

WordPress pulls interview with anti-gay group Straight Pride UK - walshemj
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/aug/13/wordpress-straight-pride-uk

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zorbo
Ignoring the obviously sensationalized and wildly inaccurate headline, this is
another great example of how well the DMCA actually works (not being sarcastic
here). The information carrier is exempted from legal action, the party that
filed the false DMCA notice has made themselves liable to be sued, and the
actual copyright owner can get their contents reinstated with almost no
trouble. To me, the DMCA is a textbook example of how to write a decent law.

~~~
betterunix
Let's just ignore the fact that you do not actually need to be guilty of
copyright infringement to have your blog / website / video / etc. forced
offline by a DMCA notice. There is no court involved; it is a guilty until
proven innocent process, and most people do not have the resources to sue a
large corporation or well-funded organization of any sort.

The DMCA is a textbook example of _how the US caters to big corporations_ ,
not how to write good laws. The few redeeming qualities of the DMCA are vastly
outweighed by the harm that the DMCA has caused and is continuing to cause.

~~~
zorbo
> Let's just ignore the fact that you do not actually need to be guilty of
> copyright infringement

I'm not ignoring that. A simple counter-claim will get your contents
reinstated. You don't actually have to be guilty of copyright infringement to
get sued in court. The DMCA does not change this.

> most people do not have the resources to sue a large corporation

What does this have to do with the DMCA? The DMCA is about content carriers,
not end users. There is no way data carriers would allow themselves to be
liable for the copyright infringements of their users. Thus, without the DMCA,
they would simply comply with any legal threat regardless of its merits. The
DMCA puts the power back in the hands of the people by allowing the user to
file a counter-claim and getting their contents reinstated without any risk to
the content carrier.

You could get sued for copyright infringement before the DMCA, and now you
still can. Nothing has changed in that regard.

~~~
lhc-
But why is that better than allowing the content to remain up until it is
proven to be infringing? Extend safe harbor to apply until infringement is
proven and you take away the ability for large organizations to abuse the DMCA
to take down anything they dislike.

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jaredgeorge
Is it just me or does this title seem misleading? It appears (from the
article) that WordPress took down an article because of an abusive use of the
DMCA and is legally required to do so...

"WordPress is legally required to respond to DMCA notices, but also instructed
Hotham how to counterclaim, though one of the requirements was to "consent to
local federal court jurisdiction, or if overseas, to an appropriate judicial
body"."

And...

"In a statement, WordPress said it recognised that this was an abuse of the
DMCA law.

"We think this was a case of abuse of the DMCA and we don't think that taking
it down was the right result," said Paul Sieminski, general counsel for
WordPress parent company Automattic. "It's censorship using the DMCA.""

~~~
AlexandrB
That's pretty weak - "We knew this was wrong but we did it anyways."

~~~
pilif
Even if you might not like it, you have to conform to the law. If the law says
you can't kill somebody, you don't, no matter how much you believe they
deserved it.

If the law says you take down a page after receiving a DMCA notice, you take
down the page.

If you don't, you will be punished. That's how the law works.

WordPress not complying with the DMCA could have the effect of them losing
their safe-harbor status which might very quickly lead to them going off the
net completely. The monetary issue aside (going off the net would mean they
lose all of their revenue), is it worth losing all WP.com hosted blogs just to
temporarily keep one online?

~~~
betterunix
"is it worth losing all WP.com hosted blogs just to temporarily keep one
online?"

The outcry from WP's users would help to push our politicians toward a real
solution to copyright rather than another hand-out to well-connected
corporations.

------
tehwalrus
I saw this a few days ago (also first time I'd heard of "straight pride uk").

DCMA seems to work the same way as patent trolls - the little guy just gives
up, too expensive, and only the bigwigs can fight back. :/

(to those suggesting a british student sue a british organisation in a US
court, please think about how insanely expensive that would be, for someone
without a job.)

