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Comcast Threatens TorrentFreak For Posting Public Court Document
Despite being part of public court proceedings, Comcast sent a notice of infringement ordering Torrent Freak to stop hosting a letter linking a subscriber to Prenda Law. From the article: "Comcast has sent TorrentFreak a cease and desist letter, claiming copyright over contents of an article which revealed that Prenda Law was involved in operating a pirate honeypot. Failure to comply will result in a lawsuit in which the Internet provider will seek damages, a Comcast representative informs us. In addition, Comcast also alerted our hosting provider, who is now threatening to shut down our server."
It's a public court document, you don't own it you fucking douche-bag.
Of all things, court proceedings are one of the few exceptions to copyright law.
And if the lawyer who sent this notice doesn't know that, then someone at the bar association screwed up big time giving this guy a license to practice.
Counter-sue, and make sure to claim extra damage for the upstream baseless threats to your provider(s) and definitely for treble damages if this results in so much as a second of downtime.
Please, please do this. It's hard to get standing, but we desperately need these cases to be brought.
This is where SLAPP laws come into play.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
This just joins the long list of who cares copyright infringement notices that all major companies seem to think is necessary. I sure hope some CEOs and/or legal departments grow up soon, because I've had enough of everyone suing everyone over such insignificant crap. Especially when the reasoning is nill.
I am certain that the AG's office will be interested to know that a private company is laying claim to public court documents. Have your service provider (better yet, its lawyers) do the same. It will be great fun.
Stay in business AND get the word out. This seems like a really dumb move by comcast.
You'd think an internet service provider would have heard of it.
And they are apparently trying to ignore it until it goes away.
Um, Comcast, you messed up here and I suggest you "do the right thing" and admit it But I don't expect them to own up to the mistake anytime soon.
That leaves the question, what should the offended party do? Go to the public? (Done) Get it posted on SlashDot? (yep) File suit for the good of the next little fish who gets caught in Comcast's copyright protection folks? (Maybe)
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
I wonder, remember UK TV Links site, SurfTheChannel that was shut down by FACT and the owner, Anton Vickerman, prosecuted?
http://pastebin.com/KTddgaQN
One of the 'oddities' of that trial was the secret witnesses introduced, which the defense weren't allowed to see or challenge. They thought it would 'drip poison' into the ear of the judge, which could be fake evidence or lies that go unchallenged because of the secret nature. That seemed to be the case with the judge doing some down-right odd decision making after that secret evidence.
Now we have the NSA and GCHQ mass spying revealed. And we know they passed surveillance info about drugs on cars (which they either planted or were real), which the DEA officers would then stop and fabricate a pretext to avoid revealing they were told by the spooks to stop the car.
So, connecting the dots, did GCHQ or more likely NSA provide that secret witness part to Vickerman's trial? Was this passed off as NSA or GCHQ surveillance data?
"On 18 August 2010, a few weeks before the hearing in front of HHJ Evans to hear our dismissal application we were put on notice by FACT Ltd that they intended to request a “Public Interest Immunity” hearing in front of HHJ Evans. A PII hearing is usually used in cases where the CPS need to protect the identity of a covert source such as a super grass or protect covert secret methods that have been used in the obtaining of evidence in a case. I and my legal team did not think it was anything like this, we believed it was simply an attempt to drip poison into HHJ Evans ear about myself without any balance from my side. Because that is the thing about PII hearings, it is the prosecutor and the judge in the room only."
ScamCast is a better name for them.
Sounds like Torrentfreak needs to drop everything and move their goods to a server in the back of a pickup truck or out at sea somewhere? *innocent look*
[-)
What would Richard Feynman do, if he were here right now? He'd do some math and he'd follow through!
in case you want to read the original article:
http://torrentfreak.com/copyright-troll-ran-pirate-bay-honeypot-comcast-confirms-130815/
"Don't meddle in the affairs of a patent dragon, for thou art tasty and good with ketchup." ~ohcrapitssteve
If you have control over a given piece of intellectual property and deliberately place it into the public domain than you have for all intents and purposes turned that property over to the public domain. Remember this wasn't a honeypot run by law enforcement for purposes of trapping lawbreakers, this was done by the company for the purposes of creating lawbreakers in order to find people that they could sue.
This notion is not entirely without precedent, failing to protect intellectual property from use by the public domain is how aspirin, zipper and heroin all entered the public domain through a process called "genericisation". It's the same reason companies are so zealous about defending their IP for confusion.
eg:
upload to mega.co.nz
publish to mega-search.me
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
Someone needs to explain to Comcast the following words, "Public court records". This means that anyone who wants can read those documents and cover them in news. Comcast can not claim copyright over something they do not own copyright of, as is the case here.
There treath is a bullshit and it needs to be explained to Comcast in clear words. They clearly do not understand anything else.
May be OT, but the headline of the TorrentFreak post is awful. Just tried to post it to G+ and my post reads "Comcast threatens to sue TorrentFreak for Copyright Infringement", which totally does not capture the problem. /. headline is much better.
May Peace Prevail On Earth
hosting. US copyright law, Americas biggest enemy.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
I really miss what PJ and her friends at Groklaw would have done with this Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (SLAPP).
What clout does a DMCA have on a German firm?
Little do you realize the entire Prenda case is fiction, all written for entertainment purposes (c'mon, didn't you suspect?) and none of these things are really court documents. It's "Internet Porn" not in the sense of porn found on the Internet, but figurative porn, where the Internet is the subject (a la "food porn").
John Steele is just the name of the antagonist character (and in a recursive twist, he happens to be played by a brilliant comedic actor whose real name is "sharkmp4" and I, for one, find the writers stacked reuse of that name, to be hilarious).
And Comcast's letter was all just part of the creative work. The writers had a lot of meetings and shot-down ideas, before thought thought of having the Comcast character send that letter. And now by pirating a whole chapter, Torrentfreak is negatively impacting the resale market of the "The Prenda Case" serial, which had been licensed by Ars Technica, Slashdot, etc in order to provide ad impression fodder.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Though apparently at Comcast's behest. Cyveillance are a Big Government 'intelligence industry' contractor tied in with Secret Service, NSA and PRISM. They comb trough 'data sources' looking for 'violations' of 'intellectual property' and whatever other 'risks' they're asked to toll for by their customers. Google 'Cyveillance' and see the wikipedia article about them. It seems this is less of an issue of Comcast protecting something intellectual it created, but rather a desire to avoid more revelations about the information Comcast provides to government/legal entities. Tin foil hat time.
Good idea Comcast! What could possibly go wrong?
if (it != oneThing) it = another;
Comcastic!
This shit isn't worthy of the label "news" or "current events" or even "docu-romcom-tainment-dramedy".
Hi, Daniel Lawrence Whitney, is Comcast a nice place to work? This story IS worthy and if you didn't want it posted you should have voted against it in the firehose rather than bitching about its posting. If you did vote against it, YOU LOSE.
Free Martian Whores!
It seems to me that the takedown notice recipient could respond to the notice by:
- Contacting Comcast telling them that they have received the notice.
- Indicate to Comcast that the document is public, and that they would NOT be removing it.
- Notify a third party web service that publicly keeps track of bogus takedown notices.
This last thing would be awesome to help prevent these in the future. If this public site publishes this information, and it gets back to the CEO, or Comcast's advertisers, it would be some Negative PR which would provide some leverage to prevent these stupid things from happening in the first place.
Update 7pm CET: A Comcast spokesperson responded to an inquiry we sent to the company’s lawyers:
“[I] am replying to let you know that the cease and desist was sent in error, and you may disregard it. We apologize for any confusion this may have caused.”
The ISP threat contains the wording "PLEASE NOTIFY US WITHIN 24 HOURS WITH TAKEN ACTIONS". They did NOT say what actions need to be taken, other than to notify them. So notify them of exactly what actions were taken. Say "We have removed each piece of content listed in the referenced complaint. Since there were no items listed in the referenced complaint (see the referenced complaint yourself and you will see there there are none), there were no items removed and we have asked the complainant to provide us with the list. We will provide you with a copy of that list when we receive it. If you receive the list before we do, please send a copy of it to us as quickly as possible so we may act on it. For now, our actions are therefore complete.".
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
A copy that is taken with the agreement of the copyright holder or its accredited representative in the matter is your copy. Fully licensed.
This means you can't download a copy from someone else who got that copy from them.
But this DOES mean you who have yourself gotten a copy from them have full rights to that copy, just not the rights to copy.
So now if you find a copy of your stuff on my disk, I can claim I got it from your seed of the torrent. You now have to prove I did not. Good luck with that.
True, it isn't public domain, but it's no different, really, unless you're going to sell copies or derived works on.
If I introduce a non-public domain work into a court case, that does not make it public domain.
Granted, anyone who republishes it in the context of republishing court proceedings will have a credible claim to "fair use" but that's not a slam-dunk.
In this particular case though, it looks like Comcast hasn't even articulated a clear claim, so their cease-and-desist letter is at best meaningless and very likely constitutes harassment or is otherwise opening them up to be sued.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
They updated it said it was an accident even though we all know it was not.
What bunch of douche bag and if there was a decent alternative ISP in my area I would dump their fucking asses today.
I would absolutely love to see this go to court. Please, oh please let this go to court. Let Comcast seek damages for your posting of public court documents.
They're using their grammar skills there.
From TFA:
See the system works; the good guys won.
I am going to be the cold, hard dose of reality in your situation.
Takedown laws do not exist so one of the unwashed masses (this means you ) can protect their content. They exist so big business can protect whatever the the intellectual property du jour is that they want to be protected.
I can assure you that nobody in the government or judicial system has any interest at all in protecting situations like your web content. Don't know how you missed the memo, but the laws are for the benefit of the rich and corporations. If you were one of those, you'd be protected.
More like ComCRAPtic!
Updated: Comcast said the whole thing was a mistake. Nothing to see here, move along.
They are trying to become XFinity so that we all forget how Comcastic they are...
I would absolutely love to see this go to court. Please, oh please let this go to court. Let Comcast seek damages for your posting of public court documents.
Never going to happen. These clowns (Comcast's lawyers), as soon as they saw the website was contesting it, realised that this particular line of bullshit litigation would be shot down in flames immediately by the first judge who saw it. Its one thing being creative with interpreting laws relating to technology and explaining it to old men with no idea what you're talking about, quite another trying to do the same with legal procedure to a guy who both knows damn well how the law works, and has the power to slap you down if he thinks you're trying to step on his toes.
From the article: Update 7pm CET: A Comcast spokesperson responded to an inquiry we sent to the company’s lawyers:
“[I] am replying to let you know that the cease and desist was sent in error, and you may disregard it. We apologize for any confusion this may have caused.”
Anonymous threatens Comcast in response.
Are owned by the people. Unless sealed they are public domain.
Everyone print a copy and mail it to Comcast, COD.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Rule of law in the U.S. is dead, it just hasn't stopped moving yet. And when it does act, often it is against the interests of the the public and the country as a whole. The cause of America's legal abomination is the same as many of the country's other ills: massive corporations.
Their claim clearly has no merit and is intended to censor. In addition to filing a counter-suit, we should Steissand effect their sorry asses. Throwing threats around like that should not be tollerated.
Basically Comshaft is saying "We tried so WTF sue us". Typical big company lawyer bull shit.
If we're going to have (I wish we did not... they're bad news) DMCA take-down orders, we also need a law WITH TEETH that criminalizes the abuse of same.
Criminal penalties are junk in cases like this. To get any action you either have to convince a prosecutor to take your side (fat chance!) or win on a civil RICO suit.
On the other hand, statutory civil penalties, similar to those claimed by copyright trolls, seem like just the ticket. Sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander: Hit them with exactly what they're threatening YOU with.
In the absence of that (which would require passage of a law - though you might try to get such a law at your STATE level...) you might try suing them for damages (including lost income - your estimate, pain-and-suffering, lost of reputation, etc.) resulting from their commission of fraud.
Once you start seeing actual damages for filing false notices, watch them stop.
We're on the same page there. B-)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
I wrote something for a satire-type site. I eventually left the site and had my material taken down. Unfortunately, archive.org didn't hit the page. I eventually found a copy on Yahoo! somewhere (message board). I wasn't too happy as I wasn't credited in it, and I had no proof (as I mentioned, had it removed from the original site, and archive.org didn't have it). Not sure what to do.
It is time to have Justice and others with a long reach to look into COMCAST for their monopolistic tendancies and overly ruthless business practices. If AT&T and Standard Oil can go down, COMCAST can too.
Even if they don't they can inflict serious financial 'judgement' for even opposing them, due to the costs of lawyers and investigators needed to defend your own rights. Just because you have the rights and are on the side of right doesn't mean protecting it comes for free/cheap.
Pardon my ignorance please.
Troll you may be rated, sir, but...
Saw "Leonard J. Crabs" and it didn't set right, so searched, and yup, that's a character's name, alright. Strike. Still nagged me.
Aha! _Maynard G. Krebs_! Yes. Of course, one link clicked led to another. By a trail too tortuous to document, I ended up downloading the theme music to "Adventures in Paradise", a show I watched and greatly liked from 1959. Don't know if the "Tiki III" is still afloat, last blurb I saw had it in the water in Papeete.
So, thank you.
I also found this:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/139580101/Encyclopedia-of-TV-Shows-Series
dude goes on to have a handful encyclopedic publications - TV pilots, characters, etc.
looks like a cultural historian's bonanza
Yeah, yeah, off-topic. Sorry 'bout that. It's a talent. Or curse.
Of course, I could mention that the DMCA is like too much of recent law more weapon of the rich, mcgrew's experience nothwithstanding. I think that with a complete overhaul and re-write it could be likely done in a fair, useful, manner to protect the weak against the mighty - which, it may be argued, is the basis of law. Historically the mighty have been able to protect themselves.