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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?
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)
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.
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?
"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."
The US ISP was probubally scared that if they did something wrong they would get sued sued sued
Evolution or ID?
not sure if you are kidding or not, but you can find some good info on becoming your own ISP Here.
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
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
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.
That might also be a good way to demonstrate how fraglantly wrong the law is. I wonder how many sites I could get taken off, for no reason whatsoever, inside of a week.
Of course, I couldn't withstand the legal implications of that sort of abuse, so it won't happen, but it might display how serious the problem is.
Also, I hate to give ideas to Satan, but SCO should try sending these to tons of Linux websites. It'd be a step up from the logic of most their other plans.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
- 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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
Damn you for making me defend the editors of /. because I feel no love for them. HOWEVER:
/.'s response to it, I became very, very informed about the cult and made it my duty to inform others about the dangers of scientology.
Yes, the editors of Slashdot removed the message in question. However, they posted an article detailing the whole mess along with links to where to find the entire Fishman articles and numerous links to anti-scientology sites.
Before this happened, I had never paid much attention to scientology. Because of what happened and
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.
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
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).
...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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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!
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
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
Americans who voted in the 2000 election saw exactly how effective voting was in trying to change our government leaders. Quite frankly, if voting made any difference in America, it would be illegal already. Prior to 1861-1865, sure, voting made a difference. Now, however, it's just another waste of funds, time, and civics lessons.
Voting does one absolutely horrendous thing - it lends credence to the form of government in which you are making your selection. By voting, you are saying, "This type of government is OK with me." Sure, no one counts apathetic voters as anything but apathetic, so there needs to be a way to make the people who do not approve of the system heard and separated from the people who just can't be bothered. How about a selection on all ballots, underneath the candidates, for "None of the above are acceptable"? I'd show up for every election if I could make that choice.
There is, however, another way to change government, but no one wants to discuss it publickly, as it's a last alternative and quite possibly treasonous. Another
...and you run and you run and you can't stop what's been done...
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.
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.
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?
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
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.
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.
Sure, I'll speak to this.
Brigitte Bardot is apparently an ignorant bigot.
Ignorant bigots have a right to spout their ignorant bigotry, just as I have a right to tell them they sound like ignorant bigots.
I can't speak for all of them, but this member of "the MoveOn Crowd" would be opposed to this fine if it occurred in the US. MoveOn is not an international organization, however. Call Amnesty International.
(I will, however, take issue with you calling a relatively small fine a "human rights abuse." I don't recall any jail time, torture, or loss of liberty being mentioned in the article.)
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.
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
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
> Brigitte Bardot is apparently an ignorant bigot.
;)
Without doubt.
> Ignorant bigots have a right to spout their ignorant bigotry, just as
> I have a right to tell them they sound like ignorant bigots.
Exactly, the correct response to an idiot isn't to fine them, but to call them an idiot. Something starting off with "Brigitte, you ignorant slut..." would be appropriate.
> (I will, however, take issue with you calling a relatively small fine
> a "human rights abuse." I don't recall any jail time, torture, or loss
> of liberty being mentioned in the article.)
Basic human rights include not just the right to live a life free of torture and prison. The include the right to speak and worship as one pleases. The 1st Amendment isn't just for Americans, it is a statement of one of those "inalienable rights" the Founding Fathers were always going on about.
Buty mostlyu I was hoping to tweak a few of the overly sanctimonious Europeans who have been spending the last year or so explaining how morally superior they are. We would never dream of doing anything as horrible as what the French seem to do as a normal matter of course. Of course there ARE some Americans who wouldn't mind adopting a more "European" view of Free Speech, with PC speech codes and "Hate Speech" laws of our own.
Democrat delenda est
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.
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.
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
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
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.
"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.
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.
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.
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?