Tag Archives: dmca

Site plagiarizes blog posts, then files DMCA takedown on originals

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A dizzying story that involves falsified medical research, plagiarism, and legal threats came to light via a DMCA takedown notice today. Retraction Watch, a site that followed (among many other issues) the implosion of a Duke cancer researcher’s career, found all of its articles on the topic pulled by WordPress, its host. The reason? A small site based in India apparently copied all of the posts, claimed them as their own, and then filed a DMCA takedown notice to get the originals pulled from their source. As of now, the originals are still missing as their actual owners seek to have them restored.

via Site plagiarizes blog posts, then files DMCA takedown on originals | Ars Technica.

What could possibly go wrong with SOPA?  🙂

Using Moodle: issued a DMCA takedown for using Moodle

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A competitor has issued me with a DMCA takedown notice saying that by using the standard Moodle login page with no modifications, I have infringed his copyright.  He says my Moodle login page is too similar to his login page which he also asserts copyright over. His login page is a standard WordPress wp-admin page.  This can’t be right. Who owns Moodle? I would like to report his actions.

via Using Moodle: issued a DMCA takedown for using Moodle.

Jailbreaking now legal under DMCA for smartphones, but not tablets

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Here’s a better approach: circumventing copy protection schemes shouldn’t be against the law in the first place. DRM schemes harm legitimate users more than they deter piracy. Indeed, as the phone unlocking example illustrates, many uses of DRM have nothing to do with copyright infringement in the first place. Rather, they’re a convenient legal pretext for limiting competition and locking consumers into proprietary products. We shouldn’t be using copyright law as a backdoor means to give such anti-competitive practices the force of law.

via Jailbreaking now legal under DMCA for smartphones, but not tablets | Ars Technica.

DRM be damned: how to protect your Amazon e-books from being deleted

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If you buy e-books from Amazon, and want to engage in a bit of digital civil disobedience—by stripping the files’ DRM and making sure that Amazon can’t deny you access—we’re about to show you how. Yes, many parts of the Internet have known about this technique for some time now, but we feel that it bears mentioning again here..

via DRM be damned: how to protect your Amazon e-books from being deleted | Ars Technica.

Now, as West himself noted, these files are for your personal use only—they’re not meant to be distributed anywhere. Enjoy!

Microsoft DMCA Notice ‘Mistakenly’ Targets BBC, Techcrunch, Wikipedia and U.S. Govt

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Claiming to prevent the unauthorized distribution of Windows 8 Beta the software company listed 65 “infringing” web pages. However, nearly half of the URLs that Google was asked to remove from its search results have nothing to do with Windows 8.

via Microsoft DMCA Notice ‘Mistakenly’ Targets BBC, Techcrunch, Wikipedia and U.S. Govt | TorrentFreak.

Judging from the page titles and content the websites in question were targeted because they reference the number “45″.

YouTube Flags Democrats’ Convention Video on Copyright Grounds

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On Wednesday morning, a campaign spokesman confirmed there was a “technical error on YouTube that inadvertently triggered a copyright message at the end of the live stream Tuesday night,” adding “We do not expect tonight’s coverage will be affected.”

After this story was published, the video was subsequently marked “private.”

via YouTube Flags Democrats’ Convention Video on Copyright Grounds | Threat Level | Wired.com.

AACS encryption key controversy

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A controversy surrounding the AACS cryptographic key arose in April 2007 when the Motion Picture Association of America and the Advanced Access Content System Licensing Administrator, LLC (AACS LA) began issuing demand letters[2] to websites publishing a 128-bit (16-byte) number, represented in hexadecimal as 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0[3][4] (commonly referred to as 09 F9),[5][6] which is one of the cryptographic keys for HD DVDs and Blu-ray Discs. The letters demanded the immediate removal of the key and any links to it, citing the anti-circumvention provisions of the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

via AACS encryption key controversy – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Google Defends Hotfile (and Megaupload) in Court

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Two weeks ago the movie studios asked the court to issue a summary judgment against Hotfile and shut the site down. The MPAA argues that Hotfile is a piracy haven that should not be eligible for DMCA safe harbor protection.

This request didn’t go unnoticed by Google, who have now filed an amicus brief in support of the file-hosting site. According to Google, the movie studios are misleading the court by wrongfully suggesting that Hotfile is not protected by the DMCA.

via Google Defends Hotfile (and Megaupload) in Court | TorrentFreak.

Jailbreaking exemption to DMCA is about to expire, EFF would rather it didn’t

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Jailbreaking exemption to DMCA is about to expire, EFF would rather it didn’t — Engadget.

Back in 2010, the US Copyright Office added a set of anti-circumvention exemptions to the DMCA, effectively making it legal for smartphone users to jailbreak and/or root their devices. These exemptions, however, were never made permanent and now, they’re about to expire. The EFF doesn’t want this to happen, which is why it’s decided to launch a campaign dedicated to the jailbreaking cause. With this initiative, the EFF is hoping to convince the Copyright Office to renew its exemptions and expand them to a wider range of devices, including tablets and video game consoles.