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How the “Mail & Guardian” got taken down

mg.co.za

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Re: How the “Mail & Guardian” got taken down

#41

Post by strogonoff »

incompatible wrote: post #36
mherdeg wrote: post #16

I'm kind of amazed at how effective this digital reputation management technique is: * publish an exact copy of the offending content on a web site and include something that looks like a datetime which is earlier than the publication date of the offending content * tell the web site's ISP and other service providers that they're violating copyright, pointing to your fake content and using the providers' copyright-vi…

I didn't realise people bothered to put up fake websites. I thought a plausible-looking DMCA notification was sufficient to get a provider to take something down.

If it were so easy and cheap as many comments on this page imply, why aren’t we seeing this often used against large well-known businesses in bad faith?

E.g., someone creates a puny single-person LLC, and files DMCA notices against New York Times, Amazon blog posts, Apple press releases, et cetera. According to claims I see here, the content will have to be down for 10-14 days regardless of how quickly the counter-claim succeeds, which if used at the right moment could cause significant damage to the target/substantial profit to the attacker.

If this was happening, I’m sure the regulation would be fixed promptly with powerful lobbying from the aforementioned big players—perhaps by imposing a fee for issuing DMCA takedowns, increasing legal cost of a successful counter-claim, etc.

Such cases would’ve definitely be noticeable to the public, so I can only assume that they don’t happen because either (A) no one have thought of it yet, or (B) there’s some non-obvious cost to DMCA takedowns or successful counter-claims.

EDIT: Removed shady source for DMCA counter-claim info.

Re: How the “Mail & Guardian” got taken down

#42

Post by leeoniya »

cft wrote: post #14
lacker wrote: post #6

It isn’t really fair to pick on Linode, all US hosting providers work the same way. When someone files a DMCA claim, if you want to keep the content up you need your lawyer to file a counterclaim. Hosting providers are then allowed to leave it up, and you can fight about it in court. It sounds from this article like the newspaper didn’t have a lawyer, or at least not a lawyer familiar with American law. That sucks bu…

Absolutely not. You can ignore a defective DMCA notices and see if the claimant files a lawsuit. Google routinely does this [1]. It is a business risk choosing between losing a client vs getting sued. If you value your clients, you should have a review process to access the legality of DMCA notices you receive. 1. https://torrentfreak.com/google-keeps-rejecting-hollywoods-b...

> You can ignore a defective DMCA notices and see if the claimant files a lawsuit.

if you are your own ISP, then maybe you can. AFAIK, no ISP or hosting provider in the US is going to risk it. most (all?) ISPs require the customer to remove the content first and ask questions later.

Re: How the “Mail & Guardian” got taken down

#43

Post by jart »

tylerl wrote: post #32

Maybe, perhaps if you're a serious news organization you might not want to host your site on Linode. Not that Linode is bad or anything; I'm super happy with them myself. But the way a company deals with abuse complaints (including takedowns) reflects the volume of these that they have to deal with, and the blowback they've experienced by overreacting. If the provider is tiny, then takedowns are rare and interesting.…

Yeah, Linode is a scrappy little company from Philly that, sixteen years ago, pioneered the paradigm shift from things like CPanel to Amazon Web Services, but never became big like Amazon since there was always a focus on making their service affordable. But even if they were a big company, it's hard to make economic sense out of asking your lawyers to focus on protecting $5/month registrations from dmca legal prowling. The way I like to think of it is, we get what we pay for. If your hosting costs less than it costs someone else to hire a lawyer to write letters complaining about your hosting, then the will of heaven will usually favor the side with more dollars and cents on it.

Re: How the “Mail & Guardian” got taken down

#44

Post by joe_the_user »

strogonoff wrote: post #41
incompatible wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't realise people bothered to put up fake websites. I thought a plausible-looking DMCA notification was sufficient to get a provider to take something down.

If it were so easy and cheap as many comments on this page imply, why aren’t we seeing this often used against large well-known businesses in bad faith? E.g., someone creates a puny single-person LLC, and files DMCA notices against New York Times, Amazon blog posts, Apple press releases, et cetera. According to claims I see here, the content will have to be down for 10-14 days regardless of how quickly the counter-cl…

If it were so easy and cheap as many comments on this page imply, why aren’t we seeing this often used against large well-known businesses in bad faith?

Because medium sized companies know not to mess with large companies but don't care about small companies?

Re: How the “Mail & Guardian” got taken down

#45

Post by ryacko »

strogonoff wrote: post #41
incompatible wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't realise people bothered to put up fake websites. I thought a plausible-looking DMCA notification was sufficient to get a provider to take something down.

If it were so easy and cheap as many comments on this page imply, why aren’t we seeing this often used against large well-known businesses in bad faith? E.g., someone creates a puny single-person LLC, and files DMCA notices against New York Times, Amazon blog posts, Apple press releases, et cetera. According to claims I see here, the content will have to be down for 10-14 days regardless of how quickly the counter-cl…

A single person LLC does not protect from perjury charges.

Unfortunately DMCA perjury cases aren’t prosecuted.

Re: How the “Mail & Guardian” got taken down

#46

Post by leeoniya »

strogonoff wrote: post #41
incompatible wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't realise people bothered to put up fake websites. I thought a plausible-looking DMCA notification was sufficient to get a provider to take something down.

If it were so easy and cheap as many comments on this page imply, why aren’t we seeing this often used against large well-known businesses in bad faith? E.g., someone creates a puny single-person LLC, and files DMCA notices against New York Times, Amazon blog posts, Apple press releases, et cetera. According to claims I see here, the content will have to be down for 10-14 days regardless of how quickly the counter-cl…

big players are either their own ISPs, hosting provides or most likely have SLAs in place that absolve their ISPs from liability and allow the companies to handle DMCA claims directly by dedicated departments.

smaller players are subject to dealing with DMCA claims by proxy via their hosting providers. also, it would be easy for Amazon to prove bad faith by having many examples from a single claimant. smaller companies may only have to deal with a few claims per year from different claimants (still incredibly disruptive) and not have strong enough evidence to demonstrate bad faith.

Re: How the “Mail & Guardian” got taken down

#47

Post by strogonoff »

joe_the_user wrote: post #44
strogonoff wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it were so easy and cheap as many comments on this page imply, why aren’t we seeing this often used against large well-known businesses in bad faith? E.g., someone creates a puny single-person LLC, and files DMCA notices against New York Times, Amazon blog posts, Apple press releases, et cetera. According to claims I see here, the content will have to be down for 10-14 days regardless of how quickly the counter-cl…

If it were so easy and cheap as many comments on this page imply, why aren’t we seeing this often used against large well-known businesses in bad faith? Because medium sized companies know not to mess with large companies but don't care about small companies?

You wrote “not to mess with large companies”. What are the consequences of issuing a DMCA notice against content published by a large company?

Re: How the “Mail & Guardian” got taken down

#48

Post by 314 »

mherdeg wrote: post #16

I'm kind of amazed at how effective this digital reputation management technique is: * publish an exact copy of the offending content on a web site and include something that looks like a datetime which is earlier than the publication date of the offending content * tell the web site's ISP and other service providers that they're violating copyright, pointing to your fake content and using the providers' copyright-vi…

Why not file a counter-claim and then make them attempt to prove their copyright in a real court?

Re: How the “Mail & Guardian” got taken down

#49

Post by buyx »

megaremote wrote: post #37

This is an african newspaper called the Mail and Guardian, not the UK's 2 big newspapers the daily Mail and the Guardian.

The newspaper used to be called the "Weekly Mail", but there was a short-lived tie-up with the UK Guardian in the 1990's, and a renaming. I remember eagerly reading the UK Guardian stories in the M&G in the pre-internet era.
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