Slashdot Mirror
Censoring The Net With A Hotmail Account
Alex Bradbury writes "Members of the Bits of Freedom group conducted a test to see how much it would take for a service provider to take down a website hosting public domain material, and have published their results. They signed up with 10 providers and put online a work by Dutch author Multatuli, who died over 100 years ago. They stated that the work was in the public domain, and that it was written in 1871. They then set up a fake society to claim to be the copyright holders of the work. From a Hotmail address, they sent out complaints to all 10 of the providers. 7 out of 10 complied and removed the site, one within just 3 hours. Only one ISP actually pointed out that the copyright on the work expired many years ago. The conclusion of the investigation is definitely worth reading. The three providers who didn't take down the material are XS4ALL, UPC and Freeler. The company that came out the worst was iFast, who forwarded all the personal details of the site owner to the sender of the fake takedown notice without even being asked to do so."
I am amazed that an ISP wouldn't have some process in place to at least check the validity of a party making that request and check the validity of the copyright as well. It wouldn't take much to put such a process in place.
http://www.busyweather.com/
I'm not surprised at all at XS4ALL's behavior. This is the same ISP that went to court to defend one of their customer's rights to host the Fishman Affidavit (a collection of high-level Scientologist documents).
I'm glad that there are companies out there who are willing to stand up for their users when they are right, going so far as to take the heat in court. XS4ALL won the case, too, and the Fishman Affidavit is still hosted there for all to see.
Exactly. I run www.mncriminals.com, which publishes the MN criminal conviction data. We get the data directly from the state. We frequently get letters from people demanding that we "expunge" their record because "the state cleared their name". We pretty much just ask that they fax a copy of the state's paperwork removing the conviction from their record. We've only ever heard further from one person. Even then, she hadn't really had it expunged. Rather, she'd had the remainder of her sentence, including parole, etc. commuted. A lot of people make demands and I'm perfectly willing to follow through, but you're going to at least provide a piece of paper proving it needs to happen. The BSA can come into my offices only if there's a warrant in their hand, etc.
The Glass is Too Big: My Take on Things
Consider this possibility:
A bunch of motivated slashdotters all go to their local libraries (or anywhere else they can gain anonymous internet access) and create hotmail or yahoo email accounts. Then, they send copyright violation notifications to various ISP's across America, so that a huge number of legitamite sites get taken down.
The resultant customer rage would get media attention, and the ISP's would mention the DMCA as they speak in their own defense. This would bring the harmful effects of the DMCA into the public eye.
Of course, I am not advocating any such thing. Just reflecting on the possibilities.
--AC (emphasis on the C in my case)