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Dealing With a Copyright Takedown Request?
George Maschke writes "I recently received a takedown notice from a corporate lawyer demanding that I remove a post on my Web site's message board. It purportedly lists the first 75 of 567 questions on the MMPI-2 paper-and-pencil psychological test. It seems to me that such posting of a limited amount copyrighted material for discussion purposes on a public-interest, non-profit Web site falls within the scope of the fair use exemption of US copyright law. I have thus declined to remove the post. I believe that the corporation in question is seeking to chill public discussion of its test, which applicants for employment with many governmental agencies are required to complete. I would be interested in this community's thoughts on the matter."
I'm sure most people will agree that what you've done falls well within the realm of fair use. But you know very well that you're going to need to talk to legal counsel with expertise in copyright matters, and that means money. Maybe someone with contacts in the Electronic Frontier Foundation could give you a hand. Sometimes having a lawyer responding to the guy making the threat is enough to make them back down.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Go immediately to http://www.chillingeffects.org/
Sorry, but 13% of the content is not "limited". If I reprint 85 pages of "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince", would you consider that a "limited amount"? I don't think the publisher would... Not to mention you say "the first 75"... If it had been a 'random' 75, with commentary and discussion for each one; that would be one thing. Even then, it would be dubious. Even if I split it into one-paragraph sections, with commentary and discussion between each paragraph, 85 pages worth of Harry Potter would be difficult to claim under fair use.
For example, the usage of 400 words out of a 500 page book was considered infringement: Harper Row vs. Nation Enterprises.
Now, according to the wonderful DMCA, if you take the material down now, *YOU* are safe from prosecution. If you present the user of your board the opportunity to protest, then if they want to put it back up, *THEY* become the responsible party.
Peer1.com seems to be under the impression that once a DMCA takedown notice is received, the material mentioned in the notice must be removed for a period of 14 days, after which, if the complainant does not provide notification that it has sought a court order, the material may be restored. However, my understanding is that the material may be placed back on-line (PDF) promptly upon the service provider's receipt of a counter-claim (which I have already sent), that is, there is no need to wait 14 days.
It's also worth noting that Pearson, the copyright holder of the MMPI-2, filed a takedown notice for the very same post in 2007. We promptly filed a counter-notice, Pearson took no further action, and we thought the matter resolved. Has anyone had a problem with a copyright holder filing repeated DMCA takedown notices to one's service provider for the same material?
George W. Maschke
AntiPolygraph.org
TRUE OR FALSE (567 QUESTIONS)
1.I like mechanics magazines
2.I have a good appetite
3.I wake up fresh & rested most mornings
4.I think I would like the work of a librarian
5.I am easily awakened by noise
6.I like to read newspaper articles on crime
7.My hands and feet are usually warm enough
8.My daily life is full of things that keep me interested
9.I am about as able to work as I ever was
10.There seems to be a lump in my throat much of the time
11.A person should try to understand his dreams and be guided by or take warning from them
12.I enjoy detective or mystery stories
13.I work under a great deal of tension
14.I have diarrhea once a month or more
15.Once in a while I think of things too bad to talk about
16.I am sure I get a raw deal from life
17.My father was a good man
18.I am very seldom troubled by constipation
19.When I take a new, I like to be tipped off on whom should be gotten next to
20.My sex life is satisfactory
21.At times I have very much wanted to leave home
22.At times I have fits of laughing & crying that I cannot control
23.I am troubled by attacks of nausea and vomiting
24.No one seems to understand me
25.I would like to be a singer
26.I feel that it is certainly best to keep my mouth shut when Iâ(TM)m in trouble
27.Evil spirits possess me at times
28.When someone does me a wrong I feel I should pay him back if I can, just for the principle of the thing.
29.I am bothered by acid stomach several times a week
30.At times I feel like swearing
31.I have nightmares every few nights
32.I find it hard to keep my mind on a task or job
33.I have had very peculiar and strange experiences
34.I have a cough most of the time
35.If people had not had it in for me I would have been much more successful
36.I seldom worry about my heath
37.I have never been in trouble because of my sex behavior
38.During one period when I was a youngster I engaged in petty thievery
39.At times I feel like smashing things
40.Most any time I would rather sit and daydream than to do anything else
41.I have had periods of days, weeks, or months when I couldnâ(TM)t take care of things because I couldnâ(TM)t âoeget goingâ
42.My family does not like the work I have chosen ( or the work I intend to choose for my life work)
43.My sleep is fitful and disturbed
44.Much of the time my head seems to hurt all over
45.I do not always tell the truth
46.My judgment is better than it ever was
47.Once a week or oftener I feel suddenly hot all over without apparent cause
48.When I am with people I am bothered by hearing very queer things
49.It would be better if almost all laws were thrown away
50.My soul sometimes leaves my body
51.I am in just as good physical health as most of my friends
52.I prefer to pass by school friends, or people I know but have not seen for a long time, unless they speak to me first
53.A minister can cure disease by praying and putting his hand on your head
54.I am liked by most people who know me
55.I am almost never bothered by pains over the heart or in my chest
56.As a youngster I was suspended from school one or more times for cutting up
57.I am a good mixer
58.Everything is turning out just like the prophets of the Bible said it would
59.I have often had to take orders from someone who did not know as much as I did
60.I do not read every editorial in the newspaper everyday
61.I have not lived the right kind of life
62.Parts of my body often have feeling like burning, tingling, crawling, or like âoegoing to sleepâ
63.I have had no difficulty in starting or holding my bowel movement
64.I sometimes keep
MMPI 2 TEST QUESTIONS IN ORDER
TRUE OR FALSE (567 QUESTIONS)
1.I like mechanics magazines
2.I have a good appetite
3.I wake up fresh & rested most mornings
4.I think I would like the work of a librarian
5.I am easily awakened by noise
6.I like to read newspaper articles on crime
7.My hands and feet are usually warm enough
8.My daily life is full of things that keep me interested
9.I am about as able to work as I ever was
10.There seems to be a lump in my throat much of the time
11.A person should try to understand his dreams and be guided by or take warning from them
12.I enjoy detective or mystery stories
13.I work under a great deal of tension
14.I have diarrhea once a month or more
15.Once in a while I think of things too bad to talk about
16.I am sure I get a raw deal from life
17.My father was a good man
18.I am very seldom troubled by constipation
19.When I take a new, I like to be tipped off on whom should be gotten next to
20.My sex life is satisfactory
21.At times I have very much wanted to leave home
22.At times I have fits of laughing & crying that I cannot control
23.I am troubled by attacks of nausea and vomiting
24.No one seems to understand me
25.I would like to be a singer
26.I feel that it is certainly best to keep my mouth shut when Iâ(TM)m in trouble
27.Evil spirits possess me at times
28.When someone does me a wrong I feel I should pay him back if I can, just for the principle of the thing.
29.I am bothered by acid stomach several times a week
30.At times I feel like swearing
31.I have nightmares every few nights
32.I find it hard to keep my mind on a task or job
33.I have had very peculiar and strange experiences
34.I have a cough most of the time
35.If people had not had it in for me I would have been much more successful
36.I seldom worry about my heath
37.I have never been in trouble because of my sex behavior
38.During one period when I was a youngster I engaged in petty thievery
39.At times I feel like smashing things
40.Most any time I would rather sit and daydream than to do anything else
41.I have had periods of days, weeks, or months when I couldnâ(TM)t take care of things because I couldnâ(TM)t âoeget goingâ
42.My family does not like the work I have chosen ( or the work I intend to choose for my life work)
43.My sleep is fitful and disturbed
44.Much of the time my head seems to hurt all over
45.I do not always tell the truth
46.My judgment is better than it ever was
47.Once a week or oftener I feel suddenly hot all over without apparent cause
48.When I am with people I am bothered by hearing very queer things
49.It would be better if almost all laws were thrown away
50.My soul sometimes leaves my body
51.I am in just as good physical health as most of my friends
52.I prefer to pass by school friends, or people I know but have not seen for a long time, unless they speak to me first
53.A minister can cure disease by praying and putting his hand on your head
54.I am liked by most people who know me
55.I am almost never bothered by pains over the heart or in my chest
56.As a youngster I was suspended from school one or more times for cutting up
57.I am a good mixer
58.Everything is turning out just like the prophets of the Bible said it would
59.I have often had to take orders from someone who did not know as much as I did
60.I do not read every editorial in the newspaper everyday
61.I have not lived the right kind of life
62.Parts of my body often have feeling like burning, tingling, crawling, or like âoegoing to sleepâ
63.I have had no difficulty in starting or holding my bowel movement
64.I sometimes keep on at a thing until others lose their patience with me
65.I loved my father
66.I see things or animals or people around me that others do not see
67.I wish I could be as happy as others seem to be
68.I hardly ever feel pain in the back of
And this is precisely the problem with the DMCA. A large company who retain a team of lawyers on salary will have no problem firing off a few dozen such takedown notices. The cost of hiring a lawyer to screen them all for actual, valid complaints becomes rapidly prohibitive for the private citizen on the other end.
This is why the DMCA needs strongly punitive measures for repeat posting of unwarranted takedown notices for economic purposes.
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
I noticed several posts pointing out some of the seemingly silly questions (ie "My hands and feet get cold"). They may in fact be silly but there is reasoning behind them. I went and actually did some reading up on how the test is supposed to work. There are 8 different major scales measured and several other more minor ones too. For example Scale 1 is essentially looking at Hypochondria, a person's tendency to be really focused on (and maybe whiny) about every little ache and pain. The test understands that everyone has some stuff wrong with them and certain physical peeves too, so you're supposed to mark some of the stuff "T". But if you look at the questions, there are a bunch about this physical stuff and they are all over the place. If you put a "T" by a whole lot of them, then the test scores you higher on this scale. If you put an "F" by all of them, the test basically scores your "truthfulness on test questions" lower because these are things that everyone should complain about a few of.
The issue of test validity is a big deal and dealt with in different ways including checking for truthfulness by asking the same thing in a different way in different parts of the test. There are a bunch of these question pairs and there are some set up for consistent answers being "T/T", "T/F", and "F/F". There are also question sequences in the back half of the test designed to detect if the user is just starting to mostly randomly check or barely skim questions. Too high on this and the test is reflected as invalid.
Gaming the test is not as easy as it might seem at first glance. Some questions can be taken at face value, like "I sometimes think about killing myself". If you check that one "T" along with some other similar questions then you may well be suicidal. However, there are other questions that state mildly negative personality traits that most people have. If you refuse to admit to any of them then the test scores you as either trying to present an unrealistically positive image or as having an unrealistic self-image/ego. Answering some of those type questions with a "T" will get the test to paint you as a self-confident personality with a healthy self-image that feels no need to hide common human foibles.
Personally, I'm a skeptic of these kinds of tests. I think they may work to some degree in some scenarios with some people but there will be other scenarios or people for which the test will largely fail. This particular test is also susceptible to interpretation error. Some evaluators tend to focus in on individual scales but what I read says that that over-simple approach almost always yields skewed results. To get an accurate scoring the evaluator must consider the scales together. In large scale testing of different populations, the experts in this claim to have identified different groupings, for example two particular scales elevated while a third specific scale is lowered may represent a certain personality trait (ie rebelliousness or conformity). It's also said that the evaluator *must* have accurate background info on the subject (ie record of physical violence, manic behavior, etc). These factors can apparently change the assessment significantly.
You should talk to the pope about that...
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
(epileptics probably shouldn't drive buses for example)
Epileptics who are not controlled by medication, thank you very much. Some of us have been lucky enough to find the right drug, and have happy productive lives, and don't kill people very often at all.
Why choose white shoes?