DMCA As Censorship: Citibank Doesn't Want You To Remember What It Said About Obama's Bank Reform Policy
from the streisand-enters-stage-right dept
We've been discussing quite a bit lately how copyright law is often used not as a tool to provide incentive to create, but as a tool for censorship. Here's the latest example. John Bennett points us to the news that Citigroup filed a DMCA takedown request with Wordpress.com over the site LBO-news' 18-month old post that presented a copy of Citigroup's analysis of Obama's (then new) bank reform plan, which noted that it was actually quite bank-friendly. The key quote in the report: "the US government is following a relatively bank-friendly, investor-friendly approach."Of course, these days, Wall Street is looking for more favors, and has been complaining about the regulations that the administration put on them as being too onerous. So, firms like Citigroup aren't too happy about anyone remembering the fact that it knew the regulations weren't at all onerous, but were extremely friendly to banks and Wall Street. So it issued the DMCA takedown on the report. Of course, as economist Brad DeLong has noted, this is clearly not about copyright issues. It's not a case where the infringement is harming the "market" for that report. The only reason to file a DMCA is to try to hide the report:
Today--nineteen months after this document was written--it is of historical interest only: none of Citigroup's paying clients would pay a cent for the information contained in it, for nobody could in any way profitably trade today on Citigroup's February 2009 analysis of the policies of the Geithner Treasury....DeLong is now hosting the document himself (pdf), so if anyone wants to see what Citigroup would prefer you don't see, check it out (oh, whoops... or is that contributory infringement?).
Whatever you think about the DMCA, it should not be used to prune the historical record of primary sources about how various economic policies were perceived at the time.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: censorship, dmca
Companies: citigroup
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Oh, and the pentagon finally burned those books. WHEW!!! I am so relieved that our borders are finally safe thanks to our government.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Correction:
new = knew
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Correction:
Oops. That's an embarrassing one. Fixed. Thanks.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Copyright IS censorship
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
well I suspect a Citibank 'competitor' could reasonably trade 'profitably' on negative Citibank information, no?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Despite whatever agenda they are working on, it's a crime to humanity to try and re-write history. Even if it's 'small'.
And yes, copyright isn't about 'rights' it's about power and control.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Frivolous
The abuse of a law should carry a fine horrible enough to make people scared to even attempt it.
Like having your accounts frozen, or having half of your estate value donated to charities, but only charities with low management overhead.
Obviously, it should never put someone out in the streets, but plenty of people can live on wages in the 30-40k range. So someone worth $1 billion can be just fine living on $500 million. Heck, should be able to live just fine on $1 million. They'll just have to move to a cheaper place.
That sounds like a law I can live with. Abuse a law, and you forfeit all of your estates value, down to the last (10* average yearly income).
The current average is ~$80k, so no matter how much they're worth, they'd only be left with $800k. That's plenty to live on.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Were I starving, I might thank you for feeding me crap. Were I rich, I would look at your offer and call it crap. Has anything changed besides my perspective?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: perspective
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
you got the missing letter
"that presented a copy a Citigroup analysis"
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]