Don't Think The 'Costs' To US Businesses From Bogus Claims Is Real? Read This
from the and-this-is-under-the-dmca dept
We've discussed at length how SOPA and PIPA put additional compliance costs and liability on US companies -- something supporters of the bills still insist is untrue. However, MetaFilter founder, Matt Haughey, has explained his reasons for supporting the boycott/blackout by telling a specific story of some of the mess he needed to go through to deal with a totally bogus DMCA claim. In my recent debate with Steve Tepp from the US Chamber of Commerce over this issue, Tepp insisted that because there are no monetary damages possible for intermediaries, there is no real "liability" for those companies. Tell that to Haughey, who relates his experience:I've never written about my problems behind the scenes with the DMCA, a similar piece of law written to stamp out piracy but in the decade since it passed has morphed into a blunt instrument to silence websites for a variety of reasons. I was stuck in a Brazil/Catch-22 situation a little over a year ago due to a five year old song in MetaFilter Music that shared a filename with a leaked (November 2010) unreleased Michael Jackson song. Sony music group employed a dumb simple bot called "Web Sheriff" that crawled the web looking for filename matches and when found, alerted IP range owners of infringing works being offered by their customers. I got slapped with a 30 day ultimatum to immediately take down the uploaded song on MeFi Music or find my hosting account closed and banned, and all of MetaFilter erased in the process. The claims were ludicrous and I informed my host of the impossible nature of the claim but was told per DMCA guidelines I had to either file a counterclaim notice with Sony/Web Sheriff or ask them to issue a formal retraction.Don't think that kind of thing takes money, time and connections to handle reasonably well? The compliance costs are very, very real -- and that's just a single bogus DMCA notice. Imagine what happens when there are many -- and companies are dragged into various court battles. To say there's no compliance cost or liability under these bills is pure folly.
I didn't want to waste money on lawyer time by filing a counterclaim and prolonging the fight so instead I had to contact Web Sheriff directly to request a retraction. This took many back-and-forth emails, and thanks to Web Sheriff being in London, added days to the process of exchanging emails. Eventually I got a human at the company to look at the dates on my files and agree it was not a Michael Jackson song. The formal retraction took nearly two weeks to secure and convince lawyers for my host that it was adequate for removing the DMCA claim. That's two weeks into a 30 day window before I lost my rack of servers and hosting account completely. I'll never forget last year when I went through this because it was two of the stupidest weeks of my life, all because of some problematic laws granted new powers to copyright holders and I had to engage in a prolonged legal fight thanks to a mistake made by a bot.
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Filed Under: blackouts, costs, dmca, matt haughey, pipa, protect ip, protests, sopa
Companies: metafilter
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Also, my hair is a bird.
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/sarcasm
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Time for fair play turnabout
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Re: Time for fair play turnabout
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Response to: Christine Sandquist on Jan 18th, 2012 @ 3:53pm
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Bogus claims abound, and the host often takes an entire site down in response. The attorney fees in getting the site back online are generally nothing compared to the revenue lost by the victim in the hours (or days) that the site is down.
Sure, you can sue for damages for the bogus takedown notice -- if you can get to the bad guys -- but it's like placing a $20,000 bet on an even-odds team. You might get some of the losses back (minus the "juice" in bookie parlance), or you might just lose it all. Or better yet, have an unenforceable judgement for your wall. Not usually cost effective.
The losses are being suffered, but it generally ain't going to the copyright lawyers. It's going into competitors' pockets or the ether.
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I have to wonder
1. do you know Where the corps get their money?
2. Do you think they have enough?
In number 1, I hope you already know.
In the second, if you look around you may see it.. In adverts, in paper, in SPEED RACING and every sporting event you can see. ALL over TV, SAT, CABLE..
They get to pay for Lawyers, lobbyists, and TONS of influence.
WHO HERE would act in a movie for less then $1,000,000? The hired people get $1000+ per day. Who would work for $500, $250?, $100 per day, and do almost as well as those getting paid 10 times as much? Do the guys on TOP get paid? yes, go look at their cars, homes and so forth.
REMEMBER #1..
The movie industry has been subsidized for years, since WWII, and even before. They got paid for PROPAGANDA MOVIES/CARTOONS... this BACK WHEN actors HAD NO RECOURSE, and some REAL MEAN contracts.
What shows do you remember from the past? WHICH ones have you seen recently?? ANYPLACE? AND THEN, they got the RIGHTS to RE-COPYRIGHT a public domain movie.
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I would not recommend self-help as a general rule, but under that facts stated in the article the general rule would not come into play.
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No, you're reading it wrong! There's no compliance cost or liability for the copyright holder.
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This simple measure would greatly reduce this type of problem.
In the end the copyright laws should be abolished since there are many other points that need to be reviewed. Fair use (which would include non-commercial sharing), public domain (works based on public domain material can't be copyrighted), orphan works, copyright extension (10 years at most should suffice), explicit avoid 3rd-party liability if they comply with LEGITIMATE copyright complaints and so on.
And we thought SOPA was a problem, huh? /sarc
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Here lies the truth about SOPA/PIPA that even TechDirt has yet to report: what MPAA, RIAA, and Hollywood execs do not want you to see.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzS5rSvZXe8
The truth behind why these big companies responsible for SOPA and PIPA are also responsible for piracy itself is far more insidious than even their outmoded business model.
Hint: can you say, do as I say so I can crush you under heel?
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Here lies the truth about SOPA/PIPA that even TechDirt has yet to report: what MPAA, RIAA, and Hollywood execs do not want you to see.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzS5rSvZXe8
The truth behind why these big companies responsible for SOPA and PIPA are also responsible for piracy itself is far more insidious than even their outmoded business model.
Hint: can you say, do as I say so I can crush you under heel?
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