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From Cory Doctorow on BoingBoing:
The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America has used the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to fraudulently remove numerous non-infringing works from Scribd, a site that allows the general public to share text files with one another in much the same way that Flickr allows its users to share pictures.Read the whole thing. SFWA’s behavior is evidently as odious as you could possibly imagine—for instance, in the name of nabbing copyright-infringing e-texts of works by Isaac Asimov, SFWA issued legal takedown notices for entire ranges of electronic documents with the string “Asimov” in them.Included in the takedown were: a junior high teacher’s bibliography of works that will excite children about reading sf, the back-catalog of a magazine called Ray Gun Revival, books by other authors who have never authorized SFWA to act on their behalf, such as Bruce Sterling, and my own Creative Commons-licensed novel, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom.
It’s often said that one should never attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity. But at a certain point, willed and determined stupidity becomes a kind of malice. With this latest stunt, SFWA’s behavior has come to that point.
I just read about this at BB, and thought "I wonder what ML has to say about this?".
It's at this stage that the people responsible, if principled, would resign.
I want Scalzi back from his hiatus. I want to see what he's going to say.
I think I'll go buy some popcorn.
John is an independent-minded fellow. I'm always interested in what he has to say, but I don't count on him to always agree with me.
It's my own belief, based on due consideration of the evidence, that this sort of thing constitutes grotesque misbehavior by the SFWA.
Not that I'm suggesting it should be used, because on the whole I have a lot of respect for the SFWA, but there are provisions in the DMCA to penalize those who use it to request removal of works they don't have appropriate authority over.
The relevant section appears to be:
Sec 512 (c) (3) [...]
(A) To be effective under this subsection, a notification of claimed infringement must be a written communication provided to the designated agent of a service provider that includes substantially the following:
(i) A physical or electronic signature of a person authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.
[...]
(v) A statement that the complaining party has a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.
(vi) A statement that the information in the notification is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, that the complaining party is authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.
(emphasis mine)
PNH @3:
I don't count on him to always agree with me.
I'm sure he'll be crushed to hear it. </snark>
More seriously: I am interested to see how you people* with the knowledge and experience parse this issue. I have an interest - as does anyone who reads SF&F - but I don't have a lot of value to contribute to the discussion.
Thus, popcorn.
-----
* (I type to the sound of furious marking of Bingo cards)
It's worth noting that the Aug 17th e-mail that Burt claims in the Aug 23rd e-mail was a DMCA takedown notice was actually no such thing, because it didn't include the required statements of sections (v) and (vi) as I quoted above. I'd suggest that therefore no legally-binding takedown notice has been served, but obviously that's not legal advice and scribd should consult a lawyer about possible consequences before restoring any of the works, etc.
Are there any SFWA events or SFWA officers as program participants at Worldcon this year? That would seem to me to be a good high profile place to Get Some Answers.
If the SFWA Contacts web page is up to date, it appears the pertinent contacts for this issue are probably Andrew Burt (Chair of the Copyright Issues and E-Piracy committees) and Bruce Plotkin, SFWA Legal Counsel.
*Ugh* There are so many levels of wrong here, it's hard to count them all.
It's hard to imagine what SFWA was thinking here. Do they really think the mere use of the name "Asimov" infringes on copyright? And how could they possibly think Cory would want to withdraw "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom" from circulation? Cory's books exist in practically every electronic format known to man. (Many of them even exist as Newton ebooks.) It's hard not to see their assertion of copyright agency over Cory's works as Making a Statement of Some Sort. (Or, yes, it could be sheer incompetence. But that's a statement too.)
I've always gotten the impression that SFWA views ebooks has some sort of evil to be stamped out. (I mean, the "e-piracy" committee? Are we not admitting to the legitimate uses of modern technology?) Now, this is a position which makes no sense to me. (One might as well say that we shouldn't publish paper books either because they too can be easily copied and distributed.) But there's no reason for any organization in the world to share my positions.
However, this is the sort of flitgun approach to copyright enforcement that the bad buys use. I'm not a DMCA fan, but it's the law. So copyright agents have the right to issue takedown notices. But SFWA doesn't seem to have noticed that it is not the copyright agent in many, if not all, cases. It's terrible that an organization which should be looking out for authors' rights is usurping them instead. When SFWA behaves like the RIAA, something is very wrong.
I realize that SFWA does great, and valuable work with the Emergency Medical Fund and Writers Beware. However, I hope they get slammed here. It would only make SFWA a better organization. (i.e., if they want to take an anti-ebook stance, there are less asinine ways of doing it.)
just wondering, is this a riposte to the whole "pixel stained technopeasant' ridicule of SFWA of a few months ago?
and JC "(Many of them even exist as Newton ebooks.)" had me choking on my coffee!
Don't blame me - I endorsed Scalzi.
What's this business with the SFWA having sponsored the development of "Shades of Grey"? Do other writers' guilds police the Internet with such fervor?
:-S
What has the SFWA got against people who like sf/f? This is beyond ridiculous.
Mr.Burt "signs" all his emails in a "funny" way:
Vader said, "Luke, I am your feather." Bothered by typos? Avoid pirated ebooks.
This guy probably feels he's a Holy Warrior against the Dark Forces Lurking In The Dark Ready To Steal My Loot.
God forbid we have people reading science fiction in this day and age. It's a good thing the SFWA is around to put a stop to things like that.
Holy fckng hell, that's appalling.
From the 8/23 email, in reference to his proposed "solution" requiring uploaders to make a Formal Statement Of Their Intent: This (a) deters pirates from uploading because they would have to answer falsely, and (b) puts liars on notice that scribd will cooperate with copyright efforts and provide information about them.
1. Who the hell are they to dictate policy to an outside organization?
2. Has this person ever actually met illegal downloaders? Ever? Or has he ever only seen them on TV, like maybe in that "I Fought The Law" Pepsi commercial?
3. SFWA purports to represent the copyright owner of "Classic Erotica - The BBS Era"? Seriously? Because that doesn't sound like a spec-fic title to me. (And nor does "New AP Lang Syllabus - CC & MA".)
"Classic Erotica - The BBS Era"? Seriously? Because that doesn't sound like a spec-fic title to me.
Given the context, I would guess it includes references to (and perhaps quotations from) slash fic based on either Asimov's or Silverberg's work. There's at least a plausible claim in this case. Unlike many of the others highlighted.
Ouch. May a new organization rise from this like a phoenix from ashes; it'd be about time -- whether that means they get their act together, or whether some other SFWA-like-except-more-functional organization comes to be.
I can draw some parallels to how Livejournal is repeatedly shooting itself in the foot, clawing the fail darts back out, stanching the bleeding, and then shooting itself in the foot again.
But SFWA is smaller than Livejournal; it's a professional organization; and its existence and credibility depends on its professional standards. It hasn't got as many spare feet to spend on this kind of procedure.
I haven't been involved with SFWA for over a decade now. Can someone please give me some context and/or background for what they're doing? I mean, is this part of a trend (implied by 'latest stunt'), or an aberration?
I do actually like the statement of intent thing, though -- I think it may be the one sane piece of all of this. I could have missed something (it's five-thirty in the morning here and I'm running on a few days' sleep deficit) but, when* implemented correctly, policies for Internet devices which put the responsibility on the user and not the device = good. Better than the other way around. Yeah.
*qhwn in the original sleep-dep typing dialect, translated for your convenience.
Mr. Doctorow should be contacting the Electronic Freedom Foundation. They'd be more than willing to help as they are definitely not fans of the DMCA.
Let's not jump to conclusions. Why? A few years ago, Preditors & Editors posted an article about voice to text writing. The article is still there, but it was briefly blocked because of a DMCA demand sent to our host by BayTSP, Inc. which represented the manufacturer of the product that was reviewed (favorably, no less) in the "offending" P&E article. I had to contact the manufacturer in order to call off BayTSP. Then to compound that, BayTSP did the same thing to another site a few months later so I passed along the contact information to that site.
In other words, if a company like BayTSP is involved on behalf of SFWA, then SFWA might not be aware yet (though I'm sure some of you are making that so at present) of what transpired in its name. What's worse is the fact that companies like BayTSP are operating with very little guidance and their contact information is often sadly inaccurate or lacking. That's why I had to go through their client. I couldn't reach BayTSP directly.
I'm speculating that many of the companies like BayTSP do not actually use human oversight in order to determine if an online site is violating copyright law or operating within the "fair use" limitations of copyright. If they were, then mistakes like the ones BayTSP made wouldn't have occurred. Instead, they're probably relying entirely upon a software program searching the web for occurrences and automatically sending out DMCA letters regardless of how the copyrighted material was referenced.
I've written the editors at Ray Gun Revival, one of the parties mentioned in the BB article, and asked them to clarify their position on this matter. RGR is a small, semi-pro ezine, and I doubt any of its contributors are represented by SFWA (I know SFWA doesn't represent my copyrights). I suspect that Asimov might have been mentioned in an editorial or something, triggering Mr. Burt's idiocy.
I'll report back when I know more.
Eeeuw. I'm no fan of electronic piracy -- my stuff is almost entirely epublished, and I know books from my publisher are being pirated. But this sort of idiocy makes it *harder* to convince people that Piracy Is Bad. SFWA certainly hasn't done me any favours by this action.
Dave #21: No jumping here. The posts that Cory has made quote SFWA Veep Andrew Burt hisownself; there's no question that SFWA -- via its officer -- is aware of the actions being taken.
Dave@21 -- in this case, the takedown notice was sent in a personal email written by SFWA Vice President Andrew Burt, acting on behalf of SFWA, later affirmed in subsequent correspondence.
Re: #19: I agree that putting responsibility on the user is a good thing, and it might even get good-faith users to take a look at their uploads. However, I very much doubt that the "e-pirates" would stop uploading rather than "answer falsely". It strikes me as a bit like assuming that real pirates, after having robbed and burnt their way through several merchant ships, would be put off burying their treasure on a particular deserted island because of the "No Trespassing" sign.
An editor at Ray Gun Revival talks here:
http://phywriter.com/archives/2007/08/28/sfwa-issues-misguided-rgr-takedowns-at-scribd/
Good lord. I mean, GOOD LORD. Isn't SF supposed to be about creative engagement with the future?
Dorothy (18): You know how you always think that SFWA's finally managed to be as dumb as it's possible for them to be, and then a few months down the road they'll have thought up something to do that exceeds the previous benchmark? It's like that.
Andrew Burt is one of those writers who ekes out a SFWA membership, then gets tremendously active in SFWA projects and policies, putting far more effort into it than he appears to put into his writing. He thinks he understands copyright, bookselling, e-piracy, and the internet. This belief of his does not meet with universal agreement. Talking a good game is the curse of SFWA.
A while back, Burt got SFWA to put up thousands of dollars -- quite a large sum for the organization -- to fund development of his proposed project to block e-piracy. The bad news is, his idea was to flood the channels with corrupt, munged versions of SF and fantasy works. Not only did he think this was (a.) unbeatable, and (b.) a good idea, but he thought the project could be made profitable by selling it to other publishers. The good news is, he never did the development, so maybe SFWA will get its money back. They'd have a better case if they hadn't elected him Fruit Punch Czar.
Burt has promised to repay SFWA its development money by a set deadline ... more than once. We'll see.
As for the huge and threatening problem of e-piracy, the crusade that launched Andrew Burt's SFWA career: Do you, Dorothy Rothschild, read SF and fantasy as pirated e-text? Does anyone you know read SF and fantasy as pirated e-text? Have you heard of anyone reading SF and fantasy as pirated e-text? Do we have just a teeny bit of cognitive dissonance here?
Adam, Cory, thanks. Just found the rest of the story. Don't know why Andrew is jumping that way. I'm sure the intention is good, but the method is certainly faulty in this instance.
Personally, I think the DMCA is one of the worst thought out laws ever conceived.
In the meantime, I hope Andrew and the SFWA get this resolved and leave copyright enforcement to the copyright owners. As an alternative, the SFWA might offer advice and resources to those authors in need of assistance, but enforcement should be up to the copyright owners and those directly tasked by the owners through contractual agreements.
I'm wondering if someone will get the right idea.
1) Stop talking about this.
2) Have your agent and lawyer *start* talking about this. Pointedly. On letterhead, and if need be, in formal layouts filed in the appropriate jurisdictions.
SFWA is trying to use the law. Why aren't you? And why are you hamstringing your lawyer?
If some of you were to wander over to BoingBoing, read Cory's (long, furious) post, and drop in on the comment thread, you'd be welcome. Just don't use the "post anonymously" option. We're having a real problem with that.
I'm with Abi, munching on popcorn. This is Not Okay. I don't have much to add to the conversation beyond amplified versions of that.
I'm not a SFWA member, but can I put in a request for a "Draft John Scalzi" movement? So that by the time I'm qualified SFWA would have pulled it executive-branch head out of its RIAA wanna-be bum.
I mean, hasn't anybody really thought Mr. Burt's actions (including the - IMHO - market poisoning "Shades of Grey" stupidity) through? It's obvious to me that Mr. Burt hasn't, but there's plenty of really smart people in SFWA and I think they would have brought these things to his attention.
Erik (31), because it's not just this specific case. It's also public understanding and public policy. Cory's no fool about legal cases, but he's laid the whole thing out at length in BoingBoing.
Erik Olson, #31:
"SFWA is trying to use the law. Why aren't you? And why are you hamstringing your lawyer?"
Don't be silly. Cory certainly has legal counsel. Why are you assuming otherwise?
(I was also a bit amused at Rob Hoffmann's no doubt well-meaning advice in #20, that Cory speak to the EFF. Cory is a former European Director of the EFF and a recipient of the organization's Pioneer Award. I think it's pretty safe to guess he's been in touch with their legal folks.)
Hmph. For years, my goal has been to join the SFWA. I'm rethinking that, now.
Rob Hoffmann (#20): You probably meant the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which (as Patrick has pointed out) Cory is very familiar with already.
And yes, by my extremely not-a-lawyer understanding of the DMCA, that is not a takedown notice any more than a syllabus for a course is an Asimov novel.
Y'know, the other day we had to buy Sudafed by taking a card to a pharmacist and getting this "restricted material." Yes, it's true, an ingredient in Sudafed can by used to help make meth.
The US Sudafed restrictions are, somehow, attached to the Patriot Act.
The round-and-round "logic" of a few SFWA officers use of DMCA is similarly bizarre, overreaching, and way, way inappropriate.
Time to pull out my Pixel-stained Technopeasant Wretch avatar...
Still, Erik was asking a legit question.
Here's my current question: Did SFWA actually, formally approve this mechanism Andrew Burt set up? I can't believe they wouldn't have spotted the problems inherent in searching for common skiffy names and, on finding them, automatically sending out DMCA takedowns.
Furthermore, if Andrew Burt didn't see the problems that would cause, he's been grossly misrepresenting his expertise to SFWA all along. That little embarrassment, plus exposing SFWA to potentially ruinous legal liability, plus making SFWA look stupid, venal, corrupt, tyrannical, and incompetent in the eyes of the public, seems reason enough to remove him from office.
Who would have thought a SFWA Vice President could cause so much trouble?
(I was also a bit amused at Rob Hoffmann's no doubt well-meaning advice in #20, that Cory speak to the EFF.
Also, note that the name of the organization is the Electronic Frontier Foundation, not the Electronic Freedom Foundation.
#12: What has the SFWA got against people who like sf/f?
Forget sf/f, what does Andrew Burt have against science and technology? I'd expect this from the Luddite Tracts Writers Association, not an organization theoretically made up of people excited about the future.
I've always found Burt's pontificating on copyright to be infuriating, but this latest stunt shifts my opinion from "terribly misguided" to "thuggish and mean-spirited."
Sometimes I wish I had time to write, so I could join SFWA and then resign in a huff.
I'm amused (slightly) at the fact that Burt's web page links over to the Copyright Owners' Control of Access (COCOA) site, which, in turn, makes all sorts of wonderful claims about how an author should be able to determine who can see their works online.
I'm not sure if Burt's being hypocritical here, or if this whole charade isn't an attempt to force folks to get on board with his particular set of projects (COCOA and the project Teresa mentions at #29).
Scalzi's shown up in the BoingBoing thread.
I'm reading here, too.
The irony is that today is the last day to get SFWA dues in, and I have to decide whether I want to bother. This isn't helping any.
Patrick @#37, I was (perhaps charitably) assuming Rob was trying to bring the funny. It's sort of hard to imagine anyone being familiar with both Doctorow and the EFF and not knowing that connection.
John, pay your dues. What's the use of leaving SFWA if you don't have time to write a spectacular SFWA resignation letter?
Or maybe not. If you give them money, they'll just think of further things to do with it.
I'm just hoping this is actually a brilliant machination by some of my favorite wicked smart authors as the first step in their cunning plot to get the DMCA overturned. Just give us a little hint guys, please? We promise not to tell...
On a related note, what do you want to bet that the scraper was written by AndyBoy? Very well thought out use of regex there buddy, I can't wait to see your e-text mangler!
If John's not a member, can you still elect him president?
Aspiring author alert: Once I have enough time to edit some of this crap sitting on my harddrive (thesis, new house, and wedding seem to have swallowed time), I want to submit it. And I'd want SFWA to be a functioning org. if I ever have enough sf publications to join. Besides which, they should be promoting the genre which benefits readers, aspiring writers, and professional writers alike. Gah.
Dave Kuzminski @ 21
they're probably relying entirely upon a software program searching the web for occurrences and automatically sending out DMCA letters regardless of how the copyrighted material was referenced.
Automatically issuing takedown notices without human oversight strikes me as incredibly bad policy, both globally and locally. Locally, SFWA is liable (sic) to get itself into a really nasty tangle of lawsuits, and possibly even criminal complaints*, and globally, it sets a really terrible precedent for ethical behavior on the part of professional organizations. Makes me want to ask, "what part of professional don't you understand?"
* Has anyone ever treated an invalid takedown notice as attempted extortion?
#40:Teresa, Michael Capobianco responded to the blog post referenced in #27. To his credit, he apologizes for SFWA's actions. However, he writes:
"SFWA is trying to help scribd develop a policy that would do something about all the copyright violations that are posted there, and it appears that your magazines were inadvertently added. If so, I’m very sorry."
Whether or not SFWA formally approved of this, it looks like the SFWA VP committed the action, and the SFWA President knows about it.
#51 - so that means Michael Capobianco is just Bush to Andrew Burt's Cheney, but Burt's way more obvious?
TNH - isn't either Michael or Ann a lawyer in real life? Wouldn't one of them have noticed that this was a really bad idea? I'm not a lawyer and what SFWA has done just reeks legally.
Sonny Bono's grave belongs at the main intake of some giant sewage treatment facility...
[He was the person most responsible for DMCA...]
As for SFWA kerfluffle... it's traditional for something controversial to explode it in. There are what, more than a thousand members? As with any other organization with elected officials, sometimes the officials do things that the membership doesn't approve of/angers the membership/etc.
The demise of the Boston Computer Society involves a complete lack of oversight with the Board of Directors throwing everyone else out of the room (which is not supposed to be legal for a nonprofit organization...) except for the corporate counsel to continue with its meeting (I was one of the people thrown out of the room...). There were no provisions to boot anyone off the Board, and their actions and decisions caused the organization to go out of existence. It should have been avoidable, but there was no way for upset members to change anything--most of the members never voted, and again, there were no recall procedures to remove members of the Board of Directors.
That $70 isn't exactly burning a hole in my (or, more accurately, Shira's) pockets right now, either. Buys a lot of pasta, ground turkey, and school supplies.
Andrew Burt is the President of SFWA now. (He ran unopposed as far as the ballot was concerned.)
He has, iirc, paid the Shades of Grey $$ back. Nice to see what SFWA's doing with that money. (If the algorithm works so well, why did it catch a syllabus?)
Okay, if you want a good chuckle, check out Burt's bio page which is loaded with ironic highlights like these:
Alas poor Yorick!
Laurie @ 39
It's in the re-authorization of the Unpatriotic Act. A very large chunk of it has to do with meth precursor regulation, never mind that probably 98 percent of the people in the US wouldn't have a clue how to make it even if they wanted to.
Let me get this straight. SFWA decided to assign itself the job of enforcing copyright of other people's works? That SFWA had no business enforcing?
They issued takedown notices for Cory's work, and they don't have any legal connection to the rights to his work to be able to do that?
Do I understand this correctly? If so, we're talking about a historic new low in idiocy.
Copyright has always been a matter of choice for the author / rights holder to enforce or not. It is not like trademark where not enforcing trademark can result in the loss of the trademark. It's up to the author / rights holder to decide what will and will not be enforced. Not some self-appointed, uninvolved, third party.
Does SFWA really have so poor of an understanding of the most basic concepts of copyright law that they pooched this entirely?
Have you heard of anyone reading SF and fantasy as pirated e-text?
I confess! Well, sort of.
I confess to having downloaded pirated copies of Roger Zelazny's Amber series from some site in Finland a few years back. (They did have spelling errors from the scanning process - I fixed them.) Of course, I also own the paper copies of these books (and many other Zelazny novels besides). I play the Amber role-playing game, and I can't get 'grep' to work on paper. Etexts let me skip to the section I want to re-read.
I will also confess to having read a few books for the first time in their electronic versions. One was Lud-in-the-Mist, which is not so much pirated as public domain (and was out of print at the time). Another was Charlie Stross's A Colder War, and when I saw it in the collection Toast I bought that too.
To end my confession, I admit to purchasing a large number of books without any royalties going back to the author. Some call them "used books".
Wow.
Talk about an understanding of the internet and copyright that makes Ted Stevens look like Richard Stallman.
PJ: And I hear a lot of meth production has been "outsourced" to Mexico, which has no restrictions on sale of Sudafed.
G. Jules @ 26:
It strikes me as a bit like assuming that real pirates, after having robbed and burnt their way through several merchant ships, would be put off burying their treasure on a particular deserted island because of the "No Trespassing" sign.
I seem to have seen (performed in, actually) a comic opera to that effect. Let me see, how does it go again?
SERG. To gain a brief advantage you've contrived,
But your proud triumph will not be long-lived.
KING. Don't say you are orphans, for we know that game.
SERG. On your allegiance we've a stronger claim --
We charge you yield, we charge you yield,
In Queen Victoria's name!
KING. (baffled) You do?
POLICE. We do!
We charge you yield,
In Queen Victoria's name!
[Pirates kneel, Police stand over them triumphantly.]
KING. We yield at once, with humbled mien,
Because, with all our faults, we love our Queen.
POLICE. Yes, yes, with all their faults, they love their Queen.
ALL. Yes, yes, with all their faults, they love their Queen.
[Police, holding Pirates by the collar, take out handkerchiefs and weep.]
Laurie #60: Well, that would explain the sudden interest in letting trucks from Mexico have freer access to the US...
Wow, and to think my ambition was to join this bonehead organization. I think we should start calling Capobianco "Ernie" (because it goes with 'Burt').
Teresa @18:
Have you heard of anyone reading SF and fantasy as pirated e-text?
My hand is up. I've needed quotes from A Civil Campaign twice in the last year*, and can't get them verbatim without going to the box** where both our copies† are stored‡. I Googled on some distinctive phrasings from the book, and found a site. I don't link to it, or save the link.
-----
* fair use, plus added enticement to read
** now across the North Sea, for added fun
† hardcover to keep (even if it is perfect bound) and paperback to read & lend
‡ along with at least one copy of pretty much everything else LMcMB has written, mostly in hardback
#37 Remus: Hmph. For years, my goal has been to join the SFWA. I'm rethinking that, now.
Yeah, me too, although I do think the Emergency Fund stuff is a good idea. But the allure of saying "Hey, I'm a member of SWFA" has been rubbing off in the last year or two.
The collateral damage done to readers and fans in the name of copyright seems pretty egregrious. But acting on behalf of authors who may not want your services....eeesh. I don't wonder that Cory would be pissed about having Down and Out axed in his name AND then having readers assume that he's acting the hypocrite with regards to copyright.
This road, it is paved with pigeon droppings. Oh, wait, no, those are good intentions.
#52: Well, I don't know either Michael Capobianco or Andrew Burt at all. (My only connection to either one is that Andrew Burt runs Critters, of which I'm a member.) So, I have no clue what their governing relationship is like.
#57: That's my understanding of the situation too. I have to admit that I don't get how this happened.
I guess it's not impossible that the Asimov estate asked SFWA to enforce the DMCA for them. I would have thought the Asimov estate have their own people for this, but let's assume for the sake of argument. However, to do this by issuing a takedown notice for every document with the name "Asimov" in it doesn't make any sense.
Laurie - the Mexican drug labs are not a new phenomenon, but are apparently increasing recently. They don't buy over the counter Sudafed, they buy metric tons of pharmaceutical-grade ephedrine powder.
I found some DOJ numbers from 2006. I could be wrong, but I see mention of import restrictions in Mexico, and I've heard that the export of bulk ephedrine from US manufacturers is not controlled...
When Scientology served a bogus DMCA complaint against hundreds of pages at my site, I considered it an act of perjury, since what I had posted (raw data taken from their publications) does not have copyright protection in the US. However, perjury is very rarely prosecuted in the US.
The DMCA (if not abolished) should provide direct, automatic penalties for abusers of the law, as well as compensation for those subjected to a bogus takedown. As it stands, ISPs and site owners can sue for damages, such as loss of income, but as my site generates no income, the law offers nothing to me, nor to my site visitors who were deprived of that information until the two week safe harbor period expired.
True, Sonny Bono bears some blame for the DMCA, but Texas Republican Lamar Smith is still alive, and he's been a huge proponent of harsh and anti-consumer content law for years.
While one should not attribute to malice anything that is adequately explained by stupidity, any sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from malice.
I must go elsewhere to read more to find out What the Hey about this.
A visit to Scribd showed two new uploads - "Isaac Asimov" and "Robert Silverberg" with the description "Description: Testing a theory. See http://www.boingboing.net/2007/08/30/science-fiction-writ-1.html for more details."
The only text in the uploads were the authors' names.
Well, it appears that the president of SWFA is now claiming that (contrary to the second e-mail sent by the VP) they really *weren't* take-down notices, and that it's all Scribd's fault for taking the files offline......
Are these guys taking lesson from the Bush/Cheny camp?
#71. If Mr. Capobianco wants to state that they weren't takedown notices, he'll be arguing with Mr. Burt's e-mail that clearly states otherwise.
More imporantly, we need to see those current infringing files removed post haste. I sent you lists for Asimov, Heinlein, and noted that the other author names are likewise -- you need to remove those, as that wasn't idle musing, but a DMCA notice.
We need less spin from SFWA and more ownership for their *.* dragnet.
I think it's pretty clear at this point that the SFWA's foot tapping and gestures under the stall were clearly mis-interpreted by Scribd as DMCA advances.
Lance, are you saying that SFWA has a wide stance?
Oh! I just figured it out! They're trying to boost membership and hope that periodic kerfuffles like this will entice folks who want to get their hands on the members-only info.
From the BB comments thread, here is the referenced text of the SFWA prez's claim:
--------------------------
From SFWA President Michael Capobianco's draft statement:
"Despite what may have been said or implied, SFWA did not send DMCA takedown notices for the works that were removed from scribd.com. There are certain procedures involved in filing a DMCA notice, and the communication between SFWA and scribd.com did not fulfill any of them. The owner of scribd.com took those works down on his own responsibility as owner of the website and his claim that he did so because of a DMCA notice from SFWA was in error."
Yep. Basically saying, "Aw, gee! If those boneheads at Scribd misread the line in VP Burt's email where he said that this wasn't idle musing, but a DCMA takedown notice, that's their problem."
Furious!!!
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You know, even given that this is described as a "draft response," this assumes a level of stupidity on the part of the SWFA membership that is, from my observations, not at all warranted.
John #74: Heh, not only that, but it looks like certain SFWA VP's like to sling around their credentials while sneering "What do you think of that?" (ref #72)
Craig @76: that draft really shouldn't be repeated in public. It was a draft for comment, got commented on real good, and has already been withdrawn and redrafted -- and it isn't even public yet.
On the basis of what I've seen, Andrew Burt needs to be made to resign. I'm not entirely sure Michael Capobianco shouldn't be induced to walk the plank at the same time, but I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt for the time being.
Shall we start a pool on how long this takes to hit Slashdot?
Way to piss off your customer base... (and, yes, software geeks and DMCA fanatics do buy books.)
While that list is admittedly long with pirated versions of Asimov's work, I have this sneaking suspicion that if I posted my (really, horribly awful) high school essay analyzing Foundation on Scribd, it would be taken down. Are they going to start sending DMCA notices to all the lit journals that have dealt with Foundation, mentioned Asimov in a discussion of genre, or any of the essays on books mid-century and are easily avalible via...the internet??
Charlie #78: Any chance I can get a one week SFWA trial membership?
What's that? Well, yes, I would like access to the forums as part of the trial, but just to, you know, absorb the collegial atmosphere...
Charlie #78
Maybe I'm missing something here, but how the hey did a draft-for-comment wind up getting sent to Scribd, with a follow-up, and them taking action on it?
Jim, the draft-for-comment was Ernie's public response to the outcry over the email sent to Scribd by Burt, which were misrepresented by him as DMCA takedowns.
Craig #76: Charlie is absolutely right. I took that snippet from a private board, and I shouldn't have done so. I've asked to have the comment deleted from BB, and have publicly apologized to Mr. Capobianco, but I'm afraid it's become a matter of barn door & horse.
I will be very interested to read Mr. Capobianco's official statement.
it appears that the president of SWFA is now claiming that (contrary to the second e-mail sent by the VP) they really *weren't* take-down notices, and that it's all Scribd's fault for taking the files offline
Good grief. Someone put a down payment on a backhoe to dig themselves even deeper.
Have you heard of anyone reading SF and fantasy as pirated e-text?
Hi!
I have on my hard drive 36 pirated e-texts -- 45 if you count the Amber books as ten volumes instead of one. You can divide these about equally between "books I downloaded after buying the deadtree, for greppability/portability", "books I downloaded to read and see if I liked them, and subsequently purchased in deadtree", and "books I downloaded to read and see if I liked them, but forgot to read". (The exception is Lord of Light, which I didn't like enough to buy, but did like enough to keep around in case I want to read it again and decide if I like it more. I just put it on my Amazon shopping list.)
In addition, my downloading of books often leads to more purchases than just those books. I downloaded The Atrocity Archives, because Scalzi's endorsement wasn't quite enough to make me risk money on "Lovecraft and BOFH humor", both genres I'd seen backfire too much. As a result of that download, I bought Atrocity Archives, preordered Jennifer Morgue, and bought everything else Stross had out in paperback.
I first read the Amber series at the public library (maybe Mr. Burt would like to go after them too?), but downloaded a copy to reread before I went and bought a copy. I've since bought it 1.5 times -- the Corwin books individually and then the omnibus.
I downloaded "Doorways in the Sand" because I'd enjoyed it in the library and couldn't find it in stores. I've since found a used copy. I'd have bought a new copy, only it's out of print.
I downloaded "The Books of Magic", which I haven't bought yet, largely because I have a weird thing about ordering online sometimes, and I never have enough spare cash when I find it in a store. But reading it was enough to get me into the theatres to see Stardust, if that's worth anything.
I downloaded "Global Frequency", which I also haven't bought yet, only because I just now thought to check if it was out in graphic novel form. So it's on my "buy this week" list, and also it got me to buy Transmetropolitan, all ten volumes of it.
In summary, Mr. Burt probably doesn't want me to stop downloading, if he's got the best interests of his constituency at heart, anyway.
The only term I can think of to describe this is stunning.
That's the slaughterhouse sense of the term.
53 Paula, you're mixing up two different amendments to the Copyright Act passed in 1998. Sonny Bono was responsible for the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998; that was a technical correction to the Copyright Act (we had signed a treaty, remember?) to change the baseline term from life plus 50 to life plus 70. Actually, you can blame the French for that... but that's a long story itself.
The DMCA is an entirely separate piece of legislation, in response to a different treaty obligation — the 1996 WIPO treaty. It includes two distinct amendments to the Copyright Act: Chapter 12, the evil and inexcusable "no DRM workarounds allowed" material (which probably violates the Constitution, but that's a complicated argument for another time), and — 512, the limitation-on-liability-for-ISPs material, which has some of the worst writing and thinking behind it in the entire Copyright Act (against some pretty stiff competition), even if its intent — to facilitate open exchange of information on the Internet while providing a way for copyright holders to notify ISPs of infringements — is a reasonable attempt to balance a whole bunch of competing interests.
General comment on Cory's comments at BoingBoing: Cory is not a lawyer. Much of what he says or implies about potential legal consequences is wrong, and IMNSHO constitutes indefensible rumormongering and attempts to refight long-ago-lost policy battles... but does not create a cause of action for anyone. I am explicitly not making any comments concerning anything other than legal consequences. I am representing other persons (note the plural) regarding scribd.com, and for that reason I won't be posting at boingboing.
And none of the above is legal advice for any particular situation. I do not represent SFWA, scribd.com, or Cory Doctorow.
Jules @ 26: Re: #19: I agree that putting responsibility on the user is a good thing, and it might even get good-faith users to take a look at their uploads. However, I very much doubt that the "e-pirates" would stop uploading rather than "answer falsely". It strikes me as a bit like assuming that real pirates, after having robbed and burnt their way through several merchant ships, would be put off burying their treasure on a particular deserted island because of the "No Trespassing" sign.
Of course, that's pretty much the approach the industry counts on for technological solutions, too. Neatly summarized:
http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/bonobo-conspiracy/?i=19
James Macdonald @ #82: The two notices sent to scribd are here and here.
The draft statement was written later and not made public, as described by Charles Stross in #78.
Jonquil @ #79. Shouldn't be too long. It's already up at Ars Technica.
Actually, you can blame the French for that... but that's a long story itself.
I thought Germany had the longest copyright term, and most european countries bumped their terms up in the 90's to keep up with Germany. And then the CTEA was argued to be America's bump to keep up with europe.
Am I going to have to start eating Freedom Fries again? Oh, never mind. I'm on a diet anyway. I can't touch fries of any kind.
C.E. Petit @88:
A statement along the lines of, "Everything Cory and his commenters say is wrong and misguided, but I can't, legally, tell you why," strikes me as not contributing anything particularly helpful here.
If he's that misguided, surely someone out there can contribute an actual analysis of the flaws in his arguments.
(I'm not challenging your statement that you can't comment further, just suggesting that commenting at all without being able to elaborate provides us with little of actual value here).
Clifton@89, nice. I perused the comics and found this one too. In light of our recent wikipedia discussions, I'll just say:
bwhahahahaha!
How ironic that Andrew Burt should do this.
Andrew Burt was responsible for the first real unfettered access I had to USENET, back in the days when my telnet access was through a CP/CMS machine, and so telnet into Nyx was all cluttered with ANSI codes and improper scrolling yet still readable. aburt's Nyx site was where I originally went to read the newsgroup rec.arts.anime that a friend had told me about, and where I was then inducted into online writing circles where we wrote our tales and shared our stories freely on the Internet. Though defunct now, alt.pub.dragons-inn and alt.pub.havens-rest were really jumping back in the day.
And Burt was also a more direct champion of writing circles, too, in his work with Critters. According to the article, he believed that espousing some of the principles of the Open Source movement in writing would lead to more and better writers.
And now look what he's doing. What a shame that it should come to this.
C. E. Petit @ 88: There was no treaty obligation requiring us to extend our copyright terms from life+50 (which *is* a treaty obligation of the Berne Convention) to life+70. We extended it to "harmonize" with Europe, which in turn had extended in most countries to "harmonize" with Germany and Austria (as Greg pointed out.) That extension actually increased some terms to longer lengths than Europe's (since we basically just added 20 years to nearly all existing terms), and guess what-- there's now pressure in Europe in some quarters for them to extend those we as ll to "harmonize" with us....
*After* the Copyright Term Extension Act was passed, the US did make some bilateral treaties with some other countries (such as Australia) to make them increase their terms too, and lock in our own term extensions. So we do have some treaty obligations now for life+70, but we didn't at the time the law was passed.
#21 Dave Kuzminski
"...but it was briefly blocked because of a DMCA demand sent to our host by BayTSP, Inc. which represented the manufacturer of the product..."
BayTSP has a long record of messing up DMCA alerts for video content, as well.
#44 John Scalzi
"The irony is that today is the last day to get SFWA dues in, and I have to decide whether I want to bother. This isn't helping any."
If I were a conspiracy theory nut, I'd be highly suspicious of the timing on this (ooh, more ways to make the new up and coming writers angry, and leave SFWA!).
Good thing I'm not.
#50 ::: Bruce Cohen
"Has anyone ever treated an invalid takedown notice as attempted extortion?"
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode18/usc_sec_18_00000875----000-.html
Check out section (d). I'm just waiting for someone to use that wrt a DMCA, especially the heinous pre-litigation letters the RIAA sent out to college students.
#58 - Actually, I suspect my 1970s paper copy of Lud-in-the-Mist could also be considered a pirated text, in that Hope Merrilees was apparently still alive at the time and Lin Carter didn't try too hard to track her down (at least according to Wikipedia and Michael Swanwick.)
Barely related to the meat of the issue here, I was reading the proposed implementation details for the upload form.
Andrew Burt describes the storage requirements for the information entered in the upload form as:
"trivial (one byte per file is all that would be needed to store which selections they check as a bitmap)"
OK. I know that "bitmap" is the wrong term, unless he's storing a screenshot of the form, which would come in rather heavier than one byte. Clearly he's talking about a one-byte value that encodes the options, probably in a mapping of which bits are on.
So what is it called really? My brain has gone blank, probably from an overdose of popcorn and pirated e-books.
#97 Karen Swanberg
#44 John Scalzi
"The irony is that today is the last day to get SFWA dues in, and I have to decide whether I want to bother. This isn't helping any."
If I were a conspiracy theory nut, I'd be highly suspicious of the timing on this (ooh, more ways to make the new up and coming writers angry, and leave SFWA!).
Good thing I'm not.
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Curious, I've been reading this all morning and just now was looking up membership info on SFWA to compare it to Mystery Writers of America. I'm in MWA as an Affiliate member because I'm unpublished. That membership is open to "writers of crime/mystery/suspense fiction who are not yet professionally published, and others with an interest in the genre, including unpaid reviewers." http://www.mysterywriters.org/pages/join/index.htm
I haven't found a parallel membership for SFWA, so I'm wondering how much of stuff like this is fueled by a "if there are no sales there are no members and then no dues" train of thought.
I have no idea what exactly is going on here, and I honestly don't much care, but I'd like to correct and comment on a couple of details.
Michael Capobianco is a postman, not a lawyer. His wife Ann is a full-time writer, and also not a lawyer. No SFWA officers are lawyers at the moment.
Charlie Pettit is a lawyer, and if he says Cory Doctorow is wrong on a point of law, I'd tend to believe him.
When I resigned from SFWA my resignation letter was two sentences; not everyone feels it necessary to write a grandstanding letter when quitting in disgust.
I suspect this entire screw-up is Andrew Burt's doing, rather than SFWA's collectively. Not being a member, though, I can't be sure.
It strikes me that the SFWA's actions are a truly unprecedented rights-grab. Precisely the kind of rights-grab that copyright law exists to prevent.
I mean, really, they* are asserting the right to dictate how something is copied and they aren't the author. Somehow I don't think Charlie Stross would be too happy if someone sent Tor a C&D for publishing his next book "on his behalf". What happened is a fraudulent representation of ownership.
*I use "they" advisedly. Yeah, yeah, wossname sent the email, but if he's representing himself as the SFWA, then it's the SFWA's mess to clean up.
As far as I can tell to this point, there's still too much dust in the air to discern the exact nature of the explosion.
It's clear that Andrew Burt -- acting in his role as SFWA Vice President and ePiracy Committee chair -- and Scribd were in communication with each other. Now, there are SFWA members who've granted permission for its ePiracy Committee to act on their behalf with respect to unauthorized electronic distribution of their work, so in and of itself this shouldn't be cause for alarm.
It's clear the list of works arising from the communications between Andrew Burt and Scribd was broader than it should have been as far as any sort of copyright enforcement was concerned. That's certainly a problem.
However:
As the discussion here indicates (including but not limited to C. E. Petit's #58), there's a lot of room for questioning whether either Scribd or Burt (and, by extension, SFWA) acted consistently with DMCA procedure in formulating the list and/or taking down works thereon.
There appears to be room to chastise Burt/SFWA for delivering a procedurally faulty DMCA notice. But it seems to me that if one buys this line of logic, one must also chastise Scribd for accepting and acting on the faulty notice as if it were legitimate.
There is more clearly room to chastise Burt/SFWA for generating an inappropriately broad list of improperly posted works. Again, though: one must also blink at Scribd's blithe acceptance of that list -- especially in the context of the procedural DMCA objections raised above -- and its failure to vet the challenged works before actually taking them down.
The remaining question is the degree to which Andrew Burt's actions reflect (a) the informed will of SFWA's officers/Board, or (b) his own initiative in attempting to carry out the stated mission of the ePiracy Committee he chairs. Which of these is a more accurate formulation isn't yet clear (my strong personal suspicion leans toward (b), but that's as yet unsupported by direct evidence).
So while the present brouhaha doesn't make SFWA look good, it seems to me that there are any number of shoes potentially undropped as yet, and that there is a lot of room to point Arrows of Stupidity[tm] in any number of directions, by no means all of which lead to SFWA's doorstep.
abi at #99: So what is it called really?
He means bitmask.
Oh, one more nitpick: SFWA. Not "the SFWA." Damon Knight, who founded it, got very cranky about that -- it doesn't take the definite article any more than NASA dos.
I suspect this entire screw-up is Andrew Burt's doing, rather than SFWA's collectively.
Lawrence, this fiendish writer has many and much the same thoughts, and wishes to wrap wads of duct tape over said person's mouth. (And other parts of him.)
Alex Cohen @104:
Bitmask. Thank you. The term was not in its accustomed cubbyhole in my brain and it was itching.
TNH,
I have been a loyal SF reader (and purchaser) since 1982. I have never downloaded or otherwise acquired a pirated fiction of any kind. The closest I ever came was wanting to get ahold of digital copies of Barbara Hambly's works to do a full scale concordance of the nifty words. I never got around to it, assuming that it was a morally grey area. (Yes, yes, fair use and whatnot, but I didn't want to in some way support the sketchy net citizenry.)
Note to Bruce:
I didn't know that Scribd existed until today.
Thanks for the tip!*
*see also, "Streisand effect", word origin provided here.
It's not a bitmask - you would use a bitmask to get information out of the structure under discussion. While I see that "bit field" is a term used for this, I had never heard it until now - I would have called it a "bitmap" or a "bit vector." The usage of "bitmap" for this has probably fallen out of favor somewhat since the advent of the graphics bitmap, but I still see it used with some frequency.
John @ 103:
There appears to be room to chastise Burt/SFWA for delivering a procedurally faulty DMCA notice. But it seems to me that if one buys this line of logic, one must also chastise Scribd for accepting and acting on the faulty notice as if it were legitimate.There is more clearly room to chastise Burt/SFWA for generating an inappropriately broad list of improperly posted works. Again, though: one must also blink at Scribd's blithe acceptance of that list -- especially in the context of the procedural DMCA objections raised above -- and its failure to vet the challenged works before actually taking them down.
Having been on the receiving end of this law, I must agree and disagree. Completely agree that if the "notice" did not conform with the DMCA law (including, for example, the sworn statement on penalty of perjury), all Scribd had to do was say, "Golly! Send us a proper DMCA notice, and we'll sure take stuff down! ... But not until then."
But, once they've received a proper notice, I disagree that Scribd should have vetted the material themselves. That's part of the whole point of the safe harbor provisions: to keep the service provider from having to decide, on a case-by-case basis, whether a particular work is infringing - a determination that is properly made by a court, once an actual suit for infringement has been brought. It increases workload and liability for the service provider if they have to try to judge whether each individual work infringes.
The DMCA specifies that, if a suit alleging infringement hasn't been filed within two weeks of the takedown notice, all the files can go back up. That's what happened in my case, and I'm sure it was much easier for my ISP to temporarily disable 600+ files, wait two weeks, and then re-enable them when no suit was brought, than it would have been for them to eyeball each one of those pages. That alone probably would have taken more than two weeks.
Lawrence, thanks for the clarification,
Adam, that's just lawyer talk. I am not a lawyer, I cannot give legal advice, but I still trust Cory's reaction to this bruhaha.
92 Greg, it's the French's fault because of terms they insisted on inserting into the Treaty of Rome... and into Germany's post-WW2 copyright law that they hadn't yet inserted into their own. (Actually, it's always the French's fault... but that might just be some Prussian ancestry speaking. ;-) )
93 Adam, I realize you were just shorthanding, but I sort of resent the overstatement. There's a specific reason I said "legal consequences." I get enough misguided attacks made on me as a result of people listening to what some of the more-radical IWTBF maroons said we were trying to do in Ellison v. Robertson, so I'd really appreciate it if people would attack me for what I said if they disagree.
The irony that this kind of shorthanding is part of what gets Cory in trouble in his screed should not go unmentioned, either. If y'all don't know the legal technicalities, limit yer comments to policy, ok? Please, in the name of not turning ML into a law review with duelling footnotes?
96 John, I should have been clearer. There were no treaty obligations at the time Bono first introduced such legislation (1994, IIRC), true; but there were by the time the SBCTEA was passed, including both bilateral treaties with several South American countries, technical amendments to NAFTA, and the 1996 WIPO treaty-monster (which, technically, is either four, five, or seven different treaties — even parts of WIPO's own website aren't consistent!).
In any event, I was attempting to provide enough context for someone to remember why the DMCA ain't Sonny's fault.
100 Kendra, SFWA has a similar affiliate-membership class, from which I believe MWA derived its own comparable, but slightly different, criteria.
The topic has made it to Ars Technica as well.
Worse than Vogon poetry: bogus DMCA takedowns stun sci-fi lovers
It includes a very entertaining adjective for Cory:
"blogger/author/professional-loather-of-DRM Cory Doctorow"
C.E. Petit @ 113:
No insult was meant, and I truly didn't (and don't) doubt what you said about the legal consequences; I don't disagree with you about anything because (as you note), you're only commenting on the legal situation (not the "Burt's making SFWA look bad" stuff), and you're not in a position to talk about the legal specifics. I just find myself frustrated (as a non-lawyer) at being told that there's a counterargument, but not knowing the details.
Comments on SFWA: DMCA abusers: