
Feds Mistakenly Shut Down Popular Blog For Over A Year - taylorbuley
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111208/08225217010/breaking-news-feds-falsely-censor-popular-blog-over-year-deny-all-due-process-hide-all-details.shtml
======
rkudeshi
If you're not familiar with hip-hop music blogs like the one cited in the
article, please visit <http://nahright.com> or <http://missinfo.tv> to get a
better idea of what they look like (since dajaz1.com doesn't seem to be back
up yet, understandably).

Almost every track posted to sites like these are released by the artists
themselves (or by their labels). Many hip-hop blogs (including the two I
linked) will not post songs if they weren't legitimately authorized by the
artists (e.g. if a track was stolen and leaked on the web).

Something you won't ever see are full albums. These sites aren't designed to
replace album sales, they actually encourage them. They will only link to
individual songs or freely released mixtapes.

(Also, you'll note that a lot of the music posted is from unsigned artists. A
lot of newer rappers actually rose to prominence _after_ having their music
posted on these sites.)

There are many, many sites that willingly infringe on copyright and the
government has good reason for shutting down. This was not one of them.

PS. For more information on how music gets released to these blogs, read this
excellent piece, also by Techdirt:

[http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101222/02112912376/more-b...](http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101222/02112912376/more-
bigger-mistakes-discovered-homeland-securitys-domain-seizures.shtml)

~~~
wmf
_Almost every track posted to sites like these are released by the artists
themselves (or by their labels)._

How would an outside copyright enforcer know that? In a world where companies
send takedowns to YouTube over videos _that they uploaded_ , it seems like
it's not enough to be legal — sites need a way to _prove_ that they're posing
authorized content.

~~~
rhizome
_How would an outside copyright enforcer know that?_

Well, for one, there is no such thing as "an outside copyright enforcer." The
only people allowed to complain at all about a song's presence on a website
are the people who own the copyright. That's it.

~~~
officemonkey
Apparently the seizure was facilitated by a complaint and affidavit from the
RIAA, even though the website kept scrupulous records of permission to post
songs directly from the labels.

~~~
rhizome
Which tells us that processes and remedies that were effectively written
_entirely by the industry_ will still be abused by that industry.

~~~
einhverfr
What makes you think this isn't entirely intentional? I mean if an industry
writes processes and remedies, isn't it reasonable to assume that to any
reasonable outside, they will abuse them?

~~~
rhizome
For whatever reason, it's good to know for the future. That is, it's probably
a good thing to remember when future legislation (like today's new SOPA) comes
up. I totally agree that the whole industry-written legislation Thing is lame.

------
wisty
Weird, the way the government said they had a secret court extension, but
couldn't even give a redacted copy. It almost sounds like they _didn't_ have a
court extension, and were lying that they did, and eventually had to hand the
domain back out of sheer embarrassment.

~~~
angelbob
Sure. Usually if you give embarrassing people the runaround, they eventually
go away.

It was, admittedly, _way_ too optimistic for the government to assume _every_
seized domain would work this way. But for them to assume this one specific
one would work that way is actually depressingly likely.

Governments illegally seize stuff all the time, especially when investigating
anything drug-related. They can seize and auction off your stuff basically
even on suspicion of it being bought with drug money.

What happens if it wasn't? Well, they owe you money back if your lawyer is
good enough to make that happen.

------
zmmmmm
It always amazes me how quickly abuses of power seem to occur once such power
is enabled. I always expect that at first the recipients of the power will be
very cautious, bound by the social norms and expectations set by the previous
situation, and it will take many years or even decades for the abuses we
complain about to actually happen. However it doesn't seem to work like that.
Abuses seem to happen almost immediately the minute it is possible for them to
occur.

It's almost comforting in a way - at least truly terrible laws don't just slip
in unnoticed and get established without us noticing. Their bad effects get
manifested almost straight away.

~~~
gameshot911
The system is so very large, and it only takes one person to make one decision
- in this case, a single federal prosecutor or his boss who decided he wanted
to charge this case - to decide to utilize their power. You don't hear about
the thousands of other prosecutors who use appropriate discretion, and don't
file inappropriate charges/motions.

~~~
khafra
If the system were constructed such that it took two persons to make the
decision to commit an abuse of power, perhaps it wouldn't be such an abusive
system.

~~~
pi18n
You are very cute and innocent, like a child.

~~~
khafra
Heh. It wouldn't be perfect. But if the system of N people has C < N people
who will make or approve corrupt decisions, and each person had to have 1
randomly chosen person sign off on each possibly corrupt decision, you go from
C/N chance of a randomly chosen decision being a corrupt one to a (C/N)^2
chance. If the system has a relatively low percentage of corrupt people, that
could be a big win.

If C is too large, you could improve the scheme by adding another sign-off to
increase it to (C/N)^3, as well as by punishing the original requester and
anybody who approves along the way when a corrupt decision is caught.

------
aero142
What I don't understand is why a meeting with the government lawyer was the
final action and why what they say matters? What prevents the blog owner from
filing a suit to get the property returned? The government failed to provide
proof that they were legally in possession of the property. File a suit to get
the property back and then they have to produce the legal order allowing them
to keep it. I know money might be a major factor in this but the article's
author acts like there was nothing else that could have been done.

~~~
ajross
It seems like lawsuits work on about a ~1 year latency scale too, so I don't
see how that would improve the situation. The site owner had counsel, and they
chose the best mechanism they could see to get the result they wanted. And
ultimately they did. The courts don't work quickly, sadly.

~~~
zecho
There's also a good chance that after the lawyer was first stonewalled, he saw
a bigger lawsuit opportunity down the road if it persisted. And it did. I
still expect civil action against the government to be on the way.

~~~
einhverfr
I doubt the government can be sued, but maybe the attorney involved?

~~~
DasIch
Of course you can sue the government, the question is for what?

------
unreal37
Serious question. This article seems to be about censorship and the First
Amendment. The opening paragraph equates this to a magazine being shut down
and the printing presses seized. But I don't think this hip-hop blog was
saying something the government wanted to stop. I don't get why the prevalent
"bad thing" the government did is being called censorship.

Isn't the real story the government put a company out of business for no
reason? They took a "top 10" website in a category and shut it down for a
year, allowing their competitors an unfair advantage. No due process, no
communication, not even a case number. They picked a random company and put it
out of business.

I guess that's not protected by the constitution.

~~~
wanorris
_No person shall_ be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous
crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases
arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service
in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same
offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in
any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor _be deprived of life,
liberty, or property, without due process of law_ ; nor shall private property
be taken for public use, without just compensation.

U.S. Constitution, 5th Amendment

~~~
dpe82
We abandoned the plain meaning of the constitution a long, long time ago.

Sadly.

------
dshanahan
This happened in a different way to me. They didn't take my domain; they
threatened my ISP and they deleted everything on my domain, include six other
sites that lived there - the music blog was a subdomain.

The thing I couldn't believe was that I'd never posted a track I hadn't gotten
approved by the artist; I'd estimate 70% was sent to me by promoters, artists,
or the label themselves. If it wasn't, it was likely found on another blog and
I only let readers download content that was available for free from the
artist themselves.

Totally ridiculous. Trying to get a response for their grounds was impossible,
and I eventually had to switch ISPs and rebuild all my sites.

~~~
felipeota
That's awful. What kind of response did you get when trying to prove them
wrong? Did you talk only to your ISP or someone from the government?

~~~
dshanahan
Yeah, it was a pretty huge pain in the ass. I hammered the CEO of the ISP and
he gave me some boiler plate response. Honestly, I'm running a startup and the
music blog is a fun side project so I didn't pursue it. I sent word to some of
the other bloggers that I know have high traffic like I did and that I know
share downloadable content. I wanted to know if I was behaving differently
than they were, and I wasn't. They were all pretty nervous about the whole
thing.

Music blogger in general are huge proponents of driving money to artists;
either by putting them on the map or literally driving sales. If you're lucky
enough to collect attention on the aggregators you can be pretty sure that
your posts will get traffic, so finding a young band with little exposure is
hugely gratifying.

Then the record label gorilla lawyers get in the way. Really sad state of
affairs.

------
brc
It's obvious to me that as time goes by, governments are going to want to shut
down more and more internet services for whatever reason.

It seems to me that the thing that is needed most is an even-more distributed
internet system, so that things like DNS and ISPs cannot be controlled by
governments.

A peer-to-peer DNS system and someway of easily setting yourself up as an ISP
would mean that this type of intervention would be impossible.

~~~
kinghajj
P2P DNS exists. One implementation is Namecoin. I've heard of ideas of making
a large mesh network with people's Wi-Fi routers, but there are many technical
hurdles to overcome there, though it should be workable, if excruciatingly
slow.

------
loopdoend
Mistakenly implies that it wasn't a direct result of policy and an inherently
malicious protocol of operations. This, in my opinion, was not a mistake, but
rather the result of systemic incompetence and technical illiteracy on the
part of the US government. The ladder climbers that pulled this off are headed
straight to a nice private job just as soon as they get done making a name for
themselves.

------
nidennet
I am really shocked and disturbed by this article. From reading it I believe
that this is a total violation of the trust towards the Government and the
whole legal system.

The lack of due process is what is most disturbing. Someone (the Government in
this case) can accuse one of a crime, but they have to prove it. Hijacking a
domain and not producing evidence on why it was hijacked and not following the
proper procedure which is outlined by the law and finally hiding behind the
Government blanket of 'no' is simply wrong and must not be allowed to happen
again.

To me this read as abuse of power by certain employees of the Government. Not
allowing due process is illegal and I hope that Dajaz1's lawyers will get to
the bottom of this.

------
davidu
This is outrageous. If you aren't doing something about it, you are tacitly
approving of it.

You could, quite literally, have your domain taken away tomorrow.

------
eykanal
The techdirt article repeatedly makes reference to seizure laws as they apply
to confiscated PROPERTY. Is there legal precedence for the blog to immediately
assume that such laws apply to digital domains, where nothing physical was
confiscated?

~~~
ImprovedSilence
Digital media is not physical property, but i can still download a song and be
accused of stealing somebody's property.

~~~
chc
Legally speaking, no, you can't. If you download a song illegally, you might
be accused of copyright infringement, which ironically carries stiffer
penalties than just stealing the record would in many cases, but you will not
be charged with theft unless they also suspect you stole something physical.

~~~
sp332
Downloading songs usually isn't charged that way. Usually the uploaders are
charged with violating copyright.

------
Nelson69
Is there a complete lack of quotes on the record in that article? I see the
lawyer's name for dajaz1.com but no quotes from him, no owner is named, no
quotes from him... Just sayin'.

Everything is not right here. This is pretty basic stuff though, an accused
man deserves to face his accusers, who is accused? The whole story is just
better when there is an actual victim of the government tyranny. I expect it
has something to do with payola but .... the feds will never defend themselves
and who knows how much traffic this site is going to get now.

------
neilparikh
The right to innocence until proven given guilty is quite fundamental to our
legal system, and laws like SOPA and Protect IP go against that very ideal.
Right now these laws that take away these fundamental freedoms are only in the
copyright domain, but if these laws stand, I'm assuming they could be used as
a precedent and used to justify other laws that take away the presumption of
innocence. I'm not a lawyer, but this is what these laws seem to be heading
towards.

------
speleding
IANAL, but this sounds like they didn't have a very good lawyer.

~~~
davidu
Not the case. Andrew Bridges was at the Stanford Law Center's SOPA talk last
night. He knows his law inside and out and was all over this. The government
messed up here and tried to bury it. Because he didn't go away that this is
coming out.

~~~
speleding
I'm not sure if I'm happy to hear he is indeed good. That is even more
troubling.

I would expect lawyers to have some kind of recourse if things obviously are
not going the way the law intended them to, instead of simply getting "no" for
an answer. But IANAL.

~~~
davidu
It just takes time, unfortunately. This story is still developing. The domain
owner needed to get his domain back first, and foremost.

------
click170
And people wonder why we have no faith in The System..

------
crististm
I'd like to see a peer-2-peer DNS system take over. Now go and shut this down.

------
mariuolo
"Mistakenly"?

------
lhnn
Someday, perhaps populists and socialists will realize that the very structure
of American government combined with our culture leads to complete
incompetence in government. We are better off with every power we take away
from them.

~~~
wpietri
Or could it be that it's exactly this sort of reflexive government-bashing
that makes it easy for the general public to elect fools and charlatans? After
all, if government is the problem, why would people bother electing
representatives who take governing seriously? Heck of a job, Brownie.

Regardless, I think your thesis is false. A lot of the powers we've taken away
from government lately (regulation of financial services, regulation of
financial markets, regulation of campaign contributions) have made us worse
off, and specifically have made it easier for RIAA to buy legislation like
this.

~~~
CWuestefeld
_regulation of financial services, regulation of financial markets_

This isn't going to be rehashing the Glass-Steagall myth, is it? See, e.g.,
[1]

 _regulation of campaign contributions_

Isn't this in itself a repudiation of democracy? We're not talking here about
Blagojevich-style corruption in the election process. If you're worrying about
campaign contributions, that boils down to how much advertising a campaign can
buy. If you're worried about a candidate advertising a lot, that's pretty much
a vote of no-confidence in your fellow Americans' ability to weigh options and
vote rationally.

Also, if you're one of those people horrified that corporations can now
contribute to campaigns, can you tell me where the line _should_ be drawn? I'm
sure you don't object to my right to contribute to a campaign, nor my right to
pool money with a friend to do so. If two of us can do so, why not, say, my
whole club (e.g., my hypothetical flying club wants to have elected the guy
who promises to grant a permit to expand the airport in town)? As this scales
up, at some point we need a formal structure to organize things, which is
legally recognized by a corporation; why can't my _incorporated_ flying club
make a contribution?

[1] <http://blog.heritage.org/2008/09/22/the-glass-steagall-myth/>

~~~
rhizome
Heritage Foundation...really?

~~~
civilian
Attack their argument, not the source.

~~~
onemoreact
Ok, corporate donations are not linked to what everyone inside a corporation
decides but rather a small set of people whose interest don't necessarily
align with the shareholders or the workers at large. Handing disproportionate
power to middlemen breeds corruption without the counterbalance of risking
large personal fortunes or publicity.

This same argument also disproves the idea of giving personal tax breaks on
large incomes as apposed to corporate tax breaks for small businesses. AKA
middle management don't create jobs so tax breaks targeting 'job creators'
that include them are misnamed.

Edit: The above is a position piece just like those people at the Heritage
Foundation are paid to create. There is nothing wrong with suggesting you find
credible sources that are not simply spouting propaganda.

------
ck2
And remember, there is a document advising you might be a terrorist if you
have more than seven days of food onhand.

Oh that guideline would never be abused, would it?

~~~
cbr
[citation needed]

Brief searching online only turns up people talking about this document, but I
can't seem to find it. Are you sure it exists?

~~~
jleader
That's one of the less obvious reasons that secret proceedings, secret rules,
and the like are bad. They make it harder to discredit conspiracy theorists.
"Well, if they kept the seizure proceedings secret for a year, maybe the seven
days of food rule is secret too".

