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IMSLP Taken Down By UK Publishers Group 117

gacl writes "According to a post at the IMSLP Journal, the IMSLP, the largest site on the 'net providing public domain sheet music, has been taken down yet again. The UK-based Music Publisher's Association has sent GoDaddy, the IMSLP's domain registrar, a DMCA takedown notice. The IMSLP argues that the notice is bogus. More detailed discussions on the matter can be found at the IMSLP Forums."
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IMSLP Taken Down By UK Publishers Group

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  • by Pricetx ( 1986510 ) on Friday April 22, 2011 @04:54AM (#35904692)
    I have found the IMSLP to be a very useful source of scores whilst studying music, and all of the scores are in the open domain. I just don't understand what there can be to argue about?
    • Re:Ridiculous (Score:5, Informative)

      by fuzzyfuzzyfungus ( 1223518 ) on Friday April 22, 2011 @05:04AM (#35904736) Journal
      Distributing things for free is a crime against the sellers' divinely granted right to profit in perpetuity. If any commodity's price is allowed to reach its marginal cost of production, there are precious, precious rents going unextracted!
      • Sounds like a Ferengi law in the Rules of Acquisition.

        The question is how do we defend against it? Can we donate to IMSLP?

        • We are Ferengi of Borg. You will be assimilated. Or criminalized.
        • My understanding is the when the get a DCMA take down notice the take it down, no questions asked. So, Why dont we ALL submit take down notices for all the major sites. Washington post, NY Times, and anyone else we can take down. Can we submit one for the domain whitehouse.gov? Maybe we can cause enough of a problem that they actually start looking at the take down notices to see if they are legit before they act on them.
          • by mysidia ( 191772 )

            My understanding is the when the get a DCMA take down notice the take it down, no questions asked. So, Why dont we ALL submit take down notices for all the major sites. Washington post, NY Times, and anyone else we can take down.

            They may take it down no questions asked, for most sites, when notices are received from major organizations.

            But two things.. (1) They don't have to; they just lose the safe harbor.

            (2) They can be discriminatory. They may start asking questions when a takedown request come

        • Sounds like a Ferengi law in the Rules of Acquisition.

          If someone gives away something for free, either repackage it or find something else to sell.

    • by Anonymous Coward

      Because a pack of crooks want to rough up their competition. The copyright industry are little more than villains these days.

    • http://www.artificialscarcity.com/ [artificialscarcity.com] more and more...
      (my site. :-)

      Alternatives:
      http://peswiki.com/index.php/OS:Economic_Transformation [peswiki.com]
      http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing/msg/4f49f5fc25b8b3e9 [google.com]
      http://knol.google.com/k/beyond-a-jobless-recovery [google.com]

      We need to transition to a model where enterprise is more and more about dealing with real scarcities (either local or global).

    • I have found the IMSLP to be a very useful source [SNIP]. I just don't understand what there can be to argue about?

      To quote from the front page of their site :

      We at the IMSLP believe that music should be something that is easily accessible for everyone.

      You will notice the lack of express or concealed profit motive there ; to some people, music without a financial profit being made is a crime on a par with baby buggery.

  • Service restored (Score:5, Informative)

    by ustolemyname ( 1301665 ) on Friday April 22, 2011 @04:55AM (#35904696)
    Seems to already be back up. Site already refers to the outage in the past tense, "The recent IMSLP outage was..."
    • Re:Service restored (Score:4, Informative)

      by ustolemyname ( 1301665 ) on Friday April 22, 2011 @04:57AM (#35904700)
      ... And the other half of that statement

      To MPA's credit, they have voluntarily retracted their claim. IMSLP will also be working on technical measures to prevent any future attacks.

      • by jimicus ( 737525 )

        To MPA's credit, they have voluntarily retracted their claim. IMSLP will also be working on technical measures to prevent any future attacks.

        Love to know what they're going to be. Obviously they could run their own DNS, but the registrar can still pull the glue records pointing the world at their DNS servers.

        I guess you could use a registrar that doesn't have a tendency to roll over without at least reading the letters (that particular one didn't specifically mention the DMCA but other than that the tone was more-or-less the same), but I was under the impression that the whole point of the DMCA was to force the ISP to pull content first and ask

        • I was under the impression that the whole point of the DMCA was to force the ISP to pull content first and ask questions later - essentially forcing the legal threat onto the person who's least equipped to deal with them.

          My understanding of the DMCA is that it charts a course of action for ISPs to take when they're accused of hosting copyrighted material without proper consent. First, the ISP takes down the content. Next, they send a note to the account holder who uploaded the content informing them of th

          • My understanding of the DMCA is that it charts a course of action for ISPs to take when they're accused of hosting copyrighted material without proper consent. First, the ISP takes down the content. Next, they send a note to the account holder who uploaded the content informing them of the DMCA action.

            Right. Which points out one of the myriad problems with this particular notice; namely, that the registrar is not hosting any of the material.

            At this point, the account holder (in this case IMSLP) can A) acc

            • Re:Service restored (Score:4, Informative)

              by _0xd0ad ( 1974778 ) on Friday April 22, 2011 @10:40AM (#35907018) Journal

              Furthermore, once notice is given, the material has to STAY DOWN to give the complaining party a chance to sue, or the safe harbor is lost.

              Not exactly. The complaining party has 10 business days (14 days) to get an injunction to prevent the material from being reinstated; if they do not get the injunction in that time period, it must be promptly reinstated or the ISP actually becomes liable for damages if it is later found that the material did not in fact infringe on the complaining party's copyright.

              http://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2010/06/03/7-common-questions-about-dmca-counter-notices/ [plagiarismtoday.com]

              A host then passes along the counter-notice to the person who filed the original notice. The works remain offline for 10 business days, after which, if no additional action has been taken by the filer, the works can be restored.

              The copyright holder can petition the court for an injunction to prevent the restoration of the original works, but if it is not obtained within the time allotted, the works are restored to the site.

              http://www.chillingeffects.org/question.cgi?QuestionID=132 [chillingeffects.org]

              If a subscriber provides a proper "counter-notice" claiming that the material does not infringe copyrights, the service provider must then promptly notify the claiming party of the individual's objection. [512(g)(2)] If the copyright owner does not bring a lawsuit in district court within 14 days, the service provider is then required to restore the material to its location on its network. [512(g)(2)(C)]

              • Not exactly. The complaining party has 10 business days (14 days) to get an injunction to prevent the material from being reinstated; if they do not get the injunction in that time period, it must be promptly reinstated or the ISP actually becomes liable for damages if it is later found that the material did not in fact infringe on the complaining party's copyright.

                They don't have to get the injunction, merely to claim they have filed for it. See 17 USC 512(g)(C)

          • by mysidia ( 191772 )

            First, the ISP takes down the content. Next, they send a note to the account holder who uploaded the content informing them of the DMCA action.

            First the content/hosting provider takes down content.

            Sometimes copyright owners will send letters to the ISP, but the ISP is not required to act to maintain DMCA 512(a) safe harbour protection related to the user's internet connection or traffic passing through their network not stored by the ISP.

            ISPs that only route packets, without storing or caching data,

      • To MPA's credit, they have voluntarily retracted their claim.

        And then, not so much to their credit, they demanded that the takedown email be removed from the IMSLP Journals website They then repeated the demand to 'takedown the takedown' even after the IMSLP informed them that they had written permission to reproduce it. The IMSLP's comment on this says it all;

        Seriously, you can't expect to take down a major website, with a bogus DMCA takedown notice, and then try and hide the evidence. Can you see that? It makes you look ridiculous.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Seems they have a score to settle.
    • The recent IMSLP outage was due to an attack by the Music Publishers Association (UK). While IMSLP encourages open discussion of copyright issues, we have zero tolerance for underhanded tactics. To MPA's credit, they have voluntarily retracted their claim. IMSLP will also be working on technical measures to prevent any future attacks.
  • Please tell me that the site has backups
    • According to the statement on the IMSLP Journal, you could still reach the site through http://petruccilibrary.org/ [petruccilibrary.org]. It's up and running again though, but I still think I'll bookmark that one url as well.

      From the journal: Workaround: You can still reach the site by using either petruccilibrary.org or petruccimusiclibrary.org Note, however, that some links on the site that refer to IMSLP.ORG may be broken; you will have to manually replace IMSLP.ORG with one of the two above domain names manually in the UR

  • by Anonymous Coward

    If you wish to add a link to mpaonline.org.uk from your own site, you may do so provided you agree to cease such link upon request from the MPA.

    I LOL'ed.

  • i'm confused (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Hazel Bergeron ( 2015538 ) on Friday April 22, 2011 @04:57AM (#35904706) Journal

    Can the DMCA be used to take down whole domains immediately now?

    Does that mean I can find one infringing film on youtbe and disable youtube for a week or two?

    What exactly is the legal basis for what's happening here, and what technical method was used to stop access to the site? The article doesn't make it clear.

    • by Anonymous Coward

      It was not DMCA it was a british variant of the US organization responsible not for the recorded works of artists but rather the sheetmusic/scores of composers..

      Short version:

      The UK organization MSLP sent a takedown notice to a US Registrar asserting copyright claims being infringed by 2 by Russian Ex-patriots living in the US/Switzerland/Germany one of which was possibly published under german copyright but most likely not...

      Shorter Version: British organization gets protest from sheet music sellers claimi

      • by Anonymous Coward

        Except that Germany has no copyright. It's a common, and mostly deliberate, confusion. Even US Wikipedia fell for it. (I am a consultant on German Urheberrecht.)
        Germany has "Urheberrecht" which is more akin to a author's right, and is inalienable. (Translation of "Urheber" [leo.org])
        (Yes, that means all German sites having a "© Copyright..." in their footer are lying or fell for the lie.)

        The media mafia wants to make German law more like the US one. You can guess why. This is where the FUD is coming from.

        • In other words, you can sign your rights to your works away in the US, but not in Germany?
        • Sure, copyright is not a literal translation of Urheberrecht, just as it is not a literal translation of "droit d'auteur." But given that Germany was one of the original signatories of the Berne Convention, and also conforms to TRIPs, its "author's right" law provides in large part the same sort of protections that American copyright law provides. Yes, there are important differences, but to say that German sites using the English word "copyright" are lying is pretty misleading.
          • Mod parent up.

            Germany is a member of the Berne Convention (a founding member, even - the US came very late to that party), which is the basis for our current copyright laws.

            While there might be slight differences, they are extremely similar, by necessity of complying with the treaty.

            The InfoSec Directive of the EU (to which Germany complies) is very similar to the DMCA, but I'm not entirely sure about whether or not US DMCA take-down tactics are possible under the EU directive or Germany's version of the la

    • by Anonymous Coward

      What exactly is the legal basis for what's happening here, and what technical method was used to stop access to the site? The article doesn't make it clear.

      Well they sent the DMCA notice to the domain registrar (GoDaddy) so presumably GoDaddy locked the nameservers to some generic takedown notice page.

      • Re:i'm confused (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Hazel Bergeron ( 2015538 ) on Friday April 22, 2011 @05:13AM (#35904770) Journal

        Is that a legally stipulated procedure? You go straight to the registrar, which isn't even necessarily hosting any content? And the registrar itself is liable somehow if it doesn't comply?

        • Below-cost registrars seem to have decided it'll cost them less to hose their customers than to deal with complainants.

        • I think it can be argued that way, and the DMCA doesn't leave any choice in the matter.

          If it can be successfully argued that they should have complied and did not, then they will be held legally liable for breaking the DMCA. The absolute only way you get safe harbor in a DMCA dispute is if you comply immediately and blindly. Only when the infringing party denies the claim (either by claim of ownership or fair use, doesn't matter) can you put it back up.

    • by Anonymous Coward

      Well, you can take down anything that is hosted somewhere by sending a notice to the hoster. Youtube's doing their own hosting instead of relying on companies like GoDaddy, so you can't go to Youtube's hoster and have Youtube taken down simply because there isn't one.

      • This appears to have been slightly different: The site never went down(it was accessible by IP or by an alternate URL); but the registrar handling their primary domain name responded to the DMCA request by changing the DNS entry for that name to no longer point to the correct IP.

        A 3rd party host is an additional point of vulnerability; but it was not the vulnerability exploited in this case.
      • I was curious, so I looked up YouTube in WHOIS. They use MarkMonitor as their registrar. Not surprising - you pay a whole bunch for registrations and the registrar doesn't roll over at random DMCA requests.

        But, here's what was in the WHOIS response, along with the other data. WnTF did this start happening?

        Server Name: YOUTUBE.COM.ZZZZZ.GET.LAID.AT.WWW.SWINGINGCOMMUNITY.COM
        IP Address: 69.41.185.205
        Registrar: TUCOWS INC.
        Whois Server: whoi

        • But, here's what was in the WHOIS response, along with the other data. WnTF did this start happening?

          Using what WHOIS service?

          Neither DNSStuff [dnsstuff.com] or DomainTools [domaintools.com] give anything of the sort.

          I'm guessing it started happening when you started using a WHOIS website that inserts shitty ads in its responses...

    • by Dan541 ( 1032000 )

      The domain is hosted by godaddy. Is anyone surprised?

  • WhoreDaddy. (Score:5, Informative)

    by unity100 ( 970058 ) on Friday April 22, 2011 @05:04AM (#35904734) Homepage Journal
    The shittiest, slyest, most sinister hosting/domains provider on the internet (after 1&1 terror of course) that is the Godaddy.

    so whorey that, they are STILL making losses every year since their founding by underselling, without a year in the black to show for their history.

    on top of that, they have no ethics in regard to internet conduct, they can take down your site just like that from a dmca complaint without any possibility of objection from your side, and even before you are notified of the dmca. they can take away your domain name just like that too.

    on top of that, the ceo is a egomaniac who is more into advertising himself than running a proper business serving people. and his latest stunt is below

    http://youtube.com/watch?v=HXVH4OsfapI [youtube.com]

    disturbing video. shot by, and edited by bob parsons, ceo, godaddy himself. and uploaded to his blog. yes, such people exist.

    so, you can say that this article doesnt come as a surprise to anyone who knows what whoredaddy is.

    stay away from 2 provides on the internet even at the cost of your life : 1&1, and whoredaddy.
    • That's the first time of heard of that.

      I thought the content host (owner of the server/network) was supposed to be responsible for copyright notices.

      The way it works is this: you get a DMCA notice, you pull (only) the offending content. If your host gets it, they pull the content if possible, or suspend the site if not. And then you pull the offending content, and ask them to re-enable your site.

      But taking this to the domain registration level is an uncalled-for escalation.

      Would it also be appropriate to as

      • I thought the content host (owner of the server/network) was supposed to be responsible for copyright notices.

        They can go after anyone in the chain, it doesn't have to be the content host.

        For example, Google has to abide by DMCA notices regarding their searches.

        Anybody in the communications pipeline that is capable of denying access to the material is a potential target for a DMCA notice. It's usually smarter to go after either the website itself, or the ISP of the website, but search engines and registrars are certainly not off limits.

        And the DMCA leaves no option for a recipient of the DMCA notice. They must re

        • I wonder how that would apply to youtube.com.

          Youtube's registered at MarkMonitor, as are most high-value sites. I wonder if the RCIAA would have the guts to file a DMCA notice to Youtube's registrars.

          I also wonder what MarkMonitor would do with such a notice.

          If the process is compulsory, that would mean the studios have an enormous amount of leverage over Google. But Google has never acted like that threat actually exists.

        • If the content mafia really want to play hardball with extreme interpretations of DMCA, I think someone should file a DMCA notice on the .com domain for some small piece of infringing content someplace.

          That's right: Everything, including nbc.com, abc.com, espn.com, whatever, would get caught in the net. After all, a user couldn't access the infringing content without the cooperation of the .com domain people, so they are enabling content theft.

          Too much? Well, they should have thought of that before they sta

    • by Rufty ( 37223 )
      Dunno about GoDaddy, but I'll second what he said about 1&1.
    • Friends don't let friends buy domains from GoDaddy, they put your details straight on WhoIs. It made me laugh when the personal details of my entire class was put online.

      • by duk242 ( 1412949 )
        The whole point of whois information is that your details are there. You can buy domain privacy too, but what's the point?
    • I was helping a friend set up Google Apps that other day, and he needed a domain to go with it. It made so much sense to just register the domain with Google, until we saw they were just reselling for GoDaddy. So we spent an extra hour setting up a DynDNS account and pointing all the records over there. A real shame that they only have exclusive integration with GoDaddy.

    • they can take down your site just like that from a dmca complaint without any possibility of objection from your side, and even before you are notified of the dmca.

      That's how the DMCA works. Any entity that wishes to claim safe harbor must immediately remove the material in question. The DMCA notice goes to the party that is directly distributing the content, not the original infringing party, so there is no option to allow the infringing party to contest it before take-down.

      It is only after the infringing party notifies the distributing party that they have a right to distribute the material that the distributor can once again put the material back up for distribut

      • yes, immediately, as in before dmca is even filed. because this is how it happens with godaddy. you dont even get a notice after your site is taken down. however, other providers, even the ones that actually host clusters of servers as opposed to godaddy's half assed shared hosting accounts, give 24 hours time for takedown after any complaint, to YOU. ie, softlayer.

        yes, godaddy is a traded company, and it is registering millions of dollars in loss, and has lawyers. but, they are not good for defending th
  • Bright side! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by flex941 ( 521675 ) on Friday April 22, 2011 @05:06AM (#35904748)
    Look at the bright side of this. Now I know this site (with the very interesting content it has) exists! Thank you MPA of UK.
    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Check out Mutopia as well. The Mutopia Project re-typeset the scores in lilypond and also has midi files available.
      http://www.mutopiaproject.org/

    • Also check out the Icking Archive http://icking-music-archive.org/index.php [icking-music-archive.org] which has many many many scores (I believe about 16k). Main difference with Mutopia is that they do not necessarily come with sources. V.
  • by Anonymous Coward

    Anybody who would use GoDaddy as a provider must be fairly fucking stupid. Could a more disreputable outfit, with shittier customer service, ever be found?

    • I hear that their complaints department is the only part of the company which makes a profit, and that they will be first against the wall when the revolution comes. Can anybody confirm this?

    • While godaddy is about the worst I've seen/heard complaints about many registrars regarding this kind of thing. So my question is who is a good registrar that won't immediately take down your site due to a DMCA or any similar notification without letting you have your say first?
      • It limits your choice of TLDs; but the safest course of action is probably to go jurisdiction shopping, rather than provider shopping. There are certainly more and less helpful providers; but nobody in the US is likely to do anything that imperils their safe-harbor status, unless you are paying them fairly extraordinary rates to be your registrar, your lawyer, and your insurance agent all in one. GoDaddy appears to have rolled over even more compliantly than strictly necessary; but it's a difference of degr
        • There are certainly more and less helpful providers; but nobody in the US is likely to do anything that imperils their safe-harbor status, unless you are paying them fairly extraordinary rates to be your registrar, your lawyer, and your insurance agent all in one. GoDaddy appears to have rolled over even more compliantly than strictly necessary; but it's a difference of degree rather than kind.

          Not imperiling their safe harbor status is one thing. Rolling over for obviously defective notices is another. Go

      • by gpuk ( 712102 )

        I use and wholeheartedly recommend www.dyndns.com

        I've never had to deal with a DMCA takedown request but I'm pretty confident that the guys at Dyn would talk to me first before doing anything rash.

      • by pspahn ( 1175617 )

        Honestly, I'm not quite sure I get it.

        If Godaddy is a terrible host and registrar if you are afraid of getting a DMCA notice, then why wouldn't you find a different one if you're that worried about it?

        For the rest of us that are not afraid of getting a DMCA notice, what is so bad about Godaddy? Their customer service? I've had several calls to them to resolve some simple cname record issues, and each time I was talking to a knowledgeable human within a minute or so that was friendly and fixed my issue.

        Th

        • If Godaddy is a terrible host and registrar if you are afraid of getting a DMCA notice, then why wouldn't you find a different one if you're that worried about it?

          Because such a registrar does not exist. All registrars, ISP's, search engines, and anybody who could possibly be remotely considered a distribution channel for potentially copyrighted material, must abide by the DMCA or risk losing their "safe harbor" status. If they lose safe harbor, they are legally responsible for any and all copyrighted material that is distributed using their services. In other words, if they don't comply with the DMCA, they're fucked.

          The DMCA procedure is simple and clear: If you

          • Incidentally, this wasn't in the US, but the EU's version is based on the US version, so it is effectively the same thing. Some technicalities might be different, but by and large it appears to work the same way as the US version.

            And it's still the fault of the US Congress, more than anybody.

      • No registrar that wishes to remain legal will refuse a DMCA takedown notice. Ever.

        They don't get that right under the law.

        This is a problem with the DMCA, not GoDaddy (or any other registrar).

  • Still missing OLGA [olga.net].
  • Title is a quote from an email I received yesterday from the Open Goldberg project [kickstarter.com]. Here's the quote in full:

    I wish to thank the Music Publishers Association of the UK for retracting their DMCA complaint to GoDaddy. GoDaddy's standard response to a DMCA copyright complaint of this nature is to freeze the domain for 10 days, instead of referring the complaint to the site owner. Thus we all owe the MPA-UK sincere thanks for their retraction.

    WTF?! No, what MPA (and GoDaddy) /deserve/ are heaping helpings of sc

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