Copyright As Censorship: Popular Twitter Account Keeps Getting Deleted Over Trollish DMCA Claims
from the without-a-robust-punishment,-this-will-keep-happening dept
Amazingly, there are still some people out there who insist that copyright is never used for censorship. But an even bigger concern is how more and more people are looking at the ability to censor via copyright as a feature, not a bug, and are interested in expanding that right. Most bizarre of all, we've seen a number of people, who insist that they're "online activists" who want to stop bullying and trolling, advocating for expanding DMCA style takedowns to trollish behavior.What they don't realize is that this will only make the trolling and abuse much worse, because it puts a new tool for abuse into the hands of the abusers.
Take, for example, what appears to be happening with a popular, if silly, Twitter account @Dog_rates which, as you may have guessed, rates dogs:
This is Doug. He's a Draconian Jabbawockee. Rad tongue. Ears are borderline legendary 11/10 would pet with a purpose pic.twitter.com/MVvbQW88Pv
— WeRateDogs (@dog_rates) February 12, 2016
Of course, it's possible that this trollish behavior was inspired (and I can't believe I'm actually typing this), by an earlier spat about dog rating Twitter accounts, in which @dog_rates got incensed about a competing dog rating Twitter account that didn't just have the same idea, but was actively reusing both pictures and Tweet text from the @dog_rates accounts. It did seem like @dog_rates overreacted to that (and seems to take this whole dog rating thing way, way too seriously).To ensure that this mysterious individual wouldn’t continue to try to remove his work from the Internet, Nelson decided to try to negotiate with them. Their email exchange is … strange. At one point, the troll claims that they will next target another popular animal Twitter account dedicated to goats. After several emails, the two finally settled on a resolution. The copyright complainer wouldn’t target @dog_rates further if Nelson promised to delete two of the tweets targeted by the DMCA claims. Nelson was given a dramatic 20-minute time limit to comply.
After he deleted the tweets, Nelson asked, “Mind telling me what that was about?”
His troll replied: “Enjoy your account. Sorry about that. I’m just a one of your old followers. I’m going through a tough time I’m really sorry.”
However, the larger point remains: if you give people a tool that they can use to try to stifle the speech of others, it will be abused. It's always abused. Those insisting that expanding takedown abilities to target trollish accounts will lead to good outcomes are failing to realize that the exact opposite is likely to happen. The takedown powers will be abused by the trolls instead. Be careful what you wish for.
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Filed Under: censorship, copyright, dmca, dog ratings, dogs, takedowns, trolling
Companies: twitter
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it needs to keep happening
But who am I kidding, they will just be bought out.
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Re: it needs to keep happening
To be honest I got a popcorn storage put a side for that day. All those FBI investigations claiming some terrorist haxor is the one to blame and then it turns out that some intern FBI guy delivered the DMCA via tor... one can hope.
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As it stands though anyone can make a false claim and get something taken down with a minimum of effort and no risk to themselves, whereas to get content restored requires work and opens you up to having to fight the matter out in court if the original sender doubles-down, with the content remaining gone during the process, the odds of the recipient of the claim recouping lost costs so small as to be effectively non-existent, and the odds of any punishment for the sender of the bogus claim likewise non-existent.
To call the process 'unbalanced' or 'one-sided' would be a gross understatement.
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For counter-notices to be effective, they need to include remuneration paid to the falsely accused for the loss of readership incurred.
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IP extremists may claim it's not fair to impose such huge punishments on potentially speculative damages. Well then it's equally not fair to impose huge penalties on speculative infringement damages. But they don't care about the latter because they are hypocrites.
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and also 3 counternotice counternotice counternotices they can use every tuesday if it's not raining and they have an even number of $ in the bank.
Counternotices must be filled in using green ink by a licensed chiropractor, witnessed by the Dalai Llama and signed in the blood of 3 vestal virgins.
and it STILL wouldn't be as fucking stupidly retarded as the current DMCA system
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Not to worry, it will not affect you. Just keep on being ignorant, it's not that bad now is it?
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Of course when you look at things as an isolated frame, it's easy to dismiss as being just an anomaly. When you ignore the millions of illegitimate claims and focus on them one by one, they're all just simple mistakes!
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Look, a red herring!
Copyright infringement already has penalties, insane ones, but issuing bogus, even blatantly bogus DMCA claims? No penalty whatsoever.
If you really care about content creators/owners, surely you're in favor of equally harsh penalties bogus claims that negatively impact them, such as what's demonstrated here, right?
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Re: Look, a red herring!
Of course not. He has no concern whatsoever for content creators and authors. That's why he favors a system that gives IP holders/distributors more protections than authors.
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A: The system should only be intended to serve the public interest. Shills claim that it should serve the interests of authors.
B: The shills don't care for the interests of authors and only care for the interests of distributors. The system only serves the distributors.
As has been pointed out
"This may result from the inherent imbalance in prerequisites for the original complaint and the counter-notice. To get content removed, copyright holder Bob need only claim a good-faith belief that neither he nor the law has authorized the use. Bob is not subject to penalties for perjury. In contrast, to get access to content re-enabled, Alice must claim a good faith belief under penalty of perjury that the material was mistakenly taken down. This allows for copyright holders to send out take-down notices without incurring much liability; to get the sites back up, the recipients might need to expend considerably more resources. Section 512(f) makes the sender of an invalid claim liable for the damages resulting from the content’s improper removal, including legal fees, but that remedy is not always practical."
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160211/18083433583/wikimedia-takes-down-diary-anne-fr ank-uses-it-to-highlight-idiocy-dmca-rules-copyright-terms.shtml#c362
A system designed to put distributors over authors and the public by giving distributors more protections than authors (ie: authors that have their works falsely taken down) is not an acceptable system. Why should we have a system not designed to promote the progress or even to equally protect the rights of authors to have their works distributed without facing bogus takedowns.
"deliberately violate the rights of copyright owners?"
at least you admit that you don't care for the authors/artists. Only the IP holders/distributors. This is supposed to be a democracy and the government should represent the public not the interests of distributors. Just because you can buy politicians does make it any more right for you to subvert democracy to get what you want against the public interest and against the interests of authors.
and copy 'right' is a misnomer. It's actually a privilege. Something provided for by government. Those who infringe aren't violating any rights.
You also seem to have a guilty until proven innocent attitude. Everyone is infringing until they can prove otherwise. Please prove to me you aren't a serial killer.
I also have no problems with those that do infringe because it's not like these laws were passed democratically. I don't ever remember seeing large groups of people protesting to extend and expand IP laws. But I do remember who did lobby for these laws to be expanded and extended. Companies like Disney. The MPAA and RIAA. Obama even announced his plans to back Disney at their headquarters. Industry interests were invited to secretly negotiate treaties involving IP laws while the public was kept out. It's very clear who is responsible for these laws and it's not the people. It's the corporations. These laws were undemocratically passed and so, as far as I'm concerned, we have every right to violate them as we please and you are in no position to tell us we are wrong. You are the one who is wrong for subverting the democratic process to get self serving laws passed.
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Also I remember masses of people protesting against laws like SOPA and other pro-IP laws. Again, these laws were not democratically passed.
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If abuse occurs so seldom then you should have no problems with increasing abuse penalties to at least match infringement penalties. After all if abuse happens so seldom then what difference does it make to increase false takedown penalties?
Oh, the potential for such huge penalties may deter legitimate takedown requests from being made you say? Not any more than the extent that huge penalties may potentially deter the distribution of non-infringing works due to the possibility of a false takedown request.
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There are millions of people who own a ship and take over the content owners ship which has the only copy? Darrrrrn! That is amazing. How do they know the location of the ship and how do they get all those weapons? I knew that open waters were scary but now I can only hope to not be killed by those pirates when I sail to the south in summer.
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Something is going to give soon.
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#wheresthefairuse
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Nostalgia Critic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVqFAMOtwaI
Jim Sterling
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-UgOXP82UI
Boogie2988
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-O7WAN BW_Y
AlphaOmegaSin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GoQM_Z-CUc
and many others if you just search Youtube for #WTFU
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$500 deposit to request DMCA takedowns
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Re: $500 deposit to request DMCA takedowns
Now the problem is to get the already paid for congress to turn against their contributors. Good luck with that. I would vote for it, but congresscritter lie to their constituents and vote the way their contributors tell them. Fraud,I think, certainly lying, but who the hell would prosecute?
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Re: $500 deposit to request DMCA takedowns
Alternatively the courts could simply start enforcing the penalty already in the law, which treats a false DMCA claim as perjury, a charge that carries the potential for jail time. Throw a few people in a cell and I imagine the abuse of the law would all but vanish overnight.
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Re: Re: $500 deposit to request DMCA takedowns
Not willing to say a deposit, just say that knowingly issuing a false takedown has the same costs as a copyright violation... I suppose you might consider it "slander of title"
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Re: Re: $500 deposit to request DMCA takedowns
A: A false takedown more directly hurts the progress of the sciences and useful arts a whole lot more than infringement. Available content is the definition of progress, taking it down falsely is exactly the antithesis of progress. The purpose of IP laws should be to encourage the availability of more content and this is doing the exact opposite.
B: The person requesting a takedown is in a much better position to know if they own the copy protection privileges to something than the person putting it up. The person putting it up may think that the content they are distributing is either in the public domain or is released under a CC or other similar license.
C: A false takedown directly hurts authors. Infringement mostly just violates the privileges of distributors.
D: The existing state of IP laws were not democratically passed. They were passed through politician buying and backdoor dealings and with industry interests invited to secretive meetings.
F: IP is a privilege not a right. An author posting something on Youtube and Youtube hosting it is a right. For someone to misuse a privilege to falsely violate the rights of others is not acceptable and is deserving of huge punishments, punishments much greater than the punishment imposed on someone that does violate an IP protection privilege. Our rights > your privileges so punishment for violating a right should be greater than punishment for violating a privilege.
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Re: Re: $500 deposit to request DMCA takedowns
$2,500 isn't enough to even get a lawyer to look at it. ... and it isn't any kind of deterrent to more than small companies or individuals.
No, what is needed is a "cry wolf" provision: If you are found three times asserting copyright falsely, you are forbidden from thereafter asserting ANY copyright claims.
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Re: Re: Re: $500 deposit to request DMCA takedowns
The other issue is that fine does not go to the person wronged. This needs to be used to offset the damages done, and as such needs to go to the person falsely accused.
Considering the vast majority of abuse is from serial abusers (there are a few game developers who are really bad about this), making the victims a class would multiply that number a hundred-fold.
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