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Nielsen Sends Wikipedia DMCA Takedown For Station Descriptions
RockMFR writes "A DMCA takedown notice sent by Nielsen Media Research to the Wikimedia Foundation has resulted in the deletion of over 300 pages on the English Wikipedia. The pages were 'templates' and categories that listed television stations within various geographical markets in the United States. Discussion of the deletions has focused on whether this type of information can actually be copyrighted, though the content of the takedown notice have not been made public."
Actually you don't have to take it down but you risk being sued as a result. So the above poster who said there is a difference between a takedown notice and a legal threat really doesn't know what she is talking about.
I believe that in some cases, however, compilations can. In that case - though I could be wrong - specific arrangement of facts could be considered copyrighted if it were copied verbatim, like OCR'ing a phonebook or something of the sort.
If memory serves cases have gone for and against this though, so it's not that clear-cut.
As noted on the admin page, "The entire categorization schema that was in place was copyrighted by Nielsen and could not be used under our GFDL license," so it wasn't just that the information was used, but that it was copied pretty much directly.
The entire categorization schema that was in place was copyrighted by Nielsen and could not be used under our GFDL license.
the DMCA notice included at least the use of Nielsen's 'Designated Market Area' (DMA) classification system. As our Media market article says, Nielsen coined the term and holds a trademark on it. The takedown notice may have included more, but I think it is fairly clear that much at least was an issue. Hence
It looks like they used a categorizing scheme originally produced and copyrighted by Nielsen, which could warrant a legit takedown request - the complete takedown of the pages (especially such a large number of them), however, seems to be overkill.
That you can get a copyright on something like that, to me, seems ridiculous, but then again, I don't make money by selling people their own production numbers back to them.
Quiz: True or False -- On a scale of 1 to 10, what is your middle name?
Apparently Toledo TV has been undeleted. (Mirror in case it goes again.)
How in God's name is an association of TV station titles to markets in which they can be received copyrightable?
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
Well, see, DMCA notices tend to fall into one of a few categories:
- Unnecessary (attacking non-threats)
- Invalid (as per your statement)
- Bullying (of organisations that couldn't afford to pay a lawyer to have the (generally absurd) accusations overturned)
There's a few instances where their use actually resembles something legitimate, but most of the time they appear in the hands of large companies when the cause is unjust, absurd, etc. I would therefore posit a connection between DMCA usage and illegitimacy and/or stupidity of a complaint.
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I believe DMCA takedown notices will eventually be determined to be a classic case of unbridled "prior restraint"
Of course, I think they should be done away with, because they are far too easily abusable - but I don't think the courts will ever consider them as "prior restraint" - because the content has to already be somewhere for a DMCA notice to be issued.
Say, hypothetically, that I took a paper you wrote and posted it on my blog. You issue a DMCA takedown notice - but I've already posted it, otherwise you wouldn't have even known I had it.
If you could send me a DMCA to prevent me from putting anything up in the first place, that would be prior restraint. As I understand it, though, that's not how they work.
Code or be coded.
It is a criminal offence.
The notice contains the following statement:
"I hereby certify under penalty of perjury that the information in this notice is accurate and that I am authorized to act on behalf of $copyrightholder, the copyright owner of the intellectual property rights. I have a good faith belief that none of the materials or activities listed above have been authorized by $copyrightholder, its agents, or the law."
The Google Cache is different, at least for now. The key difference: The words "Nielson DMA#."
The Internet Archive also has older versions.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Yes, that was in Lenz v. Universal.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
"Oh yeah, there's also the fact that the law states that a counter-notification to restore the material must be sworn under penalty of perjury, unlike the original takedown notice, which just needs to be a good-faith attempt, with no criminal penalty for falsehood."
This is...how do you say?...not true. Both the takedown notice AND the counter-notice need to be sworn to.
From the US Code, Title 17, Chapter 5, Section 512, Paragraph (c) Subsection (3) "Elements of notification":
(A) To be effective under this subsection, a notification of claimed infringement must be a written communication provided to the designated agent of a service provider that includes substantially the following:
Snipping sub-sub paragraphs i-v, which aren't relevant to this conversation
(vi) A statement that the information in the notification is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, that the complaining party is authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.
Read it for yourself if you like. http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/512.html
OK, having actually READ TFA and some other postings about this topic, here's what this appears to be about.
Wikipedia wanted to list all the TV stations for each major television market.
But how do you define what stations are in a given "market"? For example, does the "New York City" market area include Newark, NJ? What about Trenton, NJ? Does it extend into Connecticut? If so, how far?
Ultimately, the way you group a set of locations into regions is somewhat arbitrary, and there are a lot of ways to do it. For example, the US Census Bureau has one set of metropolitan areas they use to report major statistics. Nielsen has their own grouping of cities (and therefore stations located in those cities) into markets.
Nielsen's grouping is not identical to other public groupings like the US Census bureau's. It's what they feel are the appropriate groupings for television advertising marketing, since that's who their customers are. And they put work into developing and refining their classification scheme.
What appears to have happened is that Wikipedia wanted to list television station, and wanted to organize that list of stations by Nielsen market area. Heck, take a look at the delete log in the original post--they were even calling their organization "Nielsen markets."
Nielsen's position, as I understand it, is that Nielsen's mapping of cities (and therefore stations) into markets is their own unique work, which is not public domain, and it's not OK for Wikipedia to use Nielsen's mappings without their permission. If Wikipedia had used a different organizational scheme for the same data (e.g. US Census metro areas), Nielsen likely wouldn't have had an issue with it.
Please note I'm not trying to play apologist for Nielsen or the DCMA here--I'm not a huge fan of the DCMA or US definitions on what's "copyrightable." However, I do prefer looking at a case on it's individual merits to knee jerk "anyone using the DCMA must be evil!" arguments.
But how Nielsen organizes and interprets those facts may be. How it defines a broadcast market. How it defines a station's target audience.
The only thing that Nielsen "defines" in this case is their own name for the DMA. The FCC defines the DMAs.
Nielsen does have extra groupings and organizations of stations that cross DMAs, but AFAIK, those weren't part of Wikipedia.
It is a federal perjury charge, which is rarely prosecuted by the DoJ. The maximum penalty is five years in prison. Perjury is usually added to existing charges or used as a stick to elicit testimony. The DoJ does not have enough resources to investigate and prosecute cases. The exception is perjruy in grand jury or court proceedings, where the rate of prosecution is high unless the person is already serving a term in prison or has cooperated with the government.
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No. Website owners are free to ignore DMCA take down notices and there are no penalties for ignoring them... they are not injunctions.
If a website owner ignores a DMCA take down notice then the issuer has to take legal action to get a judge to issue an injunction.
Wikipedia and most other website owners will comply with a DMCA notice regardless of whether or not it is valid because they don't care and is the simplest thing to do.
lets add a fifth category. failure to differentiate between copywrite and copyright. I suggest reading this article.
You can't fit the company in prison
Only a person can commit perjury. Either an agent or employee makes the sworn statement against perjury.
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> Wikipedia and most other website owners will comply with a DMCA notice
> regardless of whether or not it is valid because they don't care
> and is the simplest thing to do.
No, they will comply because doing so gives them, via other provisions of the DMCA, a modicum of immunity to monetary liability for copyright infringement.