Aicra’s DMCA Blog

On October 18th Anonymous is holding their worldwide protest for the month.

In light of recent events (Scientology censoring) I would encourage anyone to go out and support anonymous. Granted, you might not want to be seen, as these people are… anonymous. So, here are some ideas….

You can wear a bandana, shades and hat, or use it as an excuse to get a mask! It’s close enough to Halloween, I’m sure you can disguise your appearance somehow, if you really want to go there.

I’m thinking the mask of Zorro!

Uh… no cape.

Invite Video to come soon.

For many years, I’ve been griping about censorship and copyright.

I believe that this is the first time I’ve publicly come out with a comment on cults.

Years ago, before I even met him, Andrew posted some church related documents on his website. He believed that this information was useful to the public. These documents were supposed to be closed to the public. This handbook of instructions was given to a high priest in this church who posted it online. This is not Scientology, but another church that has some history in copyright notifications.

Now, Scientology. They are infamous for takedowns. Now they are at it again. Fight, with all your might, mind and strength.

“ignore your rights, they’ll go away” -anonymous?

Well, I remember that when I was young, we were warned by our parents about cult activity. There were these brainwashing heathens who would convince people who were looking for something to fill the gap in their lives, to leave everything and give all their money to the “church”.

These false prophets were really just in it for the profits.

There were horrible stories about people of all ages falling into these traps. Debriefing was a term used for assisting those brainwashed people find their way back to reality. There were techniques used by brainwashers - sleep deprivation, repetition, etc.

So, here’s an interesting situation. You have corporations - which is typically my favorite target for ranting. Their information is kept proprietary and this inhibits development and progress.

And you have cults. Their information is kept proprietary for even worse ends. Basically, I think it comes down to Power and Money in both cases.

So with corps, you hit them where it hurts. Their wallets.

But what about cults. What if it’s not all about the money (I’m not saying it’s not all about the money, it probably is). How do you hit them where it hurts? Reputation and membership.

Little Sister, Pokenon, DeMine0, et al are making leaps and bounds with their work.

They are taking on all sorts of issues and fighting the good fight.

Hats off to them.

My suggestion, post the videos everywhere else. Oh, and of course, sue.

Commentary, criticism… FAIR USE people.

There is a case that has already set a precedent in misuse or abuse of notifications!

Also, check out http://www.epicanon.com and http://www.scientomogy.com/

And for fuck’s sake, don’t attend any Narcinon meetings! If you have an addiction and you want to reach out for some support, try seeing a counselor/psychiatrist first for one on one sessions.

Peace.

Well, it was an interesting few days of conversation with my new acquaintance, Virginia. Virginia is very pleasant and was concerned when she received an email from Google, telling her that she received a C&D for an article she placed on her blog.

http://www.chillingeffects.org/notice.cgi?sID=7715.

Here are the interesting facts in her case.

1. She took the article from San Jose Mercury news. Perhaps an affiliate?

2. In the Notification, NYTimes rep made an error about what exactly was the offending content.

So, in my opinion, this was an invalid notification, however, this is open to interpretation.

Ok, so I realize that my rants about life in general and M$ may not belong here… so I’m going to have to rant somewhere else. But I still think that honoring Mike Matthieu because he worked for M$ is a joke. And I still think his website is as lame as they come.

Let’s take for example the “san fran is the most walkable city”… Is this really true?

Let’s just do some effective thinking for a moment and while this is OT…

Let’s say Walk Score has scored Chinatown in San Francisco, the most walkable neighborhood.

Ok. http://www.walkscore.com/rankings/San_Francisco

Now, let’s look at something walkscore may have overlooked:

Crime Rate

Duh.

According to the 2007 city demographics, Chinatown rates as follows:

Where 100 is representative of the national average…

Total Crime risk 146

Personal Crime risk 200

Murder Risk 173

Rape risk 159

Robbery risk 281

Assault risk 142

Property crime risk 126

Larceny risk 178

Do you really want to walk these streets? “Walker’s Paradise”?!!!!!

I mean, honestly, do these guys really think they have the next great thing in software? Who taught them to program? The program measures distance to nearest restaurant, etc. Why wasn’t safety a consideration? These guys need to be taken “off the map”.

Ok, so maybe Mapquest or Google Maps don’t measure crime risk either (although I think this would be a good feature). I mean, what if I want to stop for gas, can’t we have a GPS system with demographics listed for the area. Now, THAT… would be a feature. However, I’m still waiting.

These people are, in a sense, encouraging walking in these high crime neighborhoods. This is not best practice programming. They haven’t considered all aspects of the program before beginning. They haven’t considered the consequences. And Matthieu et al have a “civic” site??? At least they could offer some disclaimer to those innocent future victims of high crime areas rated as “most walkable neighborhoods”! — calculations not based on crime rate.

Agreed?

Ok, so now I have a little question.

Maybe several.

Alright… which one of you edited the video.

First, let me say cool! Glad to see you using Kaltura.

Then, I have another question.

Is it fair use?

Well, it’s commentary, right. Dmitry speaks. So can it be considered fair use? So, just to play nice here, I wonder… if the Kaltura video was found under a “comment”, then wouldn’t that suggest a commentary. And since this is a blog, and just about everything here can be considered commentary, would this use of the video fall under fair use?

Would love to hear what others have to say.

Ok, so I installed the Kaltura plugin. Why not. This is called dmcamovie… maybe we can get into some collaborative movie thing here. These videos were shot as a seriously beginning level. No tripod, it was analog… but, I don’t know of anyone else who has shot footage of some key DMCA events back in the day. So, I’m going to post it. Forgive my poor footage and forgive the fact you have to agree to a license - not my preference. This is an incredible tool.

~ Marcia

Ok, so Jeremy Fogel… honorable judge… says… hey, fair use has to be considered before a notification.

Sweeeeeet news. Misrepresentation is in effect for those copyright owners or holders that give a DMCA notification and dont’ consider fair use.

 So…. what does this mean for you… and me.

Well, if the file in question can be considered FAIR USE, and a notification is sent out, this could be considered misrepresentation. You can sue. There are so many good examples. Take the Fatwallet case or the Walmart Parody case. These could be considered fair use. The DMCA protects users against misrepresentation. In the past, if you filed a counter notification and another DMCA notification came through, then it would be considered misrepresentation.

Corps have been misrepresenting for years. Now it’s time to turn the tables on them.

Yeah for our side!

So, I’ve come up with something interesting to do with this blog. I’m going to film crazy stuff that might be considered a violation. That could be fun.

First I’ll need a battery for my cam. Then, I’ll need to convert the vid. Wait, I’ll just get another quickcam.

I heard Connectix isn’t around anymore. hmmm. what to do.

Here’s the fundamental question that gets asked a lot.

Is this a trademark issue… or a copyright one?

Let’s take for example the olympic committee and the YOU TUBE video of the Tibet Protest.

At best a far reaching trademark possiblity, but very suspect. How is this copyright infringement?
First of all, it’s video of a protest. Secondly, it’s expression, criticism, commentary by the protesters. The projection itself, in a far reaching manner, might be construed to some as an infringement (although it falls under fair use). However, the video of the projection is not owned by the IOC, right…

Yet another instance of using copyright to censor expression.