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."
Do hosting companies have a clue? (Score:5, Insightful)
Or are most of them just total crap? Frankly I think people need to sue a few of them real hard on this and lets see them cut the crap.
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ServerBeach is owned by Peer1.
Peer1 is a fairly highly-rated ISP for Co-Lo, etc.
I hope they issue an apology.
My company has been a Peer1 (and ServerBeach) customer for many years (I'm not sure exactly when Peer1 bought our previous provider, but more than 7 years ago).
We have received 2 takedown notices (due to our customers' content), and both times, Peer1 contacted me directly rather than doing something stupid.
I hope they will see the error of their ways, or I will be looking to move elsewhere.
Re:Do hosting companies have a clue? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Unfortunately, in early October automated systems at ServerBeach spotted a copy of the disputed blog entry stored in the working memory of software Edublogs uses to make sure web pages are displayed quickly."
IE, there was still a version stored in the server's cache, and that's why they took the site down.
I know it's against /. ettiquete to read the fucking article, but it does help some times.
"The copy of the blog entry was in this memory store - only visible internally - because of the way Edublogs readies web pages for display. When Edublogs did not respond within 24 hours to emails alerting it to the allegedly infringing content, ServerBeach shut down the entire site."
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, Insightful)
The key line missing from the summery is "ServerBeach said it had had to act because two requests to remove the content had been ignored." So, fuck Edublogs, they had their chance.
Edublogs took the offending text off their website when they were requested to. There was a backup copy though which WAS NOT ONLINE that triggered the takedown. So, fuck Pearson, fuck the hoster, and, on Edublogs' behalf, fuck you .
Re:Do hosting companies have a clue? (Score:5, Insightful)
Doubly so, since Pearson should've contacted Edublogs directly using their DMCA page [edublogs.org] rather than having to go through their service provider. (You can get to that page by going to "Contact Us" and scrolling to DMCA)
ServerBeach provided the servers to Edublogs, yes, but Edublogs provided services to users to post blogs and have their own DMCA page in case their users post something infringing.
Though this brings a question - how far up should one go for a DMCA request? I mean, if you can get the hosting company to do it, could you get the ISP providing the internet link to the hosting company?
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And their ISP, and theirs, up to tier one?
This is my DCMA notice, please shut down the Internet.
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.
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What I'm trying to say is "why should everyone else fight *your* battle for you?"
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I do not see anything summery about TFA. My impression is that the incident was rather chilling. Wintery, actually.
Additionally, TFA states the copyrighted material was in a buffer that was not accessible to visitors to the blog. So there does not seem to be any reason for any take-down action, as the copyright was not being breached. Also killing 1.5 million blogs instead of just the one offender seems like an excessive response in any case.
The take-away I see in this story is that customers of ServerB
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So what if it was "in a cache that no one knew about" - Edublogs FAILED TO RESPOND TWICE to requests to remove said content, thus THEY KNEW ABOUT IT AT THAT POINT .
But nice of you to try and link this to bullshit American politics...
Re:Do hosting companies have a clue? (Score:4, Insightful)
So what if it was "in a cache that no one knew about"
So what? It was offline. That's what a DMCA "take down" is supposed to achieve. You don't have to erase every copy of the file in existence, just stop making it available, which they did.
The hosting company has apologised, so you're saying they were wrong to do so?
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According to the Ars article, no it wasn't necessarily "off line", it could have been accessed at any point in time due to it also still being available via a failover system.
And if its still available in a cache, or an alternative failover system, then its still available - no bullshitting around, if you can get to it, its available. I also haven't seen an apology from the hosting company, just a "lets get together to see how we can move foward in our relationship" comment on Edublogs blog.
Re:Do hosting companies have a clue? (Score:5, Insightful)
You mean they were notified and promptly marked the blog entry hidden. Then they got another notice, saw that the blog was already marked hidden and decided this was yet another (of a great many, no doubt) bogus automated notice.
If it was in a cache, it was most likely reachable only through an orphaned direct URL. It is even likely that but for the publisher continuously refreshing the cache entry by checking up on it, it would have fallen out of the cache.
Why Thank You! (Score:3)
Mr Potty Mouth AC. Funny thing is, I did read it, in fact I read a number of different things on the subject, both before and since.
It actually seems like a pretty good muck-up and it is POSSIBLE it isn't all the fault of ServerBeach. OTOH these sorts of places are FAR too lax and ready to crap on their clients than they should be. Remember, there aren't hard and fast time limits on action for this kind of thing, nor is it necessary for a provider like SoftBeach to be perfect. In fact they could have simply
Re:Do hosting companies have a clue? (Score:4, Insightful)
"People like you"
"You're just stupid"
Well, so much for reasoned debate.
A good reason to host your own blog (Score:2)
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:4, Funny)
That's no big deal for much of the demographic here, but it might as well be written in Aramaic for a lot of people who just want to blog a bit about things that interest them.
Put another way:
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Even if you get it set up securely, you have to upgrade periodically as well.
I had an old wordpress blog (ugh, I know.. key words old blog) that I left up mainly for archival purposes. Less than a year of not being paid attention to, and get an email from host saying they had detected malware on my site. Sure enough, logged in and every PHP script had a little 6 line snippit of "extra" PHP code tacked on (it was actually kinda neat how it worked..).
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There are actually two reasons many of us use hosts like Blogspot or Live Journal. It's the simplicity as you said. It just works. Then there's the cost of doing it yourself. Money is tight and I'd rather not spend it on something that I can get for free while being able to spout my bable as desired. Hell like most of us, I tend to talk to myself though thankfully, I've not started holding entire conversations with myself.
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:A good reason to host your own blog (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:A good reason to host your own blog (Score:4, Insightful)
Because most people don't want to either move to an area where they can get "business class" broadband (or buy colo service), purchase their server, install and configure and be responsible for all the setup and continued maintenance (including security patches, etc). They just want to write their blog, which more than likely is not about any of those topics.
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you can get Business Class broadband anywhere. I have a T-1 going to my home for my server connection. I have a friend that has 2 of them to his rural home. T-1 technology can go 900X farther over crap copper than DSL or Cable. AND it's not set up to allow someone else to have control over your content.
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Those of us in the low-digit club, and Slashdotters in general, are not really indicative of the general population when it comes to telecommunications. Most people won't know what a T1 is, let alone what to do with it in step 2. My point is that all of this is a major investment in time and money that most people don't want to make. Renting a dedicated server or VPS is in almost all cases good enough for people who just want to run their wordpress installation, never update it, and leave their uploads d
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How many dollar bills are you pushing into that wire each month to keep it open?
Commercial grade broadband is not an option for most of us 99%
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.
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$99.00 a month. Well within the reach of a blogger who is claiming to make money off their blog.
Good point.
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No you can't. You can't even reliably get broadband everywhere. What the hell are you talking about?
Re:A good reason to host your own blog (Score:5, Insightful)
If I were serious about blogging then I'd host my own. I wonder why more people don't?
For us on Slashdot, the only problem is with the first one, and even then, most of us probably know a place that will let us run a server for our blog. For most people, the combination of those three is a daunting task, and so they just pay some hosting company somewhere to take care of it for them.
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Does he at least do some custom skinning/theming, or is it purely pointy-clicky Wordpress installation and ticking a few boxes on the settings page?
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Damn. I gotta put up a Craigslist ad.
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Pretty much betting your buddy will smack you for saying that. It takes at LEAST 3 hours to modify a template to have it branded for the company or blogger.
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I suggest you rethink your concerns about charging a lot.
It might only take an hour of your time to do the set-up, but that is in addition to the several years you have put in to learning what to do, and the many hours per week that you are spending on keeping up with the technology. Think upon this punchline to an old joke:
Itemized billing for a Big Iron computer repair, circa 1970:
Total amount due: $1,000.00
Tweaking adjustment screw: $1.00
Knowing which screw to tweak: $999.00
Re: (Score:3)
Serve Beach is a dedicated server company. So presumably they did have their own server.
What's scary here is the article states it was a Server Beach automated script that detected the copyright infringement in a "cache file" that was not visible on the live website at all. And they shut down the server because of that.
It's actually worse than stated... (Score:5, Insightful)
No, Actually It's Exactly How It Was Stated (Score:3, Insightful)
The offending post was published in 2007, which is true, however the material (questionnaire) that was posted was 38 years old.
Astonishing but still within the copyright term length. Abhorrent? You bet. But I wouldn't go around attacking publishers and would instead focus on reducing the law that governs said term length.
Worse yet, the questionnaire was a suicide prevention questionnaire, so its existence in the public domain might actually save lives.
So what you're saying is that if I want to make money publishing my research, I should stay away from publishing suicide prevention materials since placing a copyright on that is morally reprehensible because if it's public domain it might actually save lives?
So a DMCA request pulled down millions of blogs because one page that was originally published nearly 4 decades ago supposedly has some copyright value to someone.
So I'd like to point out that from what I've read the [techdirt.com]
Re:No, Actually It's Exactly How It Was Stated (Score:5, Insightful)
And yeah, that might be the future with self publishing on the rise but right now they have those texts under laws that are legitimate US Laws.
If by "legitimate" you mean:
Re:No, Actually It's Exactly How It Was Stated (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:No, Actually It's Exactly How It Was Stated (Score:5, Insightful)
Godwin be damned. You're saying that since the SS officers were just following the law of the land they should have gotten a pass?
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Wow, that's a perfect example, too, equating a crappy copyright law with massacre, bloodshed, and war. Excellent work, I'm glad you're modded insightful.
Re:No, Actually It's Exactly How It Was Stated (Score:4, Insightful)
Fortunately for the people, we live in a time when we don't have to fight ridiculous copyright laws, we can just ignore them. Entire IP industries ignore our fair use rights and abuse OUR legal rights and protections. Well, the tables have turned, haven't they.
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.
Re: (Score:3)
Astonishing but still within the copyright term length. Abhorrent? You bet. But I wouldn't go around attacking publishers and would instead focus on reducing the law that governs said term length.
It's only astonishing to the sheeple ("don't care") and Generation Typewriter ("don't know") types that make up the vast majority of the US population. Slashdotters know that even "Happy Birthday To You" (c) 1935 is still under copyright today, and use this fact, when persistant, to quickly silence Defenders Of Copyright As Beneficial To Society.
As to your suggestion, it's perfectly alright to do both: by all means attack Pearson for doing this as -- unlike trademark rights -- you don't have to "defend" cop
Europe leading the way.... (Score:2)
Hundred+ year copyrights on everything is a fubar.
Re:No, Actually It's Exactly How It Was Stated (Score:5, Interesting)
Astonishing but still within the copyright term length. Abhorrent? You bet. But I wouldn't go around attacking publishers and would instead focus on reducing the law that governs said term length.
What is the purpose of copyright? To allow a creator to profit from his or her creativity.
What creativity in this case could possibly be profited from? Is the publisher actually going to lose money from a small portion of 40 year old book making it into the public domain? Are you actually arguing that this is the case?
So what you're saying is that if I want to make money publishing my research, I should stay away from publishing suicide prevention materials since placing a copyright on that is morally reprehensible because if it's public domain it might actually save lives?
I said no such thing, but you're free to put words in peoples mouths if it gives you a reason to argue over nothing on the internet. I would however suggest that creating something that is intended to benefit the public health be allowed to benefit public health first, and be used as a mechanism for profit SECOND. But apparently I am to consider myself in the minority in that viewpoint.
So I'd like to point out that from what I've read they were given 24 hour notice from their provider [techdirt.com] and they failed to remove the article from their cache (although they did remove it from their site). If you're running a site that costs $6,954.37 just in hosting service per month, I would hope you would be a little more competent about complying with DMCA requests.
And I would hope that someday small internet businesses be freeed from the ridiculous requirement that they respond to such takedown notices before a judge has actually confirmed that someone is losing money from the violation. But I must be some kind of dreamer to hope that small business be allowed to create jobs first, and protect the property of other companies in different industries second, right?
I'm telling you right now, the way you described how horrible this is makes me never want to produce any sort of writing that might be construed as beneficial to society because then I won't be paid for my work or I'll be a monster. If Pearson can't make money off these texts, goodbye Pearson. It's that simple. And yeah, that might be the future with self publishing on the rise but right now they have those texts under laws that are legitimate US Laws.
So, suggesting that a portion of a work that was written 40 years ago might be better in the public domain actually makes you afraid to write? Are you for real?
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That's not the purpose of copyright (Score:2)
The purpose of copyright is "to encourage the sciences and useful arts." A limited monopoly for a creator is just a tool it uses to attempt to achieve that goal.
A big part of the problem with modern copyright is exactly this misunderstanding. Copyright is meant to benefit the public, not creators.
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You are correct in that modern copyright is a corruption of the original purpose. However, I don't agree that it's a problem of misunderstanding. I believe it was well understood and deliberately corrupted.
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Too true. And the people who corrupted it now have so many unwitting accomplices...
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Of course you don't see the loss in earnings since you're not using DMCA maths.
Let's say the copyrighted text was 250kB in size and each copy was worth $0.00001 to Pearson.
Almost every computer these days has a gigabit ethernet port on it, therefore each computer is capable of downloading 520,000 copies a day.
Everyone with a com
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What is the purpose of copyright? To allow a creator to profit from his or her creativity. What creativity in this case could possibly be profited from?
Fortunately, that's not for you or the United States legal system to decide. If you want to go insane and spend your entire life writing your book and then sell it for one hundred billion dollars per copy, you are more than free to do it. That is a personal freedom that cannot be taken away from an entrepreneur no matter how completely stupid it may sound.
In this internet age you're also free to paint mural a wall and try to charge admission for viewing it 40 years later, but people are generally not stupid enough to try this. We have lots of lawyers trying to maintain their industry size who are very active at trying to convince us that the sky is red, and that any and all media content should result in fees being paid to them to protect it.
Is the publisher actually going to lose money from a small portion of 40 year old book making it into the public domain?
Okay, we're starting to get somewhere. You say "forty years" because of this work. So what you're saying is that everything written over forty years ago is fair game and public domain? So I can make movies out of Sirens of Titan, A Clockwork Orange, To Kill a Mockingbird, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Dune, Catch-22, Stranger in a Strangeland, etc and not pay anyone a dime for those rights or royalties? Okay so where do you draw the line on copyright? Give us a proposed length and then we can start discussing this like adults instead of asking stupid vague rhetorical questions about a suicide prevention questionnaire.
Is the creator still profiting from it? If the answer is yes, then perhaps an argument can be made to protect it. If a publisher owns all rights to it and is simply protecting their rights, the enforcement of those rights does nothing to encourage creativity, rather such activity only destroys jobs in other industries. Also, action without PROOF that a creator is being harmed needlessly destroys the profitability of other media companies.
I said no such thing, but you're free to put words in peoples mouths if it gives you a reason to argue over nothing on the internet.
You did effectively say that.
No I didn't, go read the OP and quote where I stated any such thing. You're a writer, certainly you can understand how you misread my intended statement in such a way as to create an argument for you to then write about.
I would however suggest that creating something that is intended to benefit the public health be allowed to benefit public health first, and be used as a mechanism for profit SECOND. But apparently I am to consider myself in the minority in that viewpoint.
So here's another example of you making this a special case. Because this copyrighted work is medically related and might benefit public health, it has some special status that a creative work outside of this domain does not. And that's just laughably insane.
No, it's not a special case. If I design a car, I'm not designing a car because I want to patent the design and sell usage of the design. I design a car because I intend on manufacturing it and providing a tangible good in exchange for profit. My business in such a case is an interaction with a consumer of my goods, not legalized extortion to extract money for intangibles. All legitimate business works this way: you provide benefit to that consumers will pay for first, figure out how to profit second. If the distributors of owned media cannot profit any other way than keeping their product under lock and key, they will find themselves replaced sooner than they might think. This isn't a threat, it's just reality.
But I must be some kind of dreamer to hope that small business be allowed to create jobs first, and protect the property of other companies in different industries second, right?
Dude, your rhetoric is top notch.
No, it's just that you haven't faced a good argument yet, and you'd like to label my words as rhetoric so you can dismiss them. You might convince others on /. that you dismissed my argument, but I'm certain it's annoying you right now by that response.
So, suggesting that a portion of a work that was written 40 years ago might be better in the public domain actually makes you afraid to write? Are you for real?
Now who's putting words in someone's mouth? Where did I say that? What I said was that you're giving special status to some creative works over others so if I'm a writer, I'll stay away from your realms where I have a moral obligation to give it away for free or have a shorter term length on it just because it might help people.
Did you not say that what I wrote made you afraid to write? Did I not write that I thought that a single page from a 40 year old book might be better served to be in the public domain? I think you said exactly that, but are unable to make yourself not look ridiculous after having been called out on the absurdity.
On the plus side, you keep saying "40 years" so what is it? What your suggested term length?
15 years maximum on copyright, patents, and trademarks. After that, everything goes into the public domain. If your response to that is "Well we can still profit from this!" then you're being narrow-minded again. The purpose of copyright was to encourage CREATIVITY, not profit. If an artist can create one thing, and do nothing for 40 years, creativity is not served.
And I'd like to remind you that we have China and the USSR to compare with the United States to see how well their copyright (or lack thereof) stimulated the ability to make a living out of creating copyrighted works. It's hard enough in the United States and probably impossible in today's China.
And I would like to remind you that China's economy is exploding, and has been for over 10 years. Meanwhile, in the failed-patent-system copyright-jailed trademark-laden United States, we're facing a large double-dip recession, a currency on the brink of hyperinflation, and no new creative industries on the horizon to rescue us with job creation like the internet bubble did last time. More interestingly, we have an industry of lawyers that is expanding to punish the small business with violations of intellectual property rights. Are you seriously arguing that lax patent/copyright/trademark laws did not help allow China's economy to create so many jobs?
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stonishing but still within the copyright term length. Abhorrent? You bet. But I wouldn't go around attacking publishers
Why not? Who do you think are the ones that wanted the terms that long in the first place.
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Astonishing but still within the copyright term length. Abhorrent? You bet. But I wouldn't go around attacking publishers and would instead focus on reducing the law that governs said term length.
Why do you think the laws exist, if not because of publishers wanting them?
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Dunno about the parent, but I would say exactly that.
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How is something you write "inherently communal property"? It's something you wrote! It's yours! It's your idea!
This is where all arguments break down for me. Real ownership of ideas is simply not possible. It is a shoddy political construct that was granted to allow for creators to profit from intangible things. All human minds are essentially equal in capability, all are capable of understanding the same exact concepts. So nothing makes your brain more special for coming up with any particular idea. It is entirely likely that whatever you consider novel was actually thought of hundreds, perhaps thousands of times b
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Copyright was never meant as a way to compensate "creators". Compensating creator was a tool to achieve copyright's goals which were to "to encourage the sciences and useful arts.", or to make it simple, to make creative works prolific and benefit society as a whole
Re:It's actually worse than stated... (Score:5, Funny)
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What sort of world would we be living in if you couldn't make a big fat profit out of suicide prevention? Certainly not a world I'd want to live in...
Obligatory "I see what you did there..."
But let's refine this model a bit. It's always nice to make a few bucks by providing a service, but it's much nicer when your clients keep needing the service. So let's make sure our SuicidePreventolaProcess only works so long as you pay for our monthly upgrades and bug fixes!
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I wonder if perhaps we should look at the "copyright" of the material in question and see if it is itself valid?
Just because a company asserts a copyright does not mean it's valid.
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Worse yet, the questionnaire was a suicide prevention questionnaire
Aw, is it? Damn it, I was hoping the Beck Hopelessness Scale was a publication by Glenn Beck to gauge the hopelessness of society and let us all know when we should just start rioting and killing each other.
Re:It's actually worse than stated... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:It's actually worse than stated... (Score:4, Insightful)
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They though it was how to get more pork.
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...I would also like to point out I just realized we live in Fahrenheit 451...
Well, that explains the constant sizzling sound I'm hearing... does anyone else smell bacon cooking?
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We don't, yet, live in 451F, be we are moving closer and closer. And issues like cyber-bullying and attacks on religions that respond violently increase the calls for limits on expression. While the goals may be admirable, the results are almost always far wider ranging than the problem being addressed. More and more people are looking for absolute security at any cost. (They will never get it, but they will get every increasing limits on their lives in the attempt.)
The other books that come to mind are 19
Hahaha (Score:5, Insightful)
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Use this powerful predictor of eventual suicide to help you measure three major aspects of hopelessness: feelings about the future, loss of motivation, and expectations. Responding to the 20 true or false items on the Beck Hopelessness Scale® (BHS®), patients can either endorse a pessimistic statement or deny an optimistic statement. Predicts Eventual Suicide Research consistently supports a positive relationship between BHS scores and measures of depression, suicidal intent, and ideation.
They're charging 120.00 USD a pop for this baby. I've not taken the test, but I feel like I just failed it.
Re:Hahaha (Score:4, Interesting)
Disclosure: I used to work for a company owned by Pearson.
$120 for a test is very much the reality of clinical testing. The research, norming and validation of the test are not cheap, and while I don't know anything about this particular test, instruments like this are normally developed and refined over multiple years of research. You are talking about lots of administrations in clinical settings, and follow ups to determine the eventual outcome of the patient. And research papers in peer reviewed journals to convince people in the industry that you have statistically valid results.
And any clinical test has a small market, since the number of people that can use it is relatively small. And usually getting paid by health insurance to boot.
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To be fair, Scientology doesn't claim an ideology of hopelessness (unlike, say, Norse religion that claimed that the entire world and almost everyone in it was doomed) - it believes that by "clearing" it can rid us of the evils that are a legacy of Xenu. It's crazy, not hopeless.
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information it owned? (Score:5, Insightful)
You can't own information. You can have a "limited" time monopoly on its presentation, but you can't even own the document that holds the information.
Example: Your textbook says "Gravity was described by Sir Isaac Newton when an apple fell on his head." That little snippet alone would be fair use, but assume that one phrase is the entire work. Publish it and you're in violation of copyright. But reword the same information, "Sir Isaac newton developed his theory of gravity after an apple fell on his head" and you're not infringing anything.
If people keep saying you can own a work or even information, it will eventually be possible. So please stop it, you damned journalists!
Beck Hopelessness Scale (Score:3)
It ranges from Loser to Satan gave me a Taco.
1.5 million?! (Score:3)
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No, its not "completely ridiculous" because Edublogs is a blog hosting site, just like Blogger - to take down one Edublog blog, the hosting company would have had to access and alter Edublogs databases and individual site settings without the permission of Edublogs, which would have had severe legal consequences. Better to have Edublogs lose their entire hosting ability in that case...
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moral of the story (Score:5, Insightful)
"Unfortunately, in early October automated systems at ServerBeach spotted a copy of the disputed blog entry stored in the working memory of software Edublogs uses to make sure web pages are displayed quickly. The copy of the blog entry was in this memory store - only visible internally"
So Server Beach has an automated system that detected copyright infringement in a "cache" file and automatically shut down the server before checking to see if it was actually visible to the public (which according to the article it was not)?
Moral of the story ... stop using Server Beach I guess.
This is scary for Server Beach customers because any copyrighted material could end up on disk (ie. if someone submits a form that writes to disk or into a database. Then the Server Beach script will nuke your site no questions asked!!!
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So Server Beach has an automated system that detected copyright infringement in a "cache" file and automatically shut down the server before checking to see if it was actually visible to the public (which according to the article it was not)?
If content is visible to your dedicated (not managed) hosting company, who doesn't have any login access to your servers, then yes, the content is visible to the public. Access to it may be obscured, due to removed links to it or however it was supposedly 'removed', but still available to the Internet and henceforth public.
Obligatory reference (Score:3, Funny)
I sense a great disturbance in the blogosphere, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out about useless bullshit, and were suddenly silenced...
Not a "legal" row (Score:4, Insightful)
This row wasn't "legal" at all. Thanks to the fucking DMCA copyright infringement is now generally sorted out with the content "owners" functioning as judge and jury (because they're not at all biased or greedy). If the legal system isn't involved it's hardly a "legal" row, it's more like a shakedown.
mass mafiaso (Score:2)
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What's more, I completely fail to see how this has anything to do with arranging a series of data in a line, or propelling a boat using oars.
Deep breath, people. (Score:4, Insightful)
This is less of a censorship issue as a service interruption issue. The service was down for about an hour.
The DMCA is deeply fucked and this illustrates how broken it is. But this particular event did massive harm to the hosting companies reputation of reliability -- which is pretty much the only thing it sells -- while the blogs in question were restored in entirely, other than the apparently copyrighted page in question. No hosting company is look at this and saying, "That's how we'll do it!"
There are censorship issues today, real ones, but they are aimed at the fringes where authors are pressured, official accounts are bullshit or information is hidden. Look at, for instance, Apple's refusal to allow an app that pushed notifications when the US killed someone with a drone attack. Meanwhile Microsoft is looking at that and saying "Let's lock down Metro apps!"
So... (Score:2)
The original paper (Score:5, Insightful)
Executive summary (Score:2)
anyone else read this as (Score:2)
The Edublogs site went dark for about an hour after its hosting company, ServerBeach, pulled the plug.
ServerBReach?
Good business, poor business (Score:3)
ISPs are run by technical people, who are somewhat notorious for poor people skills.
The site owner TFA:
Rather than shutting down the site, he said, it could have done "something simple, like, calling any of the three numbers for us they have on file".
Why didn't they just call? Oh wait, that would involve human contact.
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Probably about half the people who host their blog in 'The Cloud'. The other half think they're hosting it in America, but 'The Cloud' is actually in Europe and they're breaking various privacy laws without even realising.
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I was trying to make sense of the grammar in that Spanish bit, but now I'm lost.
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