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Site Copies Content and Uses the DMCA to Take Down the Original Articles
First time accepted submitter ios and web coder writes "From the article: 'A dizzying story that involves falsified medical research, plagiarism, and legal threats came to light via a DMCA takedown notice today. Retraction Watch, a site that followed (among many other issues) the implosion of a Duke cancer researcher's career, found all of its articles on the topic pulled by WordPress, its host. The reason? A small site based in India apparently copied all of the posts, claimed them as their own, then filed a DMCA takedown notice to get the originals pulled from their source. As of now, the originals are still missing as their actual owners seek to have them restored.' This is extremely worrying. Even though the original story is careful not to make accusations, I will. This sure smells like a 'Reputation Defense' dirty trick."
We really have to start requiring the DMCA takedown notice sources to bring the burden of proof, or this will just become business as usual. Particularly as you don't even have to be resident in the country to abuse the system.
Alternatively, HUGE fines for incorrect takedowns and use of the perjury provisions for submitting an incorrect takedown notice need to be assessed / used. Actually, in a just world, this would be in addition to requiring burden of proof from the takedown notice source.
Nothing less than our entire culture is at stake.
copy content and say its yours,
now what you have to hope is those indian doctors/engineers didnt do the same on their exams
Could this also be a case of anti-DMCA activism, where someone is fabricating this scenario just to demonstrate how abusable the system is?
Of course if it's not, I'm sure this will give some people that kind of idea.
The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
This is absurd. It clearly looks like the Reputation Firm hired by this guy works with some nameless organization in India. For WordPress to honor this DMCA take down request blindly makes me more reluctant to ever use them. Sure I see blog posts hosted by them all the time but seriously why would a reputable organization (if you can call WordPress that) would remove the content without first checking with the blog owners or verifying the claims, then they are truly the bad guys here.
Is this something where the wayback machine could help?
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
People in countries outside the jurisdiction of the United States should immediately start issuing as many DMCA notices for *AA works and sites as possible. Flood the system. Let them lost access to their own work using the legal framework they've created. The tail may be long, but the bite still hurts.
For WordPress to honor this DMCA take down request blindly makes me more reluctant to ever use them.
This is standard operating procedure for every major website right now. Doing due diligence can land you in legal trouble with the DMCA. The industry wrote the law, why would they add a concept of checks and balances? That's something the congress would have to do, but that's not going to happen when the industry is there reminding them about how expensive elections are and now easy it is for a few major news outlets to pump up some other candidate to oust you in the primary. Many won't even need a reminder because that's how they got the seat in the first place.
I read the internet for the articles.
While this is certainly outrageous behavior, could this lead to the demise of the DMCA? If this practice becomes common, you can certainly see court challenges against the DMCA in the future. If the DMCA can be portrayed as taking away original speech, that would be a direct violation of the freedom of speech in the United States. All it would take is a court to determine that it does not sufficiently safeguard the First Amendment and it could be struck down. It could be re-written, but it wouldn't be as easy to mass issue takedown notices. While I do acknowledge that there is a corporate mindset in the American judiciary, the First Amendment is a very explicit right and this would be an infringement on the property rights of the original creators.
No proof is required on the side of the claimant, but the accused can immediately lose their stuff.
A few survivors of home invasions have reported that the killers break in and shout, "Police! This is a raid! Get on the floor with your hands behind your back!" or something similar before executing their victims.
Now there's an example of a hopelessly broken authentication system - that the same government sets up something similar for duplication of text is hardly surprising.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
"Reputation defense" on Wikipedia has become an issue. Here's a wash cycle on Wikipedia, carried out on behalf of Michael Milken, one of the notorious financial crooks of the 1980s. ("Biggest fraud case in the history of the securities industry." back in 1990.) He has a self-admitted paid editor on Wikipedia editing his article to make him look good.
New Orleans had a rash of real cops pulling people over and robbing them...
Sounds like Anonymous can have loads of fun with this and point out the ridiculousness of DMCA. Few dozen anonymous activists can create havoc and force congress to think the law again.
Of fun times.