Cryptome in Hot Water Again 241
garg0yle writes to tell us that Cryptome appears to have stepped in it again with a recent leaked document concerning Microsoft's "Global Criminal Compliance Handbook." "Microsoft has demanded that Cryptome take down the guide — on the grounds that it constitutes a 'copyrighted [work] published by Microsoft.' Yesterday, at 5pm, Cryptome editor John Young received a notice from his site’s host, Network Solutions, bearing a stiff ultimatum: citing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), Network Solutions told him that unless he takes the 'copyrighted material' down, they will 'disable [his] website' on Thursday, February 25, 2010. So far, Young refuses to budge." In a gesture of goodwill, Wikileaks has offered to host Cryptome via their twitter feed.
Ballsy (Score:4, Interesting)
Really, what we need here is a torrent feed with all the latest stuff.
Mirror of the offending document? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Down already (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah Network Solutions took them down after Young's counter-response. Wikileaks is hosting it now.
Basically the issue is that Microsoft has a handguide to do some pretty questionable stuff (IP Extraction is mentioned). They can keep it protected from being publicly viewable by putting a copyright on it. Young says that Copyright was not meant for hiding secrets. I agree.
Re:Move on...nothing to see here... (Score:3, Interesting)
Having just skimmed the doc, I don't see why anyone would care. The information available to law enforcement is actually less than I had expected.
Actually, I suspect that Microsoft are flat-out lying. There was a murder case in Toronto, Canada where a teenage girl persuaded her boyfriend to murder another girl:
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/story/2009/03/13/rengel-trial.html [www.cbc.ca]
http://www.thestar.com/article/596268 [thestar.com]
Much of the evidence was in MSN chat logs between the girl and her boyfriend. This Microsoft document claims on page 13 that "Microsoft does not log the content of communications between users".
So if it isn't logged, where did all this evidence come from?
Didn't think this is how the DMCA works (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm confused...I thought the way the DMCA safe harbor provisions work is that in order to be immune, the provider must take down the content when a DMCA notice is received, but if the customer files a counter-notice then they can put it back up and they're off the hook (at least until they get a court order). So why are they taking it down in this case?
Re:Network Solutions as Judge, Jury, and Execution (Score:5, Interesting)
If you read the article, you would know that they did file a counter-notice.
Network Solutions not only took their site down, but locked the domain to prevent it from coming up somewhere else. This is an extremely aggressive move and one I suspect violates their own terms and conditions and may be actionable under the law.
Re:Network Solutions as Judge, Jury, and Execution (Score:3, Interesting)
I wish we could moderate something to remove a recent post....
Ignore parent. It's incorrect. Read this informative post [slashdot.org] instead, then mod it up.
Re:Down already (Score:3, Interesting)
"Promot[ing] the progress of science and the useful arts" was never meant to be a "sales pitch;" it was genuinely the intent of the law. In fact, James Madison only barely convinced Thomas Jefferson to write it into the Constitution in the first place, using the argument that too few creative works would be created otherwise (we know this from the letters they wrote to each other discussing the subject). I'm sure that if either of them knew how that clause would be interpreted today, they would never have even considered writing it.
In fact, had the Founding Fathers been alive today, they'd probably be part of the free culture movement themselves -- note how Ben Franklin chose not to patent any of his inventions, for example.
Re:But it *is* copyrighted, right? (Score:2, Interesting)
1) News reporting does not allow breach of copyright.
2) Is utterly irrelevant to the test.
3) Cryptome is using the whole work, and thus fails the test.
4) Regardless of the profit motive, they are still distributing the entire work, and thus fail under 3.
[[Citation needed]]
The requirement to deposit a copy with the LoC was dropped decades ago.
Re:Already gone? (Score:1, Interesting)
Sue? Why would your first reaction be to sue? You can tell them they are in violation and see what happens. If they still refuse should next I would contact ICANN and tell them about the violation. Suing shouldn't be your first reaction. Maybe you just wonder if there's legal ground. I doubt it. ICANN could sue, but I seriously doubt it would go that far, assuming ICANN cares. If they don't care, then nothing's going to change.