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YouTube Reposts Anti-Scientology Videos
Ian Lamont writes "YouTube has reposted anti-Scientology videos and reinstated suspended YouTube accounts after receiving thousands of apparently bogus DCMA take-down notices. Four thousand notices were sent to YouTube last Thursday and Friday by American Rights Counsel, LLC. After YouTube users responded with counter-notices, many of the videos were reposted. It turns out that the American Rights Counsel had no copyright claim on the videos, and the group may not even exist, although the text of the DCMA notices have been linked to a Wikipedia editor. While filing a false DMCA notice is a criminal offense, prosecution in these cases rarely comes about."
Is there some kind of rule that if it's in a hyperlink, it's spelled 'DCMA', but if it's plain text, it's 'DMCA'? And good on YouTube for reposting the content.
Unpleasantries.
Great - another 600 bigoted posts about Scientology.
Scientology is a great, true faith. But you guys don't know anything about faith, do you.
I'm an atheist, and while I think the middle eastern religions are pretty horrid, Scientology is pure insanity. Xenu? DC10s? Thetans?
LOL, psyco.
I meant that they probably want to portray themselves as a "oppressed minority" or something like that...
Although I seriously doubt the ACLU would fall for it
No sig for the moment.
Not just to file fraudulant DMCA notices, but also to do so in the name of a Business that doesn't exist? I'd think someone, somewhere would want to take this opportunity to finally push back and sue for false allegations filed by a fradulant company in the name of an entity that was not part of the original notice. Might make a statement, (especially from YouTube) that we won't simply allow people to negligently file take down notices on material they don't even own the copyright to.
"This is the value of a summer spent and a winter earned"
I wouldn't call it evil. If they get a notice they have to presume its real, they don't have time to research 4,000 claims. Faking take down notices is fraud or criminal (not sure as IANAL). Since they have to assume they're legit they're doing the right thing by taking them down. Re-instating them is done when a counter-claim is received. They're just obeying the law, albeit a fairly poorly written one.
lol: You see no door there!
Exactly. It might be economically worth their time for Google to set the precedent that bogus DMCA notices en masse will lead to a lawsuit, so that they can limit the number of staff they'll have to hire to handle requests.
They now have the names and addresses of the posters who responsed with DMCA counter-notices, and those individuals are now free to be "fair-gamed".
If you're an old usenet geek, you have plenty of reason to hate them. If you're an old slashdot geek, you also have plenty of reason to hate them. If you're a YouTube user, you also have plenty of reason to hate them. I'd wager that large parts of /. fall into all three categories.
There's been no large, concentrated legal attack on internet freedom from the other religions, to my knowledge, so I feel Scientology is rightfully getting attacked. If you also take the threats of violence, the stalking by PIs, the systematic exploitation of their own members and everything else into account, then it's an even easier choice.
Also of note is that Scientology is just as hateful towards gays as the Big Three religions, so I'm not sure where you're going with that.
Nobody will prosecute the case if the only impact was $20,000 of Google's money spent on handling the notices.
The prosecutor gets to bring an open-and-shut felony fraud case. Looks good on his record when he runs for office.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
If they can establish that it actually was someone from the scientology church with authorization to send these notes, Google could refuse to take down any more videos without investigating the claims first. Their takedown notices, if they have merit, would still be honored, but the takedown would be delayed until they get a chance to look into the issue.
But now, anyone who filed a counter-response to the Take Down is "outed" on documents that Scientology can subpoena.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Funny, I never would have viewed any of those anti-scientology clips if it weren't for these bogus take-down notices...
Lol, who gives a crap about the faith? They can believe what they want, it's the bullying, censorship and child maltreatment that gets me.
Yes, because a zombie born by a virgin and fathered by sky-guy is sane.
Actually, companies are only required to comply with valid DMCA notices, for fairly obvious reasons. A company has every right to verify that a notice is valid before taking action. YouTube would have been entirely in its legal rights to ignore the requests it got. It is unfortunate that large internet companies have no interest in defending their users' right to free speech.
At the moment, Christianity isn't run for profit (Roman Catholic church notwithstanding).
Citation needed.
Pirate Party UK
What's really sad is that your wife's way of thinking is typical here in America.
It's not real unless you saw it on TV.
Totalitarian control is the only outcome of IP? And this got modded up to 5?
I've seen some pretty ridiculous shit from the anti-IP people; but that's one heck of a strawman you've got there. IP is a tool like any other. A totalitarian government will use it as a tool to enforce draconian discipline. A better government will use it to secure rights for creative people. Let's have some fun:
IP is nowhere near as deadly as road construction. That is why, as I keep pointing out, the so called "transportation infrastructure" has the ulitmate effect of creating a totalitarian society. It happens via the deadly mix of technological progress creating increased mobility for both the populace and the military, and resulting in the ever more draconian incursion of armed troops into daily life. That impacts society so because the ability to move troops is the control of our everday lives (as is the only logical outcome of road construction) and must lead to a totalitarian society as a whole.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
You've got to basically give the organization tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars, or work as their slave for little or no pay for years, before you get to that level.
Unfortunately the human mind is easily manipulated and by then you'll have been so effectively brainwashed that you will be more than happy to believe it.
Replace 'scientologists' with 'corporate oligarchs' and you'd be right. Scientology is rich and powerful, but it's nothing compared to the automobile industry, or the recording industry, or pharmaceutical industry, etc.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
As geeks, shouldn't we be more annoyed at the obviously non-scientific "big three" religions? Whatever iluminati/freemason paranoia or real conspiracy exists with scientology, that pales to the anti-gay and other affronts that Christianity brings. Where more than half are Christians, at least it's...different.
Well, for one, Scientology has nothing to do with science. It's beliefs are straight out of L. Ron Hubbard's science fiction books. The beliefs of most established religions are much more plausible than Scientology, plus many of those established religions are able to adapt themselves to modern science. Believe it or not, most modern Christians (non-evangelicals) believe that the Big Bang happened and God caused it, and the 7 days thing is because God lives outside of our time. I, though, do not follow this belief, but it's a very valid one that is compatible with known science. Scientology doesn't do that. They deny science and lay out their own beliefs that supersede science, according to them.
Two, they love oppressing all they can. The DMCA takedowns of opposition videos is just one thing. They love to threaten and harass opposition because that's all they can do to protect themselves.
Third, it's a money-making cult. Scientologists brainwash people into believing their hogwash and then bleed them dry. I forget the actual figures but you're supposed to give a substantial amount of your income to the 'church', and this isn't like tithes to a Christian church that benefit the church as a whole and also the community around it. These just get sucked back into the pockets of the Scientology upper echelons. Also, in Scientology you're supposed to buy your way into enlightenment. The more money you give to them, the more access to the basis texts you have. And, as I said, they brainwash people into believing their hogwash. They take in those who are most impressionable and have low self-esteem who can easily be molded. It's sad, really, on how such an evil (I do think of Scientology as evil like any other cult, but not so much so with religions) organization will prey on people and take advantage of them.
Also, flame me if you will for not hating on other religions, as is often the style here, but they aren't all that bad. Sure they've mostly all done some bad stuff in the past, but the also have all done some good stuff too. And at least with them you're free to leave and not totally brainwashed.