Become a fan of Slashdot on Facebook

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
The Internet Media United States Your Rights Online

How The DMCA Affects Search Engines 147

Posted by timothy from the details-and-semantics dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Here is an interesting article regarding the application of the DMCA safe harbor provisions to search engines. This is what causes Google to remove links from its search results and to put a disclaimer at the bottom of the page stating "In response to a complaint we received under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we have removed [x] result(s) from this page." The article is published in the Virginia Journal of Law and Technology, and there is a direct link to a pdf version of the article."
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

How The DMCA Affects Search Engines More

How The DMCA Affects Search Engines

Comments Filter:

  • what i love though... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by wo1verin3 ( 473094 ) on Sunday April 25, 2004 @03:23PM (#8966582) Homepage
    is that these links get extra attention.

    For example, search for Kazaa Lite [google.ca] and look at the DMCA link at the bottom. The notice lists the URLs which they've had to remove.

    Google's way of fighting the man?

    • Re:what i love though... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by LostCluster ( 625375 ) * on Sunday April 25, 2004 @03:30PM (#8966632)
      It's an interesting workaround that Google has worked out. They comply with the DMCA Takedown request to not show the URLs that were requested, but they'll gladly instead link to Chilling Effects who publishes the entire notice Google got, including the URLs in that context.

      If you really want the infringing content, you can get to it, but you at least have to scroll through the claim tha tit's infringing and move the URL to the address bar yourself rather than using a hyperlink. Seems like a fair enough deal to me....

    • Re:what i love though... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by base3 ( 539820 ) on Sunday April 25, 2004 @03:31PM (#8966640)
      Yep--Google's complying with the law, and giving the "rights" holder the finger by providing a copy of the C&D letter that contains more than enough information to find the "content" on a P2P network.

    • Re:what i love though... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by metlin ( 258108 ) *
      I had posted this in my journal [slashdot.org] a while back.

      Basically, when you search for Tetris [google.com], you get some friendly information on how they had removed the link because of DMCA. They give you more information here [chillingeffects.org].

      And here is a screenshot [metlin.org] of the said search.
      • Hmmm ... I followed that link to search for Tetris, and I couldn't see anything like this. I got ten links to sites with the source. The first offered to sell it to me (for 6 or 7 dollars). The second (at MIT) has the source in java for download. I followed a couple of others, and downloaded source in several languages. Then I deleted them, because I don't really want Tetris. There was no mention of DMCA anywhere that I can see.

        This has me puzzled. Why is everyone discussing this suppression of link

    • What i love even more is (Score:5, Informative)

      by GillBates0 ( 664202 ) on Sunday April 25, 2004 @03:37PM (#8966700) Journal
      the fact that they link to www.chillingeffects.org [chillingeffects.org], which happens to be a joint project of the EFF and a number of top-notch schools:

      Chilling Effects Clearinghouse A joint project of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Harvard, Stanford, Berkeley, University of San Francisco, and University of Maine law school clinics. Do you know your online rights? Have you received a letter asking you to remove information from a Web site or to stop engaging in an activity? Are you concerned about liability for information that someone else posted to your online forum? If so, this site is for you. Chilling Effects aims to help you understand the protections that the First Amendment and intellectual property laws give to your online activities. We are excited about the new opportunities the Internet offers individuals to express their views, parody politicians, celebrate their favorite movie stars, or criticize businesses. But we've noticed that not everyone feels the same way. Anecdotal evidence suggests that some individuals and corporations are using intellectual property and other laws to silence other online users. Chilling Effects encourages respect for intellectual property law, while frowning on its misuse to "chill" legitimate activity.

      Nothing like educating the public about the dangers of the DMCA/etal by linking them to EFF and the like :).

      • Re:What i love even more is (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Sri Lumpa ( 147664 ) on Monday April 26, 2004 @11:36AM (#8972890) Homepage

        They should do like what "Le Canard Enchaine" did during WWII.

        What they did was whenever the Nazis wanted an article censored (which, given the nature of the newspaper was very often) instead of replacing it with another article they simply cut it out and left the space blank (except for a character with a huge pair of scissors representing the censors). The blanks in it were more telling than the remaining articles in that you knew how much the Nazis didn't want you to know (but not what of course).

        Instead of putting the DMCA link at the end Google should put the search result where it would normally have been except replaced with:

        "Due to a complaint(link to complaint containing the censored link) from $company citing the DMCA(link to more info) we cannot show you this result"

        Or: "$company doesn't want you to know about that link so they invoked the DMCA(link) to silence us. Here is the complaint(link) where the tell us which links they don't want you to know about"

        Or similar.

        Still, what they do already is cool.
    • thank you so much!!
      my first question was, "can i see an example?"
      excellent work, thanks.

    • The irony... (Score:2, Insightful)

      by crazyhorse44 ( 242315 )
      of Kazaa having their lawyers go after people who are violating copyrights.
    • If you search for the same thing on google.co.uk, it still displays the notice. But the DMCA is an American thing.
    • I'm not really sure, but the DMCA is for the US only, so shouldn't I be able to get all the results from Germany using google.de? Using your search on google.de gives the same notice (and URL is .ca anyway).
    • I tried this with both mozilla and firefox, and neither got a page with the letters "DMCA" anywhere. The bottom of the page doesn't seem to have any links except the usual google boilerplate links. Other replies say something about a Chilling Effects Clearinghouse link, but I don't see anything like that, either.

      What might I be doing wrong.

      Oh, also, following this link seems to have done something that really hosed both mozilla and firefox. They became only semi-functional, unable to follow links or fi

  • Sort of like... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by toupsie ( 88295 ) on Sunday April 25, 2004 @03:26PM (#8966602) Homepage
    the police telling a newspaper they cannot publish the street corner where drugs are being sold in the city they serve.

    • Re:Sort of like... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by LostCluster ( 625375 ) * on Sunday April 25, 2004 @03:46PM (#8966769)
      Police can't tell a newspaper that they cannot publish information, but they can tell them that they shouldn't and they can also threaten to deny any media-access rights that they don't have to give the paper but only do so out of courtesy.

      And really, that's what a DMCA Takedown notice equates to... "We swear that we own the copyright to this and we want it taken down right away." The ISP doesn't have to comply, but they have to serve that notice to the user, or be liable for contributing to the infringment. They also have to put it back if the user swears back that they do have the right to put that piece of work up, which will also shield the ISP for being responsible and put all the responsiblity on the user, who has now steped forward and identified themselves for easy suing...
    • For all the little drug-kiddies out there, the steet you want is on the corner of Haight and Ashbury.
    • a) The RIAA/MPAA (and others that misuse DCMA) aren't the police, although they'd like to think otherwise. In truth the police are putting way too much focus on fighting copyright/IP violations though...

      b) Newspapers have certain rights with respect to the police etc. While "freedom of the press" has had to fight to stay alive sometimes, there is no "freedom of the search engine"
    • More accurately it's like the paper saying "We can't tell you where drugs are sold thanks to this letter"

      Dear sirs,

      Please don't tell that drugs are sold on 9th and Vine

      Love and hugs the police.

  • DMCA Counter-Takedown letters... (Score:5, Informative)

    by LostCluster ( 625375 ) * on Sunday April 25, 2004 @03:26PM (#8966604)
    The DMCA Takedown process is really just a way to scare users into backing down. Those familiar with the law would know that users can send a counter-notification swearing that they're not really infringing, and then the provider has to reinstate the work but still gets to enjoy the liability shield of having complied with the DMCA Takedown rules... and then the copyright holder has no choice but to go after the user directly if they want to keep going.

    Of course, in a majority of the times, the copyright holder is correct and this actually prevents a needless cause from going into the overworked court systems. The makers of Kazaa Lite could send Google a counter-notification to get back into the system, and then Shawman Networks would be in the uncomfortable situation of having to file a US-based lawsuit, despite trying to otherwise stay out of US jurisdiction.
    • I think the Kazaa example is hillarious. They try to defend their product despite the fact that it is 95%+ used for illegitimate activities, and then they get uppiddy when someone uses the same tactics against THEM.

      • Re:DMCA Counter-Takedown letters... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by maximilln ( 654768 ) on Sunday April 25, 2004 @03:47PM (#8966771) Homepage Journal
        -----
        95%+ used for illegitimate activities
        -----
        We don't prosecute the makers of rolling paper just because people roll joints. Plenty of pre-rolled cigarettes are available at low cost.

        We don't prosecute Aldrich, the primary provider of sodium cyanide, even though its product is deadly.

        What legal grounds do you think you have to prosecute Kazaa? They don't advocate drug use or murder. File-sharing? OOOOOOH! Lord save society.

        • Re:DMCA Counter-Takedown letters... (Score:2, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward
          What legal grounds do you think you have to prosecute Kazaa? They don't advocate drug use or murder. File-sharing? OOOOOOH! Lord save society.

          The legal ground is contributory infringment. They know they are profiting from copyright infringment, that that is the basis of almost all their userbase and therefore their profits. When a manufacturer makes a product that is explicitly designed to be used to commit a crime, they are responsible for that crime.
        • "We don't prosecute the makers of rolling paper just because people roll joints. Plenty of pre-rolled cigarettes are available at low cost."
          Pre-rolled ciggarettes make me feel sick and the rolling tobacco I buy is a fraction of the cost of even the cheapest pre-rolled ciggarettes that I can buy here.
          I think your analogy would be more accurate if rolling paper had drug dealers phone numbers printed on them.
          Just thought I'd point that out.
        • This argument didn't carry much weight with the judge on the 321 Studios vs. MPAA case. DVD copying software was found to have no redeeming value and it has been pulled.

          R>I.P. 321 Studios

    • They'd have no problem getting into a US-based lawsuit. After all, they had no problem getting US lawyers. The only problem is if they win $$$, they'd have trouble keeping it since the RIAA/MPAA would probably force the court to hold onto it.

  • I wrote a paper about this (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 25, 2004 @03:26PM (#8966606)
    But a search engine I can't name made me take it down because it includes information on circumventing their search technology to find DMCA information.

  • Phew! (Score:5, Funny)

    by spangineer ( 764167 ) on Sunday April 25, 2004 @03:27PM (#8966610) Homepage
    Thank goodness the 23 page article has an abstract.

  • Law out of control! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by MrIrwin ( 761231 ) on Sunday April 25, 2004 @03:28PM (#8966615) Journal
    Soon we won't even be able to use a search engine. I ried reading the PDF and gave up trying to understand what the implications are!

    Know why asian economies are leaping ahead by leaps and bounds? You just go out and do things, without millions of lawyers and others trying to leech of the whole business.

    • And when you actualy do some wrong they just put a bullet in your head and bill it to your family.
      • If only it were that easy.

        No, in all reality, they sell you to the circus because they know that you'll dance before you'll die. They make you dance, and fly, and jump through hoops. The crowd cheers. Some people laugh, some people cry, but they all go home with a great sense of entertainment.

        And, at the end of the day, you get to eat another portion of rotten meat and tasteless meal. If you don't perform tomorrow then they send you out on the road to take your chances with the homosexual police offic

    • Re:Law out of control! (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Saeger ( 456549 ) <(farrellj) (at) (gmail.com)> on Sunday April 25, 2004 @04:59PM (#8967259) Homepage
      Leeches? Like the parasites who make a living suing the city when they "accidentally" trip over potholes. Or the parasites who fake disability. Or the parasites managers who shave hours off workers timesheets. Or the parasites who increase productivy with robots but keep the gains to themselves while the unemployed starve because welfare is still a dirty word. Or the parasites who... bla bla.

      The sad fact is that the parasite-to-"honest"-host ratio is almost the same in society as it is nature: pretty damn high.

      --

  • They'll be using routing tables on major backbones to eliminate traffic they don't like.

    I'm turning in my two-week notice tomorrow. How about you?

    I disbelieve this horse-patooey.

  • Crap Like This (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Nom du Keyboard ( 633989 ) on Sunday April 25, 2004 @03:30PM (#8966626)
    In response to a complaint we received under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we have removed [x] result(s) from this page

    It's crap like this that absolutely works to destroy the usefulness and wonder of the Internet.

    • I'm really surprised that Google (or any other online service based company) doesn't just completely relocate offshore.
      • What about the moon base that google is reportedly building? ;-)

        (Actually, this never did make much sense to me. The moon is about 1.3 light seconds from our planet, so the round trip time plus local network time would result in searches taking a minumum of 3 sec, and usually a lot longer. This would seriously impact their response time. I mean, would you want to use a search engine that took over 3 seconds to search N gazillion pages?)

    • Re:Crap Like This (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Saeger ( 456549 )
      It's crap like this that absolutely works to destroy the usefulness and wonder of the Internet.

      Yeah, but it sure does make the control freaks in power cream their pants.

      But not to worry - it also absolutely works to accelerate the evolution of untouchable p2p search vs. centralized cluster search. A hard problem, sure, but more attractive by the day. (the control freaks could also attempt to kill this free communication by requiring "trusted routers" not to route "untrusted" packets; only way to counter

  • Backwards? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by r4bb1t ( 663244 ) on Sunday April 25, 2004 @03:30PM (#8966635)

    This seems backwards. Kazaa can search for "kazaa" on Google and find "non-kazaa" material, so they tell Google to take it down? Since when is the search engine responsible for the content they generate by just following links on the web (forgive me if I'm unfamiliar with how Google crawls the web)?

    Why not send notices to the websites directly? Oh, wait, that would mean that they would have to spend the time and find the people who are actually "breaking" the copyrights and prosecute them directly. That's too much work.

    It's the same thing that the RIAA is doing -- going after the end-user in court because it's easier that way. I wonder what happened to the racketeering charges that were brought up.

    • Re:Backwards? (Score:5, Informative)

      by tiltowait ( 306189 ) on Sunday April 25, 2004 @03:35PM (#8966677) Homepage Journal
      >Since when is the search engine responsible for the content they generate by just following links on the web (forgive me if I'm unfamiliar with how Google crawls the web)?

      Since the DMCA. It's now illegal to link to illegal material. Read the article or see the past cases [dmoz.org] for more information.

      • Re:Backwards? (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Greenisus ( 262784 )
        Just a thought...what if Google linked to another page that simply did a redirect to the illegal material. They're not technically linking to it. But, I'm not sure how broad the DMCA wording is.

      • Re:Backwards? (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward
        In other news...

        DMCA affects phonebooks... you got it. If a phonebook lists someone who is attempting circumvent copy protection, the phone book publisher must collect all the phonebooks they released with their contact information, and republish redistribute the phonebooks.

        It will be notied that future editions will list the absent numbers on the back pages with a note removed due to DMCA.

      • Re:Backwards? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Decameron81 ( 628548 ) on Sunday April 25, 2004 @03:53PM (#8966807)
        This is ridiculous. I think the US (government) should stop pretending their laws apply to online material just because people can access the internet from their country. I mean, why on earth do I have to have censored search results?

        It would be just as silly if people in the US couldn't do searches on certain words because my country thinks it's not OK for the search engine to provide such results.

        If they want filterning then they should run such filters on google.com only. I can't see how the DMCA should apply to google.it or google.com.ar or any other such domain.

        Diego Rey

        • Re:Backwards? (Score:2, Interesting)

          by rpj1288 ( 698823 )
          Because for some reason our government seems to think our laws apply to all corners of the earth. Silly people. Remember what happened to Rome?

        • Re:Backwards? (Score:2, Interesting)

          by Gmalloy ( 668764 )
          It actually doesn't work that way...If you go to google.co.uk [google.co.uk] and search for kazaa you get the same results as google.com [google.com] without the DMCA nonsense...

          The ironic part is none of the offending links are in the top 10 search results...So the sites Sharman had removed are no longer the most likely sites carrying kazaa lite...

      • Re:Backwards? (Score:2, Informative)

        by eissimuf ( 167535 )
        Ah. I'm not a dmoz.org editor. Thanks for the link, but most people will want to try this link. [dmoz.org]

  • Gotta Love Google (Score:5, Interesting)

    by RAMMS+EIN ( 578166 ) on Sunday April 25, 2004 @03:31PM (#8966642) Homepage Journal
    I just gotta love Google for this. They hide the results, but you can still access them. This means two things:

    1. People are made aware of what the DMCA does
    2. People from the Free World where the DMCA does not apply can still access the information

    I still think prohibiting search engines from linking to certain materials is a bad idea, though.

  • Thumb on the scale of justice... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by LostCluster ( 625375 ) * on Sunday April 25, 2004 @03:33PM (#8966654)
    The primary effect the DMCA has on Search Engines and other Internet sites that allow user posting is that it forces the site operator to make a decision for themselves over whether a work is infringing before the court case... and then puts its thumb on the scale. If they refuse to comply with a proper takedown notice they'll be liable to the copyright holder, while if the needlessly take take down the piece they will lose nothing or very little unless they're a major paying customer.

    No wonder most companies, when confronted with a DMCA Takedown letter choose the path of least resistance.

  • Remember Kazaalite and Scientology? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by CharonX ( 522492 ) on Sunday April 25, 2004 @03:35PM (#8966684) Journal
    Kazaa had Google remove [google.com] several links to Kazaa Lite pages [chillingeffects.org], and not long ago Scientology tried the same against a Scientology-critical site.

    While some here cheer that Google put a reference to the the Kazaa Lite pages removed (or rather to the DMCA notice which includes the URLs of those pages), effecly nullyfing the effect, it is worrying me instead.
    Fact is that Companies and Organisations can force the removal of Links from Search Engines, and if those Engines don't act as smartly as Google here (be it due to fear of lawsuits from those Organistions or due to simple lazyness) we might not even notice it....

  • Slashdot users violating SCO's IP (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 25, 2004 @03:37PM (#8966696)

    Dear Slashdot users,

    If you would like permission to legally view the content of search engines such as Google, contact SCO licensing [mailto] where we can provide individual licenses for only $699 per search engine or a bulk license of $10^699 for all search engines.

    If you do not comply I will publicly brand you a Linus long-hair and GNU hippy, and will ask Microsoft for money to sue you with.

    Yours faithfully,

    Darl McBride,

    CEO SCO Inc.

  • All this proves... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by ambienceman ( 721763 )
    is that we need to fight this infringing legislation by our votes, tax dollars, and our consumer dollars. Fight the supporters of this legislation by avoiding their products. Use alternatives that promote free speech and _total_ fair use.

    I'm sick of America being bullied around by the corporations. We are the people. We have the power here.

    Fight with you pockets...and your _paper_ ballots (unless of course Diebold has their way with the government.)
    • then you are truly living up to your sig.
    • -----
      Fight the supporters of this legislation by avoiding their products
      -----
      Until you realize that competency with their products determines the grades of your children which will be used to decide how well they do in life.

      The system is skewed in favor of the mediocre majority who already have the cash. We'd better learn to accept it or die a long, slow, mundane death at the hands of homelessness and hunger.

  • Genuine question (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Forgotten ( 225254 ) on Sunday April 25, 2004 @03:48PM (#8966782)
    I see the term "safe harbor" a lot in American law. What is it actually supposed to mean, what is it's provenance, and where is it applied? So far it seems a very vague and generic catch-all, but it obviously has some specific meaning to the courts, and seems particularly meaningful in the context of the DMCA.

    • Re:Genuine question (Score:5, Informative)

      by cpt kangarooski ( 3773 ) on Sunday April 25, 2004 @04:30PM (#8967062) Homepage
      Well, basically the idea is one of shelter. If you do what you need to do to qualify for it, you're sheltered from legal actions you'd otherwise be exposed to. But it's just shorthand for an idea -- there are various safe harbor provisions in the law, and they differ in terms of what the prerequisites are to take advantage of them and what they protect one from.

    • Re:Genuine question (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      IANAL

      Basically it means:

      If you do something illegal, "they" can't take any civil or legal action against you unless they tell you you're doing something illegal and you don't stop first.

      If you comply with their notice, they can't sue you.

      http://tinyurl.com/32sme is a pretty good link

  • The short version (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Stuwee ( 739059 ) on Sunday April 25, 2004 @03:57PM (#8966832)
    I speed read the 23 pages, and basically it seems to (IANAL) boil down to the fact that search engines want to remain within the laws that are protecting them -- the DMCA safe harbours. Classified as an "information retrieval tool", search engines must make sure that they do not knowingly link to material that violates the DMCA. So when Sharman Networks comes along and tells Google that it is linking to material that violates the DMCA, the people at Google put on their best poker faces and cry "oh no, surely not!". Under the safe harbours, Google then has to remove this content, or they can be held responsible. The most interesting part of the paper points out that adopting this behaviour will never justify the safe harbour use:
    ... service providers, being risk-averse, will widely embrace the safe harbors in an attempt to avoid the uncertainty of liability outside them. Due to the widespread use of the safe harbor procedures, courts will not be given the opportunity to decide cases clarifying the liability of service providers, as service providers will err on the side of caution and liberally remove content in response to notifications. The resulting lack of judicial clarification will reinforce the use of these procedures, thus creating a self-perpetuating cycle.

  • It may affect search engines (Score:4, Interesting)

    by KalvinB ( 205500 ) on Sunday April 25, 2004 @03:57PM (#8966838) Homepage
    but people who really want to find that information will find it.

    If one is interested in studying a "taboo" topic they'll join mailing lists as well. Especially in the case of religion and potential cults, nobody with any sense is going to just talk to one group. You're going to talk to members, ex members, and do your own studying.

    You need to join message/news groups for that and the DMCA has no effect on those. The DMCA can't control what somebody sends to my e-mail account in response to a request for information.

    Ben

  • The DMCA is a BAD law. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by pair-a-noyd ( 594371 ) on Sunday April 25, 2004 @04:02PM (#8966870)
    Of course I'm preaching to the choir here but I want ANYONE to point out to me how the DMCA is a GOOD law and what benefits it provides to society.

    It stiffles progress. MOST everything in existence is the result of people taking things apart and improving upon previous designs.

    DMCA puts that practice to a dead halt.

    The DMCA should be abolished ASAP....

    • I completly agree, but in the mean time, ill just keep my figners crossed that we dont "import" this or a similar law to Canada.

      It scares me that the US could have actually passed and implimented somthing like the DCMA. Even if we dont end up following big brother, I would be suprised if companies creating DCMA complient devices and tecnologies for the American market could be bothered to take the time to those "features" for non US markets.

      • I'll just keep my figners crossed that we dont "import" this or a similar law to Canada.

        Please, I beg you, do more than that! After that Federal Court of Canada ruling [canoe.ca] (that file/music sharing is legal within Canadian copyright law) the Heritage Minister changed her tune all of a sudden... gee I wonder why? A stroke of pity for the CRIA [www.cria.ca], no doubt. What happened in the US and EU is slowly happening here in Canada too. Let's fight it, because really these government measures are meant to give the industry

    • The basic idea set forth by the DMCA is that digital security and protection (for copyrighted material) will always be able to be broken (the nature of digital information), and that a never-ending race between the protections and the cracks is not beneficial to anyone. To keep that from happening, the DMCA says that breaking protections is illegal and that the security does not need to be perfect (impossible to acheive) to protect content. That is quite an admirable goal; freeing content producers to worry
  • Only One String Its Enough To Slayer Freedoom.
    A String that Slayer All Of Us.

  • So what we really need... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Snaller ( 147050 ) on Sunday April 25, 2004 @04:17PM (#8966975) Journal
    ... is a search engine in a free country? ;)

  • Idea to Protect from the DMCA (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward

    idea: the government is now trying people under newer, harsher, more unreasonable "terrorist" laws. Example: trying drug dealers as "manufacturing chemical weapons" instead of the less frightening and less severe "drug trafficing". So if a criminal is caught and is going to be pounded by the "MAN" what he should do is to quickly hire someone to charge him of the same crime but under a less severe law and then he will quickly plead quilty before he is taken to trial for the more severe charges. Then bec

  • Some questions (Score:5, Interesting)

    by t_allardyce ( 48447 ) on Sunday April 25, 2004 @04:46PM (#8967178) Journal
    Ok i've got some serious questions here:

    1) If I link to a site that links to a site that has DMCA violating speech, does that mean my site is violating aswell? what about google? If so, how far does this chain go?

    2) What if someone links to a google cache?

    3) Can I say DMCA violating things to my lawyer? What about to a public court?

    4) If I violate the DMCA outside America, will the FBI trick me into going to Rome and then drug me and take me back to the USA?

    5) If I say something that violates the DMCA on national TV will viewers be breaking the law by watching, and will Tivo be breaking the law by recording it? will these people also require a trial?

    6) If I wear DMCA violating clothing can the police confiscate it if it means i would be breaking public nudity laws? (ie it could be underwear too)

    7) Im i allowed to violate the DMCA while engaged in sexual intercourse in the state of Florida? What if its consensual?

    8) When praying, is it ok to attempt to tell God that the shift key will disable some CD copy-protection systems?

    9) On violating the DMCA, certain evidence would be submitted to court, such as video/audio tapes containing said violation. Who owns this evidence, who can see it and how does the freedom of information act apply to it?

    10) I thought of a way to circumnavigate X device, am I liable under the DMCA if the thought is in my head? what would happen if i talked about it in my sleep? Could i write about it in a private diary? an online journal? a letter?
    • 1) If I link to a site that links to a site that has DMCA violating speech, does that mean my site is violating aswell? what about google? If so, how far does this chain go?

      Knowing who wrote the law my guess would be six degrees. Our lawyers are drafting a C&D for ICANN as the entire interweb is in violation.
    • 1) If I link to a site that links to a site that has DMCA violating speech, does that mean my site is violating aswell? what about google? If so, how far does this chain go?

      Too far.

      2) What if someone links to a google cache?

      Same thing.

      3) Can I say DMCA violating things to my lawyer? What about to a public court?

      No and none.

      4) If I violate the DMCA outside America, will the FBI trick me into going to Rome and then drug me and take me back to the USA?

      Possibly.

      5) If I say something that violates the DM

    • Re:Some questions (Score:2, Interesting)

      by a24061 ( 703202 ) *
      8) When praying, is it ok to attempt to tell God that the shift key will disable some CD copy-protection systems?

      No. Since legislative corruption beats freedom of speech and protection against unreasonable searches, it beats freedom of religion too.

  • DMCA pigs and book burning (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Land of the free my f***ing ass >:(

  • I wrote the article... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by CraigWWalker ( 774420 ) on Sunday April 25, 2004 @05:26PM (#8967493)
    and would be happy to answer any questions people have about it. --CWW
  • I know google is a US based company, but if you want to register a .ca domain you have to be located in Canada... WTF? [google.ca] This isn't the US based site... Urrgh, this just makes me mad...

  • Use right-wing tricks against them (Score:3, Funny)

    by fishbowl ( 7759 ) on Sunday April 25, 2004 @07:30PM (#8968275)
    Instead of saying "due to DMCA blah blah blah"

    say "Enemies of free speech and opponents of a free press in your governmnet blah blah blah"

    This message brought to you by a left-wing liberal openly opposed to the current order.
  • Well, I haven't read /. yesterday, so this is probably going to be the last post in this thread ;-)

    This nice line: "In response to a complaint we received under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we have removed [x] result(s) from this page." reminds me of old communist times here in Poland, when you could read in a newspaper something like that (translated): "removed under the Control of Publications and Performations Act". So, the Soviet Union is no more, Eastern Block collapsed and now we see somethi

Slashdot Top Deals

"In my opinion, Richard Stallman wouldn't recognise terrorism if it came up and bit him on his Internet." -- Ross M. Greenberg

Close