Gentoo Package Accused of Violating DMCA 713
cshields2 writes "A recent post to the Gentoo mirrors mailing list passes along a DMCA violation claim that one of the mirror admins recieved. Supposively their bot saw the words "Pac" and "Man" in the filename INFMapPacks123FULL-MAN.zip and assumed it was an illegal copy of PAC-MAN. The file is actually for Unreal Tournament Infiltration. This is comical in one sense, but to be read by a hosting company who does not know any better can be frightening. Has anyone else ran into this with good (or even bad) outcomes?"
This is stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
Also,
>Note: The information transmitted in this Notice is intended only for the >person or entity to which it is addressed and may contain confidential >and/or privileged material. Any review, reproduction, retransmission, >dissemination or other use of, or taking of any action in reliance upon, >this information by persons or entities other than the intended recipient >is prohibited.
What is this all about? They are trying to hide the fact that they are sending out these letters?
Re:This is stupid (Score:5, Informative)
Re:This is stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
At worst, the sender could claim copyright over the message text, so arguably I wouldn't be able to post the exact message to my web site. However, I could just as easily post a summary to my web site, or show it to a journalist / the police / my stock broker / my coworkers / whoever, and be perfectly within my rights.
Then again, IANAL. Can any L's out there contradict me?
Re:This is stupid (Score:5, Funny)
Re:This is stupid (Score:5, Informative)
I suppose that all depends on what country you live in. I have been seeing disclaimers like this on email quite a bit lately and I asked our legal department about them. They told me it depends on whether there is a pre-existing NDA between me (or the company I work for) and the sender (or the company they work for). If there is, then I must abide by the terms and conditions of that NDA. However, if there is no NDA in place and I receive information that I did not request or was not intended for me specifically, from a legal perspective I am free to do whatever I want with that information. I may be subject to ethical and moral restraints, but legally, I can act as I please.
So, if someone sends me confidential information by accident or their workstation is running the latest microsoft trojan and it sends me confidential information that was never intended for me, there is no legal requirement (here in Canada at least) for me to inform the sender about it or delete the message unless I choose to do so. I could also legally act on that information as well (e.g. buy/sell stocks based on the quarterly financial reports I received before they go public). Presumably, I could forward that information to other people and not be committing any crime, although I did not ask that question specifically, so take that part with a grain of salt.
The lawyers reminded me that it may not be ethical to do any of those things, but from a strictly legal perspective, I would have done nothing wrong.
Re:This is stupid (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:This is stupid (Score:3, Informative)
that's just standard CYA. a lot of lawyers and such include it at the end of every email.
Re:This is stupid (Score:5, Informative)
What is this all about? They are trying to hide the fact that they are sending out these letters?
That's all standard boilerplate that is included in most any legally confidential communications. My mom is a shrink, and every fax she sends contains that text. It doesn't restrict the actions of the intended recipient. My mom's clients can still show the fax to anyone they please. It's so that if my mom sends it to a client, and someone else picks it up out of the fax machine, they aren't supposed to give it to all their friends. It's weak juju to indemnify the sender of lapses in confidentiality.
If they wanted to stop the intended recipient from spreading the message around... they couldn't, but they'd be much more threatening.
Re:This is stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
Companies that have made invalid claims such as this one should be punished.
That's the real problem here. Part of the system of Checks and Balances here is that the company alleging infringement must do so under penalty of perjory, which implies a need for due diligence on their part. Since the Attorneys General in question seem to refuse to prosecute any of these entities for their numerous perjories under this law, they see no need for due diligence and employ the automated techniques which result in scenarios like this article. Until that changes there will be more of the same. I think we should move to recall any attorney general who refuses to prosecute one of these cases.
Let's Have Some Fun! (Score:5, Insightful)
That would generate vast amounts of noise for them (and for us, yes), and it would really highlight the madness.
Re:Let's Have Some Fun! (Score:5, Funny)
'Noise' as a method of civil disobedience (Score:5, Interesting)
Case in point: the idea of a national database on everyone alive
If one, hypothetically, saw the creation of a national database on people, it wouldn't be hard to 'fake' information on a decent scale that is patently false information. It would require some creativity, but it could probably be done in a way that isn't even illegal. It's called fiction. Create stories with names in them, create stories with numbers in them. Make up numbers. We all know that social security numbers are XXX-XX-XXXX format, so it wouldn't be hard to say that "Ol' Jim Houston" has 234-11-5532 for a social security number. So, the national database spidering software might pick up that number and note that the true owner of that number has an alias of "Ol' Jim Houston". Write a story about this character where he uses his 'number', so it comes up. Movies do it all of the time, if you've ever seen "FX", they used SSNs in determining information about bad guys. Create "likes" pages. Say someone likes guns, or rabbits, or construction, or water parks, or anything. Email it around. If there's something out there that we don't like, it'll collect the information. Email "bad" words around without context, in such a way that they trip Carnivore or similar systems but do such in a way to make it obvious that they're complete and utter bullshit.
Make the system have so much information to process, categorize, and store that it either has to ignore information entirely or that it fails in the middle of doing its job. Or, make it so that if it manages to process everything that it gets that it stores so much bad information that the 'record' for any given individual is useless. I'd love to see it store that I go dowhill skiing every Northern Hemisphere summer down in Australia, or that I frequent BDSM clubs, or that I helped design the rocket car "The Spirit of America", just so that there is no credibility to any of the information at all in the system, since nothing can be easily verified as being correct. This breaks the system at a use level.
If a million geeks decide to do this, the ability for any given system to work is very low. I'm sure that people will complain that we're endangering national security, but remember, terrorists that we've seen, Timothy McVeigh, the DC area snipers, the Abortion Clinic bombers, and the WTC/Pentagon attackers, didn't do what they did in a way that was detectable through the methods that they want to start using. They did it with a rental truck and farming fertilizer, or boxcutters, or a rifle and a sheetmetal-modified car. Does any of this revolve around computers? ANY of it?
Suggestion - DMCAbot honeypot (Score:5, Interesting)
May I suggest that someone put together a DMCAbot honeypot with loads of .zip filenames which contain words that appear in many popular games and other copyrighted materials.
If you could go to a court with, say, 100 of these ridiculous claims from a particular firm of lawyers for files in your honeypot, then maybe the courts would listen and do something about these claims?
Re:Suggestion - DMCAbot honeypot (Score:5, Funny)
the RIAA sucks.
the DMCA sucks.
SCO sucks (I had to throw this in)
I would not let Hilary R. suck
Make sure all files are multi-part encrypted zipped iso files of at least 650 to 700 meg.
limit the download speed of these files to 2.8 kbps!
do not allow restarts on the file downloads!
name the files:
MetalLicka
Madumbass
decss
Unicwarez 11.0
Re:Suggestion - DMCAbot honeypot (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Suggestion - DMCAbot honeypot (Score:4, Interesting)
This raises a question. Do these serial DMCA perjurers use search engines, or do they have their own web-crawlers? If they have their own web-crawlers, what user-agent strings do they report to the http daemon? It would be interesting to know whether (say) the ESA had been trawling through my sites.
Re:This is stupid (Score:4, Informative)
In fact, I believe that it was the interview with the IP lawyers from the DOJ...
So, you can't punish the company sending frivolous claims unless they don't have the right to be making silly claims about that particular material.
Re:This is stupid (Score:3, Insightful)
The only real thing you could complain about is what constitutes "good faith". How much effort is required on their part? Does a reg-exp matching bot count as good faith? Doesn't seem like it to me, but unless there were a number of hits, I suppose the courts would consider it too trivial to penalize.
Clarification (Score:4, Informative)
Personally I think the law should be changed to the later so we can prosecute these bone-heads as apropriate for using scripted code without real checks as to what they found.
Re:This is stupid (Score:3, Informative)
According to the DOJ lawyers who recently responded in a Slashdot Interview, the "penalty of perjury" clause applies to their representation as being an agent of someone, and not to the validity of the claim or allegation.
Re:This is stupid (Score:5, Informative)
It's for a court to decide, I guess, but personlly I feel that good-faith would require human supervision of a these systems.
On the other hand, maybe they do, and these are just ones that slip through. It's gotta be mind-numbing reviewing these things all day.
Re:This is stupid (Score:4, Interesting)
If you're sending out this sort of message, you damn well better be shooting for 100% accuracy! Every single false positive must be investigated to assure that it never happens again.
Well, it's a nice theory at least.
The point of a DMCA letter is to notify the ISP. The ISP, to remain safe from prosecution, must take down the file in question . Even if the person who posted the file claims that it is not infringing and files a counter-claim, the ISP cannot return the file for 10 days. This amounts to a non-judicially reviewed gag order for 10 days, a horrible infringement on the first amendment.
In the worst example, several web forums were posting leaking prices from the post-thanksgiving sale at Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart wrongfully claimed copyright protection on the information (you can copyright fliers, but not the actual prices, as the prices are just facts). The people running the web site objected, but thanks to the DMCA, the posts came down for the required 10 days, coinciding with the end of the post-thanksgiving day sale. At that point, Wal-Mart declined to push the claim (they knew it was bogus) and the posts went up. A free gag order, just when Wal-Mart needed it, without any pesky checks-and-balances to protect the public.
Re:This is stupid (Score:3, Informative)
The sentencing guidelines for the crime are covered in Title 18, section 1621 [cornell.edu], among other places. Penalty is a fine and/or imprisonment of up to 5 years.
Re:This is stupid (Score:5, Informative)
Quite frankly, this argument is (no offense) mostly hot air -- Obviously, you could (by your logic) run around claiming everyone is hiding something illegal in something else. It may be difficult to prove it isn't there (indeed, even if you knew "the encoding" you could argue that a different encoding might possibly have been used), but it would be impossible to prove that is there. The classic example: I could tell you that there is a race of little green men living on the far side of the moon, but they always remain hidden so we can never see them and if you try to find them, the will run away in their perfectly invisible spaceships. You can't tell me they don't exist, but how can I prove they do?
Q. What evidence do you have?
A. Ummm.... none. But theoretically.......
Good-bye
Re:This is stupid (Score:3, Funny)
You can't prove a negative... (Score:5, Insightful)
and that's the problem with the DMCA and other laws like this. With a complex situation or structure you can't prove a negative. This is one of the fundamentals of science, in terms of hyoptheses becoming theories. If there is no way to test a hypothesis in such a way as to get a confirmed pass/fail test, then it's not a very good theory.
As for the 'encoding', read "Radio Free Ablemuth" by Philip K. Dick. It specifically addressed this kind of freakishness with coded messages. Or go see "A Beautiful Mind". Another example of why it's not feasible to go around accusing someone who can't prove a negative result. I feel that it should be criminal to accuse someone without having a verifiable positive first showing that they've actually done something wrong. Yeah, this puts the burden of proof on the accuser. Isn't that what the constitution says, with "Innocent until proven guilty"?
Not to give the media conglomerates any more work or anything...
Good Faith? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think a good faith effort should involve a little more than lame pattern matching.
Good Faith or Bad Faith? (Score:5, Interesting)
It's an accusation to an ISP that the ISP's customer is committing a violation of a law and should be whacked, and under the DMCA it's much safer for the ISP to whack them first and apologize later if there's a mistake. There are various legal terms for doing this sort of thing - I'm not sure which of them are torts, which might become torts if the carrier acts on them, which might be crimes (they did say "under penalty of perjury"), and which are just insults.
Makes your wonder (Score:5, Interesting)
Seriously? (Score:5, Insightful)
What are the factors that decide if a file is really in violation of the DMCA? I can see lots of lameness coming from this type of system.
Re:Seriously? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Seriously? (Score:4, Interesting)
If you managed to piss them off enough to spend some more resources actually persuing the matter, you could have some fun consuming some of their resources without risking anything.
Re:Seriously? (Score:3, Offtopic)
Have a nice day.
Note about note. (Score:4, Informative)
Oh, come on... (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't turn anthills into mountains, people. I am sure even the dumber PHB can understand that this file has nothing to do with "Pac Man"... Ooops... There goes another DMCA violation!!
Re:Oh, come on... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Oh, come on... (Score:3, Informative)
"Once notice is given to the service provider, or in circumstances where the service provider discovers the infringing material itself, it is required to expeditiously remove the material from its network. The safe harbor provisions do not require the service provider to notify the individual responsible for the allegedly infringing material before it has been removed, but they do require notification after the material is remove
Re:Oh, come on... (Score:3, Interesting)
Worse yet, it's not even the legal system that does the punishing, it's the company which thinks its copyright might have been infringed. Using bots to automatically send out cease-and-desist letters, with no human oversi
That's a big Pac Man (Score:5, Funny)
Re:That's a big Pac Man (Score:5, Funny)
This is insane (Score:5, Insightful)
You can't blame it on the program. If your bot is unreliable
21st century witch hunt is what this is.
At least in the 1600's they got the witches right. Somewhat.
Re:This is insane (Score:5, Funny)
H3x0rs?
excellent! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:excellent! (Score:5, Insightful)
RPM users beware (Score:5, Funny)
I kid because I love...
Re:RPM users beware (Score:3, Funny)
We believe that one or more of your users is violating Microsoft(C) copyright by using the word "start" in his name. This is obviously an IP infringement on the Microsoft(C) Windows(C) Start Menu(C). We ask that you remove the word "start(C)" from all user accounts, webpages, and files hosted on any domain owned by the Open Source Developers Network. Failure to comply will result in fines of up to $75,000 per infraction and possible jailtime and / or vaporization.
--Microsoft(C) DMCANazi(C) D
Automated law? (Score:5, Funny)
This reminds me of the Simpsons. Homer's car has been impounded by the city of NYC (at the World Trade Center actually), and he's on a pay phone with an automated system:
Pleasant Female Voice: Thank you for calling the Parking Violations Bureau. To plead 'Not Guilty' press one now.
(Homer presses one)
Pleasant Female Voice: Thank You. Your call has been...
Gruff Male Voice: Rejected.
Pleasant Female Voice: You will be assessed the full fine, plus a small...
Gruff Male Voice: Large lateness penalty.
Pleasant Female Voice: Please wait by your vehicle between the hours of nine A.M. and five P.M. for Parking Officer Steve...
Gruff Male Voice: Grabowski.
Next you'll be saying that patent examiners... (Score:4, Interesting)
Action Plan (Score:5, Interesting)
I think its time the same thing happened with DMCA bots. If they are going to be snooping around everything, lets make A LOT of stuff for them to find! Imagine if all of us created web pages that appeared to hold copywrighted material, but don't. Even just a php or cgi page that generated links with *suspicious words* but nothing of interest. No actual person would use them, but the DMCA bots would see a jackpot. Then, when actual people followed up, they'd find absolutely nothing wrong. That would gum them up pretty badly.
So who wants to spearhead this?
Re:Action Plan (Score:5, Funny)
I nominate Al Gore. He's the one who invented this whole intrenat thingy anyways.
Re:Action Plan (Score:5, Interesting)
Not to mention, actually printing or speaking a copywrighted term is ok depending on circumstances. I'll explain:
"My sister's boyfriend is terrible. See what a cold hearted snake he is by downloading this text file."
See what I mean? That's an 80's song, OR a common phrase. They can't prosecute on that.
"Yesterday's news had a story about a robber who got away from cops 7 times. He is such a smooth criminal that he was gone before the cops even..."
And the Bots' pattern matching is so lose, you wouldn't even have to write the actual title, just the filename Metallicalluminum would throw the red ight on these bots.
We can screw them over, because we're smarter, AND we USE that intelligence.
Computers automatically sending C&D letters? (Score:5, Insightful)
What's next, automatic indictment by computer? "Sorry sir, the computer has ascertained that there is a 94% probability that you murdered your wife. The trial begins Wednesday."
Re:Computers automatically sending C&D letters (Score:3, Insightful)
When you run a red light, there is direct evidence that you have done so.
Even after that, you then have the opportunity to go to court and fight that evidence, either with mitigating circumstances (the truck barrelling down on you from behind that pushed you into the intersection) or conflicting evidence (your car was being driven by a different person, because it was stolen or simply because you lent it to your fiance).
So while the evidence is gathered by camera and process
Sounds like a script. (Score:5, Funny)
Good Morning. Law Bot has found 2431 possible lawsuits today. Would you like to proceed with 2431 litigations? (Y/N)
Y
Thank you. Law Bot will now attempt to find an open relay to distribute litigations by email.
Good faith? (Score:5, Interesting)
"Sanctions: A form of financial 'punishment' where a Judge can order a party or attorney to pay for not following Court orders or not acting in good faith in a Court proceeding."
While it's all fun and games to laugh at this, what if AT&T had cut off his connection? What if that connection was vital to business?
I don't know how you go and get sanctions levied at organizations like this, but the ESA clearly violated good faith in this circumstance.
Re:Good faith? (Score:5, Informative)
It seems the only people these days that take the DMCA seriously are organizations like the ESA.
Still, good point.
Re:Good faith? (Score:4, Informative)
While I'm glad you can shrug this off with a laugh, you've hit the nail on the head with that quote above. The thing is, the ESA aren't the only ones taking the DMCA seriously. The RIAA will soon be issuing over 1000 lawsuites against music sharers -- thanks in whole to information obtained via the DMCA. The problem is, what if they used the same techniques to find violators?
Intellectual Property Garbage (Score:3, Insightful)
Wake up...
-t
Similar situation at ibiblio with Junior (Score:5, Interesting)
and Desist letter citing the DMCA because we have a couple of large files
with the word "Junior" in their names. Junior-2.2-CD1.iso and
Junior-2.2-CD1.iso are in a directory called
which pretty much says that they are
Linux distributions in CD image to anyone vaguely clued.
But Vevendi (or
their funky infringement-seeking robot) thinks they might be the 1994
Arnold S bomb, Junior [imdb.com],
To respond to their completely bogus complaint, we have to grab the files
and install 'em and then report back. At our time and expense. I am not
full of love over this. It's their job to find a infringements -- not just
make a few guesses and then demand that we do the rest of the work for
them for free. Makes me wanna see a movie for free! (not Junior however).
Oh THATS a sophisticated Spider (Score:3, Insightful)
First of all, that fricking PAC MAN is worthy of that kind of vigilant enforcement is mind boggling. And second that they're willing to poin the finger on so little evidence... I've played that infiltration mod for unreal. Even the most cursory check would show that it violated no copyrights and no IP laws, and, especially that it wasn't fricking PACMAN!
This kind of thing is good, because it shows very clearly the flaws and the flawed minds behind the DMCA.
Now, I'm off to put a bunch of files with misleading filenames up on my site.
Got me on this one (Score:3, Funny)
MetallicAlloysDentersAndManuals
Baz
PS no i dont really
Re:Got me on this one (Score:3, Funny)
Dear Bazman:
The RIAA wishes to inform you that you are violating our copyrights. Our patented DMCAbots(tm) have seen through your thin attempt at obfuscation. You would like us to think you have fake copies of Metallic in this directory, but we know you were far more clever than this:
MetallicAlloysDentersAndManuals
We will now proceed to sue you on behalf of Madonna for amounts of money so vast, modern mathematics has no way to depict them.
Signed, the RIAA.
The best way to beat the DMCA robots (Score:5, Informative)
Similar thing happened to me.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Our game is set in the fictional city of Pebble Beach, in an undetermined state. We state on our web site that it is not affiliated with the original Pebble Beach Golf Course (which we learned about five years after we'd started playing), but jokingly make a comment about a mini golf course for wayward visitors.
In January we received a C&D letter from the lawyers of Pebble Beach Company, stating that our online site was causing confusion in the marketplace and that we must immediatly change our name.
TFOS stands for Teenagers From Outer Space. It's a roleplaying game based in anime, where aliens come to Earth, go to high school and such.
-Aliens
-High School
-Anime
-Statement that we aren't the REAL Pebble Beach
Pebble Beach Company
-Golf
-Florida (or is it CA?)
-Real
These corporations/DMCABots are sending out C&Ds without even looking at what they're sending it out. Five seconds on our web page would have saved them and us a lot of trouble.
Fortunatly, my brother contacted the EFF, and a lawyer wrote to them....and we haven't heard from PBC since.
The bot claims privacy rights, and more! (Score:3, Insightful)
Those are privacy-related restrictions which can only be invoked between real people, not by crude filename-grepping scripts dumping output to automatically-selected e-mail addresses.
And where does whoever wrote that varbage get off, saying that no one other than the intended recipient is allowed to act upon the information? What law backs that up?
This might actually be a Good Thing (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't recall the specifics about how the DMCA requires ISPs to investigate / respond to this kind of crap, but I think any sane judge would agree that it wasn't Congress' intent to force ISPs to spend all sorts of manpower (and, thus, $$) investigating every stupid letter that comes forth.
So bring it on! We need MORE lawyers sending out MORE useless crap so that ISPs can be justified in ignoring all of them, even the ones that actually are well-researched.
(or something like that)
Seems like a lack of due diligence (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Seems like a lack of due diligence (Score:3, Interesting)
Don't they have to claim ownership for a DMCA? (Score:5, Interesting)
At which point, the hosting provider can take it down with immunity.
But if the initial claim is bogus, doesn't that open the door to damages to the person making the false DMCA claim? Obviously, they're at least demonstrating negligence and reckless disregard if they're going on the output of a bot.
Fat PacMan (Score:5, Insightful)
That's got to be the first time I hear of a 160MB version of PacMan - does it include detailed 3D schematics of the arcade machine as well?
Seriously though, don't they have some filters on identifying infringing files? Like say the latest game is >100MB, an arcade ROM/old game quite a bit less. Otherwise I'd imagine they are getting far too many false positives (they seem to be searching for SEGMENTS of a name - how many files out there do you think include pac and man or sim and city?).
Lawsuit honeypot (Score:5, Interesting)
Somebody with a clueless ISP, host an ftp site sporting empty files with names like pacman.zip, archon.zip, loderunner.zip, etc.
When the ISP gets the DMCA notice and shuts you down, you sue the sender for disrupting your business. Of course you'll need some kind of front business on the same server.
Openoffice Mirrors (Score:3, Informative)
Good thing it wasnt 'auto suits'.. Innocent people would have to pay to defend themselves for doing NOTHING... ( remember its civil court, its on your to prove innocence.. )
Morons.
In other news (Score:3, Funny)
Actually, we have.... (Score:4, Informative)
Here's one example from earlier this month:
RIAA's scare tactics bound to backfire [com.com]
We already saw this happen earlier this year, when the RIAA was forced to apologize to a Pennsylvania State University professor for sending him and dozens of other people legal warning saying that they were violating federal copyright law. The RIAA's automated program apparently confused two separate pieces of information--a legal MP3 file and a directory named "usher"--and concluded there was an illegal copy of a song by the musician Usher.
Also, from the
9) "... under penalty of perjury
In copyright law, 17 USC Section 512(c)(3)(vi) states that all notifications of copyright violations sent to ISPs must contain
A statement that the information in the notification is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, that the complaining party is authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.
(emphasis mine).
Do you know of any cases in which the sender of an invalid takedown notice -- such as the RIAA claiming Penn State University Emeritus Professor Peter Usher's lecture on radio-selected quasars was, in fact, an mp3 from the musician Usher -- has been successfully charged with perjury? Or do you allow copyright holders some "fudge factor" with the perjury aspect, since
1. It was an mp3.
2. It did have the name of an RIAA-represented artist in the title, and
3. It was at a university.
If copyright holders are allowed leeway, can we expect to see similarly loose definitions of perjury creep into the legal system? If the police are looking for a "Caucasian male, age 50-60, bald, 200-225 pounds," can I testify in a court of law that the 18 year-old caucasian male with a ponytail, weighing 140-150 pounds, is in fact the suspect since he is, after all, a caucasian male?
I realize that's more than one question and that they're slightly loaded, but I'd appreciate any comments on how seriously the DoJ takes the perjury clause of the takedown notices.
O'Leary:
Your question raises an important point. We feel strongly that everyone should comply with the requirements of all laws. Legal process under the DMCA or any other provision of law should be undertaken with the utmost care and good faith. Failure to do so undermines the credibility and effectiveness of our legal system.
Having said that, it appears your interpretation of the language in 512 (c)(3)(vi) is in error. The phrase "under penalty of perjury," applies to the representation that the complaining party is authorized to act on behalf of the copyright owner. It does not apply to the accuracy of the information about the alleged infringement. Quoting federal district Judge Bates in Verizon v. RIAA, The DMCA also requires a person seeking a subpoena to state, under penalty of perjury, that he is authorized to act on behalf of the copyright owner, 257 F. Supp.2d 244, at 262. In other words, the perjury clause may be violated if you seek a DMCA subpoena without the authorization of the copyright owner.
We are unaware of any prosecutions for violating this provision of the DMCA at this time.
Penn State Astronomy, the House of Usher (Score:3, Funny)
In fact, they were mp3's of original a capella music about astronomy. On the same web page, there were references to Prof. Emeritus Peter Usher, an elderly, white, generally unhip astronomer whose recent contributions to the field include an analysis of the astronomical context of Hamlet [psu.edu].
The good folks of the department were kind enough to issue widely-distributed press releases mocking the RIAA, who later apologized for the error.
Oh well... (Score:5, Funny)
Small World (Score:5, Informative)
As I mentioned in the list post, yes, this is silly and amusing, but it still has to be treated seriously. I met with our company lawyer yesterday (who is pretty well-versed in the DMCA, and hence has slightly less than glowing praise about it). The basic response of course is to reply, explaining that they are in error and to consider the matter closed.
While I would like nothing better than to go after these people for gross abuse of the legal system, my company, like many other companies, cannot justify the costs associated with going to court over something like this. This is why you should donate to an organization like the EFF, and tell them you are concerned about the DMCA and its effects.
(Standard IANAL disclaimer for the following:) Also, check out this form [copyright.gov] if you are a mirror provider. It deals specifically with the DMCA, but does not necessarily provide protection against, but it may help. It is intended for transit providers/datacenters (which we are), but from reading its defintion of a "service provider", mirror sites MAY (again, IANAL) qualify in the same respect.
This is so silly... (Score:3, Informative)
Oops...
Cease and Desist to the extreme (Score:5, Funny)
This letter was hysterical because apart from being in slightly broken English, it mentioned the name "Toho Co., Ltd" about every sentence, and was full of self-praise about how great and honorable Toho Co., Ltd was.
At first, he ignored it. Then the company came down on him because they got a letter from Toho Co., Ltd's lawyers. There was some debate, and the company decided that it wasn't worth their time to try and deal with this, so they dropped the issue.
The coworker *was* a Godzilla fan, so he wrote back to Toho Co., Ltd that "Godzilla" was not a trademark, but "Gojirra," the proper kanakata spelling was a trademark, and he did not have an account with that name, nor did he have the ability to open an account with that name unless they paid or company for the e-mail address.
They never replied. He had the letter posted on his door for a while, with a photoshop of Godzilla attacking our building. Then Godzilla 2000 ("Ferris Beuller vs. Godzilla") came out, and I think Toho Co., Ltd probably never wanted to deal with Americans again.
__________________________________________________ _
www.punkwalrus.com - As seen on "The Gong Show"
OpenOffice.org (Score:5, Interesting)
CHARGE FOR COSTS!!! (Score:5, Interesting)
EVERY time that someone gets a completely frivolous complaint like this, they should:
1) research it (proving it's stupidity)
2) Bill for it, at consultant rates. Say $250/hr, 2hr minimum. Make sure you send a formal invoice, (explanation of services done, rates, etc.) and include a payment due date.
3) If they don't pay by that date, then either (a) call a collection agency, or (b) sue.
Doing a little bit of extra work now will hurt them enough to make them stop.
Funny funny. (Score:5, Funny)
Easily enough dealt with...Litigation is Spam! (Score:5, Interesting)
What we have to due, is to introduce a requirement that any "violation notices" be based on a reasonable belief that IP is being infringed and then make the complaining party responsible for any legal expenses on the part of the accused party for an unreasonable violation notice.
It would be a bit like the British, loser pays system, that forces a party realy consider the strength of their case prior to bringing it or defending it at all costs. It helps prevent the kind of "litigation extorition" that we see all the times in the states.
A great example of "litigation extorition" happened to me and my wife shortly after we got married. We decided to install a gas stove (you need that for good Chinese cooking) and needed a gas line to do so. To install the gas line we needed access to the easement inside our neighbors yard (zero lot line). We requested it in writing heard nothing. Assuming that silence implies consent - an old Common Law Legal concept - we went forward with accessing the easement. The day of the installation in the evening a police officer shows up on our doorstep, after getting my wife's version of events he stated, "there is nothing here!" A week later we got a letter from an attorney from our neighbor asking for $1,000 or the name of our insurance company to "resolve this matter".
Well, my wife is a supervising paralegal and I am someone who has read a lot of law. We knew a shake down when we say it. So, we put together a little package (12 exhibits in total) informing them that we were willing to drop this matter at this point, but if they pursued it further that we would be counter-suing. We also dropped a line on the State Bar Association Office of Professional Conduct about this attorney. A few days later we got a note that the attorney in question was no longer representing this client and to forward any and all communications to our neighbor (a breach of Legal ethics, which we sent onto the Office of Professional Conduct).
The bottom line, needless litigation is like Spam: if we increase the cost just a little, it will dramatically reduce it. The problem is that in the US Legal system is doesn't (if you are in the right financial situation) cost you anything but your time and energy to force people to spend money responding to you. If we make people pay some of the cost of litigation.
My Response (Score:4, Insightful)
The subject I used was "Re: Notice of Claimed Infringement"
I designed it to look like a legitimate response to one of these notices. If they receive enough of these protest letters, Mr. Hunter and others at ESA will get a taste of their own medicine
The text follows:
Dear Mr. Hunter,
I have read your notice of claimed infringement.
In your letter, you state "ESA hereby requests AT&T Worldnet Service to immediately remove or disable access to the Infringing Material at the URL address identified above."
The negligence of others is a foreseeable consequence in tort law. Should AT&T have granted your request, you might have been liable for any damages caused by that immediate removal of what you claim to be infringing material.
The file named "INFMapPacks123FULL-MAN.zip" obviously has nothing to do with Pac Man.
You would do well to review the threatening letters that you send out, rather than cavalierly trampling on the rights of others.
Regards,
INSERT-NAME-HERE
concerned citizen
A Match by a BOT does NOT QUALIFY as "Good Faith". (Score:3, Insightful)
Someone should contact the ESA and tell them actions taken like this only serve to make people LESS likely to believe or even care about accusations of infringement since no effort appears to be made for accuracy.
Slow Down DMCAbot! (Score:5, Interesting)
Have this listen to port 21 on your networks and watch DMCAbot hang indefinately (your mileage may very).
Also, just to cause lots of fun, try doing the following: dd if=/dev/urandom bs=1024 count=142 | gzip -c > (MSOffice|PacMan|Zelda|Matrix|.gz) and let DMCAbot spam ISPs with worthless crap until they add an SMTP deny rule.
Anyway, just some ideas.
Re:Slow Down DMCAbot! (Score:3, Funny)
This suggests... (Score:4, Interesting)
What if there were more open-source packages that seemingly contain commercial material, so that they give up trying to keep track of these DMCA violations? Same principle as with an Emacs package (I believe it's called spooky) that inserts words like terrorist', 'bomb', and 'secret' in e-mail headers to 'slashdot' a reported NSA server checking all e-mails for illegal activities.
Sue the Bastiges (Score:5, Interesting)
IANAL (although I did score 163 on the LSAT's and turned down a partial scholarship to law school), but this appears to me to be a case of Defamation, Tortious Interference, and Abuse of Process.
Note they claim a good faith belief. Based on what? It's based on insufficient investigation to found a "good faith belief", and is therefore negligent. Their reckless act has caused you, among other ills: personal distress, time lost in correcting the matter, and harm to your reputation.
You should definitely consult a lawyer about your rights to sue this law firm for their reckless and defamatory acts against you!
- Greg
not perjury (Score:3, Interesting)
hey, i sent that letter (Score:4, Interesting)
So I've seen suggestions on this board that we make honeypots to draw the bots into a world of false positives. Let's do them one better -- let's make our own bots to send cease and desist letters at random, and really discredit the whole concept. Send a letter for every file that contains the word 'Men' or 'Day' or 'Part 2'. Lots of copyrighted material with names like that
Re:new trouble (Score:5, Informative)
E-mail is the property of the sender and receiver, and both have the right to do with the text as they see fit. Thus, posting it is legit.
Anyone who says otherwise is merely trying to utilize scare tactics.
DMCA (Score:3, Funny)
Maybe we can go after all spammers that way.
Re:Fighting back? (Score:5, Interesting)
It could be construed as harassment. The ESA has deep pockets, and they could get out of it fairly well. I still think that filing small claims for $5K would get their attention if everybody started doing it. You can represent yourself, and say that it caused emotional damage as well as technical time to validate their claim. On top of wasted bandwidth and time, at your contracted rate, you can get a decent damage claim.
"They said this file was infringing, I had to verify no files were actually part of what they were saying. It was unreasonable to assume they made the claim based purely on a filename. I spent 60 hours verifying no intellectual property violations where there, and expect to be compensated."
It would be funny, anyway.
Re:Fighting back? (Score:3, Funny)
You can for Tort, which covers that though. I would just assume most people here think Torts are something you put in a toaster with frosted sprinkles and strawberry filling, though.
I run a hosting company (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Damnit, pacman has become BIG all the sudden (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Sue for time-wasted? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why would anyone take this seriously? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Got a few of these, told them to go to hell. (Score:3, Funny)