Millions of Blogs Knocked Offline By Legal Row 162
another random user writes with this excerpt from the BBC: "A row over a web article posted five years ago has led to 1.5 million educational blogs going offline. The Edublogs site went dark for about an hour after its hosting company, ServerBeach, pulled the plug. The hosting firm was responding to a copyright claim from publisher Pearson, which said one blog had been illegally sharing information it owned.
... The offending article was first published in November 2007 and made available a copy of a questionnaire, known as the Beck Hopelessness Scale, to a group of students. The copyright for the questionnaire is owned by Pearson, which asked ServerBeach to remove the content in late September."
Re:A good reason to host your own blog (Score:4, Informative)
Because it takes effort, and skill, as well as having some cost.
Yes, it may only take a few hours to research the best way of doing it from scratch, for someone not into computers, but if they are not deeply involved, they are not likely willing to invest that, when there are solutions that are in some ways better.
Re:A good reason to host your own blog (Score:5, Informative)
There's nothing preventing a hosting provider from shutting down your website. I have my own blog, but if BlueHost chooses to, it can knock it offline.
Re:Do hosting companies have a clue? (Score:4, Informative)
Uhm, I read the article. I read both articles - and no, it was not "only visible internally", lets see what ServerBeach said on that topic shall we?
ServerBeach said the additional notice on October 8 came "because the same alleged infringing content was once again made available on their system despite the fact that it had already been removed due to the prior notice."
Farmer acknowledges that "the blog was taken down when we got the message but the file stayed in varnish cache" until it too was taken down after the second notice.
ServerBeach further said that Edublogs uses "a failover system that allowed Web traffic to still reach the allegedly infringing material."
Lets highlight the specific bit which backs me up:
"a failover system that allowed Web traffic to still reach the allegedly infringing material."
If its still available its still available, regardless of whether is "just in a cache" or not - its available, its under your control and it must be made not available to comply with the notices.
So how about we all try and actually read the full story here, shall we?
Re:Do hosting companies have a clue? (Score:5, Informative)
ServerBeach further said that Edublogs uses "a failover system that allowed Web traffic to still reach the allegedly infringing material."
That would still make it available, and infringing.
CYA bullshit."Available" if you knew a backdoor to the server. Which would be a concern if we were talking about missile launch codes, but no reason to take a million blogs offline after it's been "available" for five fucking years without anyone noticing already.
Here's the text, courtesy of Scribd. Just as a comment on how absurd and disproportionate this all is..
1.
I look forward to the future with hope and enthusiasm.
2.
I might as well give up because there is nothing I can do about
making things for myself.
3.
When things are going badly, I am helped by knowing that they
cannot stay there whatsoever.
4.
I can't imagine what my life would be in 10 years.
5.
I have enough time to accomplish the things I want to do.
6.
In future, I expect to succeed in what concerns me most.
7.
My future seems dark to me.
8.
I happen to be particularly lucky and I expect to get better.
9.
I just can't get the breaks and there is no reason I will in the future.
10.
My past experiences have prepared me well for the future.
11.
All I can see ahead of me is unpleasantness rather than pleasantness.
12.
I don't expect to get what I really I want.
13.
When I look ahead to the future, I expect I will be happier than I
am now.
14.
Things just don't work out the way I want them to.
15.
I have great faith in future.
16.
I never get what I want, so it is foolish to want anything at all.
17.
It is very unlikely that I still get any satisfaction in future.
18.
The future seems vague and uncertain to me.
19.
I look forward to more times than bad times.
20.
There is no use really trying to get anything I want because I
probably won't get it.
Re:A good reason to host your own blog (Score:4, Informative)
$99.00 a month. Well within the reach of a blogger who is claiming to make money off their blog.
Re:No, Actually It's Exactly How It Was Stated (Score:4, Informative)
Lawrence Kohlberg was kind enough to document six stages [wikipedia.org] of personal moral development. What you display is Stage 4. This is a description, with the bracketed statements being my own writing:
In Stage four (authority and social order obedience driven), it is important to obey laws, dictums and social conventions because of their importance in maintaining a functioning society. Moral reasoning in stage four is thus beyond the need for individual approval exhibited in stage three [this part is decent]. A central ideal or ideals often prescribe what is right and wrong, such as in the case of fundamentalism [not so decent]. If one person violates a law, perhaps everyone would—thus there is an obligation and a duty to uphold laws and rules. When someone does violate a law, it is morally wrong; culpability is thus a significant factor in this stage as it separates the bad domains from the good ones. Most active members of society remain at stage four, where morality is still predominantly dictated by an outside force [if you cannot think for yourself then you need an outside force to do it for you - sheep need their shepherd].
Copyright law was originally intended to provide a balance between the rewarding of creators on one hand, and the enrichment of the public domain on the other. The original duration of copyright was twelve years, back when movable type was the most effective way to distribute information. As our ability to endlessly duplicate and spread information increases, the duration should shorten if it changes at all -- a copyright holder could reach a bigger audience in less time. Instead it has increased to a maximum of the author's life plus more than a century, in an age when you can contact millions around the globe in seconds.
That is unjust. Copyright law and the balance it once sought to maintain is a social contract model, what Kohlberg calls Stage Five. This is the description, and the emphasis is mine:
In Stage five (social contract driven), the world is viewed as holding different opinions, rights and values. Such perspectives should be mutually respected as unique to each person or community. Laws are regarded as social contracts rather than rigid edicts. Those that do not promote the general welfare should be changed when necessary to meet “the greatest good for the greatest number of people”. This is achieved through majority decision, and inevitable compromise. Democratic government is ostensibly based on stage five reasoning.
Modern copyright law is made to benefit a tiny minority of the population - the monied copyright lobby - at the detriment of everyone else. There was no "democratic" process involved in making it this way. It was bought and paid for, pure and simple. It was not arranged based on any concept of what is right, what is best for society, what is the ideal balance of reward vs. the public domain, what voters wanted, none of that. A tiny minority realized they could abuse the system so they did. It is a complete rejection of the legal system and the participatory republic that you yourself adhere to when you ask me what I have done to resist it.
If you believe that citizens should be able to resist unjust laws by appealing to their representatives, then you must also view the copyright interests' usurpation of our legal system as the mockery of liberty that it is.