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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.""
The actual results are presented in detailed form in a PDF file:
How 'Liberty' Disappeared from the Internet
Or see the Google text version.
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.
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.
When you send a take-down complaint, you MUST swear (as in a legal swearing subject to perjury charges) that you are indeed the holder of the copyright on the material you are complaining about. Make a nuiisance of yourself and you can have some interesting chats with the Feds and your victim's lawyers.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!