
Fox Censors Cory Doctorow’s “Homeland” Novel From Google - fraqed
http://torrentfreak.com/fox-censors-cory-doctorows-homeland-novel-from-google-130420/
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enjo
This is my biggest issue with the DMCA. Issuing a take-down notice for content
you do not own should result in _large_ fines. Maybe you get a couple of false
positives, but at some point you have to be accountable for this stuff. If you
want to rigorously enforce your copyright, good on ya... but be prepared to
pay out the nose when you hurt someone else in the process.

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dangrossman
> Issuing a take-down notice for content you do not own should result in large
> fines

It effectively does. The DMCA makes damages, costs and attorneys fees
mandatory for material misrepresentations. Doctorow can sue at no cost to
himself, while Fox would be out a significant amount of money in two sets of
attorneys fees plus whatever damages Doctorow can show this caused to his
sales.

~~~
kumarm
Once our content was taken down because of DMCA from Poland (With just a gmail
address). We got our content back online with counter following procedures
with google after 15 days. (That is the time required after counter for the
DMCA complainer to respond back). How can we expect to sue some on in Poland
with just a email address and no idea who the real person is and what they are
worth?

DMCA is an American law that only hurts people who live in US. It is very easy
to abuse DMCA and trouble people in US if you live outside the country.

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manys
They're supposed to put your content back up once they receive the counter
notice. Your provider screwed you.

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dangrossman
He said it was put back online after 15 days. That's how it's supposed to
work. There is a gap between the content being taken down and going back up to
allow time for a copyright holder to go to court and get an injunction.

~~~
narag
It would be nice if Google would let submitters to provide (and honor) a
OnDMCANotice event handler, so the counter-notice gets sent inmediately, maybe
documented with a reference to IP registration.

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lifeguard
"links to downloadable editions of the text of Homeland. These downloads are
licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-NoDerivs license,
which lets you share it, provided that you do so on a noncommercial basis. If
you'd like to make a remix, please get in touch with us. "

<http://craphound.com/homeland/download/>

Most of his ebooks for free here:

<http://manybooks.net/authors/doctorow.html>

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stfu
I'm not really sure why it is big news that content copyright holders have
automated DMCA scripts running.

Sure, there should be some compensation for false DMCA take downs, but this
story is just surfing on some artificial wave of rage against Fox & Murdoch.

~~~
Evbn
Automated takedown scripts are illegal. Takedown claims must be signed under
penalty of purjery.

~~~
e12e
Yes, but is it news that they are used, and that the abusers are not punished?
I'm afraid not.

Now, if one of these big companies weren't just caught at this, but actually
suffered some legal consequences -- _that_ would be news.

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venomsnake
I hope that soon it will sink with the masses that DMCA takedowns are mostly
censorship.

Currently the system allows taking down everything you don't like.

Just amend the law to have a fine of 0.01% of yearly corporate revenue for
each bogus notice sent and enjoy the show.

~~~
incision
>I hope that soon it will sink with the masses that DMCA takedowns are mostly
censorship.

I'd wager "the masses" don't understand the concept of censorship and
certainly don't care about universal protections against it.

~~~
freshhawk
Who would accept that wager? The results are already in and you are correct.
:)

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PeterisP
I'm a bit confused about the text of the original article's first DMCA
takedown, namely " _Allegedly infringing_ URLs". Why isn't this "URLs that are
definitely infringing, under penalty of perjury" as it IMHO was supposed to be
in the original law ?

And why aren't lists of "possibly, maybe, infringing URLs" automatically
forwarded to trash until the requester bothers to sort out infringing and non-
infringing URLs, as (s)he's supposed to?

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drdaeman
Technically... URL is an identifier (locator), not the content. Even more, URL
alone does not always denote the content as IP and HTTP headers may affect the
result. So, _technically_ a requester can't be sure that re-requesting the
resource under a given locator will produce the same content.

But if lawmakers get it, they must also know that URL can't infringe by
themselves.

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flatline
Not the first time this has happened. "Down and out..." had similar issues,
e.g. [http://arstechnica.com/uncategorized/2007/08/improper-
dmca-t...](http://arstechnica.com/uncategorized/2007/08/improper-dmca-
takedowns-come-to-the-final-frontier/)

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tsotha
I think Doctorow should busy himself filing takedown notices everywhere Fox's
"Homeland" appears legitimately.

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mtgx
It's time there's a penalty for false takedowns. You shouldn't be allowed to
just get Google or others to take down thousands of urls at a time, just by
identify a keyword. And we're only in the early days of this. The DMCA
requests to Google are skyrocketing every year.

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kordless
I stopped reading it when Cory demanded Rupert's head. That's just silly.

~~~
venomsnake
Yeah it is old and shrunken. Won't look good on the wall. Will still buy it
though for a dollar or two.

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tpainton
This isnt censorship. Studio is just trying to prevent copyright violation on
its property. Given the book shares the name and the author it was affected as
well which is unfortunate but not malicious.

~~~
rubbingalcohol
Correct me if I'm wrong, an infringing title would be a _trademark_ violation,
not a copyright violation. The DMCA applies only to copyright violations.

~~~
Evbn
Parent was saying that Doctorow's book was affected by accident, incidental to
a legitimate claim against another book with the same title.

~~~
endianswap
The TV show "Homeland", right? Not another book?

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k-mcgrady
Torrent freak sensationalising as usual. Fox was sending takedown notices to
Google of links to the Homeland TV show. Included in these notices were some
links to a novel with the same name that was available on torrent sites. Seems
like a simple mistake. As much as I dislike Fox the title here is completely
misleading.

Edit: I agree with the other commenters there should be some sort of financial
penalty for this. It's a simple mistake but as it will impact the author of
the novel negatively Fox should have to reimburse him in someway. I'm not
exactly sure how that would work but it's something that needs to be looked at
with the DMCA.

~~~
icebraining
It's not a simple mistake, it's the result of using dumb automated systems
without caring in the least if it affects anyone else. In the past they've
already sent DMCA notices about news articles[1] and to takedown notices
themselves[2].

[1]:
[https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120525/01520819073/fox-i...](https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120525/01520819073/fox-
issues-dmca-takedown-to-google-over-sf-chronicle-article-claiming-it-was-
movie-chronicle.shtml)

[2]: [http://www.myce.com/news/dmca-takedown-notices-run-amok-
than...](http://www.myce.com/news/dmca-takedown-notices-run-amok-thanks-to-
fox-41103/)

