

Sunday Times sends DMCA takedown notice to First Look over image of frontpage - randomname2
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2101948-news-uk-dmca-notification-first-look-productions.html

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sgnelson
What's really sick about this takedown notice is that the Intercept article is
almost perfect example of fair use. It's a form of comment and criticism, as
well as news reporting. All protected by the fair use doctrine.

The lawyer who filed this DMCA takedown notes that "under penalty of perjury"
they have a good faith belief that this violates their copyright.

As the saying goes, this lawyer is either as dumb as a box of rocks, or lying
through her teeth. (She's lying.) I would hope a court would find she perjured
herself (as well as obviously find this as a abuse of the DMCA), but I doubt
that's going to happen.

~~~
qrmn
_(This is not legal advice, just a comment.)_

No, the "under penalty of perjury" bit in the DMCA is that they own the
copyright in the content they're saying they own. (I believe this is
undisputed; they do in fact own the typesetting of their front page.)

Whether the links actually point to copies of the content alleged, or whether
the content if republished would be an infringement of copyright in that
context, are entirely separate questions (and there are no repercussions for
being wrong, even deliberately, which is one of the really bad things about
the DMCA, especially in a world where robots auto-file takedowns based on dud
search terms).

They do not seem to have misrepresented their clients' interests, although
this §512(c) takedown is clearly filed in bad faith: because yes, this kind of
meta-reporting, commentary on news stories, _is_ absolutely classic fair use -
and there's the story they're reporting on, right there on the right. I
believe it would be perfectly legal over here, too - in fact, the BBC actually
routinely republish the front pages of every major UK newspaper every day for
comment and criticism, both on the TV and on their website -
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs/the_papers](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs/the_papers)
\- and they neither seek, nor need, permission. This low-res image of the
front page represents what the paper was reporting as a snapshot in time as a
matter of history. It obviously doesn't replace the paper: it doesn't even
contain all of the story in question. It is quite clearly not an actionable
infringement of copyright.

One would think that Ms Chisese would have given her client certain advice
about the serious potential negative impact of spitefully trying to restrict
news reporting via copyright takedowns: aka the "Streisand effect"? You would
think they'd know about that. Still, I don't see an "on instructions" in
there. Oh well. I'm sure the Intercept will respond as I would expect them to.
(Edit: Sure enough -
[https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/610451356122509312](https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/610451356122509312)
)

