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Science Fiction Writers Write DMCA Takedowns
Posted by
Zonk
on Fri Aug 31, 2007 02:21 PM
from the quit-using-our-free-stuff-for-free dept.
from the quit-using-our-free-stuff-for-free dept.
TheGreatGraySkwid writes "With an ironic lack of forward thinking, the Science Fiction Writers of America (or, more specifically, their Vice President Andrew Burt) have issued scattershot DMCA takedown notices against numerous items on the document-sharing site Scribd, many of which were not infringing on SFWA copyrights in any way. It appears that a simple keyword search for prominent science fiction names (like 'Asimov' and 'Silverburg') was used to determine which documents were to be singled out. Included in the documents was Cory Doctorow's 'Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom,' which was released under the Creative Commons license and is freely available at any number of places. Doctorow is up in arms over at BoingBoing, with several other Science Fiction notables speaking up in the comments."
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Linux: A Conversation with Cory Doctorow and Hal Stern 41 comments
ChelleChelle writes "In a rare meeting, popular sci-fi writer and co-editor of the blog Boing Boing Cory Doctorow and Sun VP Hal Stern consider the open source approach. The resulting interview deals with the pros and cons of going open source, as well as the issues of security and privacy. From the article: 'It seems to me that one of the big problems with the filters you've just identified is who gets to set policy in the machine. As a science fiction writer, I am offended by sci-fi movies where it turns out that the rocket ship has a self-destruct button, it has been pressed by accident, and now the whole thing is going to explode. ... By the same token, I often wonder whether trusted computing architectures that allow remote parties to enforce policy on your hardware are a good idea. Although we can imagine beneficent examples of this, this is what spyware is, by definition, right? Spyware is remote parties setting policies on your computer against your wishes. Is it ever a good idea?'"
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Cory (Score:5, Informative)
I would like to think that this little incident will be a wake up call to these consortium types who go so overboard in "protecting their consituents" but I'm going to take a I'll beleive it when I see it attitude for now.
I hope someone does go after them for this though, if nothing else to add one more precedent to the "frivolous use of DMCA notices" body of law.
Re:Cory (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah I had pretty much the same reaction. That caustic edge left me wondering if maybe he was a nut case. I decided to look up his credentials [wikipedia.org] on Wikipedia. Here is the last paragraph of the 'Fiction' section of the entry for him:
I even when through the last months worth of edits to make sure he had not doctored his biography recently to make himself seem more credible. Personally I think he has decent credentials.
Re:Cory (Score:5, Informative)
Frankly it amazes me that they were dumb enough to include his works, given how outspoken he is on such issues.
And yeah, he's a bit of a nutcase I suppose. ( http://xkcd.com/239/ [xkcd.com] )
Re:Cory (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact that someone reading Slashdot doesn't know Cory Doctorow's credentials and wasn't sure whether to trust his Wikipedia entry, let alone know who he is in the first place, is actually a charming example of just how insanely fucking huge the Internet is.
Re:Cory (Score:5, Insightful)
Hmm. Maybe it's too good to be true, and it's just cleverly-crafted sarcasm?
Re:Cory (Score:4, Funny)
OMG!! OMG !!
This is the first sign of the apocalypse! It was foretold in chapter three of the holy testaments of the TCP/IP.
Chapter 15 verse 7 of the book of routing.
"and Yea, before the end of time when the routing tables become corrupt and the packets fragment, there shall be a sign. The well of bable, the fountian of inanity will have a single light grow from within. A young new user will go against the word and check the truthiness of the word. Upon this event, the fall of all that is will begin. This will be the warning of the arrival of the rouge router packet horsemen that will start the loss of data, reset TTL counters at random causing packet losses where there should not be any and the bandwidth will fall."
DOOMED! WEARE ALL DOOMED!
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course, I like it when skeptics look at and think about the facts - and then decide to join the crusade, anyway.
Re:Cory (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Cory (Score:5, Funny)
Not this again... (Score:5, Funny)
We don't need to turn this into another SI vs. Imperial units argument again, do we?
Re:Not this again... (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't get me wrong, I like some of the Lazarus Long stories, but the ending just got... umm... actually, kind of twisted up by it's own p
Re:Cory (Score:5, Insightful)
Slightly caustic isn't going to do much about this problem of DMCA notices put up by non-copyright holders, but wouldn't the act of insisting on a improper takedown legally infringe on Doctorow's property? As in he is entitled to damages. Umbrella groups that represent artists are businesses, and the only was to effect the way a business acts is by hitting it in the profit margin. I would love to see Doctorow go after severe punitive damages and then use the money to promote Creative Commons.
They will hear from me (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
As a paid-up lifetime member of SFWA, you can be sure that I will be asking for an explanation of this action (and clarification/confirmation as to whether this is being done in the name of the SFWA or whether Andrew Burt is simply acting as an individual
Re:They will hear from me (Score:5, Informative)
Well, like many organizations, the word "work" doesn't necessarily describe things very well :-)
Andrew Burt is currently VP, and I have just looked at the current copy of our journal of record, and I can find no hint in the records of Board meetings or in the reports submitted by the individual officers, that this action has been sanctioned as an official act.
And to (finally) answer your question: to the best of my knowledge there is no simple place to sign up for anything like this kind of "service". I could imagine people contacting the SFWA to ask them to help with removal of copyrighted works that that particular individual has found (and for which he owns the copyright), and I would expect the SFWA to help in such an (isolated) instance. But as far as I know, the SFWA has no standing to conduct the kind of sweeping action suggested in TFA, because members do not automatically give it that authority; as far as I know, members would have to do so explicitly, via some kind of definite communication with the SFWA.
Re:They will hear from me (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, Mr AC: firstly it won't be angry; and secondly I have found the people at the helm of the SFWA to be very responsive to their electorate. So I believe that the tone and the content of your response are unnecessarily negative, at least until I receive evidence to the contrary from the SFWA. At this point I am quite prepared to believe that this is all just a misunderstanding or an error by one person.
Re: (Score:2)
Scribd is at fault here (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Scribd is at fault here (Score:4, Informative)
I can understand why Scribd took them down, as lawyers don't come cheap.
Re:Scribd is at fault here (Score:4, Insightful)
Ignoring a takedown notice that falls short of the technical requirements but that identifies the work infringed, the infringing content, and provides contact information has the legal result that the flawed takedown notice may be used to prove the service provider's knowledge of infringement, and thus have the same effect on liability, as if it were a flawless takedown notice (see 17 U.S.C. 512(c)(3)(B)(ii)). Scribd, therefore, was quite likely required, at a minimum, to contact the complaining party for a proper takedown notice, but just taking the material down avoids the mess of paying a lawyer to find out whether or not they actually have to comply and, if not, what they can get away with, contacting the complaining party, etc.
I don't think its fair to act as if Scribd's is morally obligated to know the precise legal boundaries of what they can get away with and push them (unless they have an explicit contractual obligation to their users to do so).
Re:Scribd is at fault here (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Scribd is at fault here (Score:5, Insightful)
Ignoring the obvious ad hominem, let's look at Jerry's arguments:
"I can say this: Scribd.com which Doctorow defends has the complete text of a number of works. One of them is Sheffield and Pournelle, Higher Education. I guarantee you that neither I nor Charlie's widow has given this outfit any permission to do this. They used to have more of my books, and Niven's, and many others. They also had a series of hoops one had to jump through to get those taken down. The procedure was onerous, and they didn't answer my emails."
Doctorow doesn't defend scribd, and he also voice no objection to authors (or their agents) sending DMCA notices in order to remove truly infringing content. His problem is with SFWA sending fraudulent notices (which of all things wasn't even in a proper format) that resulted in non-infringing material being removed. And those 'series of hoops' [scribd.com] are what's required by the DMCA notice-and-takedown process. It is the law, not some arbitrary attempt on scribd's part in order to make the process more difficult than necessary. If he has a problem with the law he should take his complaints to Congress.
"SFWA will have an answer to Doctorow. Doctorow does not seem to have done his homework regarding DMCA, but that too is hardly astonishing. DMCA has a number of legal requirements for both those asserting their rights under it and those asserting a right to post copies of works without the permission of the copyright owners. I am no expert on those matters, but SFWA has such experts among its membership and supporters."
I find it incredibly hard to respond to that in a non-ridiculing manner. Cory has been working with the Internet and copyright for so long that he should be able to quote the entire DMCA by heart by now (well, maybe not the rider bill concerning the sui generis protection of boat hull designs). If there is someone that doesn't understand the DMCA it is Burt, he didn't even manage to send a proper DMCA notification to scribd. If that's the level of "experts" that SFWA has available, I'd strongly advise them to get outside counsel post haste. Especially now that Burt has exposed the SFWA to liability due to perjury under DMCA 512(f).
And let me repeat; noone has said that sending notices in order to get infringing material removed is wrong. The entire issue is with SFWA sending notices that resulted in non-infringing content, and content from authors that have explicitly allowed for distribution being taken down.
"They made it difficult for writers to ask that their works be taken off: we had to find them and request one at a time and provide them other materials."
That's the way the DMCA works. If he doesn't like, Congress is over there.
"[..] or that the right of Doctorow to have his work displayed on a site that uses piracy to get net traffic is far more important than mine to have a writers organization try to act in my behalf."
The real issue here is what requirements there should be on services that provide 3rd parties the ability to publish stuff. The notice-and-takedown provisions of the DMCA isn't without it's flaws but it is certainly better than nothing. Copyright holders might feel that the current law is too lax or onerous, so I'd be really interested in seeing what kind of system Pournelle would like to replace it with.
And it might also be educational for him to think through the consequences of his proposed system. For starters: What would be the impact on services ranging from MySpace and YouTube down to blogs which allows comments on posts? Could unscrupulous organizations like the Church of Scientology abuse his system to silence online criticism?
Smart people have thought about these questions, and notice-and-takedown and a similar procedure called notice-and-notice are at the top of the pile when it comes to striking a
Re:Scribd is at fault here (Score:4, Insightful)
"Just to clarify. This letter, sent by Andrew Burt, seems not to be a DMCA notice as a DMCA notice requires some specific statements as to the agent's representation of a copyright holder, which this letter lacks. Indeed, this letter is obviously written as part of a longer back and forth correspondence between Burt and someone at Scribd.
However, in this subsequent letter, Burt falsely claims that the first letter linked was in fact not an "idle musing, but a DMCA notice."
Since the criticism of these letters emerged, we have been told that, in fact, SFWA never sent Scribd a DMCA takedown notice. This is correct.
In other news, I just got a tin deputy badge from a box of Crackerjacks and will be placing some parking tickets I just printed out on my home computer on the windshields of cars on my block. If anyone receiving the ticket asks, yes I am authorized to hand out these tickets and they are real tickets, the fines from which I will collect. If these real tickets get me into trouble, then they are not real tickets and anyone suckered by them is to blame for his own foolishness.
Is that all clear now?"
Irony (Score:5, Interesting)
Andrew Burt was responsible for the first real unfettered access I had to USENET, back in the days when my telnet access was through a CP/CMS machine, and so telnet into Nyx.net [nyx.net] (back when it was still known as nyx.cs.du.edu) was all cluttered with ANSI codes and improper scrolling yet still readable. aburt's Nyx site was where I went to read the anime newsgroup rec.arts.anime that a friend had told me about, and where I was inducted into online writing circles where we wrote our tales and shared our stories freely on the Internet. Though defunct now, alt.pub.dragons-inn and alt.pub.havens-rest were really jumping back in the day.
And Burt was also a more direct champion of writing circles [salon.com], in his work with Critters. According to the article, he believed that espousing some of the principles of the Open Source movement in writing would lead to more and better writers.
And now look what he's doing. What a shame that it should come to this.
Down and Out et. al. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Down and Out et. al. (Score:5, Informative)
Ray Gun Revival magazine has at least two works that have been removed by Scribd at SFWA's behest merely for mentioning the last names 'Asimov' and 'Heinlein'.
We filed our DMCA counter-notification and are awaiting the mandatory ten day time period.
The story, for me, is recounted here: http://raygunrevival.com/Forum/viewtopic.php?t=139 5&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0 [raygunrevival.com]
one of the tags should be (Score:4, Insightful)
RS
scribd with non-proprietary sw? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
Not using Linux.
(not really a secret)
Prominent authors (Score:2)
Silverburg? Really? Last I checked, The Book of Skulls was written by Robert Silverberg (as well as a host of other great books).
What a cluster honk (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't know about Cory, but I think the system is far from fair. Very far from fair. In many, many ways.
all the best,
drew
http://openp [openphoto.net]
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Foolish, sure, but also illegal.
Huh? (Score:4, Funny)
Well, they ARE infringing in some cases (Score:5, Informative)
Theoretical blathering on copyright aside, unauthorized posting of complete copyrighted works that ought to be a source of income to the writers who write books for a living is not right. There are no MPAA or RIAA strongarm tactics at work here. Rather, there are actual writers attempting to defend their copyrights.
Everyone rightly complains when the RIAA sues a grandmother for $10,000, but if an individual musician requests that a site illegally hosting an entire album stop unauthorized distribution of their work, isn't that a lot different?
Re:Well, they ARE infringing in some cases (Score:4, Informative)
The process to remove a work is to provide a notice conforming to 17 USC 512(c)(3)(A), which should take about half an hour if you've actually located infringing content, and by sending that to the registered agent identified on the publicly accessible portion of the website (as required by 17 USC 512(c)(2)), and then check to see if the infringing work is expeditiously removed as required by 17 USC 512(c)(1)(C). If not, file a lawsuit, because the service provider is outside of the DMCA liability shield, and is subject to suit for damages and injunctive relief for the infringment.
If the service provider tries to put you through additional hoops and draw the process out, well, as long as you do what is required and document it, they're the one's left holding the bag.
Anyhow, no amount of actual infringement justifies the illegal (under 17 USC 512(f)) misrepresentation involved in the false claims of copyright ownership and infringement at issue here.
Pournelle's pissed? So f*cking what? (Score:3, Interesting)
It's ironic that the auth
Not all SCI FI writers are jerks... (Score:4, Interesting)
Thicker Than Blood [scribd.com]
Come give me a takedown notice for my own book. I'll sue the crap out of you.
Dystopias (Score:5, Insightful)
Thank god we have science fiction stories to warn us away from such dystopias.
SFWA Statement regarding removal of works (Score:5, Informative)
I want to respond to the flurry of activity that has resulted from Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) mistakenly identifying several works as infringing copyright. First, some background. There have been discussions within SFWA for several months regarding websites that allow users to upload documents of all sorts for other users to download and share. Many hundreds of copyrighted texts have been put online at these sites, and the number is growing quickly. Some SFWA members complained about the pirating of their works to SFWA's e-Piracy Committee and authorized the committee to do something about it. SFWA contacted scribd.com, one of these sites, about removing these authors' works and generated a list of infringing works to be removed.
Unfortunately, this list was flawed and the results were not checked. At least three works tagged as copyright infringements were nothing of the sort. I have personally apologized to the writers and editors of those works. If you are a creator who has had material removed and has not yet been contacted, please email me at president@sfwa.org.
SFWA's intention was to remove from scribd.com only works copyrighted by SFWA members who had authorized SFWA to act on their behalf. This kind of error will not happen again.
Michael Capobianco
President, SFWA
Some clarification ... (Score:5, Interesting)
SFWA is an organization of writers (as in, a herd of semi-feral cats). It's not a distribution cartel like the MPAA or RIAA, and it has not, in point of fact, got very much real-world clout at all.
SFWA is, however, a representative democracy. And the current elected executive officers appear to have decided to take this (in my opinion, bone-headed and incompetent) action on their own initiative.
There is currently a flame war raging inside SFWA over these DMCA takedown notices, with some authors supporting them and others calling for the resignation of the board. I'm not going to name names or tell tales out of school, but please don't assume that this is indicative of some borg-like organization of copyright totalitarians taking aim at your liberties: it's more a symptom of incompetence.
(Meanwhile, some of us are maintaining our SFWA membership specifically to fight this kind of stupidity from within.)
Re:Only a Little Bit Pregnant? (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't think so.
Re: (Score:2)
There are legal ways to use copyrighted material without permission. Thus NOT infringing on the copyright.
Your conclusion is, at best, stupid.
Basic Logic (Score:2)
No, saying that m
Re:SFWA represents ... (Score:4, Insightful)
This suggests that every member of SFWA supports what's happened. Since I'm a member of SFWA (indeed, I ran for president of the organization earlier this year and lost), and have access to their private boards and have seen the carnage there, I can tell you authoritatively: It's not even remotely true.
Speaking for myself, I think every author has a right to say how their work should be used and displayed. I also think that this particular maneuver was pretty dumb.
Punishing every member of SFWA because of a jackassed maneuver by one of its officers is like punishing every American because Dick Cheney is busily taking a squat on the Constitution. In both cases, the executive in question does not represent the views of every member.
Re:SFWA represents ... (Score:4, Interesting)
As of today however I will not buy books from people who I know are SWFA members, until the idiots in charge are no longer in charge. Guilt by association I guess, which is bad, but... there ya go.
Either get rid of the nutter (and from what I have read you actually are the person who should be in charge), or leave, or I won't buy your books any more.
Change, change fast, or lose at least one paying customer.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Suggestions like yours are flogging a horse that's already going as fast as it can; beware, lest you flog it to death.