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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."
are not copyrightable. There is no "question" here.
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.
I get marketing research phone calls from Neilsen subsidiaries doing surveys. If I have time, I do them. Now I'll tell them *NO*. You can't have it both ways, Nielsen. I suggest other readers do the same.
They also mailed me a survey when I bought a new car. My prize was 'a chance' to win some petrol. An hour of my time for 'a chance'. They seem to have an inflated view of their own self-worth.
In this episode: A marketing research company learns about public relations.
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.
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.
This DMCA notice now makes me worry about my own site. It uses the same list, which is in fact the same list the FCC uses in its own rules and regulations. I've started investigating alternative listing methods, but none of them make sense because they all organize their "target city" by DMA! Listing by state is stupid because a station in New Jersey always targets New York or Philadelphia. Without being able to use the Nielsen DMA, the whole system of listing stations goes to hell.
Maybe it's just me, but I don't like the FCC making rules that cannot be read because some company has a copyright on it. Examples:
When digital TV stations were signing on, the FCC said commercial stations in the top 100 markets have to be on the air by 05/01/2002. If you don't have permission to look at Nielsen's "copyrighted" list, then how would a station be able to know what market they're in? Not every station is subscribed to Nielsen's data.
In 47CFR73.622(f)(5), the FCC lists an exception that allows stations to expand coverage to match "the largest station in the market." How do you know which stations are in your market if you're not allowed to look at Nielsen's market boundaries?
This whole thing rubs me the wrong way, and makes me nervous.
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.
The DMCA should be abolished I have never seen a legitimate use for it. There is something terribly wrong with our system that we even allow automated censorship to be apart of our society.
An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
lets add a fifth category. failure to differentiate between copywrite and copyright. I suggest reading this article.
> 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.