Reason #523 to oppose the DMCA
ATTACK THE HOST. Find some copyrighted text that a blogger has lifted from your Web site and threaten to sue his Internet service provider under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. That may prompt the ISP to shut him down. Or threaten to drag the host into a defamation suit against the blogger. The host isn’t liable but may skip the hassle and cut off the blogger’s access anyway. Also:Subpoena the host company, demanding the blogger’s name or Internet address.
Number 5 on Forbes’ list of how corporations should fight back against bloggers who say things companies don’t like.
For the record: Daniel Lyons’ Forbes article about blogging is basically an argument against free speech. [Tags: forbes dmca copyright DigitalRights blogging]
Since I’m saying something Forbes won’t like, please allow me to “lift” some copyrighted text from Forbes.com, just to make it easier for them:
NEW YORK – For a company whose motto is “do no evil,” Google (nasdaq: GOOG – news – people ) has come under a surprising amount of criticism of late for being green-eyed. The internet giant and abettor for college term papers is facing a legal obstacle against its plans to scan and index books from three major university libraries. The cry for an injunction comes just weeks after the Authors Guild sued Google for copyright infringement–and the same day as a small financial firm in London cajoled the internet giant into dropping its Gmail trademark in the U.K. In defense of its latest venture, Google, led by Chief Executive Eric Schmidt, has maintained its intentions are to “make millions of books easier for people to find and buy,” by cataloguing them online. Not so, says the Association of American Publishers, which is filing the suit. As the suit was quoted by The Associated Press, Google is infringing publishers’ copyrights “to further its own commercial purposes.” The internet behemoth’s “Print Library Project” is an offshoot of “Google Print,” a program which publishers are not as vexed about–because work is used with permission. The former, more controversial project sees a part of each book scanned and displayed online as part of a sprawling catalogue. Any featured author who is rattled by the idea has until Nov. 1 to notify the company so their work can be excluded. In the last year, media reports have speculated that Google, the research-project-turned-corporate-giant started by Forbes 400 members Larry Page and Sergey Brin, was beginning to lose its “no evil” philosophy. But with deep-pocketed competitors like Yahoo! (nasdaq: YHOO – news – people ) and Time Warner’s (nyse: TWX – news – people ) America Online, can the Google mission to “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful” really be all that straightforward? Meanwhile, Google’s earnings are announced today. Its shares gained about 8% over the quarter, and are up about 60% since the year began. On Oct. 4, the stock hit a 52-week high of $321.28 on the Nasdaq.
Categories: Uncategorized dw
I’d say it’s an argument against consequence-free speech.
There’s a difference, I think.
A little Milton for you on a Monday:
License they mean when they cry, Liberty!
For who loves that must first be wise and good.
Dave, I think that’s an accurate assessment of what Forbes thinks it’s saying. But the consequence of what they consider to be non-consequence-free-speech imo would be to chill free speech more than I’d like.
Actually, I’d say the article is about manipulating speech. It’s sort of the “evil twin” version of Cluetrain.
Please note though, in terms of the posturing, that you really aren’t saying anything which would provoke that sort of reaction. The radical chic can be a little bit irritating to activists who really do have to worry about frivolous lawsuits.
I meant it more as a dorky joke than as anything chic. But, at least now someone has called me chic. Thanks, Seth! (And, no, I have zero expectation I’ll be sued for this post.)
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