When Even Totally Bogus Copyright Threats Over Court Documents Comes Close To Shutting Down A Site, Something's Broken
from the not-universally-reviled-enough,-it-would-appear dept
The "c" in "copyright" still stands for "censorship," at least when wielded by aggrieved entities with limited retaliatory options. Torrentfreak is reporting that Comcast has sent the site a cease and desist order over last week's article on Prenda's honeypot operations.[On] Monday we learned that Comcast was not happy with our coverage. Through the brand protection company Cyveillance they sent a cease and desist letter for an alleged copyright infringement, demanding that we take the article offline, or face legal action.
The threats are clear. If we fail to comply with the takedown notice within five days Comcast will file a lawsuit seeking immediate injunctive relief, compensatory damages, statutory damages, punitive damages, attorneys’ fees and costs of the suit.
The "intellectual property" in question is the public court filing, according to Cyveillance. (The actual C&D letter doesn't specify what's been infringed.) Torrentfreak told Cyveillance that public court filings are public domain (which may not be entirely true -- court documents filed by private parties (as opposed to the courts themselves) probably are not technically public domain, though there's a pretty strong argument that most uses of them are fair use -- and especially when it comes to use in reporting and commentary).
After being informed of this fact, Cyveillance told Torrentfreak that Comcast said to "hold off" on removing the post for the time being, but that news came far too late as Torrentfreak's host was already threatening to pull the plug.
Meanwhile, the situation further deteriorated when we learned that our hosting provider LeaseWeb received the same cease and desist notice. LeaseWeb alerted us to this problem on Tuesday and stated that our IP-address would be blocked if the issue was not resolved within 24 hours.With Torrentfreak's site on the line, Comcast and Cyveillance then decided to turn unresponsive. Several hours later, Comcast finally issued a statement.
Update 7pm CET: A Comcast spokesperson responded to an inquiry we sent to the company’s lawyers:Oh, one of those common "please take down our copyrighted content or prepare to be sued" mistakes. We've all made those. I'm pretty sure the only "error" was underestimating the pushback.
“[I] am replying to let you know that the cease and desist was sent in error, and you may disregard it. We apologize for any confusion this may have caused.”
So, all's well that ends well, I guess, except for that fact that Comcast's "error" nearly took a site offline and gets to walk away from the experience unscathed. And because it made it through with little more than some public embarrassement, it won't learn a damn thing.
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Filed Under: copyright, dmca, takedown, torrentfreak
Companies: comcast, cyveillance, prenda
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It seems they are looking for a provider that won't bow down that easily like LeaseWeb did. I wish I could say we should vote with our wallets and do exactly that but it'd be only palliative. The madness is systemic.
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Wrote this short retort YESTERDAY, knowing you'd go with this, regardless.
http://gigaom.com/2013/08/21/comcast-says-copyright-threat-to-torrentfreak-an-error/
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Re: Wrote this short retort YESTERDAY, knowing you'd go with this, regardless.
�[I] am replying to let you know that the cease and desist was sent in error, and you may disregard it. We apologize for any confusion this may have caused."
Already covered no worries.
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Re: Wrote this short retort YESTERDAY, knowing you'd go with this, regardless.
How many other such �mistakes� has Comcast made that we haven�t heard about?
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Re: Wrote this short retort YESTERDAY, knowing you'd go with this, regardless.
Stop being such a copyright apologist already.
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Re: Wrote this short retort YESTERDAY, knowing you'd go with this, regardless.
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Re: Wrote this short retort YESTERDAY, knowing you'd go with this, regardless.
Since you are attempting to diminish the relevance of these situations by calling them anomalies, let me ask you a simple question (even though you will probably ignore it like any other rebuttal of your comments):
Do you support severe penalties for misusing DMCA notices?
If these actually are anomalies that are few and far between, than I can't fathom why you wouldn't support statute that imposes actual punishment for blatant misuse like this case. I mean, it's not like it's any big deal, just an anomaly, right?
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Re: Wrote this short retort YESTERDAY, knowing you'd go with this, regardless.
Also, telling.
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Re: Wrote this short retort YESTERDAY, knowing you'd go with this, regardless.
Sorry - but the "shoot first, ask questions later" method for the DMCA seems to be turning up alot of anomalies lately.
I think if you had to jump through hoops to prove your innocence, you'd be slightly less impressed with Comcast.
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Re: Wrote this short retort YESTERDAY, knowing you'd go with this, regardless.
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Re: Wrote this short retort YESTERDAY, knowing you'd go with this, regardless.
Anomaly that, jackass.
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Re: Wrote this short retort YESTERDAY, knowing you'd go with this, regardless.
And you believe them? Seriously?!
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Re: Re: Wrote this short retort YESTERDAY, knowing you'd go with this, regardless.
Put it this way, if teh Googlez, etc., and the NSA only existed to enforce copyright, she'd have no problem with them.
Amirite?
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Re: Wrote this short retort YESTERDAY, knowing you'd go with this, regardless.
The time has come for *all* takedown demands to be made under penalty of perjury. This is a sensible and correct measure against the abuses of an overly-broad power that are now undeniable.
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Re: Re: Wrote this short retort YESTERDAY, knowing you'd go with this, regardless.
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Thuggery by form letter...
Additionally, this isn't a DMCA takedown notice, which means it isn't sworn under penalty of perjury (not that anybody ever gets prosecuted for purjury for those, **ever** :-p )
Sending threats like this should be illegal. Only the attorney of record should be allowed to make legal claims, and then only if they are specific to instant case. No generic form letters, and no claiming things like Comcase "will be entitled to recover" damages when the reality is they only **may** be entitled.
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New Prenda-Cheerleader Comcast?
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Secondly TorrentFreak needs to look for a new host.
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willfully oblivious as always
Yours,
OOTB.
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is it 1% of the time? 10%? 50%? 100% ?
Also if OOTB doesn't want to be considered a corporate shill how about he/she tells us who they actually are employed by?
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Re:
DING! His day is coming...
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Re:
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Re: Re:
Check out the comment at the top: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherine_A._Fitzpatrick
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Re: Re: Re:
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Now if people started to put bogus ownership documents that would be fraud.
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Of course it's the same one. Might as well call them 'Monopoly Cast', because I sure as hell can't get any other TV or internet service in my area.
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LeaseWeb
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Leaseweb don't deserve people's money; they haven't for years. I don't know why people are even still there...
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ignorance is bliss, Tim
The copyright claim was weak. The site in question (a turd of a place, but that's just my opinion) was never at risk of being shut down. Leaseweb sent them a standard "we got a notice, deal with it" warning, and the site in question did what they were suppose to do. They followed up and claimed their rights to use the material, and the original issuer of the complaint agreed. END OF STORY.
There is no "site almost shut down" - that would have happened only if the site operators were not available, unreachable, or anonymous to the point where their "service provider" couldn't reach them anymore.
If you want to lash out at anyone, lash out of leaseweb, a company of mixed reputation, for giving such a short period of time to deal with the issue. They aren't required to be THAT aggressive in dealing with the issues, and perhaps it's the "service provider" being the one threatening the service, and nobody else.
NOTE: Techdirt continues to hold each and every one of my comments for moderation for posting. Why does Techdirt insist on censoring dissenting opinions?
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Re: ignorance is bliss, Tim
You're a poor troll and a horrible liar.
Choke yourself on John Steele's dick, you Prenda fanboy.
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Re: ignorance is bliss, Tim
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They couldn't have any reason for wanting to make them look like good legitimate people could they?
I mean 6 Strikes is all on the up and up... they FINALLY picked a new company to review the system that is violating terms of use every second it operates.
And wasn't it Comcast that just pitched a new idea for monitoring their customers traffic so they could pop up legal alternatives when they detect downloading?
Its not like they have refused to answer a subpoena for records to help hang a copyright troll... oh wait.
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Response?
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