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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.
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.
Countersue the legal representation and win by default since DMCA use doesn't apply to content you don't own copyright on?
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eg:
upload to mega.co.nz
publish to mega-search.me
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Comcastic!
I'd agree that they drastically hurt their case by running the honeypot, but I'd take issue with calling putting stuff online "placing it in the public domain." There seems to be a mistaken notion that a lot of people have that things on the Internet are automatically public domain for anyone to use in anyway they like. This is completely false. You can't just use Google Images, find a photo you like, and place it in an ad campaign/blog post/whatever. You can't just take some text that someone wrote and republish all of it in a book. Copyright DOES exist online. It doesn't go away just because the method used for conveying the item is digital versus print.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
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
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.
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.
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.
Sorry, but we don''t *know* it wasn't an accident. We suspect that it wasn't. It may be a very strong suspicion, but that's not proof. A public appology would be a strong case that they regretted the action, but I can't think of anything that would count as proof that it was an accident.
OTOH, I don't even expect a public appology. And THAT'S not proof that it was intentional. Proof that it was intentional would require something like a note from a manager to the legal department, which isn't to be expected even if it happened.
At the moment you can reasonably decide either to believe them, or to consider them bare-fced liars (or both). The evidence isn't conclusive.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
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.