Comcast Threatens TorrentFreak For Posting Public Court Document 215
Despite being part of public court proceedings, Comcast sent a notice of infringement ordering Torrent Freak to stop hosting a letter linking a subscriber to Prenda Law. From the article: "Comcast has sent TorrentFreak a cease and desist letter, claiming copyright over contents of an article which revealed that Prenda Law was involved in operating a pirate honeypot. Failure to comply will result in a lawsuit in which the Internet provider will seek damages, a Comcast representative informs us. In addition, Comcast also alerted our hosting provider, who is now threatening to shut down our server."
Dear Comcast, fuck off (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a public court document, you don't own it you fucking douche-bag.
Re:fair use (Score:5, Insightful)
Because it's easier for the hosting company to just say "fuck it, not my problem".
This is what happens when the DMCA tells you that if you comply with a takedown, you are off the hook.
The law is written in such a way that the hosting company has no incentive to care.
That nobody seems to be doling out punishments for false takedowns is the big problem -- because apparently you can claim almost anything belongs to you with neither facts nor evidence on your side.
Re:Dear Comcast, fuck off (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:fair use (Score:1, Insightful)
" Even if TF does win they're still out a considerable amount of cash and time."
If TF wins, then they're entitled to attorney fees and lost money.
That's lawsuit 101. Loser pays.
Re:fair use (Score:5, Insightful)
False takedowns are a felony that maybe a Comcast lawyer should experience, you know, to be made an example of.
Re:fair use (Score:5, Insightful)
If you read the actual message they sent TorrentFreak, the ISP isn't as bad as the summary makes them out to be. The ISP said that TF needs to take appropriate action and need to respond back with the action taken. No where did it specifically state that the action had to be removal of the scanned letter.
The ISP isn't in and doesn't want to be in a position where they are the legal department for all their customers trying to determine if each and every notice is legitimate especially in very specific incidents like this. They just want to know that you a. received the notice and b. have taken some action regarding it. That's all they are really concerned about and all they are required to do under the DMCA.
It would be appropriate and satisfy all parties if TF responded to the ISP stating that they contacted Comcast/Cyveillance, asserted their right to use the content under fair use/public domain/whatever, and that it would not be coming down. Appropriate action would be then taken.
Re:fair use (Score:4, Insightful)
Sadly it depends on jurisdiction.
In the US, it is not loser pays unless the judge says so, and it's typically reserved for egregious or malicious prosecution.
Also, even if they get their legal fees back, they're still in the hole until then.
It's a lot like being on a deflated raft and trying not to sink. if you steal some air out of the raft to breathe, and you wind up sinking, it's too late to reinflate the raft.
Re:Dear Comcast, fuck off (Score:5, Insightful)
Once you start seeing actual damages for filing false notices, watch them stop.
Re:Dear Comcast, fuck off (Score:5, Insightful)
Dear, Dear Comcast:
Please spam everyone and everything with these cease and desist letters. For EVERYTHING. Especially politicians and voters who don't generally care about IP laws.
The sooner everyone realizes how thoroughly stupid it is to give you this as a weapon, the sooner someone will take it away from you and all the other sociopathic organizations out there.
Hopefully anyway. At the very least, it will be entertaining to watch you claim copyright over "#yolo" on twitter.
Re:Dear Comcast, fuck off (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Dear Comcast, fuck off (Score:4, Insightful)
If we're going to have...DMCA take-down orders...
Except that, if one reviews the linked article and comments, there does not seem to be a proper DMCA notice involved in this case.
Comcast only sent a cease & desist letter. If one were feeling particularly cynical, one might suggest that Comcast did so to avoid the usual and proper response to a bogus DMCA notice: a counternotice from TorrentFreak to their web host, which would protect the host from liability and allow them to leave the content up. Instead, the web host is left holding a bag of "what do I do with this thing?" and TorrentFreak is left hanging.
Re:Expropriate Comcast under a workers government! (Score:5, Insightful)
I would absolutely love to see this go to court. Please, oh please let this go to court. Let Comcast seek damages for your posting of public court documents.
Never going to happen. These clowns (Comcast's lawyers), as soon as they saw the website was contesting it, realised that this particular line of bullshit litigation would be shot down in flames immediately by the first judge who saw it. Its one thing being creative with interpreting laws relating to technology and explaining it to old men with no idea what you're talking about, quite another trying to do the same with legal procedure to a guy who both knows damn well how the law works, and has the power to slap you down if he thinks you're trying to step on his toes.
Re:Dear Comcast, fuck off (Score:4, Insightful)
They did later say the order was sent "in error". I have run that through my corporate lingo translator. What it means is " we sent the order in order to intimidate you and were surprised that there was some push back and now wish to back down to avoid even more bad publicity."
The thing is, all these companies rely on the situation where the ISP will instinctively pull a site down out of fear whenever a notice is received. Once the offending site is off the air then the company can say "oops" because they know the site will never come back up again. Copyright has absolutely zero relevance here, and DMCA as well has nothing whatsoever to do with copyright. This is purely 100% about intimidation. There is no legal system here, no judge to determine if it is appropriate or not, the law is left out of the loop. In fact the threat of actually having to pay to have the case heard in the legal system is what frightens the victims.
The mob goes around saying "it'd be a shame if something happened to your store" but at least they're locals, they have a face, and have colorful amusing nicknames. But corporations are faceless brick walls with no humor who threaten us from a distance.