Penguin Random House Demands Removal Of Maus From Digital Library Because The Book Is Popular Again

from the wow dept

We've said it over and over again, if libraries did not exist today, there is no way publishers would allow them to come into existence. We know this, in part, because of their attempts to stop libraries from lending ebooks, and to price ebooks at ridiculous markups to discourage libraries, and their outright claims that libraries are unfair competition. And we won't even touch on their lawsuit over digital libraries.

Anyway, in other book news, you may have heard recently about how a Tennessee school board banned Art Spiegelman's classic graphic novel about the Holocaust, Maus, from being taught in an eighth-grade English class. Some people called this a ban, while others said the book is still available, so it's not a "ban." To me, I think school boards are not the teachers, and the teachers should be able to come up with their own curriculum, as they know best what will educate their students. Also, Maus is a fantastic book, and the claim that it was banned because of "rough, objectionable language" and nudity is utter nonsense.

Either way, Maus is now back atop various best seller lists, as the controversy has driven sales. Spiegelman is giving fun interviews again where he says things like "well, who's the snowflake now?" And we see op-eds about how the best way get kids not to read books... is to assign it in English class.

But, also, we have publishers getting into the banning business themselves... by trying to capitalize on the sudden new interest in Maus.

Penguin Random House doesn't want this new interest in Maus to lead to... people taking it out of the library rather than buying a copy. They're now abusing copyright law to demand the book be removed from the Internet Archive's lending library, and they flat out admit that they're doing so for their own bottom line:

A few days ago, Penguin Random House, the publisher of Maus, Art Spiegelman's Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel about the Holocaust, demanded that the Internet Archive remove the book from our lending library. Why? Because, in their words, "consumer interest in 'Maus' has soared" as the result of a Tennessee school board's decision to ban teaching the book. By its own admission, to maximize profits, a Goliath of the publishing industry is forbidding our non-profit library from lending a banned book to our patrons: a real live digital book-burning.

This is just blatant greed laid bare. As the article notes, whatever problems US copyright law has, it has enshrined the concept of libraries, and the right to lend out books as a key element of the public interest. And the publishers -- such as giants like Penguin Random House -- would do anything possible to stamp that right out.

Filed Under: books, copyright, copyright abuse, ebooks, libraries, maus
Companies: internet archive, penguin random house

Fake 'U.S. Copyright Office' Imposter Gets Google To Delist URLs On Section 1201 Grounds

from the fake-views dept

We've done more than our share of posts in the past about the problems within the DMCA takedown system as currently practiced. The reason for so many posts is in part due to the sheer number of problems with how this all works. For starters, when notices go out to search engines like Google to delist "problem" URLs, those notices are often times generated by automated systems that unsurprisingly result in a vast majority of notices targeting URLs that are non-infringing. As in, over 99% of those notices. And even once we get past the malpractice of using automation buckshot notices that result in an incredible amount of collateral damage, we then have to add the wide open avenues for fraud and abuse of the DMCA system. That type of fraud runs the gamut, from trolls merely trying to cause chaos for the fun of it to competitors of certain forms of content trying to hurt the competition. In the immortal words of former NFL coach John Fox: "It's all a problem."

And, on the fraud and abuse side, it's such a problem that perfectly legit URLs can get delisted by Google due to a request from "The U.S. Copyright Office", even though that office doesn't make those sorts of requests.

Google has received several takedown notices that claim to come from the 'U.S. Copyright Office', requesting the search engine to remove 'problematic' URLs. The Government body, which is generally not involved in copyright enforcement, informs TorrentFreak that it has nothing to do with these notices. Unfortunately, Google didn't immediately spot the imposter.  

The Copyright Office is not supposed to take sides in these matters. So, we were quite surprised to see its name on several takedown notices that were sent to Google over the past few days.

The takedown requests are not typical ‘Section 512’ notices. Instead, they point out sites that circumvent technical protection measures, which is in violation of the DMCA’s ‘Section 1201.’ That’s also how Google processed them.

And process at least some of them, Google did. The notices claiming to be from the Copyright Office indicated they were sent on behalf of the Video Industry Association of America, which doesn't appear to exist based on a Google search I performed. Even if it does, the Copyright Office is not a party to these sorts of takedown requests on behalf of any organization. The URLs targeted appear to be mostly related to stream-ripping sites, but not just sites that offer that service. Instead, some of the URLs targeted merely mention sites that offer stream-ripping services, which is how several TorrentFreak posts got targeted.

Whoever is doing this, it is most certainly not the Copyright Office.

This suspicion was confirmed by the U.S. Copyright Office. A spokesperson informs TorrentFreak that the notices in question were not submitted by them.

This doesn’t mean that the takedown requests were ignored by Google. While our links are still indexed, several of the URLs listed in the notices have indeed been removed because of the notices, which is a problem.

It's a huge problem, actually. In fact, it demonstrates quite well how broken the current DMCA system has become. The fact that this sort of impersonation is so easy is an issue. The fact that Google is so inundated with these types of requests, which again are overwhelmingly illegitimate, that it cannot review them thoroughly enough to notice the clear impersonation of the Copyright Office at work here is another issue. And the fact that the DMCA process is obviously viewed by some bad actors as a wide open tool to attack their own competition is yet another issue.

And, notably, there isn't even an appeal process for Section 1201 takedown requests.

Unfortunately, there is no counter-notification option for ‘Section 1201’ takedown notices. This means that sites and services that are affected by these bogus notices have no official appeal process they can use.

But perhaps the U.S. Copyright Office can help with that?

Or maybe someone can just pretend to be the Copyright Office and help. You know, on its "behalf." It works for the bad actors, after all.

Filed Under: circumvention, copyfraud, copyright abuse, dmca, dmca 1201, takedowns, us copyright office
Companies: google

Online 'Reputation Management' Company Brags About Abusing Copyright Law To Take Down Bad Reviews

from the oh-really-now? dept

Regular Techdirt commenter Ehud Gavron recently forwarded me an email conversation he had with a "representative" from yet another "online reputation management" company. This one is called "Reputation Defenders," which sounds like half a dozen other similar companies with similar names. The company had apparently spammed Gavron, but he wrote back to see if they'd reveal more about how they do what they do. The company responded, explaining the "three tools" to "remove" a bad review from Ripoff Report:

There are three ways to effectively remove a Ripoff report:

Method 1. Take legal action and sue the offender. Then once you have won the lawsuit you go here and submit it to Google. https://support.google.com/legal/contact/lr_courtorder?product=websearch&vid=null

They may or may not remove the Ripoff report within a few months. This approach is very expensive and time consuming with no guaranteed outcome. We do not use it or recommend it.

Method 2. Bury the Ripoff report from off of the top pages by using a variety of website, links, blogs etc... that go above the Ripoff report and push it off of the front pages so no one will see it.

Method 3. This involves a legal method that the US congress signed up to in 1988 and many people are unaware that this provision exists and how effective it is. It can remove a Ripoff report from the search engines permanently.

We use methods 2 and 3 together and can have your Ripoff report neutralized and removed effectively at a fraction of the cost of going to court!​

"Method 3" certainly sounded... interesting. What law was passed in 1988 that "many people" were "unaware" about that Congress enabled to allow someone to "remove a Ripoff report from search engines permanently"? Gavron asked for more info... and, of course, the answer is copyright:

The other method we use is reporting "copyright infringement" to Google.

This is a legal method that exploits the use of copyrighted material on the internet.

We use a copyright company to copyright your name, company name and any other phrases that triggers the report to show. We then have a letter drafted in jurisprudence (written by a lawyer in legal language) and this is submitted to Googles legal department.

This states and proves that the Ripoff report website is using your copyrighted name, company name etc... without your permission and Ripoff report is breaking the law and you are requesting that Google respect the 1988 Berne Copyright convention act that the USA and Canada signed up for and that you would like the Ripoff report listings about you removed from off of their search engine.

Google take the law very seriously and are very pedantic about copyright and trade names. This is a powerful way to get Google to disavow the Ripoff report listings without having to go to court.

We handle all aspects of the copyright infringement petition to Google and also the "Burying" of the Ripoff report.

This is, of course, nonsense. After Gavron forwarded all of this to me, I thought I'd reach out to Reputation Defenders to ask them about all of this, but I realized I didn't even need to. They have all this same info right on their own damn website, where this abuse of copyright law is laid out in more detail, and even more legal nonsense:

We have a well defined method of making a petition to Google to have your Ripoff report removed.

This involves copyrighting elements of your company name or other aspects of your business that is mentioned in the Ripoff report.

You then legally own that phrase, name, description etc.....

This is under the U.S. Berne Convention Implementation Act of 1988 that the USA and 179 other countries signed up for. This is the international law on copyright.

Once you have the certificates of copyright, you can send a copy of the certificates of copyrights, along with a letter written in jurisprudence (Legal Language) to the legal office of Google.

You are not accusing Google or threatening them with legal action, you are simply informing them that Ripoff Report are using your copyrighted name, company name etc... WITHOUT YOUR PERMISSION and that you are requesting that Google respect the law and remove the listings because of "Copyright Infringement based on the US Berne Convention Implementation Act of 1988".

Google are very strict when it comes to copyright infringement.

They take a very dim view of someone using logos, phrases and brand names that belong to other companies without their permission.

They will take this seriously and many times will comply. The listings will vanish.

This is, as one copyright lawyer I asked about it noted, "utter nonsense." Almost nothing in that is accurate, though I do wonder how many people fall for it. We have, of course, seen lots of people try (laughably) to abuse DMCA notices to try to delist pages from Google and it rarely works. Google actually is pretty good at ignoring those nonsense DMCA claims.

Indeed, in researching a bit more about "Reputation Defenders" I discovered that we actually wrote about them about a year ago, noting that they appeared to have struck out on every single attempt to use bogus DMCA notices sent to Google to remove reviews on Ripoff Report. Back then, Tim Cushing's story also noticed that they made bizarre claims about owning the copyright on company names (not a thing) and referencing the Berne Convention (irrelevant). It appears that they have not learned that (1) these are legal nonsense, and (2) they don't work. I sent in some questions to Reputation Defenders to see if they have any actual copyright lawyers on staff or if a copyright lawyer has ever reviewed their page, but so far the company has not responded.

The company does appear to keep on filing DMCA notices with Google. While it's a bit sporadic, there were three such DMCA notices filed in February. They all follow the same nonsense formula. Two of them are attempts to delete negative reviews on Ripoff Report. The most recent was filed on February 4th, and is an attempt to delete a negative review from Google's index. If you actually go to the Ripoff Report page, you actually see that the individual in question posted a detailed "rebuttal" to the negative review, including documentation (though the original poster also returns to post more details of the original claims as well). Either way, Google did not remove the review. The same situation plays out for a DMCA notice sent on February 1st, which, from reading through the Ripoff Report, you discover quite the soap opera that may have occurred with an attempt at create a drug treatment facility.

The most interesting notice, however, came on February 2nd, and it doesn't just try to delete some negative reviews on Ripoff Report, but a bunch of news articles as well. Let's look a bit more closely at that one. First the "Description" of the work is... quite something:

We own the copyrighted name of Brian Nelson Willis scammer, Brian N Willis scam, Brian N Willis scammer,Brockstar Group of Companies scam Brockstar Group of Companies scammer, www.amicushouse.com. The www.ripoffreport.com page is using my company name and details without my permission or consent and they are breaking the 1988 Berne convention copyright law that USA and Canada signed up for in 1988.

It follows Reputation Defenders' usual MO of claiming a copyright on various "names" and then tossing in a nonsensical reference to the Berne Convention. But it is notable that it is claiming copyright not just on the guy's name, but also with "scammer" or "scam" next to the name. While there are some Ripoff Report links it tries to delete, it also tries to memory hole a Stuff.co.nz article about a potential ponzi scam:

The Serious Fraud Office is probing a foreign loan provider which charged hefty advance fees for loans that were never delivered.

Transactions involving United States-based Brockstar made an appearance in the SFO's successful conviction of Ponzi fraudster Jacqui Bradley and her B'On scheme, and form part of the SFO's prosecution of the directors of Derivatek and Global Futures Trading.

Later, it notes:

Brockstar, run by Californian man Brian Willis, has been the subject of numerous complaints by investors. An Orange County Superior Court judge last month awarded an investor US$837,000 following a civil suit and described Brockstar's loan business as a "classic con game".

Hmm. The DMCA notice also tries to delete this article from the National Business Review in New Zealand as well, making similar claims about Brian Willis and his company.

Unfortunately for Mr. Willis and Reputation Defenders (but, fortunately for free speech and against the abuse of copyright law), Google has not bowed down to Reputation Defenders' wacky copyright theories and has left all six URLs it tried to memory hole right where they belong.

Filed Under: copyright abuse, reputation management, reviews, takedowns
Companies: reputation defenders, ripoff report

Twitter & Facebook Want You To Follow The Olympics... But Only If The IOC Gives Its Stamp Of Approval

from the what-the-fuck-twitter? dept

It is something of an unfortunate Techdirt tradition that every time the Olympics rolls around, we are alerted to some more nonsense by the organizations that put on the event -- mainly the International Olympic Committee (IOC) -- going out of their way to be completely censorial in the most obnoxious ways possible. And, even worse, watching as various governments and organizations bend to the IOC's will on no legal basis at all. In the past, this has included the IOC's ridiculous insistence on extra trademark rights that are not based on any actual laws. But, in the age of social media it's gotten even worse. The Olympics and Twitter have a very questionable relationship as the company Twitter has been all too willing to censor content on behalf of the Olympics, while the Olympic committees, such as the USOC, continue to believe merely mentioning the Olympics is magically trademark infringement.

So, it's only fitting that my first alert to the news that the Olympics are happening again was hearing how Washington Post reporter Ann Fifield, who covers North Korea for the paper, had her video of the unified Korean team taken off Twitter based on a bogus complaint by the IOC:

And Twitter complied even though the takedown is clearly bogus. Notice Fifield says that it is her video? The IOC has no copyright claim at all in the video, yet they filed a DMCA takedown over it. The copyright is not the IOC's and therefore the takedown is a form of copyfraud. Twitter should never have complied and shame on the company for doing so. Even more ridiculous: Twitter itself is running around telling people to "follow the Olympics on Twitter." Well, you know, more people might do that if you weren't taking down reporters' coverage of those very same Olympics.

Oh, and it appears that Facebook is even worse. They're pre-blocking the uploads of such videos:

This is fucked up and both the IOC and Facebook should be ashamed. The IOC can create rules for reporters and can expel them from the stadium if they break those rules, but there is simply no legal basis for them to demand such content be taken off social media, and Twitter and Facebook shouldn't help the IOC censor reporters.

Filed Under: anna fifield, censorship, copyfraud, copyright abuse, dmca, korea, olympics, takedowns, video
Companies: facebook, ioc, twitter

Magistrate Judge Recommends That Copyright Misuse Defense Be Allowed Against Copyright Troll Malibu Media

from the it's-something dept

It's rare, but every so often we'll see courts willing to entertain claims of copyright misuse. These are situations where copyright law is being so obviously abused for other purposes that a court slaps the abuser down. While it may not go anywhere, it appears that copyright trolling leaders, Malibu Media, who are single-handedly responsible for 40% of all copyright cases filed this year so far, may now have to respond to claims of copyright abuse. In one of its lawsuits, the defendant, Ben Miller, hit back with a long list of defenses, most of which have been rejected or set aside. However, a magistrate judge is recommending the copyright misuse defense be allowed to move forward:

Here, Defendant contends that “Plaintiff uses the same procedures of monitoring unsuspecting members of the public, directly connecting with the individual’s IP address, providing no ‘cease and desist’ notice, waiting until the evidence is destroyed, filing suit, and then offering to settle in exchange for dismissing the suit.” ... Plaintiff counters that “all it has ever done with respect to its copyrights is bring suits to enforce them; as a matter of law, doing so is not copyright misuse.”....

The Court finds that Defendant’s allegations are sufficient to support the affirmative defense. To the extent that the Plaintiff argues Defendant has failed to demonstrate, through his allegations, that the Plaintiff has “misused” the copyright law, the Court finds that such theory necessarily involves the issue of motive, which is generally reserved for the factfinder... (defendant must prove plaintiff “illegally extended its monopoly beyond the scope of the copyright or violated the public policies underlying the copyright laws”). Likewise, to the extent that the Plaintiff argues a “misuse” defense cannot be asserted if the allegation is merely that Plaintiff has filed a suit for infringement, the Court finds that Defendant has sufficiently argued more than the single allegation

The court need not go with this recommendation, but if it does, it could be worth watching closely. Remember, Malibu Media has already been in trouble for some of its practices, and others have long argued that the company is worse than Prenda with its tactics.

Filed Under: copyright, copyright abuse, copyright misuse, copyright troll
Companies: malibu media

Big Entertainment Companies Issuing Wrongful YouTube Claims On Public Domain Works

from the that's-depressing dept

As Congress is debating SOPA, it seems worth taking a look at how copyright holders are already abusing existing copyright law to take down content they have absolutely no right to. Cory Doctorow has a column concerning how the "real pirates" of YouTube may be the big entertainment companies, who have been using YouTube's ContentID system (not the DMCA) to "claim" a ton of public domain works:

FedFlix is a charitable project launched by Carl Malamud, a "rogue archivist" who raises funds to digitise and upload videos created at US government expense. Under US law, government creations are in the public domain and can be freely used by anyone, but the US government is remarkably lax about actually making its treasures available to the public that owns them.

Malamud's group pays the fees associated with retrieving copies from the US government – sometimes buying high-priced DVDs that the government issues, other times paying to have unreleased videos retrieved from government archives – and posts them to YouTube, the Internet Archive and other video sites, so that anyone and everyone can see, download, and use them.

Malamud's 146-page report from FedFlix to the Archivist of the United States documents claims that companies such as NBC Universal, al-Jazeera, and Discovery Communications have used ContentID to claim title to FedFlix videos on YouTube. Some music royalty collecting societies have claimed infringements in "silent movies".

I've embedded that full report below as well. As Doctorow notes, under the ContentID system, getting too many strikes can get you in trouble, but there apparently is no way to defend yourself by saying "this work is in the public domain." The closest may be that it's fair use, but fair use doesn't apply to the public domain (fair use is an exception to copyright law, but there's no copyright on public domain material).

There are two issues here. One is the general over-claiming of material by others. That's generally known as copyfraud and should be punishable, but rarely is. The second, perhaps bigger, point is how this ContentID system -- the kind of pre-monitoring system that the entertainment industry has been trying to foist on every user-generated-content site for the past few years -- isn't always so benign. It can clearly catch perfectly legitimate things, and that's a problem if we're trying to encourage the free flow of information.

But, of course, nothing gets done to fix any of this because, as Cory notes, "there is no organized lobby for the public domain." And that's sad. Because, realistically speaking, Congress should be the lobby for the public domain, as they're supposed to (I know, don't laugh) represent the interests of the public.

Filed Under: carl malamud, copyfraud, copyright, copyright abuse, public domain, takedowns

A Lesson In Copyright: It Does Not Give You Total Control

from the in-case-you-were-wondering dept

A few weeks ago, we wrote about American Airlines was suing Google for trademark infringement due to keyword ads on Google using the phrase "American Airlines" that pointed visitors to competing airline sites or sites that sold American Airlines tickets alongside those of competitors. The history of similar cases suggests that American Airlines is going to have a tough time making its case. First of all, it's not illegal to use the trademarked name of another company in an advertisement as long as there's no indication that the ad is for them (in other words there's no customer confusion). Second, if there is confusion in the ad, then the problem isn't between American Airlines and Google, but American Airlines and the advertiser.

It's not clear why, but a week and a half after this story appeared, someone dropped by to add a comment to the story insisting that American Airlines is in the right here, though they don't give any support reasons why. What was odd, though, was that the comment linked to the copyright page of the website of a credit card processing service, saying that you could download the PDF of AA's filings there. That seemed especially strange. It's not clear why it was linking to a credit card processing service (which originally made me wonder if the comment was merely spam) or why any company would put up the details of a totally unrelated lawsuit on its own copyright page. The lawsuit isn't even about copyright, but trademark. However, what struck me is that the copyright page itself is wrong. It claims:

"No portions of this website may be reproduced or copied without the express written permission of the owner."

And then goes on to selectively highlight or quote certain parts of copyright law. Of course, this is wrong. As I did above, you can absolutely reproduce or copy portions of this company's website without the express written permission of the owner. It's called fair use, and while many copyright holders want to pretend it doesn't exist -- it absolutely does. Quoting a small portion of a website, especially for the purpose of, say, educating people about fair use, is fair use at work. Of course, this reminds me of when law professor Wendy Seltzer got a DMCA notice for trying to point out that the NFL misapplies copyright law in its own copyright statements that make a similar claim as the site above does.

Filed Under: copyright, copyright abuse
Companies: merchant card service

FTC Asked To Stop Bogus Copyright Warnings In Sports Broadcasts

from the stop-the-copyright-abuse dept

You may recall earlier this year that law professor Wendy Seltzer received a DMCA takedown notice from the NFL for posting a short clip to YouTube of the part during the Super Bowl where the announcers state the famous warning that often reads something like "Any rebroadcast, reproduction or other use of the pictures, accounts or descriptions of this game without the express written consent of Big Sports League, is prohibited." What got lost in the Seltzer story over whether or not posting that particular clip to YouTube was legal, was that her point in using it was to show how sports leagues were making claims to rights that copyright didn't actually give them. It appears that enough others have noticed this as well that a trade group, backed by various big name tech companies, is now asking the Federal Trade Commission to prevent broadcasters from making such "deceptive" copyright statements. The group is claiming that this incorrect statement that clearly reaches beyond the rights copyright provides, is harmful to consumers and technology companies. Of course, in the sports leagues' (and other content companies') defense, it appears that plenty of people ignore the bogus copyright warning anyway.

Filed Under: broadcast, copyright, copyright abuse, mlb, nfl
Companies: mlb, nfl

Prisoners Figure Copyright Abuse Is A Way To Get Out Of Jail

from the a-sign-of-the-times dept

Well, we've seen all kinds of companies abuse copyright law for a variety of purposes, and it seemed only a matter of time until outright criminals caught on as well. A group of inmates apparently copyrighted their names and then demanded millions of dollars from the prison they were in for using their names without permission. The claims were sent to the warden of the prison and when he didn't pay up, the prisoners were able to file claims against his property -- and then hired someone to seize the warden's property and freeze his bank accounts. At this point they then demanded to be released from prison before they would return the property. Instead, they were charged with extortion and "conspiring to impede the duties of federal prison officials." While the story is amusing, it does show how copyright law is being perceived these days. As intellectual property lawyers push more and more ridiculous positions concerning copyright law, people are beginning to realize that it can be used as a hammer for all kinds of ridiculous lawsuits that have absolutely nothing to do with creating incentives for the creation of new content.

Filed Under: copyright abuse