Google's Information On DMCA Takedown Abuse 217
Posted
by
samzenpus
from the hassle-your-way-to-the-top dept.
from the hassle-your-way-to-the-top dept.
Binestar writes "According to a PC World article, Google has submitted a brief to New Zealand about its proposed copyright law (section 92A). "In its submission, Google notes that more than half (57%) of the takedown notices it has received under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act 1998, were sent by business targeting competitors and over one third (37%) of notices were not valid copyright claims.""
Are those overlapping percentages? (Score:5, Interesting)
57% are from businesses targeting competitors, and only 37% are invalid? What does that mean? 1.) That up to 20% of notices are from businesses who are catching their competitors in the act? 2.) Or is it not 37% of total notices? 3.) Or am I getting mixed up on something?
So... (Score:5, Interesting)
*crickets*
Re:In Ancient Times (Score:5, Interesting)
Have you ever copied sheet music by hand? It's a pain in the ass. So it's no surprise that in a time when a photocopier did not exist people would willingly pay a small amount to avoid that tedium. I know my high school almost got in trouble for photocopying sheet music. We spent a day in the music room pulling all the copies and tossing them in the garbage. The extreme high cost of sheet music during my school days was a major contributing factor in copyright infringement. Gee, where have I heard this before?
Re:In Ancient Times (Score:1, Interesting)
Somehow Joplin was making a $100,000 a week in the 1920's, even though it's fairly trivial to simply hand-copy someone-else's work.
Have you ever transcribed a thick piano score by hand? It's a bitch and a half, and before the copy machine, you'd have to buy pre-printed musical score anyway (or spend even MORE time making it with a ruler!).
Running this stuff through a printing press that's already set is absolute cake, and setting up an operation to print this stuff when you don't have the rights to it would look VERY conspicuous.
Re:Note to summary writer... (Score:5, Interesting)
This is exactly how people used to write. The use of a punctuation marker between words didn't catch on in Latin until sometime between 600AD and 800AD. A lot of punctuation marks, and grammar in general, is a relatively recent fad.
DMCA Thoughts (Score:2, Interesting)
I don't hate the DMCA like the vast majority of
The DMCA is a legal tool that can either be used properly or misused. The most important thing for web hosts and other service providers to do is to abide by the protocol established by the Act for handling take-downs and counter-notices and to publish a DMCA policy that recognizes that protocol. Unfortunately, in hotly contested situations many web hosts will be more responsive to the threats of abusive lawyers than to the letter of the federal law and their own stated policies. A lot of providers don't publish any information on how they handle DMCA notices, and that is a problem. YMMV.
data driven law making? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:So... (Score:3, Interesting)
>DMCA notices are filed under penalty of perjury. Has anybody, ever, even a single case,
> been punished for filing a false takedown?
As I understand it, the perjury clause refers to the statement of the notifier that they
represent or are truly acting for the rights holder, not that what they claim is true. I
think that only requires a "good faith" belief that the material they wish taken down is
infringing.
Re:In Ancient Times (Score:5, Interesting)
I find a huge amount of sadness in this, after hearing for years and people saying:
KIDS! Learn music!
While the people producing sheet music reply: Only if you pay us one hundred, million dollars...
The sad thing in that, is part of the reason why the local middle school near me killed their music program. When I went through(more then 15yrs ago) everything was photocopied in some form. Now it only seems that the highschools have a music program which is a terrible shame, and even those are on the verge of dying for the same reason.
I know of a few preforming orchestra's here in Canada that are now dead due to the ever-ever-ever increasing costs of sheet music as well.
Re:doesn't google like the DMCA? (Score:5, Interesting)
On every search page where they've removed results due to the DMCA, the following is placed (the only editing I have done is to the link that would link to the actual notice - it's different for each notice, but Chilling Effects doesn't always have the notice on file):
In response to a complaint we received under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act [google.com], we have removed 1 result(s) from this page. If you wish, you may read the DMCA complaint [chillingeffects.org] that caused the removal(s) at ChillingEffects.org.
Linking there does not seem to be supportive of the DMCA. Chilling Effects is surprisingly neutral, given it's project by several law schools and the EFF, but it's far from blind supportiveness from what I can see.
(Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer, nor am I American, so I may not know as much about this as someone else here.)
Re:In Ancient Times (Score:3, Interesting)
I was recently discussing the music copyright situation with my music teacher. We were looking at the copyright notice on the music book. Essentially, they were only selling a copy of the sheet music. They weren't actually selling the rights to play the music. Effectively, they were almost creating a misrepresentation case, in that why would you sell a music book to students, without giving them permission to play the music?
You might want to check the copyright notices. You might find that not only are you not supposed to copy the music, you aren't supposed to play it either.