Chilling Effects DMCA Archive Censors Itself

An anonymous reader sends this report from TorrentFreak: The much-praised Chilling Effects DMCA archive has taken an unprecedented step by censoring its own website. Facing criticism from copyright holders, the organization decided to wipe its presence from all popular search engines. A telling example of how pressure from rightsholders causes a chilling effect on free speech. ... "After much internal discussion the Chilling Effects project recently made the decision to remove the site’s notice pages from search engines," Berkman Center project coordinator Adam Holland informs TF. "Our recent relaunch of the site has brought it a lot more attention, and as a result, we’re currently thinking through ways to better balance making this information available for valuable study, research, and journalism, while still addressing the concerns of people whose information appears in the database."

Comments

Ffs

[Anonymous Coward]

Well who now watches the watchers?

I smell a rat

[Crashmarik]

Just what are they trying to balance ? People's right to know about abuses of the law with ?

Re:I smell a rat

[whoever57]

People's right to know about abuses of the law with

..with not being sued for contributory copyright infringement (or whatever it is called). Probably.

Re:I smell a rat

[sumdumass]

Well, they were on double super secret probation after all.

Re:I smell a rat

[hey!]

Well, there actually is a legitimate issue here.

Not every takedown notice in the Chilling Effects database is bogus. By putting the text of legitimate notices in a searchable database, Chilling Effects can be used to find infringing content. For example I didn't see "Interstellar" when it was in the theaters near me. Using Chilling Effects I very easily found a number of sites offering bootleg downloads.

If Google removes an infringing link from search result, having the takedown notice copy stored at Chilling Effects appear in Google search result effectively nullifies the takedown. The offending URL is right there in the takedown text.

So what is being balanced here is Chilling Effects' mission -- serving as a database for researching takedowns -- vs. the legitimate copyright interests of the people issuing the takedowns. It won't stop legitimate or illegitimate users of the Chilling Effects database, but it won't guide casual search engine users to infringing content either.

Of course this won't satisfy intellectual property interest groups, whose only mode of operation appears to be "scorched earth".

Re:I smell a rat

[Crashmarik]

Well I can see that argument but if you go to the site, there isn't anything there. So if they just wanted to not be a pirate bay 2.0 they could have removed the links. Either way I doubt this has much effect on piracy one way or another. Before you mentioned it, I would never have thought to use chilling effects to search for downloads. The sites that specialize in such things do a much more thorough job of providing downloads.

Not always Free Speech

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not always about Free Speech, sometimes it's just copyright infringement.

A huge amount of notices on chilling effects are obvious and blatant copyright infringement notices of movies, films, music.

There are some that are real Free Speech issues when someone uses DMCA to stop others from speaking, but that's a minority. This minority is the one that must be fought.

If all notices are treated as a whole, making no distinction between real freedom issues and pirates abusing the system, the battle will be lost.

Re:Not always Free Speech

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not always about Free Speech, sometimes it's just copyright infringement.

Go on, tell us when it's permissible for copyright infringment to trump free speech. I'll buy this argument only in the straight-up "somebody distributes copyrighted material which I own and does so without my express permission".

In particular I don't buy this argument for just about everything else, like "oh that looks like it might be our copyright so we'll issue some takedown requests, in fact we'll automate that process entirely for our convenience."

Moreso because the applicable law contains rather specific wording that seek to put the culpability for misdetermining the applicability (ie whether the claimed copyright is actually the owned copyright) on the complainer. Start with rigorously enforcing that provision, especially on the big copyright holding companies and the surrounding cottage industry, and you may start to have an argument.

If all notices are treated as a whole, making no distinction between real freedom issues and pirates abusing the system, the battle will be lost.

This implies that (you think) publishing copyright infringment takedown notices themselves are copyright infringment. What inherent right to obscurity does complaining about infringment have? Why is this different from, oh, court records, that by default are open? In fact, we can see in recent court history that many times requests for sealing are dubious at best, especially when asked for by (and too often incongruously granted to) large parties with something to hide, like the government, or large corporations. That is, lack of transparency and thereby guaranteeing lack of accountability is rather bad for the rest of us.

And if you wonder why that is bad, you may peruse this discussion of copyright and the US constitution for some roundabout enlightenment. The copyright monopoly isn't a right, it's a privilege, with a distinct goal that is not remotely equal with "making lots of money for big corporations".

Re:Not always Free Speech

[DarkTempes]

The "battle" was lost a long time ago.

The war on drugs couldn't even be "won" and that had physical products with high costs and prison sentences.
How does anyone possibly think they can stop information, right or wrong, on a system that is designed to facilitate moving information?

It's honestly a waste of time and humanity would be much better served spending the resources/time/money/man hours elsewhere.

Re:Not always Free Speech

[znrt]

It's not always about Free Speech, sometimes it's just copyright infringement

that's funny because copyright law is fundamentally about censoring free speech.

so you can record a song and sell zillions of zero-cost copies for a profit. great! if i then buy one of those and share my own copy with anybody i'm suddenly a pirate? read my lips: gfy.

If all notices are treated as a whole, making no distinction between real freedom issues and pirates abusing the system, the battle will be lost.

that all notices are public is nice, so we can all see who the real pirates are.

Re:Not always Free Speech

[Anonymous Coward]

"A huge amount of notices on chilling effects are obvious and blatant copyright infringement notices of movies, films, music."

And what's the problem? The RIAA/MPAA and similar groups take down tons of videos, music, and more that are protected speech (parodies, fair use), that are in the public domain, or that they don't even own the copyrights too, as well as bully lawmakers to write new laws that extend copyright perpetually and make 99.9% of Americans criminal scum by default. I have absolutely no sympathy for these bozos.

Information wants to be free. Find another business model or go the way of the dodo. Fucktards.

And everyone keep encouraging boycotting their shit, and if you absolutely have to watch something these greedy bastards are connected to, pirate it. And seed torrents so that other people can find easy ways to download this material and help put these bastard companies out of business for good.

Re:Not always Free Speech

[allo]

Piracy Links are free speech.

an illegal download ... is illegal.
But a link to this download on the google page per se is free speech. Now a DMCA censors this free speech of google to link this page for the correct search terms. That's what chillingeffects records.

Re:Not always Free Speech

[ratboy666]

What is an "illegal download", allo? That would be child porn, and "hate speech" in my jurisdiction.

Re:Not always Free Speech

[HiThere]

Actually, I'm willing to believe what he says, i.e. "most of the complaints are about actual copyright infringement", without proof. That these don't get reported is what one would expect to see, and given how easy it is to make a direct copy, one would expect that to happen often.

So what? How much harm does an instance of copyright infringement do compared with censoring one instance of free speech. Even the great predominance being valid complaints would not suffice to justify this act, and in particular the requirement of difficult proof on the part of the poster rather than on the part of the complainer. (Additionally it should be relatively easy to prove genuine copyright infringement in any clear case, whereas proving that it isn't copyright infringement is likely to require purchasing something that may not be available, and in any case would enrich the unjust complainer.)

The law as written is grossly and intentionally unfair, and I cannot accept that ANYONE who uses it is doing so in good faith without extensive proof.

Re:Not always Free Speech

[znrt]

funny how you display such a narrow minded concept of "free speech" and yet call me the moron :-)

Re:Not always Free Speech

[allo]

i did not specify this too exact. If you really want to nitpick, probably both and pirated stuff are not, because the download itself is not forbidden in many jurisdication, only the ownership and the distribution. What i meant, and i guess you know it, is that the illegal copy of a file is something which can be taken down with a DMCA, if the hoster is liable in this jurisdication. But taking down a link to this stuff is censorship.

Re:Not always Free Speech

[allo]

maybe its not where you live. in europe it is.

Re:Not always Free Speech

[russotto]

Aww, poor baby copyright holders, have to give their legal address to have someone else's URL suppressed. Never mind that the DMCA _counternotice_ requires not just a legal address, but an invitation to sue. And the legal address part has been used by false claimants to commit terrorism

Re:Not always Free Speech

[SuricouRaven]

How do you calculate that 400% figure as relating entirely to going after pirates?

Identify the software, and I will find you a cracked version. I'll even time how long it takes me.

Re:Not always Free Speech

[fustakrakich]

You're looking at it from the wrong angle. First off, there's big profits in prohibition. Second it provides pretext for the police to raid your house and kill your dog. Think of them as 'speed traps' for revenue.

Re:Not always Free Speech

[Dare nMc]

I do think their is often a misunderstanding of what protected free speech is. Free speech has never meant (in the US) no cost to speak, and it has never meant that all locations and media are protected from private interests impeding on all speech. At least constitutionally protected free speech is only guaranteed for individuals from government intrusion (and civil court judgments are generally not counted as government intrusion). It especially hasn't meant that commercial speech is protected (citizens united rulling excepted.)

In your example, Google does have the ability to post copyrighted works, but not without cost. Especially since that is commercial speech for profit, it may be free speech but it is not protected free speech. So they do need to pay the creators of that value, and avoid contributing to criminal acts, if they don't want to be sued out of existence.
You as a individual should be able to post a link to a torrent, without fear of criminal prosecution. But google as a commercial for profit company can be required to not host your free speech. Just like I don't have to allow the Jehovah Witness into my house to talk about his beliefs, I don't have to give him a platform, but if he provides his own platform (his temple) then while their I cannot stop him.

Re:Not always Free Speech

[ZosX]

Amen!

Re:Not always Free Speech

[blackest_k]

"jon wolf photography"

thats interesting you see last week I was getting a notice at the bottom of the page telling me some results may have been removed under the european right to be forgotten laws

Just googled that now and there is no notice. (The notice didn't tell me who or why) unlike ones for movies which often give a list of urls where you might find a movie download or a project on github.

Not having the notice means there is no incentive for me to keep digging

this all started when someone bid at a charity for a $500 gift voucher for a photography session with him. they wanted 3 images he said it would be an additional $900 dollars after thats paid, then he said it would be another $9000 for 3 prints! talk about bait and switch...

Googling him revealed that in 2011 there was a 9 year girl shot and he decided to sue the media for breaching his copyright by showing the parents holding a photograph of the dead girl ( he took the photograph) 2 days after the girls death he went to the parents to get a commercial release for the photo... I believe the parents had to trademark or copyright the girls name to stop her being exploited.

So thats what I could find even with right to be forgotten but it seems there was more I couldn't find, that google wouldn't show me but kind of inferred existed.

Today no notice, I just remember it was there last week my next search I will not have a clue as to what has been hidden.

Maybe this is why yahoo seems to be pulling back a little in search, seems I need a new search engine.

Re:Not always Free Speech

[the_B0fh]

The problem is - who makes the distinction? They were just a repository, making it available for anyone to review and analyze it themselves.

Re:Not always Free Speech

[iNaya]

From Wikipedia: "Freedom of speech is the political right to communicate one's opinions and ideas using one's body to anyone who is willing to receive them."

Merriam Webster: "the right to express facts and opinions subject only to reasonable limitations (as the power of the government to protect itself from a clear and present danger) guaranteed by the 1st and 14th amendments to the U.S. Constitution and similar provisions of some state constitutions"

Oxford Dictionaries: "The right to express any opinions without censorship or restraint."

I am capable of communicating the entirety of my ideas and opinions without having to copy someone else's work. So despite ACs rudeness, I don't consider him/her to be wrong about free speech.

But I could be wrong under the Oxford definition because it really depends what entails a "restraint", and being restrained by not being able to reproduce someone;s work could count. But by uploading torrents of the latest movies, I'm not really expressing any opinion to begin with. To actually express something, one would need to cut and add commentary about the movie expressing an actual opinion, which would then fall under "fair use" for most purposes.

The Merriam Webster entry seems to say that freedom of speech can be defined by the government, which I consider absurd.

The Wikipedia entry specifically says "using one's body", so under that definition, breaking movie copyright certainly doesn't count. Doing a rendition of "happy birthday" could count as free speech that is stopped by copyright law imo.

Re:Not always Free Speech

[allo]

yes and no.
First: Free Speech is about to speak free to those, who want to listen. Not to get a platform everywhere. Full ACK.
But: Free Speech should protect companies as well.

What can be compared to your post in germany is the right to "private copies", which means you can legally copy the CD for your car radio and you can give the copy even to relatives or close friends. Which excludes wider audiences or even companies.

But a .torrent is like a map. Nobody should forbid you to print a map with a big red X where you can buy drugs. Its even good for the cops, they look at the map and find the dealer. But the governments are taking another route: confiscate the map and tell everyone you solved the problem. While the junkies still have a copy of the map or now the location without map.

yeah, a lot of metaphors :)

Re:Not always Free Speech

[Dare nMc]

>But: Free Speech should protect companies as well.

Sure, but for profit speech must be accurate and follow local laws. I can proclaim snake oil as a cure for cancer, but I cannot sell it as a cure for cancer. I also cannot be legaly paid, or otherwise make a profit for selling snake oil as a cure, without some proof. You cannot have businesses profiting from illegal actions and hiding behind free speech. If you are sold a product for a purpose, you expect it to be safe, effective and legal. If it is not; you should be able to report it, and the government should be allowed to stop that company or person from continuing in that activity.

Re:Not always Free Speech

[allo]

No, not even there is a difference.
You can say, you think Snakeoil will cure cancer. If you tell, it really does, you can be held liable, even as person. If you told in good faith, you will not be liable for telling lies about it, maybe for exaggerating its healthiness. Of course, the penalty for lying about it will be higher, if you do so to sell it. So make sure to have sources for your claims and add references to them where its needed, then you'll be save. Otherwise you can even get problems if you blog about something, which is not clearly marked as cite or opinion.

Re:Not always Free Speech

[znrt]

from your own investigation you might have already inferred that "freedom of speech" is a indeed pretty broad concept. distributing content is speech. meta-speech if you like because the very act of doing so can be a statement. for me personally it undoubtly is.

copyright law originates from the very basic desire to control the printing press, a few centuries ago. the bits about the "creator" came later on and are just a byproduct, today that's the facade for another fundamental goal which is the control of information and business. of course this pleases those who make big profit from that. however, it screws everyone else, and diminishes society by promoting selfish values and severely damaging liberty of expression, freedom of speech if you prefer.

analogous to "constructive dismissal"

[Shadow of Eternity]

If the only way to find something is to already know it's there and exactly how to get to it then effectively it doesn't exist for anyone else because they'll never be able to find it on their own.

Censorship is bad. Mmmkay?

[houghi]

Many people think that censorship is only censorship if it is done by the government. That is not the case.

Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication or other information which may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, politically incorrect or inconvenient as determined by governments, media outlets, authorities or other groups or institutions.

So where are all these people who say that free speech is important? So how imporatnt is it for you? Enough to press 'like' on Facebook? Enough to actually talk to people in person? Enough to go on the streets for and demand change? Enough to die for?

My guess it stops at the Facebook stage. I know I am guilty of that.

The censoring of free speech

[Anonymous Coward]

There are some that are real Free Speech issues when someone uses DMCA to stop others from speaking, but that's a minority

No matter how small that minority is, a censorship of free speech is A CENSORSHIP OF FREE SPEECH, much like what those motherfucking Islamists did in Paris

If we cowed to those fuckers then we might as well wave goodbye to the Western culture which celebrates freedom and liberty, at least as it has been portraying itself to be

Re:The censoring of free speech

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, censorship must be fought.

But you are equating the killing on Paris to a police raid on a shop selling pirated products.
One is an attack on freedom, the other is not.

The minority of notices on chilling effects that involve an attack on freedom must be fought. The notices involving copyright infringement are not an attack on freedom, they are pirates abusing the report system and if you put all on the same basket, the war for freedom is lost.

Re:The censoring of free speech

[fustakrakich]

Copyright is a weapon, being used to attack free speech. You are wrong. DMCA is evil, all of it.

Re:The censoring of free speech

[fustakrakich]

Got any crackers?

Re:The censoring of free speech

[squiggleslash]

You're right, a takedown notice requesting that a torrent of the latest One Direction song be removed from Google's search engine index is exactly the same as brutally murdering some cartoonists. Because somehow if I can't play back someone else's performance of someone else's song that's interfering, in some way, with my ability to express an opinion.

• Slow Down Cowboy! Slashdot requires you to wait between each successful posting of a comment to allow everyone a fair chance at posting a comment. It's been 4 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment Chances are, you're behind a firewall or proxy, or clicked the Back button to accidentally reuse a form. Please try again. If the problem persists, and all other options have been tried, contact the site administrator.

Re:The censoring of free speech

[fustakrakich]

... is exactly the same as brutally murdering...

Oldest trick in the books there, pal. Maybe that garbage works on some, but it falls flat on this end... Censorship is bad. Nothing else to say.

Re:The censoring of free speech

[afidel]

DMCA is evil, all of it.

Not at all, the compulsory licensing parts of it are why many services are available in the US and not in other countries and the safeharbor provisions are probably the only reason we still have search engines.

Re: The censoring of free speech

[fustakrakich]

Yes it is. The content is irrelevant.

Re:The censoring of free speech

[fustakrakich]

Not worth the price. Safe harbor can be provided without the other baggage. It's a sham.

Is there such a thing as a P2P search engine?

[Karmashock]

Because we appear to need one. And I don't mean an engine that search P2P torrents or something but rather one that is like google or Bing but run P2P sort of like Tor or something.

It doesn't need to be fast. It just needs to work.

Re:Is there such a thing as a P2P search engine?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes there is. See here: http://yacy.net/en/index.html

Re:Is there such a thing as a P2P search engine?

[Karmashock]

Very cool. That may be what we have to shift to if they keep fucking with the search engines.

Chilling Effects Firefox extention?

[lhaeh]

Seems like a firefox extention would be a good way to solve this.

Re:Chilling Effects Firefox extention?

[SeaFox]

Except the point of ChillingEffects notices on search pages was to make the average person aware of these results being omitted. People who don't think this stuff really has any effect on them. The average person isn't going to know about, or bother installing, a Firefox extension to see.

Coawrds. They always cave in to pressure.

[Anonymous Coward]

These idiots are cowards.

If they knew they were cowards to begin with they never should have
started.

There is nothing worse than a coward, unless perhaps it is a quitter.

Somebody should mirror the site

[russotto]

Mirror the site, add links to each page back to the original, and make the mirror indexable. The site can't be so fast-changing this is impractical.

I never heard of this site ...

[CaptainDork]

... I am late to the party and there's no ice.

Did I miss much?

CH*E CHARLIE

[CanEHdian]

Chilling Effects is not CHARLIE. Chilling Effects is licking Chris Dodd's boots.

Re:Chilling Effects not censoring anyone

[mike2006]

I see you dropped off the newslookup.com news archive back in September after the redesign and I was going to add you back but noticed that even your news-blog section is blocked.

Your robots.txt has

User-agent: *
Disallow: /

This means the entire site is being blocked including the blog at /blog_entries

Fork Chilling Effects!

[fustakrakich]

That's right. Create an alternative. As for Google, well fuck them too!

Re:This is how DMCA takedown works at Google

[CanEHdian]

Remember, your DMCA letter contains the juicy content, like weblinks to pirated and other copyrighted material.

1. Copyright holder sents DMCA letter to Google. 2. Google takes down copyrighted content. 3. Google sends your DMCA letter to ChillingEffects. 4. ChillingEffects posts your DMCA letter to its website. 5. Google caches the ChillingEffects website. Your copyrighted material is NOW back on Google.

6. We check *alleged* copyrighted content.
7. Content appears to be a self-made movie of birds singing, instead of the copyrighted work.
8. *Claimant* on behalf of "Copyright holder" still gets away with this act of vandalism scott-free, but we can put another mark on the bench

Re:This is how DMCA takedown works at Google

[ShaunC]

In your Step 5, only the first sentence is valid. Chilling Effects is never given a copy of your copyrighted material, they do not post a copy of your copyrighted material. They post a copy of the DMCA notice that you sent to Google. If that DMCA notice contains a list of 100 URLs where I can download your copyrighted material, I'm afraid that's too bad. Maybe you should be filing your DMCA notices against the places actually hosting your copyrighted material, so that those URLs no longer function, instead of filing your complaints against a search engine.

I don't understand

[future assassin]

what could the medai companiesthreaten hem with? Give me the DB and I'll put it up.

Re:I don't understand

[future assassin]

Besidees wgetany other good methods to mirror the site? Is is there info on how many noticed there are? I'l get a $5 vps and just clone it. Chilligeffects should run their own mirror so we can use rsync to keep it updated.

Avast rates this as a suspect site... seriously?

[Maxo-Texas]

Someone pumped the ratings at Avast to make Chilling Effects show as a suspect site.

So the site that tried to take over my computer last week is safe but Chilling Effects is suspect?

I can't see a way to put in a plus rating for it.

Re:Chilling Effects not censoring anyone

[russotto]

The claim of the above OP (AC signed "Wendy", I assume the AC is claiming to be Chilling Effects founder Wendy Seltzer) that "it was not our intent to remove the site from search engines " doesn't square with these from the article.

After much internal discussion the Chilling Effects project recently made the decision to remove the siteâ(TM)s notice pages from search engines,
Berkman Center project coordinator Adam Holland informs TF.

Our recent relaunch of the site has brought it a lot more attention, and as a result, weâ(TM)re currently thinking through ways to better balance making this information available for valuable study, research, and journalism, while still addressing the concerns of people whose information appears in the database.

Yeah. Balance. I know what that means -- in the words of Michael Jackson, it means "They'll kick you, then they beat you / Then they'll tell you it's fair"

chilling effect website great pirate site!

[Cito]

When I wanted a eBook and couldn't find a copy on torrent I'd notice at bottom of Google "listing removed via DMCA .... Notice on chilling effect site"

So I'd pull up chilling effect and search for book, find the DMCA takedown request. Since they couldn't take down the file as its hosted overseas, the URL is requested be removed from google.

So copy and paste the URL in the DMCA notice and thanks to the broken moronic DMCA system I can download all pirated material I want, since DMCA takedowns are public just browse the takedowns, copy & paste the URLs they list for removal and download your warez.

You can still search chilling effect DMCA requests then copy URL of pirated content to download.

Chilling Effect's website is my third most used pirate site next to torrents. As all the URLs are listed in all DMCA notices. Just copy and paste link and download all ya want