is a sign that someone is particularly bothered by the material being available; that in no way implies that their complaint is valid. (Consider the attempts to silence critics of Scientology.)
People get bothered about other people's speech very easily, and will often make invalid complaints to silence those they disagree with.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Also the ISP/hosting industry in the United States is running with severely low profit margins. Cutthroat does not even begin to describe it.
Godaddy hosting will put you on the web for $3.95/month! Heck, I spent more than that for lunch today. I have no idea how they can offer that (and that is for what is actually a usable hosting plan for many, many small businesses).
With those kind of prices and competition I do feel some sympathy for the ISP/hosting companies not wanting to spend extra resources or take legal risk.
I was thinking once of getting into the ISP and/or hosting businesses, but no more. There is no way I could make it (I live in the USA).
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
Shouldn't the burden of proof be on the accuser?
Are there really people like Bill Gates and Donald Trump out to get you?
;-), and the material is old enough, what you're doing is legal everywhere (as far as we can tell).
Yes. Well, maybe not quite as powerful as those two turkeys, but powerful enough.
An interesting case: I've been involved for some years with a crowd that's putting a lot of old music online. It's not at all unusual for some publisher to send C&D letters demanding that some music from the 1800's or earlier be removed because they own the copyright on it.
I've received a few of these, but my web site is on an academic machine, and the admins who run it are well aware of such problems. They just forward such messages to me, and I deal with them.
For people using commercial ISPs, it's common for the ISP to delete such files without notifying the file's owner.
One funny thing is that we often have documentation of when something was first published. We then send back a reply of the form "That music was published in 1735 in London by Georg F Handel; the file in question is clearly not a copy of your publication and the music is public domain. How are you claiming to own the file's content?" We never hear from the publisher again. Not surprising, actually, as we've told them that we can prove that their claim was fraudulent. Their lawyers then advise them to try some other sucker.
Of course, if you scan in a recently published copy of, say, Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, you are illegally copying a current publication. But if you enter the music by hand using any of the many music editing packages, the result is not legally a "copy" when the music itself is pubic domain. This is something that tends to be obscured or glossed over in most copyright discussions.
We generally do warn people about putting scanned images of published music online, unless you can prove that your paper copy is out of copyright. But if you've created the files yourself without scanning (with anything but your eyes
Still, ISPs can and do take such things down without notice and without recourse. An outstanding question is whether an ISP can be sued for such invalid actions. You can certainly sue a publisher for making a fraudulent copyright claim, at least if they don't back off when you present them with the evidence.
But it's likely that an ISP is immune to prosecution in many countries. They can censor as they like.
Anyone know different?
This could be used as an argument for government-run ISPs. In the US and many other countries, a government agency couldn't censor users' content without a court order, and you have legal recourse. With private ISPs, you apparently have no legal protection at all.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
I'm curious to know your reasons on why MoveOn.org is a kook fringe organization.
Let's address them in sequence. Why are MoveOn.org a bunch of kooks? Because they stand for anything anti-Bush (without question). The "without question" bit is the important part. They don't care what someone else stands for, as long as they're not Bush. That's not a very sane way of looking at the world.
Whether they're fringe or not depends on which type of fringe you mean. Yeah, they've got money and some political clout, but they're also extremists, so unless you already agree with their stance on an issue, they're not going to change your mind. Since they're not likely to swing the ever important middle ground voters, that makes them a fringe group (just like the Christian Coalition, they pretty much only preach to the choir).
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
First, as a business, I have the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason. Given my legal budget, I don't care what you have to say. I don't have the ability, let alone the inclination to defend you.
Secondly, the fact that you have freedom of speech does not obligate me, in any way, to provide a platform for your speech. The fact that I'm willing to sell space on my platform does not make it an obligation.
So... you're saying guilty until proven innocent? What if you take down someone's business on the maliscious copyright infringement claims of a competitor. Sounds like to me that you are setting yourself up to be sued by the person whose business you willingly (and with no actual cause) disrupted.
At a trial, yes. But this isn't a trial. This is you saying, "hey, that guy's got my stuff!" We then turn to the guy, and he either gives it back or says "Hey, this isn't your stuff," at which point it's out of our hands and into the court's.
If it didn't work like this, the courts would have to be contacted for each and every copyright infringement case, even the blatant ones. That's inefficient and costly. This way is much faster, as if the material is TRULY infringing, or if the accuser is full of shit, the whole matter can be resolved within an hour. Which you have to admit, is a lot better than waiting months and months for the court to get READY to hear anything.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
provided a followup step occurred, and certain events then took place.
The follow-up step:
1) Contact the ISP(s) that took down the material.
2) Inform them that the material they took down was public domain, or you really own the material or whatever
3) Request that they restore it, and (optional) request a refund for the period of time it was down
The events that should occur:
The ISP in question should obey all your instructions, and refuse to take down the material again until they hear from a legal authority.
They have a duty to protect themselves; I just want to see that they are concerned about protecting themselves from both lawsuits on *both* sides.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
> I'm curious to know your reasons on why MoveOn.org is a kook fringe organization.
> From what I can see, they seem to stand for anything anti-Bush (without question).
You answered your own question. Blindly following ANYTHING is "kooky." They also cry foul about things that happen to them that aren't illegal and should not be -- specifically, their Super Bowl commercial that was blocked by the network.
Actually I went and checked my own ISP's Acceptable Use Policy. Here is the pertinant quote:
"Comcast reserves the right, but not the obligation, to refuse to transmit or post and to remove or block any information or materials, in whole or in part, that it, in its sole discretion, deems to be offensive, indecent, or otherwise inappropriate, regardless of whether this material or its dissemination is unlawful. "
I would be amazed if your ISP does less. Face it, when you are posting your ISP's network, it is your ISP's network. It is not yours! You are not in control. If you want to be able to act freely, pay for Web Hosting or a Leased Server. Internet service is not some God given, govenment guaranteed right. It is a service, provided by a for profit business, subject to the terms of the contract which you and your ISP negotiated. As long is your ISP is acting within the bounds of that contract don't come whining to me.
Insert Generic Sig Here:
Rapid progress my ass.
Oh, ye of little faith. In some places, you may need the patience of a monk, but it will come. It can start out as wireless "mini-nets", and later the "real" net will come to us. In any case, it will happen, sooner or later. And this shall make censorship by anybody impossible.
What?
Of course, that could still leave them in plenty of trouble, but that's no worse than any other medium; and meanwhile, they can decide for themselves whether to remove the content, and/or they can post a public defence.
Ceterum censeo subscriptionem esse delendam.
Lets be real about this.
Most ISP's run a pretty slim margin. The cost of investigation and possible litigation are more than they are willing to pay. Its cheapr to just concede.
Looking further. Is it the ISP's responsibility to fight for YOUR rights at their cost?
Now if our legal system made sense, people would not be able to sue an ISP if you placed said content their. The should sue YOU. Since they do sue the ISP, they are only going to try to protect themselves.
This means that the cost of fighting for your rights is yours, and yours alone. As it should be.
Personally, I tired of people whinning because others don't fight for their rights. Of course, I am one of those whacky individualists who thinks that it is no one's responsibility (except mine) to take care of me.
----- If communism is a system where the government owns business, what do you call a system where business owns govern
what if in the future the 24th edition of that dictionary defined censorship as preventing monkeys from flying out of a persons ass? would you read that and accept it as a valuable definitionof censorship?
i just love how the foundation is being put down for the ministry of truth and people don't care as long as it supports what they want to believe...
Like I said, I would imagine that the percentage of complaints about IP infringement being wrongly complained about are close to 0. If someone spends the time to complain about something, odds are it is someone who is particularly bothered by the material being available, and their complaint is valid.
I would imagine the the percentage of complaints of crimes being wrongly complained about are close to 0. Therefor, we should just throw anyone ever complained about to the police in jail for life.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
I'd tell Company Y to sue Company X and leave me out of it, I'm just the landlord.
I dunno, maybe the analogy doesn't fit, but it seems ridiculous the that anyone would even think to contact the ISP for such infringements.
I'm sorry, but your opinion seems to be wrong.
Ok, but think of it this way:
/.ed.
A site/article about some company/product is posted to Slashdot. You attempt to access it (because of course you always RTFA first), but the site has been
So you read the comments on slashdot in an effort to learn more. People are really bashing the company/product/service in question, and you form a pretty negative opinion of it, just based on what others are saying, and without any first-hand knowledge.
You tell yourself that you'll bookmark the site and visit it tomorrow, but you never do... and in the back of your mind, that negative opinion persists.
[I wrote this as a hypothetical situation but as I was writing it I realized this is exactly what happened to me when EV1 announced they were licensing SCO technology. The EV1 message board was inaccessible, and so all I had to go on was "EV1 gave SCO money. EV1 == bad." I still think they were suckers to do it, but at least later when I returned to the EV1 site I saw the president of the company had written a letter explaining his actions.]
Remember, you don't always have to tick off "somebody who actually has national media connexions"... a smart/evil person with an internet connection can do quite a bit of damage.
We're not talking about common, vernacular English. In the legal system, words mean very specific things. Censorship, in this aspect, cannot be affected by a business, as they hold no power over you, there is no coercion, etc.
Hell, the legal definition of "theft" differs greatly from the Merriam-Webster, colloquial vernacular.
By the way, don't defend yourself in court.
they didn't delete it, they took it down temporarily. when the law proved that it was ok to keep the content, it will be/was reposted. this is no big deal!
also on a side note the writter of this story doesn't really under stand the meaning of censorship. Only a government can censor a person, a private company does not have this ability.
I've heard this from other people as well, and the issue is that you've got the first amendment confused with the definition of censorship.
From Merriam-Webster:
censorship (noun) 1 a : the institution, system, or practice of censoring b : the actions or practices of censors; especially : censorial control exercised repressively
If I run a chatroom for AOL and I keep the chatroom kiddy-safe by kicking objectionable posters and deleting their remarks, I am censoring the chatroom. The First Amendment to the US Constitution, on the other hand, basically states that the government is usually not permitted to censor individuals (free speech) or publishing interests (free press).
If you wanted to be correct, you could say that the first amendment only prevents the US government from censoring content, and that corporations and people are not limited by "free speech" rights to censor themselves and others who speak or publish through them.
At that point, we get into the interesting topics that this issue raises: is it okay if the government asks nongovernment entities to censor for it? Related question: is it good if nongovernment entities universally censor certain opinions they consider unpalatable (say, antiglobalization)?
But your definition of censorship is in error.
Regards,
Ross
Just one more time so you will remember COMPANIES DON'T HAVE THE POWER TO CENSOR ANYTHING.
I dunno. They do appear to have the ability to have information they disagree with removed from a website, simply by making a bogus complaint to the ISP.
You are corrct that they don't have the power to throw you in jail. This is not the only means of censorship. They can have stuff removed simply by hinting that they may sue the ISP. They want stuff removed, it gets removed. Damn well looks like censorship to me!
Yep... about as logical as a wAr3z site having a motd saying something like "Private FTP server, everything on here is copyright someone else, ftp software copyright Us" and that'd make it alright to download....
-- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
Very true. A better analogy...
A better analogy would be to stop it with all the analogies.
Look at it on its own merits. Something that is true for a similar situation may not be true for another situation even though it appears similar. The concepts here are not hard to understand. No analogy is needed. Is it censorship if an individual can have content he disagrees with removed at will? Simple question. Keep to the point.
If I owned an ISP and someone reported that there was a problem with copyrighted material on my equipment, I would take the stuff down too
Why? Why not leave it there?
To: abuse@wirebird.com, admin@wirebird.com
From: john@futuregaming.com
Hi,
The website http://www.phoenyx.net continues to in distributing the stolen source code from our proprietry game. The owner refuses to remove the content, despite acknowledging that the source was stolen from us only a few months ago.
Please deal with this, and treat this email as formal notice. Our lawyers will amicable be contacting you in the near future. I hope that this unpleasentness can be dealt with swiftly, so that we can concentrate on producing quality games.
Sincerely,
John Flux,
Future Gaming
This would be cause for a lawsuit for libel, slander, defamation of character, or something along those lines. Regardless of ISP policies, it is illegal to conduct a smear campaign against someone by spreading untrue information to the public.
7. Sue mogul for their actions, settle for millions of dollars, live hapily ever after.
You're making both the (bad) assumption that you have no recourse, and the (bad) assumption that a mogul will not fear such recourse.
Your real problem is actions taken by people with nothing to lose - then it's not worthwhile to sue them for anything.
paintball
Please READ.
Save me Jeabus!
Better yet, let's say a local election is held on the 3rd day that your site is down, and that 'powerful mogul" is the new chief of police, mayor, or just county court clerk, and he won by 13 votes. The story that you're a child pornographer makes it from the local news to the national press, and your reputation is shot nationwide just for someone to fix a local election. It doesn't take a someone all that powerful or mogulish to abuse this situation.
Who is John Cabal?
If silencing of perfectly legal speech was widespread it wouldn't be a problem; everyone would know, people would get angry, things would be changed or an illegal communications channel would pop up to replace it.
The problem is that it's relatively infrequent. It doesn't seem like a serious problem, so the small number of people getting screwed tend to be ignored.
Great, if I want free speech online I get to share an ISP with porn sites and spammers. Which, of course, will get me blacklisted in other ways.
The reality is that DMCA is quite clear; when given a properly formed DMCA takedown request the content must be removed. Failure to do so exposes the ISP to liability. End result: very, very few ISPs will stand up for you. Worse, almost no ISP will tell you up front about their policy. When I arranged my current provider they seemed positively confused when I asked about their DMCA takedown policy. Given that they run tens of thousands of web sites I know they see DMCA takedowns. Because of the relatively infrequency of DMCA takedowns and the even smaller number of takedowns that are wrong there aren't enough data points to form a review web site to find out which ISPs are badly behaved.
My point exactly. I get sleazy, blacklisted sites, or I get a near-zero tolerance policy. Even a day of having a page taken down can be a serious problem. The DMCA mandated 10 days is downright crippling. Just ask Fat Wallet, which was issued DMCA takedown requests that effectively destroyed their ability to compare post-Thanksgiving specials. By the time the content was back up, the day was past. Cost to Wal-mart? One nasty-gram from a lawyer.
Search 2010 Gen Con events
The government has a responsibility to allow you to speak freely, as stated in the first amendment to the constitution, unless your speech will clearly cause harm to others. An ISP, or any company or individual, does not have this responsibility.
If you come into my living room and start making a speech praising socialism, I am well within my rights to kick you out. If you do the same thing on the town square, it is protected speech and it would be censorship of the illegal variety if you were ordered to stop.
This is the difference between government censorship and private censorship. My preventing you from making a speech in my living room does not suppress your ideas; you are free to make the speech in someone else's living room if they let you. When the government prevents you from speaking, you have no other choice, unless you want to find a new country to live in.
Who is the appropriate "private investigator" or "detective" that the accusation should have been sent to? Who is the judge who decides whether the material should be removed? Where is the jury the site owner would have decide his site's fate?
The problem here is that self-regulation is not working. It will not work because there are too many people who either hold copyrights in contempt or who don't research before posting content or don't know jack-diddly about copyrights and what they cover. So regulation is needed - not necessarily by the ISPs, but some separate group that can research all copyrighted material.
I was taking one day at a time, but then several days got together and ambushed me. (from a Rhymes with Orange comic)
I host about 20 domains for clients on my server.
I once received a letter from lawyers asking me to put a client's site down.
I called the client then only replied with an email saying something like "You say it's illegal, but I understand my client's lawyers disagree. I'm only an ISP, not a lawyer, so I will let you sort this out between professionals. I will close the site if and when I receive an official decision from a judge telling me to do so."
I didn't even word it in a more sophisticated way than above. That email took me 5 minutes. Less than the time to take the site down and notify/apologize/explain the matter to the client (who got a Cc of my reply).
Why would any ISP do it differently and just let down his client, to please some anonymous lawyer?
Of course, I would probably have acted differently if the site had been something I consider clearly unacceptable. But it was just about 2 parties accusing each other of being crooks.
Anyway, I never heard of these lawyers again, but heard much later from my client that they actually did go to court, and were dismissed.
If the site is not *very* obviously illegal, why would an ISP act as a judge?
Didn't some nut patent having musical scores on a computer? :/
But yeah, these places have NO incentive to make sure that they're even marginally correct; they simply assume they own everything...
I agree, you site DMCA or present any kind of letter that looks legal enough you will get the ISP to fold. Most ISP's do not have a legal team and its a lot safer to take a site down than to be liable for leaving it up. I disagree with the article, we live in the litigation nation where everyone is lawsuit happy. Its not censorship, its safety. I would rather take someones site or content down by accident then to have my company shut down due to legal fees.
Some Slashdotters want to have their cake and eat it, too... copyright control is okay when it means they get stuff free, not okay when it means they can't get stuff free.
What's wrong with that? I _love_ having my cake and eating it too. I'm all for whatever kinds of copyright get me the most stuff for free. What's wrong with you, you don't like getting stuff for free?
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Yeah, because no average joe ever blows the whistle on their employer.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
What if I spammed every isp I could find with fradulant C&D emails for every single page they have on the internet?
Wouldn't the big powerful mogul just get his buddies in government to slap you around with the PATRIOT gag until the voting had stopped?
Just change the names of your images for your site and put goatse or any other suitible pics in its place.
they didn't kill him, they locked him up temporarily. when the law proved that he was innocent to post the content, he will be/was released. this is no big deal!
If someone complains about your content, they take it down soon. If you say nothing, then obviously you either admit that you shouldn't have it up, or you don't care about it. If you complain, they'll look at it. Only when there is an argument between the two will they even bother to look at it. Of course a real complaint involves sending them about 2 to 5 emails insisting that what they did was wrong. But you know, it isn't really that bad of a system--it works itself out.
"he drew his sword Ringil that glittered like ice... and he wounded Morgoth with seven wounds..."
wtf, there's no comparison between locking someone up and taking down some information. if they DIDN'T take the info down and it was later proven that they were wrong to have posted it in the first place, they'd regret it more.
in this sue-happy society we've created no wonder there are knee-jerk reactions like this.
#include "i_agree_with_you.h"
But my thought is : if there is any kind of copyright infringment, i think the holder of the site may be guilty about it, NOT the isp. Isn't there some kind of legal stuff about the content when having an account on a provider ?
I mean, if someone does some shit with copyright, the isp is protecting him by shutting him down, but they do not need to protect him, he deserves what will fall on his head...
All the isp are doing this way is protect their illegal behaving customers, and making their legally behaving customers worry about a possible shutdown.
If i said anything stoopid, please shut me down. Or make corrections.
"ISPs have been made responsible for removing illegal and harmful content under so-called notice and take down (NTD) procedures, once they have been put on notice by a complainant."
and
"ISPs are acting as judge, jury and private investigator at the same time. They not only have to make a judgement whether a website is illegal or not - they also have to act as a private detective agency, investigating the accusations and deciding on the merits of the evidence they gather."
Of course they are. Should there be a law that says ISP's are not allowed to take down sites which they host unless there is a court order to do so? I really don't get the point.
Or maybe the government should say that ISP's are NOT responsible for content on their servers? I think they are. I think servers are the properties of their owners, not a shared property of all the users.
It is not beneficial for an ISP to remove their user's content! If the problem ever got big enough to the point where people were making fraudulent claims willy-nilly, I'm certain the ISP's would be more careful in their handling.
"he drew his sword Ringil that glittered like ice... and he wounded Morgoth with seven wounds..."
Bad analogy. It's more akin to "they didn't kill him, they locked him OUT of their gates until they could prove he wasn't a problem"
Don't forget, the ISP owns the server and the service. I'm sure they are within their agreements. And I am sure you can find another ISP if you don't like it or start your own.
"he drew his sword Ringil that glittered like ice... and he wounded Morgoth with seven wounds..."
Just impose huge fines for making false copyright infrigement claims. Also, make it criminal, with mandatory prison sentences for people responsible, if used to silence political speech or hurt business competitors. SCO will fit right in here.
I guess ISPs might be required to verify identity of the sender of the infrigement notice before acting in this case.
No, he's sayinmg that the law is not conducted in standard English. I'm providing you with this information "Pro Bono" and representng myself to all interested parties as "Amicus Curae", "Quod et Demonstratum".
Who is John Cabal?
And you want to know something the company as an entity can only donate the max of $2000 in the US.
sure, in direct cash. But come on, isn't there a term for less direct ways? "Pork Barrel".
If Intel is considering a new US$1B chip fab in your state, they don't have more influence on a topic than say a local bowling alley? Sure, but may have reasons to donate 2,000 max... but which one is more likely to get you re-elected / political favors / friends get great jobs / friends get dinner / friend in real estate cashes in.
I think you are entirely right.
I think the grandparent has confused the only government can censor concept with freedom of speech is only a government right (vs. one a company can take away).
Of course, even then, the U.S. government can act like a company. I'm sure employees of the CIA (which have the "right to free speech") can sign a NDA to get their job.
Just because it is difficult to regulate the internet, this is no reason to resort to badly crafted forms of regulation, which move the entire burden on to unaccountable actors. Drink driving is also difficult to police, but we wouldn't shift responsibility for this on to private companies, would we?
He obviously has never been to Texas. In Texas it is the responsibility of the person who sold the person the drink. Such as the bar at which the person drank. This is what I call the religious sect's outlook of "I am my brother's keeper". It is a great sentiment but goes against the foundation of the Constitution. (Which is basically that each person is responsible for their own actions.)
The main problem with ISPs being judge, jury, and executioner - is that: 1)There is no common sense being applied in many cases, 2)There are no clear cut laws with regards to this issue, 3)In some cases you are guilty until proven innocent rather than the other way around (and thus sites are pulled before even hearing from the defendants), and 4)Once gone it is very hard, in some cases, to get the ISP to put the site back up without legal intervention.
What should be happening is that there should be a governing body (such as ICANN) where grievances can be heard via IRC or e-mail which lists the problems someone has with a website. The autoresponder should both respond to the plaintiff as well as to contact the defendant and the defendant's ISP. (In case the e-mail for the defendant bounces.) The defendant should be given a reasonable number of days to respond to the complaint and then the case should be tried on the merits of both the plaintiff as well as the defendant. In effect, a virtual system similar to our modern day jury system should be put into place which allows people to help decide what is going on on the internet just as we do in real life.
One of the reasons our judicial system moves so slowly is because sometimes it takes a while to find out the truth about something. By putting the brakes on the immediate gratification process currently in place with ISPs; we could reduce and eliminate many of the problems currently plaguing whether or not a site is a valid site or if it should be taken down. And yes, this could mean an increase in the use of lawyers. But it doesn't necessarily mean that would happen. For instance, it could be decided that common English (and not legal speak) is the only language accepted in the proceedings thus removing the need to hire a lawyer. (But somehow I doubt that would actually happen.)
Still, a trial by a jury of your peers would require a system set up where people are picked, at random, to aid in determining if a website should or should not be removed. I know - many people are going to cry "It can't be done!" or "That would be impossible to set up". The answer is - no it would not be impossible to set up and yes it can be done. It would just be another server which ISPs would be required to have up and running. The server keeps the user's ids and e-mails private. The server can be a secure server. The server would only accept incoming connections from one location on the net (such as ICANN). It selects users at random and requests that they click on link X to participate in the trial and things proceed from there. The ISPs can maintain their lists in private. People who are excluded for whatever reason are kept in a separate list. People who have participated once already are not asked to help again until the entire list has been run through, etc....
It is not "can it be done" but more like "do we want to do it"? Most people (myself included) are lazy and would much rather be doing something enjoyable rather than trying to determine if someone has a website that is infringing on someone else's patent which the USPTO has just given to them without really checking out whether or not that item was patented over a hundred years ago or not. Or if the copyright claim really originated in the late 1500s. Or even if "f
Someone put a black hole in my pocket and now I'm broke.
If you'd been the victim of a lawsuit, you'd share that philosophy too.
- High Tech workers, please say NO to Union Carpenters, their Union sees fit to control our compensation.
It is just as funny that a comment in a Your Rights Online story about censorship, discussing online censorship, would get modded "Offtopic".
Editor trickery at its best.
Yes, information wants to be free! Unless the information disagrees with the liberal Open Sores establishment.
Open Sores hypocrites in action.
As an experiment, ask whatever happend to the Open Sores claim: 2004: Year of the Penguin? - it is amazing how fast you will be modded into oblivion if you bring up that Open Sores FUD.
I called the police and told them that my wife was trying to kill our daughter (just to see what would happen). When the police came to our house, my wife was cutting the roast for dinner, the police saw the knife and shot her dead. Stupid, stupid, people. Glad I'm not stupid.
One solution would be that the ISP notifies the customer that someone issued a complaint.
Also, if the complainer wants to sue it should be that the complainer pays everyone's legal fees if they lose. That will make it more likely that the complainer is very sure they have a legitment claim.
3dinfo@maficstudios.com
You could have posted copyrighted material in your comments, you think your comments can't be taken down?
Grandparent is right, all it takes is one letter to a stupid ISP and poof.
Isn't there a risk when you are not using primary sources?
A modern edition of Handel might include corrections, later transcriptions and other editorial content still under copyright. I don't trust the notion that a "hand-made" copy is perfectly safe.
"Sample size of two?"
;).
It could be worse, sample size of 1 or 0
The website http://www.phoenyx.net continues to in distributing the stolen source code from our proprietry game.
Just a second, I'll answer that after I stop laughing at your unintentional humor.
But seriously... assuming there was in fact some sort of game source code on the Phoenyx (instead of it being a pen-n-paper-by-email site), *and* assuming we were hosted on some large site (instead of running a site ourselves), I would not be offended if the source was taken offline and I was notified.
Now, if it didn't get put back online promptly after I said "Nope, none of it's true... we put it there, we wrote every word of it, and we're prepared to say so in writing," *then* I could see getting up in arms. Or if they didn't keep track of that and *not* pull it the next time some nimnul wrote in.
But seriously... I don't expect a large site to be equipped to make that sort of judgment on a specific claim. Not when they're probably seeing clueless users with poor security becoming unwitting warez sites, stuff like that. And it comes down to the damage difference I mentioned before... taking something offline temporarily is going to cause a lot less damage than leaving something online inappropriately.
Slashdot's token middle-aged housewife
I can remove content I disagree with at will from my lawn. Is that censorship, or is that my free speech?
common sense: noun
What those who are ignorant of the subject matter think; usually wrong.
This sig space intentionally left blank.
That's a horrible analogy, ISPs don't own the content the way stores own their goods. ISPs only own the means of distributing the content. To use a better analogy, a slashdot poster using bad analogies to explain something is like a lawyer working for a guilty client. make sense of that one.
Isn't there a risk when you are not using primary sources?
... ;-)
Of course; it's a serious problem in any sort of historical research.
Back in the 50's, when the Baroque Revival got going, there was a lot of frustration with the centuries of "interpretation" of pre-1750 music by editors who thought that the music wouldn't appeal to current customers unless it was enhanced. It took a lot of work by a lot of people to rediscover the primary sources and learn to interpret them. Nowadays, though, there are a lot of musicians who prefer to use the urtext editions. And many of them prefer to use period instruments.
This work is going on now with a lot of kinds of folk music. Digging through centuries of misinterpretation and enhancement by publishers is a difficult task. It's especially bad in this case because much of the written material was produced by non-practitioners, usually musicians trained in other styles. Undoing their helpful editing can take a lot of time, thought, and playing with the material. Again, it helps to have the right instrument in your hands. A modern perlon-strung guitar isn't a substitute for a 16th-century silk-strung lute, regardless of how closely they're related.
It's a difficult task, but someone's gotta do it
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
It doesn't take a lot of power to make someones life miserable through the net.
A guy was posting bullshit on a web forum, and I called him on it. Next day,
I found out he is an admin at another site, and he'd reported to my ISP that
I was sending illegal pornography to his users. My ISP cut me off, and
it took days of complaints to get them to actually look at my account
and see that I didn't have any porn of any kind stored there. In the meantime
though, he'd told the forum
users that he'd reported me, and that I was being dealt with as I deserved.
End result, most of the users there are convinced that I must have been guilty
or I wouldn't have been cut off in the first place. They are certain
that I got away with it, not that I'm innocent. I've had to give up on trying
to post there because of the constant abuse I get for being a sick fuck.
In this case, it's only a web forum, but if some of those people had lived
near me, I could have ended up being beaten up one night, to teach me a lesson.
Notice and takedown procedures are infrastructure provided by the government for the express purpose of rapidly blocking public access to information (look here) without making any provision for rapidly restoring access to information erroneously or mischeivously objected to.
It is highly disturbing to me that the government should be building legislation that provides exceptional protection for copyright holders without providing equal protection for legitimate users of public domain information. One should not be surprised that people with deep pockets get better protection under the law than the rest of us, but we should definitely be making a fuss about it!
"Cursed is he who rises early in the morning..." Isiah 5:11
perhaps you're not aware of the time the scientologists forced slashdot to remove a post containing one of their secret guides?
Bad analogy. An ISP's server is not the equivalent of your living room. A better one would be: You agree to let me put my paintings up on your front lawn in exchange for a fee. Some third party comes along and complains that they're copies of someone else's paintings, so you destroy them. Even supposing you're technically within your rights, it's still the wrong thing to do.
I've rarely seen a post as ignorant as this.
"Companies can't censor anything." That's wrong on far too many levels.
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=censor
censor (n):
# A person authorized to examine books, films, or other material and to remove or suppress what is considered morally, politically, or otherwise objectionable.
That makes no distinction between a Government employee or a corporate employee.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
The author discussed this point. And anyway, the government is the censor in this case. The government(s) deliberately wrote laws allowing these actions, supported by the (government) courts.
How many people realized that the US ISP actually came back with some questions and confirmation before taking action?
Regardless of all the crummy things that are said about the US, and I'm not exactly a zealot here, it should be of significance that this little test did bear one thing out.
The US still has some attempt at considering your right to free speech somewhere in their bones. All this despite our rapidly building demonstrations on the international circuit of Human Rights Violations through censorship and McCarthyism tactics of condemnation by the government.
I'm actually encouraged that there is still some hope for Free Speech in the world
All kinds of things have different meanings for differnt folks.
The analogy can be a great help to bring all in line.
The bible already understood this thousands of years ago.
And an important part of the American Legal System is based on it in the shape of, among others, "precedent".
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
Not like Agent Smith or anything, but at my old job, I handled security and DMCA related issues. We constantly get tons and tons of notices from music and movie groups about coyprighted material. Not once out of over 300 notices has one ever been incorrect. The person has admitted that they were doing something stupid, like sharing over Kazaa, and that they wouldn't do it again.
I am all for IP rights and I am a follower of Lessig's work, but sometimes, you have to face facts. The vast, vast, vast majority of time, the complaint is legitimate, and the ISPs have a legal obligation to act upon the DMCA notices. Unfortunately, I feel that sometimes, especially on Slashdot, people latch onto a few cases, and use them as the basis of judging everything, which is definitely biased. Yes, the system is not perfect, sometimes notices are incorrect, due to human or computer error. Mistakes happen, regardless of the system. Just look at how many times stories get double posted on Slashdot.
What is needed here is some kind of "pass-through" responsibility.
The ISP should be under contract with the user to ALLOW THE USER TO PUBLISH their own content. Therefore, legal complaints should be directed to the user and the ISP should be left out of it.
Sure, it's the ISP's computer, and their network, but there needs to be a special concession in the case of internet content that the Provider doesn't "own" or "control" that content. I think there is already an understanding along these lines. For instance, if I publish a book on my (hosted) website, that doesn't mean my ISP can now claim to "own" that book or demand a chuck of the revenue because they "helped" to sell it. (Or Does It?)
if you have people pay you to store stuff on your front lawn, and then remove stuff you don't like?
My name is the Poster. Since all the comments on this site are owned by me, and I have given you no permission to display them, please remove them from this site immediatly.
Well they only have 2 donors that make up about 3/4 of the donations, so raising 20 million in a few days notice is nothing big. That is the problem they stand for anything that is anti-Bush without question, even if the policy is good. So Bush sends foreign aid to Africa for AIDS, so MoveOn.org must be against that, and that is one of the biggest problems, they don't have any values to stand on, they just stand on the opposite values as Bush.
Here you go: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Censorship
You are looking at the vernacular definition. The legal definition only applies to government because they have direct control to give out punishment. Where a corporation doesn't have any direct control over you, they cannot send you to jail for violating a corporate law.
Also here is the actual legal definition http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Censorship
Look up theft in M-W and it is nothing like the legal definition of the word.
"They can have stuff removed simply by hinting that they may sue the ISP"
Well that is not censorship, because the ISP can do what ever it wants with the information on their servers. It doesn't belong to you no matter how much you would like it to. I mean they could go through and delete every 4th file if they wanted to. Also they remove it to protect the company, they don't give a rats you know what about you or your content. So you can always move to another site to host the content or just host it your self.
Also if the information can be displayed on another site, such as your own, that is not censorship because you are not restricted from posting the content. Just because the ISP wants nothing to do with you or your content doesn't mean they are censoring you.
I want nothing to do with Britney Spears Music, but it doesn't mean I am censoring her. It just means she has to find other people willing to put up with the Music.
Bush & friends are just as extremist as any queer ass liberal you'll ever find. The only real difference between the factions is a social conscience.
That was another circumstance where some group claimed to be censored. Where the Super Bowl or the NFL, Inc didn't want their business, so they didn't take their money. That is not censorship that is business.
I think most people are confused, because what they mean by corporate censorship is actually copyright law. Merian-Webster cators to the masses, which doesn't always mean it is correct. Here is the correct definition. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Censorship
In summary you just made an a** out of your self. Go look up the real meaning of censoring. They may be called censors, but who is behind those censors the FCC. The FCC is part of the government, and the censors, the people, are following FCC standards so they don't get finded. That is censor ship the limiting of content with a punishable offence. The censor for the air waves is for lude content and the punishable offence is a fine.
So please try to learn the english language and the meaning of words before you come on here and make a fool out of your self. Give me an instance of censorship where the government isn't envolved at all? You cannot because the government is the only entity that can censor content and people.
Providers should be smarter. Interfering - even making suggestions about content - makes them legally responsible and a court battle could find them the losers.
You do not know what you are talking about. To censure means to judge: when a judgement is made by a person who has the authority to do so; they are acting as a censure (to use the original spelling.)
When censures began striking out material, the word changed to 'censor' and it gathered a more negative connotation.
Governments such as those in the EU rely on ISPs to be censors, so your point is moot anyway. If an ISP is designated by the government to perform a function or regulated by the government in any way, the government is somewhat liable for their actions.
ISPs in the U.S I believe did not have liability for iilegal activity itself happening through their 'lines' (these were modem precedents involving AOL), so can someone explained to me why the Supreme Court has not reconciled the liability issue? Verizon refused to identify customers, and was not fined for being uncooperative (or were they?)
Part of the problem is that electronic media (print or music) is different from printed media in that it can be immediately copied. Take the example of the article by a Princeton student about how the new protection on CDs could be circumvented by using the SHIFT key - because it wasn't taken down immediately, there was a big outcry when it was challenged and other people copied the information to other places, effectively keeping it from ever being removed.
Now, we all know the RIAA is evil, etc., but what if that student's article had been an unauthorized copy of, say, detailed instructions on how to blow up a skyscraper? Aside from the political effects of the PATRIOT act, if the ISP didn't take it down immediately, they ran the risk of never being able to stop that information from getting out. Likewise, they ought to remove something being debated (temporarily) while they investigate, and only put it back on the internet if there are no problems.
The problem isn't that they took it down; the problem is that they didn't look into the copyright claim (as far as I can tell from the article).
A. In this study, only one of the ISPs removed the content.
B. In this study, half of the ISPs removed the content.
C. In this study all but one of the ISPs removed the content.
D. All of the above.
E. None of the above.
I helped a friend set up a free email account on Freeserve. After about a year she started receiving someone else's email. Same initial and surname. This bozo had tried and failed to sign up with the same user name, got a different user name but set up her email software with the one already taken.
Then a month later my friend can't access her email - the password has been changed. So she contacts Freeserve who change it back for her.
And this process repeats - she asks for a note on the account for them to confirm her identity - her phone number and address she used when she signed up, but the account kept swapping between the two of them.
Finally after another year Freeserve closed the account due to "hacking".
Recycle PCs and build a wireless community network www.hillsborough.org.nz
this article shows what happend
If you have nothing useful to say post as AC.
Still, ISPs can and do take such things down without notice and without recourse. An outstanding question is whether an ISP can be sued for such invalid actions. You can certainly sue a publisher for making a fraudulent copyright claim, at least if they don't back off when you present them with the evidence.
Their ToS usually say they can insta-terminate you whenever they feel like it. Usually would take a breach of contract suit to counter that. And even if they couldn't do that, they're in most countries required to take down and remove access to the content (as by the Common Carrier clause in the US).
Basicly, you'd usually have to go after the fake claim. If it's the ISP itself censoring, then you may have some recourse against them, but I've never heard of one pursuing any fishy claim on their own accord. Otherwise, file a counterclaim with the ISP and a countersuit with the claimant.
The ISP should usually respond: "Riiiight... we're not sure what's going on here, but if you want it taken down get an injunction. We've done what what we're supposed to, it's been disputed. Seek legal action next."
Oh and that you can't post any reply in 72 hours is bullshit. If there was anything of importance, mirrors, google cache etc. would pop up everywhere making whatever they were trying to censor 10x as well known.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Because I don't want my customer to be in any sort of trouble. I'd pull the site, send the customer a mail saying: Hey, this guy said this about you, so I hid your content until I could confirm with you that you want it on display again.
The other alternative is for me to leave it there until the content owner sues me, gets my details, and jams a massive lawsuit down the guys throat.
Not Meta-modding due to apathy.
I used to be the guildmaster of an Ultima Online group. Ran the guild website from my own ISP shell account, until a member joined who happened to run a web hosting business. She offered to host the content (which had been created by myself and 2 other members), and she also went and registered a domain name for the guild. Unfortunately, a year later, she and her daughter were causing some serious interpersonal nastiness with other folks in the guild. She quit, and I asked her daughter to leave as well. We just went back to using my original website, and thought that was that. A few months later, out of the blue, my ISP chown root's all my website files and disabled the site. No email notification, no phonecall, nothing...mind you, I'd been a customer for almost 10 years. I called them and asked what was going on. Apparently, the ex-guildmember called up my ISP with some other lady on the line who she claimed was her attorney, and proceeded to throw a fit, threatening to sue both me and my ISP for copyright infringement. As proof, she showed them her website (with all the copied content from my own), and told them that since she owned the guildname.com domain, it was obviously hers. No Cease and Desist letter, not even formal identification of this supposed attorney's credentials...just a phonecall threat, and they shut me down without so much as a notification that they'd done so. Fortunately, once I gave them my own dose of invective, and demanded that the ISP provide me with the contact information for THEIR attorney, so I could sick my own on them, they caved and restored the site. Amusingly, they later forwarded me the email sent to them by the psycho-ex-member: the crux of her complaint was the assertation that "content belongs to the host and domain owner, not the creator". Aparently her "attorney" wasn't too familiar with copyright law :)
Regardless, it's disgusting and troubling that it's so easy for a malicious person to simply shut down a site that they don't like, purely on heresay.
--Bargeld
"I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone. But they've always worked for me." --Dr. Hunter S.
>I dunno. They do appear to have the ability to have information they disagree with removed from a website, simply by making a bogus complaint to the ISP.
/Be back in a sec, someone at the door, wonder who it is at 03:30 and what the heck is that nois
And, actually, it's a bit worse. There's still this whole debacle about the Scientologist writings not being allowed to be published.
(I really like Scientology, by the way and think Mr. Hubbard was a great visionary and that all that evil talk about Scientology is purely fictional and surely they wouldn't blow up my computer for saying anything against them (which I didn't!) or send black helicopter men to assassinate me
Marxist evolution is just N generations away!
And I suppose that newspapers should be allowed to conceal whatever stories they like. After all, they're just private companies, they can do what they like.
Surely it's just as damaging whetehr it carried out by private companies or the government, and wheter it's called censorship or not. The effect is still the same - information is silently suppressed
Good point, wrong analogy. A better analogy would be forcing other people (the ISP) to remove conetent you disagree with from their front lawn (webservers)
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
And I've censored stuff in the past. But on the other hand, I've also ignored requests to remove content from our customers websites.
I get no help from anybody in deciding what to allow and what to delete... There are no guidelines, no lawyers to consult, nothing. It's just my judgement every time. Mostly I take the view that if the guy complaining is being an ass and being unreasonable I take what he says with a pinch of salt. It usually doesn't take long to contact the site owner, copy them the complaint and then let the two sort it out between themselves.
Ofc if it's obviously in breech of the law then I'll remove it. But there's surprisingly little which is nowadays.
First of all if you don't like it change it and stop b***hing about it on /. Second of all companies have the same rights as an entity that you have. That is what most people tend to forget. Maybe there are a ton of people out there that don't like you suppress your credit card number, or you bank account number. Or maybe they don't like that you lock your door at night or that you keep you car keys hidden away. Or maybe they just don't like the fact that you conceal what you eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Really come on, you have to understand the news today is for entertainment purposes more than actually reporting anything.
Surely there is another hosting company out there. I just think you are one of those lazy people that would rather crab about how a company doesn't want to host your content, instead of going out and finding one that will host it.
The government may have wrote laws about copyright, but what makes you think the ISP should spend time and money looking into a copyright matter when the copyright problem is between the original poster and the copyright owner. The ISP just takes it down until a solution can be worked out. Last time I checked we live in a free society (well most of us), where we have the choice to choose our products and the ISP's to host our information. Maybe it's time to go back to micro-economics.
See this is the main problem with most of the people on /. The original analogy of "I can remove content I disagree with at will from my lawn. Is that censorship, or is that my free speech?" is correct, because we are talking about if the ISP has the right to remove content from their lawn.
I have a question for you, so when all those aithists were protesting the 10 commandments on the court house in Georgia, where were the censorship people then? Huh? Who are these aithists to censor a ligitimate view of a certain set of people?
"They do appear to have the ability to have information they disagree with removed from a website, simply by making a bogus complaint to the ISP."
They have the ability to remove content they disagree with from THEIR website. However, if they contact another ISP about an issue on one of their sites, the ISP isn't forced to take it down, but they take it down because it is more financial responsable than getting into a leagle battle, over something that was posted by somebody the ISP doesn't really have any contact with.
Actually the imprtant tenents of government are not to change. Because you don't want a living document that you have to abide by, where you never know where you stand.
/. just to censor this article.
Also you make it sound like mega companies are taking over the country and economy, but last time I check it was the small businesses that made up 3/4 of the US and are bring the economy back. It's not the megacompanies as you put it, because last time I checked their stock has stayed pretty stagnent.
I really think you have no faith in the people of the country. You are probably one of those left wing kooks we always see on the news talking about how big companies are keeping people down. The government is not the answer, if you see something going wrong, start a grass roots campiagn and protest the corporate statiums, stop watching MSNBC. You want to know something, the internet is the real grass roots campiagn, because look this article was able to be posted and nobody took it down. There was a corporation that came in and bought
But I guess I am a person that see's the glass as half full instead half empty. I am never going to change your mind and you are never going to change mine so why don't we just stop here. The government is not the answer to anything but protecting the people militarily, and providing a monitary system. That is a tenent of Capitalizm, right? Right?
Because, as I understand it, the ISP is liable if they don't take it down and it's found to be an infringement.
Well that is not censorship, because the ISP can do what ever it wants with the information on their servers.
I'm not talking about censorship by the ISP! I'm talking about censorship by the complaining party.
Also if the information can be displayed on another site, such as your own, that is not censorship because you are not restricted from posting the content.
As long as I want to splash out on my own server. The freedom of the press only belongs to those who have one.
I want nothing to do with Britney Spears Music, but it doesn't mean I am censoring her. It just means she has to find other people willing to put up with the Music.
But whatt if you manage to pressure every single radio station to stop playing her music?
the ISP isn't forced to take it down, but they take it down because it is more financial responsable than getting into a leagle battle, over something that was posted by somebody the ISP doesn't really have any contact with.
So they're forced to either enter a long winded legal battle, or take it down.
Likewise, totalitarian states don't force people to print only what they deam acceptable. People just do because it's easier than getting executed.
Dunno. Why is your lawn in any way related to my website?
Well, let me know how it goes. I'll be interested to see if your isp does disconnect you. They don't need to host it to be able to unplug your internet connection..
:)
Since I used a fake from, I can't get any replies.
Oh and just because it's paper and pen is irrelevant to my claims since I doubt they'll be investigated that hard. You should know that by now
Anyway, keep me updated please. It will be interesting.
Christ, did you even read your own source? Despite being an incredibly poor dictionary (there's no sourcing of it's definitions, or entymology or indeed anything to compare it to real dictionaries...), it also totally fails to require goverment influence as part of the definition. I quote:
I have no idea why the first definition (normally the most commonly used) is the military definition, or, indeed, why it's considered seperate from the secondary definition. Further investigation reveals that this is the WordNet's definition. Note that WordNet is not a dictionary, it's a lexical database (used for tying words with related meanings together). I wouldn't consider it even as much of an authoritive source on usage and definitions as the American Heritage dictionary, much less Mirriam-Webster.You'll note, from a careful reading of your source, that censorship is often used in the context of government, but is not defined by that context. If you're going to mouth off with poorly-spelled, ill-formated rants, at least make sure that your own sources don't prove you wrong.
Holy crap, Ken Brown, is that you?
8 <= x : ...... .ox.ac.uk
All kinds of things have different meanings for differnt folks.
That's the problem! We need to stick to the things that have the same meaning to different folks. Otherwise I might as well start talking a different language.
The analogy can be a great help to bring all in line.
Fine. Find a decent analogy then. Preferably one that indicates the fine line between what is and isn't censorship rather than one that has nothing to do with it.
The bible already understood this thousands of years ago
Yes, indeed. They were used to illustrate a point. This si what they are intended for. They work very well in that regard. You can't prove something by anaology.
And an important part of the American Legal System is based on it in the shape of, among others, "precedent".
Yes. When using precedent, the differences are also taken into account.
"due to"
And that conclusion was reached by . . . you, an editorialists, a defense attorney?
The sun rose in the east today due to the face that I picked my nose.
You do see the obvious causality here, don't you? I mean any person with a grain of morality would see how this is a direct follow on conclusion. To question this would probably indicate that you are a child molestor. Any questions, I thought not.
Anyway, I think MoveOn simply wants Bush out of the office. The fact they jump on anything anti-Bush is just... pushy, short-sighted, etc, that's all.
To me, kooky is committing suicide so that the spaceship will pick you up... or killing doctors because you oppose abortion... or killing blacks in the name of god. Oh, and Californians voting for Arnold, of course.
Why are there only 19 people folding@home for slashdot?
I'll be interested to see if your isp does disconnect you. They don't need to host it to be able to unplug your internet connection.
But they won't. And that in no way invalidates what I said... I *don't* expect an ISP to pull the plug based on an anonymous claim. That's a horse of a different color from simply taking a contested *file* offline.
(And there's not the slightest chance of Wirebird disconnecting us. Real geeks will understand the humor in that.)
Slashdot's token middle-aged housewife
Well, you know, in the bipartisan republic we're in, I think options are limited when you want to oppose the status quo. The status quo in question would be the Bush dynasty.
I don't want to get into a debate on the pros and con of George W., but I do NOT feel like he is representing my interests and goals. I feel that corporations, Dick Cheney's big oil business, and rich people are getting more favorable treatment from George W. than I am. This is just my opinion. My parents have lost their 25-year business and can't find jobs at their age. During the Clinton years, being a college student was great. Again, just my opinion.
So what are my options? Well, voting for Clark didn't help. So now I have to consider Kerry. On one hand we have Bush who I don't like. However, he has powerful friends and get his agenda done no problem. The problem is, do I like his agenda. On the other hand is Kerry. Here's a guy who is not Bush, is Democratic (whatever that means nowadays) but what is his agenda? Does he know? He votes for the Patriot Act but now apposes it. Or does he just oppose Bush.
Sorry for the rambling, but if the founders of MoveOn want Bush out of office, picking apart Bush is fine with me. I like to watch what they print, not that I agree with all of it. But hey... it's not like I'm going to get anything but propaganda from Bush, either.
I like to think of MoveOn.org like a childish version of the NPR radio station. If you haven't noticed, they're very tilted against Bush. But I wouldn't consider them fringe either.
I don't think MoveOn is extremist. Newsletters pointing out Bush's fuckups and not-really-fuckups-but-lets-propaganda-it-anyway is no worse than Bush's ads trying to make Kerry look like a military weakling. LOL. I disagree about you saying MoveOn isn't changing people's minds. I don't think that's their goal at all. Personally, I think they're just trying to motivate people into action. (Who are probably already on the anti-Bush side of the fence already) Considering we're about 40-60 kerry/Bush, I'd say it's a useful approach.
Why are there only 19 people folding@home for slashdot?
That I did not know. Disappointing to know that the bulk of the power from MoveOn is simply coming from rich people. I liked the idea that a grass roots campaign (power in numbers) concept seemed to be working a little bit in politics.
I agree that simply being anti-Bush is quite childish. I like anti-Dumb better, which they clearly are not when their last newsletter was talking about handing out flyers at the "Day After Tomorrow" movie.... which they labeled as "The movie George Bush doesn't want you to see!"
Anyway, I still don't think they're fringe or kooky. I think to be an extremist, your goals and actions need to be extreme. Their actions are mobilization, and to get people to active. Mostly through emails, web site, etc. Not very extreme there. Their goals... to get Bush out of office. Again, not very extreme considering anyone who votes for Kerry could be labeled the same. (which is at least 40% right now)
Why are there only 19 people folding@home for slashdot?
I'd rather just stick it in her butt.
My vision of the future is that IPV6 is supported by everyone and I have a fixed address subnet at home. My Cable/DSL modem or even my wireless hub contains a mail server and the ISP is just a bit conduit. Please do what you can to work toward this goal. I've always thought the ISPs do too much - which is both good and bad I suppose.
Many things are lazily called censorship, from takedown notices to banning someone from an IRC channel. Most of them are simply the publisher's refusal to help someone say something the publisher disagrees with. However, when the threat of legal action is involved, the publisher is refusing to help someone say something they are officially not allowed to say. Rather than being a discerning individual, the publisher becomes the instrument of official limitation of speech, and as such I think the title of censor is appropriate.
The problem highlighted by the article is that copyright is a form of official limitation of speech which is primarily policed by citizens, although their authority derives from the government. Thus a publisher can be faced with a takedown notice from someone claiming the legal authority of a government censor, with no reliable way of checking whether that person has the authority they are claiming. The publisher's least risky course of action is to comply with every takedown request, meaning that anyone who can write a plausible cease and desist letter can effectively remove documents from the web at will. A publisher who ignores takedown notices is likely to run across a genuine copyright holder sooner or later and be sued out of existence, so the most timid publishers will tend to survive.
Nope. You don't censor someone by locking them out of your house. You censor them by locking them in your basement. Perhaps it's too "deep" for you.
rats.
Oh and that you can't post any reply in 72 hours is bullshit. If there was anything of importance, mirrors, google cache etc. would pop up everywhere making whatever they were trying to censor 10x as well known.
;-)
Well, maybe, if the topic is something of political or financial importance. But if the topic is an obscure composition by an obscure 17th-century composer or songwriter, you'd have a bit of a problem getting a groundswell of support and mirrors.
Of course, google doesn't care about that. If you've taken care to make sure that your site is indexed by google, a few emails to your crowd of weirdo afficionados could get it all mirrored from their cache. Still, it probably wouldn't make the front page of any major media publication. You probably couldn't even get the story on slashdot.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
rats.
Yeah, well. The system *does* work pretty much the way I suggested it did, after all. At least, with decent ISPs.
You do bring up a problem, from a copyright-holder's perspective: you *can't* get that sort of instant response when your stuff is posted on a self-hosted site. The ISP can't, and shouldn't, just cut the service off altogether, but the infringing site (I'm assuming here a legitimate report) can just fail to answer phone calls, etc. for enough time to pass to cause real harm. Sure, the ISP could cut the line as soon as they can't get hold of somebody right away, but what about the bogus claims files on Friday at 5:05? Should the ISP pull the plug on a company site over a weekend? Doesn't seem right.
There's no good answer to that one.
Slashdot's token middle-aged housewife
Sure bad logic is very deep. Stopping someone from using your server, where they have opportunities to find another server is more like locking them out, not locking them in... moron. Think about it.
"he drew his sword Ringil that glittered like ice... and he wounded Morgoth with seven wounds..."
Indeed. It's all in good fun - I did not of course send that email btw.
I'm curious, btw, about what sort of material could be up on the web that can cause real harm.
The web isn't the most efficent way to distribute copyrighted material - that's what file sharing apps are for.
Given your age and sex, and I hope you'll excuse the sterotype if I'm wrong, I'm guessing that you do have one thing in mind - child porn.
If so; I doubt it is circulated on public websites. I would suspect that they have their own private groups and methods of distribution.
If not, then I'm not sure what else you could be thinking of that is going to cause harm.
FUCK YOU COCKSUCKER
I know, because it would have landed in my mailbox if you had. (I think. I'm not actually sure we have an abuse address set up over there, though it being the only nonvirtual it might end up being mapped anyway.) That's what was so funny in your first reply. Well, that and the idea of the Phoenyx being a hot warez site.
No, I wasn't really thinking of child porn - I somehow doubt the copyright holder would be the one going after it in that case. And generally speaking it ought to be obvious from just looking at it that it's porn, whereas an ISP can't always just look at stuff and know whether it's legit copyright/licensewise.
I was thinking of copyrighted stuff in which the copyright holder didn't want public distribution. (I'm in favor of all copyright holders *permitting* public distribution, but I'm also in favor of respecting the wishes of those that don't. Change their minds via saying "You're a selfish git" and not "Try and stop us BWAHAHA.") The longer the stuff's there, the wider the unauthorized distribution can be. The earlier you catch it, the more likely you are to contain the spread. It's still a well-nigh hopeless task, but if an ISP says "Well, uh, let us do a search, call our lawyers, and we'll get back to you," they're gonna end up with subpoena'd server logs and a lawyer asking a judge for damages proportional to the number of accesses AFTER the ISP was notified.
Slashdot's token middle-aged housewife
He did document it rather more - see his full report. Some of the details have been elided but it appears that the US ISP is Lycos and the UK ISP is Freeserve/Wanadoo (the URL given for T&Cs is http://www.XXXXX.com/sitebuilder/tandc.htm which matches http://www.freeserve.com/sitebuilder/tandc.htm).
Well, Howard Dean's campaign was a grass roots campaign that worked. Kinda. He managed to raise a hell of a lot of money from small donations. In the third quarter of 2003, he raised 14.8 million dollars, more than any other democratic presidential campaign ever. And this, on average donations of 74$. 7.3 million of those dollars came from his internet campaign. So grassroots can work, provided the subject doesn't scream.
I don't think that you can control the spread at all. Not even in the slightest - it is distributed through kazaa and torrent far faster anyway.
On the assumption that this is true, would you still think it's right for ISP's to pull content straight away, without any investigation?
On the assumption that this is true, would you still think it's right for ISP's to pull content straight away, without any investigation?
Sure. Just because faster distribution exists doesn't mean nobody's going to use a slower one. The expression "sneaking under the radar" comes to mind.
Slashdot's token middle-aged housewife
The source of the Illuminati ending quote from Deus Ex: IW ? "It really is of importance, not only what men do, but also what manner of men they are that do it. Among the works of man, which human life is rightly employed in perfecting and beautifying, the first in importance surely is man himself. " Or do I just play to many video games?