I don't understand, how does this help with the other 4,000 DMCA takedowns?
There was a domino effect. My counter-claim was one of the first. It was joined by some other counter-claims, all against the same entity, ARC. There were other complaints made outside of the DMCA counter-claim system about ARC. YouTube's appropriate department eventually received enough of these to get suspicious about ARC, and found that they didn't exist. YouTube then reversed themselves on all claims made by ARC, then found the claims made by the other false claimants and reversed them as well.
If I had done this in isolation, yeah, it would have meant that one video went back up. But there are these things called message boards. I was keeping other Anons appraised in real-time (as much as possible, without blowing the nature of the honeypot) about what I was doing and how I was doing it, including posting copies of the text of the counter-claim so that they could use it. Other Anons used the information that I posted to initiate further action. There was also a first-guy-in-the-pool thing going on. Someone had to jump in first to prove the water was fine.
Also, Anons and critics were attacking from a number of directions. There were e-mails and phone calls being made to YouTube in an effort to prevent Anons being named, which caused YouTube some suspicions. The DMCA counter-claims were Anon's most powerful weapon, but they could only be filed by Anons whose identities were already compromised in order to minimize risk.
I have to admit that it was a calculated risk. However, I decided that there was nothing they could use against me that I haven't already publicly admitted to. I live in a low-priority area for them (in other words, not in LA or Clearwater, Florida). I felt that I wouldn't be a priority target.
Revealing my identity was the quid pro quo for getting a large story in the Chicago Tribune (please, don't start in about revealing identities of sources and such; the Trib was trying to protect themselves against litigation by Scientology). That story led to another one in Pioneer Press, for which I was interviewed and photographed, putting a lie to Scientology's blanket statement about Anonymous being "bored college students" (I graduated from college over twenty years ago). It led to Anonymous appearing on Mancow's syndicated radio show, which led to other Anonymous press appearances. Again, calculated risk. The amount of Win for Anonymous exceeded the amount of danger for me.
It's been a month and a half, and I haven't even received a Cease and Desist letter, much less been beaten up by angry Scientologists. I wouldn't recommend that other Anons do this, but it turned out to be worth it for me.
Not sure what they actually expected to gain from doing this. They will likely be in legal trouble and now they have just made the anti-Scientology videos more popular than ever. What asshats.
I'll tell you why, but it'll be a little tl;dr:
1) Scientologists are required to attack any criticism of the Church, by holy writ of Hubbard.
2) The timing was critical. On September 3rd, a large, well-publicized anti-Scientology conference was held in Hamburg. A whole boatload of high-powered Scientologists were sent there to try to stop it, and failed. They tried to get into the conference, and failed. They knew that Anonymous was attending with their video cameras. They knew that these videos would be going up as quickly as possible. This was a preemptive strike to a) take down as many popular anti-Scientology YouTube channels as possible and b) create an atmosphere to make Anonymous members afraid to upload those videos.
2a) They did this once before recently. Actor Jason Beghe left the Church and was ready to speak out in full to popular critic Mark Bunker. A teaser of the interview was released on YouTube. A few days before the full interview was to be released, Bunker's YouTube account was taken down, and it took over a week, with a lot of effort by Bunker and the critic community (including Anonymous) to get it back up. That's when Anonymous discovered Vimeo.
2b) Speaking of Vimeo, the takedowns also affected some videos there too. They didn't limit themselves to YouTube, but they did concentrate their efforts there.
If that's true, then it would seem the perjury bit actually has merit...
I wonder if we can talk anyone into going after the claimants?
You would have to find them first. Whoever did this, whether it was Oliver Schaper or Scientology's Office of Special Affairs, used sockpuppet companies that don't exist (seriously, when this started, we checked, first using Google and then using state corporate record databases). How do you sue someeone who doesn't exist?
Do the anti-Scientology posters to youtube have to reveal information about themselves to Scientology Inc. through their counter-notices? Isn't this just a way for Scientology to get the identities of the posters?
Technically, they have to reveal their identities to YouTube, which has to forward them to the complaintant. This is why takedown notices were only done by people whose identities were already public (as I said in another thread above, I'm one of them). Fortunately, it was enough to get the videos reinstated, but it did cause Anonymous some problems at first.
Some of the videos that were taken down were broadcasts of news stories.
One of the main targets for Scientology during the takedown was an expose done on the Australian news-magazine program Today Tonight a few months ago on Scientology's use of child labor. This was targeted because Anonymous' protest theme this month focuses on children, and the Today Tonight story was being prominently used in Anon promotional material for this protest.
In fact, it was this video that was taken down from my honeypot account that I used to file a DMCA counter-claim.
Legal expenses? Their lawyers are probably scientologists and doing their work for free in exchange for moving up the ranks.
Most of Scientology's lawyers are Scientologists, but they aren't doing what they do for barter. They charge the Church, then use some of that money to pay for Scientology services. When they do Scientology services, that is. Kendrick Moxon, Scientology's chief attack dog, hasn't done any services in years, just like David Miscavige.
Are scientologists required by their beliefs to silence all criticism no matter what the cost is? My respect for Hubbard will increase a lot if they are... adding a self destruct commandment to his cult in case it ever got out of control.
Actually, yes, they are. I don't have the exact HCOPL at hand to quote from it, but Google the phrase "always attack, never defend".
There are numerous instances where Scientology has gone out of their way, at great expense, to silence critics. Just to cite one example, in 1991, Time Magazine published a cover story critical of Scientology. Not only did they sue Time for over ten million dollars (and lose), but in order to mitigate the damage, they published full-page ads in USA Today for a week (very expensive then as today).
They kept ex-Scientologist and critic Lawrence Wollersheim in court for over a decade after he won a suit against them for nine million dollars. The official line from Scientology, which was spread to their members, was "Not one thin dime for Wollersheim." All they did was get the judgment downgraded to two and a half million, and they eventually paid up.
So, yeah, they'll spend any amount of money necessary to silence people.
The videos likely have references to copyrighted materials, perhaps even direct readings from them, in which case they own that material and as such have a valid claim of copyright to that particular material, not the whole video. However, the video would have to be pulled until that is determined or the offending part removed.
Yes, except:
1) The Church of Scientology, and more specifically their copyright holding company the Church of Spiritual Technology, was not the claimant(s).
2) Some videos were specifically reworked by the creators to eliminate any and all possible claims of copyright, including getting rid of the music. Those videos were still taken down, some of them within ten minutes of being uploaded.
I would wager that Scientology sees this as a win-win situation. Either the videos come down without reprisals, or the video creators have to file charges/suits using their real names, opening them up to being 'fair gamed'.
Bingo. This actually started a week ago courtesy of porn baron/Scientologist Oliver Schaper. At the time, the possibility of DMCA counter-claim was mooted among Anonymous, and shot down due to this exact reason. Scientology monitors Anonymous message boards, and for this reason, some of us think that they came to the conclusion that they had the green light to do this.
What Scientology didn't gamble on was the fact that there are some Anonymous whose identities are already known and who were willing to take action. I was one of them.
I delved back into my Slashdot experiences for this purpose and used the old sysop trick for catching spammers: set up a honeypot. I created a YouTube account and uploaded certain videos which seemed to have a good chance of getting taken down for specious reasons. Sure enough, one of them was. Within thirty minutes, I filed a counter-claim.
We can only hope they use Thunderdome rules. Two men enter, one man leaves!
There is a very good reason why we in Chanology call our out-of-control playpen at Enturbulation.org the Thunderdome...
I'm not sure of the details, but the church of scientology holds copyrights and trademarks on all its "works." It does this to prevent unauthorized usage of them. Its content is no more or less protected than that of an individual or corporation.
No, you aren't aware of the details. In none of the four thousand instances was material from the Church of Scientology (technically, the Church of Spiritual Technology, their front corporation that's set up to hold all their copyrights for them) used in any video.
And CST was NOT the claimant. They used at least five different false claimants to have the videos taken down. When YouTube found out through the counter-claims and various other complaints that these claimants didn't exist, YouTube put the videos back up. Unfortunately, that took as much as sixteen hours from the time of the original takedown.
YouTube itself actually has a very good guide in its help section on how to file a DMCA counter-claim, linking to Chilling Effects' Java applet for generating a counter-claim letter:
Are you honestly surprised at this? Valve has been heading in this direction for a long time. Remember Team Fortress 2? It's been vaporware for as long as Duke Nukem Formaldehyde.
The first six were terrific. The big problem is that they did no work on the VI engine at all, and VII and VIII looked and played like they were heavily dated (IX was supposed to update the tech, but didn't do it enough, and the plot was execrable). My memory's slipping on exactly when New World was bought out by 3DO, but I think it was between VI and VII, which would explain that decision.
Rich-ass Branson, harmless and benign? He didn't even have that kind of reputation as a kid. Ask anyone who was at Apple (the Beatles' Apple, not Steve's). As a teenager, he was known around Savile Row as an intolerable pest who was escorted from the building any number of times, and who eventually used his father's money and lawyers to harass the Beatles into giving an "exclusive" recording to his fledgling music magazine. That's when, to get Branson off their backs, John Lennon gave him the recording of Yoko's stillborn baby's dying heartbeat to put on his flexi-disc. And how did Branson make his first money with Virgin Records? By importing records illegally and selling them for a mark-up.
Branson knows how to be ruthless. He's always said that Sir Freddie Laker told him to be ruthless when he entered the aviation industry, but all he needed to do was apply the advice. He'd be perfect as CEO of Apple. He might be the only person who'd make Ballmer cack his briefs.
That won't happen. It would require the agreement of five people: Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Olivia Harrison, Yoko Ono, and Neil Aspinall. Given the fact that Paul and Yoko are control freaks when it comes to Beatles exploitation, they'd never allow a purchase.
Here in China MP4 compliance is a big selling point for cell phones, PDAs, and other random gadgets. I gotta believe it's the same in the US.
No, it isn't. MP4 compatibility isn't mentioned at all as a selling point. "Play videos" is about the most that you get in ads. And most phones that do video here utilize.3gp as the standard file format. I had to hack the firmware on my phone so that it records video in MP4.
And Rod the Mod should spend his efforts on getting the state capitol moved to Chicago, where the Republican Party is essentially outlawed and has been since the 1930s. That way, we can avoid having any more Republican felons in the governor's office. At least it's been 30 years since we had a Democratic governor who went to the pokey.
Yes, I can say this because I'm Chicago born, bred, and resident, and I worked for the State of Illinois for six and a half years. So you can go and pound salt, you downstate GOP lick-spittle, at least until you learn how to spell "governor".
Why was there not even a single mention of StarCraft? WHEN WILL STARCRAFT 2 COME OUT?! That's the only question that matters.
No, the only question that matters is "Will Starcraft 2 phone home with all the info in your address book like the original did?"
Re:A flawed article the slashdot link is pointing
on
Blizzard's 'Secret Sauce'
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Yeah, Starcraft had great quality. It didn't skip an entry when it phoned home with all the information in your address book. You just can't get that kind of quality with spyware these days.
You mean the same Steve Jobs who worked at Atari in 1974? The same Steve Jobs who is on record as being the creator of Breakout (even though we all know Woz did the programming for the game)? For some reason, yes, I can, even if he might not be able to these days.
Once upon a time, there was a little company called Blizzard. They had a loyal customer in me due to game quality, because I could be certain when I plunked my money down that I was going to get my value. Then, they released a science-fiction RTS that phoned home with personal information in some misguided anti-piracy effort and were sued for it. Yes, they released a patch to said game that eliminated this, but with that action, they made certain that myself and a number of other people never gave dime one to them again.
If this had been any company other than Blizzard (with the possible exception of BioWare), their reputation would have been justifiably ruined. It's amazing how the Starcraft imbroglio has been forgotten and shoved under the carpet. I will never forgive them for that, and the looks I get when I tell WoW fanboys about what happened in 1998 and why I won't be joining them. They can't believe that their beloved Blizzard would sink so low.
Atarigrammes is a bunch of bastards, but at least they don't copy your address book and send it back to their servers.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't understand, how does this help with the other 4,000 DMCA takedowns?
There was a domino effect. My counter-claim was one of the first. It was joined by some other counter-claims, all against the same entity, ARC. There were other complaints made outside of the DMCA counter-claim system about ARC. YouTube's appropriate department eventually received enough of these to get suspicious about ARC, and found that they didn't exist. YouTube then reversed themselves on all claims made by ARC, then found the claims made by the other false claimants and reversed them as well.
If I had done this in isolation, yeah, it would have meant that one video went back up. But there are these things called message boards. I was keeping other Anons appraised in real-time (as much as possible, without blowing the nature of the honeypot) about what I was doing and how I was doing it, including posting copies of the text of the counter-claim so that they could use it. Other Anons used the information that I posted to initiate further action. There was also a first-guy-in-the-pool thing going on. Someone had to jump in first to prove the water was fine.
Also, Anons and critics were attacking from a number of directions. There were e-mails and phone calls being made to YouTube in an effort to prevent Anons being named, which caused YouTube some suspicions. The DMCA counter-claims were Anon's most powerful weapon, but they could only be filed by Anons whose identities were already compromised in order to minimize risk.
I have to admit that it was a calculated risk. However, I decided that there was nothing they could use against me that I haven't already publicly admitted to. I live in a low-priority area for them (in other words, not in LA or Clearwater, Florida). I felt that I wouldn't be a priority target.
Revealing my identity was the quid pro quo for getting a large story in the Chicago Tribune (please, don't start in about revealing identities of sources and such; the Trib was trying to protect themselves against litigation by Scientology). That story led to another one in Pioneer Press, for which I was interviewed and photographed, putting a lie to Scientology's blanket statement about Anonymous being "bored college students" (I graduated from college over twenty years ago). It led to Anonymous appearing on Mancow's syndicated radio show, which led to other Anonymous press appearances. Again, calculated risk. The amount of Win for Anonymous exceeded the amount of danger for me.
It's been a month and a half, and I haven't even received a Cease and Desist letter, much less been beaten up by angry Scientologists. I wouldn't recommend that other Anons do this, but it turned out to be worth it for me.
Not sure what they actually expected to gain from doing this. They will likely be in legal trouble and now they have just made the anti-Scientology videos more popular than ever. What asshats.
I'll tell you why, but it'll be a little tl;dr:
1) Scientologists are required to attack any criticism of the Church, by holy writ of Hubbard.
2) The timing was critical. On September 3rd, a large, well-publicized anti-Scientology conference was held in Hamburg. A whole boatload of high-powered Scientologists were sent there to try to stop it, and failed. They tried to get into the conference, and failed. They knew that Anonymous was attending with their video cameras. They knew that these videos would be going up as quickly as possible. This was a preemptive strike to a) take down as many popular anti-Scientology YouTube channels as possible and b) create an atmosphere to make Anonymous members afraid to upload those videos.
2a) They did this once before recently. Actor Jason Beghe left the Church and was ready to speak out in full to popular critic Mark Bunker. A teaser of the interview was released on YouTube. A few days before the full interview was to be released, Bunker's YouTube account was taken down, and it took over a week, with a lot of effort by Bunker and the critic community (including Anonymous) to get it back up. That's when Anonymous discovered Vimeo.
2b) Speaking of Vimeo, the takedowns also affected some videos there too. They didn't limit themselves to YouTube, but they did concentrate their efforts there.
If that's true, then it would seem the perjury bit actually has merit...
I wonder if we can talk anyone into going after the claimants?
You would have to find them first. Whoever did this, whether it was Oliver Schaper or Scientology's Office of Special Affairs, used sockpuppet companies that don't exist (seriously, when this started, we checked, first using Google and then using state corporate record databases). How do you sue someeone who doesn't exist?
It's also a Scientology pun. The acronym is "ARC", which is their core philosophy of "communication".
Do the anti-Scientology posters to youtube have to reveal information about themselves to Scientology Inc. through their counter-notices? Isn't this just a way for Scientology to get the identities of the posters?
Technically, they have to reveal their identities to YouTube, which has to forward them to the complaintant. This is why takedown notices were only done by people whose identities were already public (as I said in another thread above, I'm one of them). Fortunately, it was enough to get the videos reinstated, but it did cause Anonymous some problems at first.
Some of the videos that were taken down were broadcasts of news stories.
One of the main targets for Scientology during the takedown was an expose done on the Australian news-magazine program Today Tonight a few months ago on Scientology's use of child labor. This was targeted because Anonymous' protest theme this month focuses on children, and the Today Tonight story was being prominently used in Anon promotional material for this protest.
In fact, it was this video that was taken down from my honeypot account that I used to file a DMCA counter-claim.
Legal expenses? Their lawyers are probably scientologists and doing their work for free in exchange for moving up the ranks.
Most of Scientology's lawyers are Scientologists, but they aren't doing what they do for barter. They charge the Church, then use some of that money to pay for Scientology services. When they do Scientology services, that is. Kendrick Moxon, Scientology's chief attack dog, hasn't done any services in years, just like David Miscavige.
Are scientologists required by their beliefs to silence all criticism no matter what the cost is? My respect for Hubbard will increase a lot if they are... adding a self destruct commandment to his cult in case it ever got out of control.
Actually, yes, they are. I don't have the exact HCOPL at hand to quote from it, but Google the phrase "always attack, never defend".
There are numerous instances where Scientology has gone out of their way, at great expense, to silence critics. Just to cite one example, in 1991, Time Magazine published a cover story critical of Scientology. Not only did they sue Time for over ten million dollars (and lose), but in order to mitigate the damage, they published full-page ads in USA Today for a week (very expensive then as today).
They kept ex-Scientologist and critic Lawrence Wollersheim in court for over a decade after he won a suit against them for nine million dollars. The official line from Scientology, which was spread to their members, was "Not one thin dime for Wollersheim." All they did was get the judgment downgraded to two and a half million, and they eventually paid up.
So, yeah, they'll spend any amount of money necessary to silence people.
The videos likely have references to copyrighted materials, perhaps even direct readings from them, in which case they own that material and as such have a valid claim of copyright to that particular material, not the whole video. However, the video would have to be pulled until that is determined or the offending part removed.
Yes, except:
1) The Church of Scientology, and more specifically their copyright holding company the Church of Spiritual Technology, was not the claimant(s).
2) Some videos were specifically reworked by the creators to eliminate any and all possible claims of copyright, including getting rid of the music. Those videos were still taken down, some of them within ten minutes of being uploaded.
This was an attempt at harassment, period.
I would wager that Scientology sees this as a win-win situation. Either the videos come down without reprisals, or the video creators have to file charges/suits using their real names, opening them up to being 'fair gamed'.
Bingo. This actually started a week ago courtesy of porn baron/Scientologist Oliver Schaper. At the time, the possibility of DMCA counter-claim was mooted among Anonymous, and shot down due to this exact reason. Scientology monitors Anonymous message boards, and for this reason, some of us think that they came to the conclusion that they had the green light to do this.
What Scientology didn't gamble on was the fact that there are some Anonymous whose identities are already known and who were willing to take action. I was one of them.
I delved back into my Slashdot experiences for this purpose and used the old sysop trick for catching spammers: set up a honeypot. I created a YouTube account and uploaded certain videos which seemed to have a good chance of getting taken down for specious reasons. Sure enough, one of them was. Within thirty minutes, I filed a counter-claim.
We can only hope they use Thunderdome rules. Two men enter, one man leaves!
There is a very good reason why we in Chanology call our out-of-control playpen at Enturbulation.org the Thunderdome...
I'm not sure of the details, but the church of scientology holds copyrights and trademarks on all its "works." It does this to prevent unauthorized usage of them. Its content is no more or less protected than that of an individual or corporation.
No, you aren't aware of the details. In none of the four thousand instances was material from the Church of Scientology (technically, the Church of Spiritual Technology, their front corporation that's set up to hold all their copyrights for them) used in any video.
And CST was NOT the claimant. They used at least five different false claimants to have the videos taken down. When YouTube found out through the counter-claims and various other complaints that these claimants didn't exist, YouTube put the videos back up. Unfortunately, that took as much as sixteen hours from the time of the original takedown.
YouTube itself actually has a very good guide in its help section on how to file a DMCA counter-claim, linking to Chilling Effects' Java applet for generating a counter-claim letter:
http://help.youtube.com/support/youtube/bin/answer.py?answer=59826
It's been one of the few times when a help section somewhere has actually been of some help.
Are you honestly surprised at this? Valve has been heading in this direction for a long time. Remember Team Fortress 2? It's been vaporware for as long as Duke Nukem Formaldehyde.
The first six were terrific. The big problem is that they did no work on the VI engine at all, and VII and VIII looked and played like they were heavily dated (IX was supposed to update the tech, but didn't do it enough, and the plot was execrable). My memory's slipping on exactly when New World was bought out by 3DO, but I think it was between VI and VII, which would explain that decision.
Rich-ass Branson, harmless and benign? He didn't even have that kind of reputation as a kid. Ask anyone who was at Apple (the Beatles' Apple, not Steve's). As a teenager, he was known around Savile Row as an intolerable pest who was escorted from the building any number of times, and who eventually used his father's money and lawyers to harass the Beatles into giving an "exclusive" recording to his fledgling music magazine. That's when, to get Branson off their backs, John Lennon gave him the recording of Yoko's stillborn baby's dying heartbeat to put on his flexi-disc. And how did Branson make his first money with Virgin Records? By importing records illegally and selling them for a mark-up.
Branson knows how to be ruthless. He's always said that Sir Freddie Laker told him to be ruthless when he entered the aviation industry, but all he needed to do was apply the advice. He'd be perfect as CEO of Apple. He might be the only person who'd make Ballmer cack his briefs.
That won't happen. It would require the agreement of five people: Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Olivia Harrison, Yoko Ono, and Neil Aspinall. Given the fact that Paul and Yoko are control freaks when it comes to Beatles exploitation, they'd never allow a purchase.
No, it isn't. MP4 compatibility isn't mentioned at all as a selling point. "Play videos" is about the most that you get in ads. And most phones that do video here utilize .3gp as the standard file format. I had to hack the firmware on my phone so that it records video in MP4.
As someone who spent seven and a half years as a meat and poultry inspector at both the state and federal levels, I have two words for you: Fuck. You.
And Rod the Mod should spend his efforts on getting the state capitol moved to Chicago, where the Republican Party is essentially outlawed and has been since the 1930s. That way, we can avoid having any more Republican felons in the governor's office. At least it's been 30 years since we had a Democratic governor who went to the pokey.
Yes, I can say this because I'm Chicago born, bred, and resident, and I worked for the State of Illinois for six and a half years. So you can go and pound salt, you downstate GOP lick-spittle, at least until you learn how to spell "governor".
No, the only question that matters is "Will Starcraft 2 phone home with all the info in your address book like the original did?"
Yeah, Starcraft had great quality. It didn't skip an entry when it phoned home with all the information in your address book. You just can't get that kind of quality with spyware these days.
Blizzard hasn't got a cent from me since then.
You mean the same Steve Jobs who worked at Atari in 1974? The same Steve Jobs who is on record as being the creator of Breakout (even though we all know Woz did the programming for the game)? For some reason, yes, I can, even if he might not be able to these days.
They tried that once with the Pippin and failed. They won't do it again.
Once upon a time, there was a little company called Blizzard. They had a loyal customer in me due to game quality, because I could be certain when I plunked my money down that I was going to get my value. Then, they released a science-fiction RTS that phoned home with personal information in some misguided anti-piracy effort and were sued for it. Yes, they released a patch to said game that eliminated this, but with that action, they made certain that myself and a number of other people never gave dime one to them again.
If this had been any company other than Blizzard (with the possible exception of BioWare), their reputation would have been justifiably ruined. It's amazing how the Starcraft imbroglio has been forgotten and shoved under the carpet. I will never forgive them for that, and the looks I get when I tell WoW fanboys about what happened in 1998 and why I won't be joining them. They can't believe that their beloved Blizzard would sink so low.
Atarigrammes is a bunch of bastards, but at least they don't copy your address book and send it back to their servers.