DMCA Misuse: Trying To Take Down A Negative Movie Review
from the this-again? dept
All too often, we're seeing the DMCA abused by people who aren't using it to takedown copyright infringing materials, but to shut down sites they don't like. The latest example involves some filmmakers and a movie review site. The review certainly was not particularly positive, leading to a rather random series of complaints and threats against its author. While we won't get into the claims of libel and defamation, which go into an entirely separate arena, the fact is that the filmmakers are using the DMCA to try to get the site taken down completely, bringing up all sorts of claims in the DMCA notice. It's difficult to see how a review of a movie can infringe on the copyrights of that movie unless it was showing the movie itself (which does not appear to be the case). It's worth pointing out that a DMCA takedown notice is only supposed to be for copyright infringing material, so including charges of libel and defamation in the takedown seem rather unnecessary. Even more amusingly, though, the takedown notice includes a bunch of random charges that aren't actually illegal, such as: "linking to other websites without any authorization to do so." In fact, the whole thing is so over-the-top, you have to wonder if it's simply part of an attempt to use the Streisand Effect to drum up some publicity for the movie.
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Filed Under: abuse, dmca, unauthorized links
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But critical reviews are explicitly mentioned in the fair use law. There's no question here that even if they were showing excerpts of the movie, there is no case here.
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Take down
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Take down
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Re: Take down
Too many Americans want easy money. I know because I'm one and I do. It is why I'm going into the IT field.
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Re: Re: Take down
Healthcare and regulation/auditing (SOX, HIPPA) are the way to go today. At least that is what I am seeing after 12 years in IT. YMMV
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Clearly it no longer takes sanity or intelligence to try to abuse the legal system, this just being the latest example.
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Why Not?
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Re
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Well if they intend to go for the Streisand effect
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