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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

#51

Post by incompatible »

strogonoff wrote: post #47
joe_the_user wrote: post #44

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? 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?

They probably just send you a counter claim without bothering to take anything down. Perhaps also a nasty note from their lawyers?

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

#52

Post by RandomInteger4 »

Cogito wrote: post #29
illuminati1911 wrote: post #19

The DMCA is truly a steaming pile of shit. Nintendo and other companies are also abusing it to take down fair use videos by individuals on YouTube.

YouTube take downs are usually done without DMCA, right? Are you saying that the DMCA is explicitly being invoked by Nintendo and others, or are you talking more generally and including, for example, YouTube's Content ID system?

YouTube's content ID system is in place to facilitate DMCA takedowns. Folks such as Nintendo can go either the route of filing a claim to take the ad revenue of a video, or filing a copyright strike claim to have the video removed.

Whichever variation that is used is up to the copyright holder (legitimate or otherwise), and both are definitely used by legitimate actors for sometimes the most ridiculous of copyright claims (someone humming a song for instance).

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

#53

Post by prepend »

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’m not sure there’s anyone bothered by it enough to make a change. ISPs don’t seem to care. Individuals have other coping mechanisms (Tweet our the story) so it’s a lot of low impact incidents.

I think this is a PR opportunity for some “freedom loving ISP” that has a large global footprint and would benefit. In the US the ISPs are media companies do not so close.

Maybe we’ll see Google or Microsoft try but they too have too many media ties to try to upset dmca.

The most likely fix, I think, is for large enough orgs like the Guardian to sue Linode and the takedown issuer for fraud. That will cost a lot, but they may be interested.

If ISPs have a large risk of damages then they will be more careful. Currently it seems like a bot or intern issues these things and does not really care about anything but avoiding DMCA risk.

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

#54

Post by strogonoff »

leeoniya wrote: post #46
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…

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 compani…

So a BigCo tells their ISP “feel free to keep the content up and break DMCA regulations, we’ll deal with it”, just like that? Doesn’t it mean one or both of them violate a federal law?

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

#55

Post by prepend »

adrianmonk wrote: post #13

> Our questioning the veracity of the complaint did not seem to make any difference. Linode is an ISP, not a court of law. Legally, it's not up to them to make this determination. If they are compelled to take down a site by law, then their opinion about the veracity of the complaint is not really relevant. Unless they want to defy the law in order to go out on a limb to protect a customer. Which is a lot to ask of a…

It’s extremely relevant because they can deny the dmca notice. Linode is protecting themself over their customer.

This is a strong signal to customers to find a better ISP. One who plans on legal funds to defend customers against these bullshit dmca notices.

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

#56

Post by strogonoff »

ryacko wrote: post #45
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…

A single person LLC does not protect from perjury charges. Unfortunately DMCA perjury cases aren’t prosecuted.

Isn’t there a contradiction—if as you say DMCA perjury cases aren’t prosecuted, what’s there to lose for that hypothetical “DMCA troll” LLC?

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

#57

Post by ahje »

srazzaque wrote: post #39
Moru wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solution: Host your stuff outside of country, don't use cloudflare or other US based services

I ask this as someone who is not fully across the ins and outs of DMCA. Linode has non-US data centres (eg Singapore). If the node hosting the content was just outside the US, would they need to do a take down? Or is the fact that Linode is a US-based company make this not matter.

As someone who's worked in an abuse desk for an EU-based hosting business, I can confirm that: 1) American businesses will send DMCA requests for pretty much anything -- sometimes they request take-downs of their own local subsidiaries 2) Other foreign entities will send DMCA requests even though there is no way US laws could be applied on the complaining party, us (the host), or the customer. 3) In both of the scenarios above, there will be _a lot_ of noise when DMCA requests are rejected because US laws don't apply.

Usually, we simply took the content down when it was obvious copyright infringement (Windows ISO images and so on -- yes, people still put stuff like that on their web sites), as that is a TOS violation, and TOS violations is something a host can handle regardless if the legal status of the content. If the customer claimed they owned the copyright on some original content we simply told the people complaining to go through the local courts instead of invoking foreign laws.

Obviously, we have complied in a few cases where one of the new guys handled complaints about businesses' own web sites or subsidiaries' web sites. Laughs were had.

I don't know how a US host acting abroad would handle it though. I suspect they would apply the same rules everywhere.

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

#58

Post by strogonoff »

incompatible wrote: post #51
strogonoff wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

They probably just send you a counter claim without bothering to take anything down. Perhaps also a nasty note from their lawyers?

Wouldn’t it put them in violation of a federal law? If they send a counter-claim without taking the content down, can’t they be sued for DMCA non-compliance? The law appears to mandate immediate takedown for certain period of time regardless of counter-claim status.

Playing devil’s advocate here, and may obviously be missing some points of the regulation.

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

#59

Post by incompatible »

strogonoff wrote: post #54
leeoniya wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 compani…

So a BigCo tells their ISP “feel free to keep the content up and break DMCA regulations, we’ll deal with it”, just like that? Doesn’t it mean one or both of them violate a federal law?

I think there's a difference between running a website vs being a user on somebody else's site. A website must publish its registered agent address if it wants to take advantage of the DMCA system (i.e., receiving take down demands instead of lawsuits). E.g., Wikimedia receives take down demands as described at https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:DMCA.

I'm unclear what the difference is between how Wikimedia is set up and the situation with the Guardian and Mail.

That link above doesn't seem to contain everything that Wikimedia receives on its various sites, e.g., there's also https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Office_actions/DM...

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