After Celebrity Photo Leaks, 4chan Introduces DMCA Policy 134
davidshenba writes In the wake of leaked private photos of celebrities, 4chan has added Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown policy to its rules and policies. Under this new policy, the site will remove any notified and verified "infringement." It is not clear how effective this could be, or how 4chan is going to handle the inflow of notifications to restrict the content provided by users.
April's Fools Early? (Score:5, Insightful)
When I saw this I had to make sure it wasn't April 1st and that the article wasn't from The Onion.
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4chan is as good as dead, just like Alt.Tasteless before it. Time for the hordes of trolls, sickos, wannabes and script kiddies to find another pit to infest. Wonder where it'll be?
So long 4chan. It's been fun but in time, all things pass.
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4chan's fate was sealed as soon as it became mainstream; it was just a matter of time after that.
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I'm wagering this was forced on them.
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Is this a joke? (Score:2)
So is 4chan going to hack 4chan for supporting the man?
Doesn't this pretty much kill 4chan? (Score:5, Insightful)
I thought the whole purpose of 4chan was that "anything goes".
If they start censoring it then all the people that are there will just move somewhere else that is not restricted.
Re:Doesn't this pretty much kill 4chan? (Score:5, Informative)
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Re: Doesn't this pretty much kill 4chan? (Score:2)
Do people really file notices on those? I doubt it, because I see them in buzzfeed all of the time.
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Re:Doesn't this pretty much kill 4chan? (Score:5, Funny)
It would be like /. getting rid of Taco, making it impossible to follow comment threads, and selling out to slashvertisers. I mean, could you even IMAGINE that??
Re:Doesn't this pretty much kill 4chan? (Score:5, Interesting)
The funny thing with this is that, since the half life of most posts is something around one or two hours, the system will remove any offending post before the DMCA can be processed. I expect that 99% of all DMCA requests can be forwarded to /dev/null. So yea...
s/4chan/ebaumsworld/
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Depends on the board. I'm not a huge 4-channer, but I know /fit/ posts can last 12 hours, and glancing at a slower board, /cgl/ posts last for a few days. [4chan.org]
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Yep. Some boards have posts that last weeks. /b/ is the only one that grinds through content at breakneck speed.
Re:Doesn't this pretty much kill 4chan? (Score:4, Insightful)
This. So basically 5 minutes until 4chan popularises a link to software which subtly changes an image to change the hash and other identifying features.
You're welcome, Internet.
Re:Doesn't this pretty much kill 4chan? (Score:4, Informative)
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Since one of the "celebrities" was under age when the photos were taken I suspect that the ante with respect to the legal ramifications may be a little higher than just a nasty letter from a lawyer. That sort of thing tends to focus the mind.
Thats interesting. Since its then illegal to have those images it is not possible for anyone to give consent to storing them on iCloud.
What is the legal status for hosting a server with illegal information on it?
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What is the legal status for hosting a server with illegal information on it?
If they don't know, then they are not responsible. It's in the DMCA, or possibly the CFAA.
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From what I have heard, it is not that clear. Seems that few non-nude photos were done underage, while nude photos are already after 18. It was worded confusingly by lawyers on purpose to scare people away.
If there are underage nude photos there, the lady in question is in a trouble herself...
Re: Doesn't this pretty much kill 4chan? (Score:1)
Underage nudes without erect dicks, sex, or masturbation, in the photo are almost certainly legal.
To be illegal, the photo must be sexualized, and the definition in law tends to not include nude shots on their own.
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I was not, and did not mean to imply it was their policy.
I was trying to say that the legal risk was not there, not speak to what the policies were.
The law is (from wikipedia, I'm too lazy to read the actual statutes right now):
The PROTECT Act also amended 18 U.S.C. 2252A, which was part of the original CPPA. The amendment added paragraph (a)(3), which criminalizes knowingly advertising or distributing "an obscene visual depiction of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct; or a visual depiction of an actual minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct". The law draws a distinction between obscene depiction of any minor, and mere depiction of an actual minor.
As long as it's not sexually explicit it's legal, though also:
In 1994, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit ruled that the federal statute contains no requirement that genitals be visible or discernible. The court ruled that non-nude visual depictions can qualify as lascivious exhibitions and that this construction does not render the statute unconstitutionally overbroad.[19]
So genitals are a help in determining, but are not a requirement, and if it's not sexually explicit, it's not pornography, and therefore not child pornagraphy. I have not looked at the pictures in question, because, I have
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Thanks, this should help anyone that thinks 4chan is absolute scum see that when presented with actual vileness, they error on the side of decency (they still surpass what I want to see, but I'm a prude, and at least they protect those without full personhood).
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I thought the whole purpose of 4chan was that "anything goes".
4chan has always had rules and restrictions. Things like loli and guro are not allowed to be posted outside of the Random board, certain boards are considered SFW and don't allow porn, and posters are required to be over 18 to post. All of these are enforced quite a bit, even so far as public bans for people who admit to being under 18 on the boards.
Now this usually doesn't stop the users from just posting what they want (i.e. you can still find people posting porn on "worksafe" boards), but they do usually
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Rule #1 has been "Don't post anything illegal" for a very long time. I just read moot's deposition where he explained 4chan for some trial on April 22, 2010. It was part of the rules then.
Re:Doesn't this pretty much kill 4chan? (Score:5, Insightful)
Doesn't this pretty much kill 4chan? (Score:1)
> If they start censoring it
Start? They've been censoring discussions about this crusade against gamers rather heavily lately.
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Come now anon, don't know that all gamers are misogynists, and the feminists who support this line of thinking believe that all men should be killed. I wish I was kidding on both points, but the "gaming media" and their 8+ articles containing 35-45% verbatim material say otherwise, along with the social justice warrior crowd that are attacking, doxxing, and threatening anyone who doesn't fall in step with their bigoted view point.
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it's a formal policy that really means nothing at all because practically speaking, the material disappears very quickly.
It does however confer benefits like legal protection.
And I think 4chan's founder has stated he's received many threats of lawsuits before, but no one ever followed through. But given celebrities tend to have a LOT
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They should update the site so the post is archived, image removed and a message put up stating "Removed due to DMCA request by on behalf on ". Either, way they'll need to contact the poster about the take down notice, so they can respond. With a bonus that it's a confirmation their picture is real, not fake.
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All your base are belong to DMCA
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Effectiveness (Score:3)
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You think the media publishers type up each individual request?
Re:Effectiveness (Score:5, Interesting)
You think the media publishers type up each individual request?
I used to have a job where I handled them. They are pretty much auto-generated by companies that charge the content owners for each notice. Most are fake and it's a massive scam to steal money from them. We ended up deleting most of them as the data in them was clearly made up. Basically they are required by law to do "something" about DMCA complaint, and you're seeing it. The net effect will probably be nothing. We rarely got to then in under a week, so I suspect they will take even longer. By then, the threads would be dead anyway.
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Serious question: Do you know of any instance where the originator of a bogus DMCA takedown request was punished?
From what I understand, the originator can't just search for "Lindsay Lohan" on BitTorrent and Usenet, and fire out a bunch of takedown requests -- the signed/authenticated takedown notice stipulates that they are the owner of the material.
Said another way, if you uploaded a Linux distribution and called it "Rihanna Nudes" or something, and Rihanna's people sent a DMCA takedow
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No. The DMCA notice has two parts: one where you say (under pain of perjury) that you are indeed the owner of a copyright or the owner's designated representative (or whatever), and one where you say (no perjury here) that you have good reason to believe that something violates the copyright.
I can't legally look for "Lindsay Lohan" on those spaces and fire out a bunch of takedown requests, because I need to swear that I have the copyright or am working for whoever does. Rihanna's people can indeed fil
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Filing tons of bogus DMCA reports sounds at lot like flinging poo at people. And I've never written a script that was anywhere near as good at flinging poo as a million monkeys would be.
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Mostly a formality (Score:1)
He really couldn't care less about them.
There is an auto-ban for unsavoury content that has been expanded to it.
Most people will see 4chan and think all of these images are there forever, but they don't understand things vanish after so long, depending on the speed of the board. (RIP marked for deletion (old))
Now that they have a legal page with DMCA, they can't do shit to the site, even though almost all posters know how to get around the filter by adding pixels, changing hue, sat, literally anything with
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You do know that all 4chan threads auto-expire, usually within an hour or two, sometimes a day or two if carefully bumped, right? DMCA basically says remove THAT item. Sure, bro, just a minute... oh look it's gone now!
A recent change allowed threads on some boards (well, I only know /a/ does) to auto-archive on expire, which lets a thread hang around un-indexed for another two days or so. This is great when you have to go somewhere for a few hours, just leave the thread up and you can catch the rest of it
Technicalities (Score:5, Informative)
Well with the ephemeral nature of 4chan posts, it seems like this is more of a technicality than anything. The big boards are pretty fast, so posts are automatically wiped after a few hours at most. Infringing content will probably be off the site by the time a content owner's lawyers have time to fire off an email. On slower boards, they can be up for days or maybe even months, but I doubt anyone would bother sending a DMCA for something on, for example, the papercraft board.
All in all, it's probably just for moot to cover his ass and claim safe harbor, especially since content usually deletes itself in a few hours. Most of the time, he won't have to even do a thing.
If this is true... (Score:2)
Then Encyclopedia Dramatica [encyclopediadramatica.es] will be the unbiased source on how long they will sarcastically abide the policy before they just trash the hell out of it and forget the whole thing and not care anymore.
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Collecting data (Score:1)
The legal owner of the copyright is most likely the person who took the picture, either the celebrity herself in the case of a selfie, or her boyfriend for non-selfies.
4. Contact information about the notifier including address, telephone number and, if available, e-mail address;
Basically, they're trying to build a full address book of everybody in the leaks.
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You mean an address book of lawyers offices?
4. Contact information about the notifier including address, telephone number and, if available, e-mail address;
It did not say copyright owner.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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At least one of those celebrities was underage. He's worried about more than civil suits.
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Fakes are not necessarily legal in all jurisdictions. In the US, there's a federal law, and I assume fifty state laws on it, and they may not all agree. Other countries may have different laws than those in the US.
I'm not even sure fakes are legal in the US. If the head of an identifiable minor was put on the body of somebody else doing something sexual, I don't know what the legalities are. If this matters to you, well, I'd normally tell you to get a real lawyer, but on this I'll just tell you to FOA
wat? (Score:1)
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LGPL naughty bits FTW.
In other news... (Score:3)
Kappa Beta Phi has announced that it has a under-aged drinking policy, which it expects it's members to respect.
The NSA has a policy against eavesdropping on phone calls, which it pinky promises it will observe.
And finally, Slashdot is instituting a "No Trolls" policy, which First Post, Natalie Portman Naked and Petrified.
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This probably won't work. (Score:4, Insightful)
This probably won't work, because either:
1) The influx of content will overwhelm 4Chan's very few mods.
2) Trolls will flag every single image and overwhelm 4Chan's very few mods.
3) 4Chan's very few mods will not care.
Mods are asleep (Score:3)
nude selfies copyrighted? (Score:2)
so i can take some nude selfies and then leak them and then sue for millions?
i smell an Underpants Gnome method of profiteering brewing here, must be some stinky underpants if i can smell them from here
Re: nude selfies copyrighted? (Score:1)
No, international treaty requires copyright not need to be registered (from the 70s I think)
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i thought copyrights had to be applied for like a patent?
No. You own the copyrights on content you create, by the very act of creating it. You take a photo, you are the copyright holder, right then and there.
so i can take some nude selfies and then leak them and then sue for millions?
No, not on the basis of your holding the copyright. Not unless you can show that you'd normally make millions off of the use of that image anyway. Because unless you REGISTER the copyright, federally, you can only sue to stop infringing use and claim - at most - the customary fee you'd normally have collected if the infringing person had agreed to license t
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You own the copyrights on content you create, by the very act of creating it.
So the problem this will solve is answering all the subsequent posts of 'source?' or 'Who's that?' following an unidentified shot of some hottie going up on /b/.
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Also, any copies GP leaks are perfectly legitimate.
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How about this: everybody send me a dollar and I won't post nude selfies of myself on the net. Best way I can think of to make millions on this.
Good luck with that (Score:2)
Celebs get protection, Serfs get nothing (Score:1)
So there you have it, if you are rich enough to send DMCA notices, happy days, however if you are an ex-girlfriend/boyfriend without significant USA legal resources, you are fucked.
It took this? (Score:1)
Really? Seems odd. (Score:2)
Since 4chan, by design, only keeps a (fairly low) specific number of threads alive on each board and rotates them out as they lose popularity, this seems odd and superfluous.
Their response to any DMCA demand could be, "yup, it will be removed within the next day or two," without actually changing a thing.
This is a great idea (Score:2)
If you get a DMCA take-down, that's proof its a real photo, not a fake.
fair use (Score:1)
self defence (Score:2)
If the people posting the offending images are willing to defend those lawsuits, it's got nothing to do with 4chan any more.
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But they need to receive a notice from the copyright owner. Perhaps 4chan just want a method to identify the real nude celebrity photos from the fake ones.