Dreamhost on DMCA (versus MediaTemple)
Having had way too much experience with the negative aspects of the DMCA lately, I was pleasantly surprised to find an article at Plagiarism Today referencing DreamHost’s blog post on Dealing with a DMCA Crook.
I love the fact that DreamHost goes out of its way to be clear that the DMCA can be used with no legal basis:
While the DMCA does offer some major benefits to both copyright holders and web hosts like DreamHost - legal immunity, woo-hoo! - it’s not always used as a force for good. Occasionally, unscrupulous types (and I’m looking at you, Church of Scientology!) will attempt to use the DMCA as a cudgel to take down sites that they don’t like, even when they are clearly in the legal right under copyright law.
Even better is the fact that DreamHost stands up to those attempts:
Liability issues aside, we’re not about to knowingly help someone silence valid criticism by going along with false or overly broad DMCA Notifications.
I’m contrasting that with the treatment I recently received at the hands of my current host, MediaTemple.
There was an obviously non-infringing incident, a person who did not want criticism, and a DMCA takedown. Without doing even the least amount of fact-checking, MediaTemple told me to take down the content within 24 hours, or they’d do it for me.
When I talked to an individual at MediaTemple, I was told that this was corporate policy so that they were not at risk. That’s the legal immunity part.
The bigger risk, though, is that free speech suffers when merely alleging that an incident has occurred is the full and complete basis for censorship … at least in my opinion.
While I can understand MediaTemple not wanting to accept any legal risk whatsoever, I wholeheartedly applaud DreamHost for shouldering their part of the burden of the ongoing fight to keep freedom free.
Kudos to DreamHost!
[tags] dreamhost, mediatemple, dmca, legal, risk, censorship, john koetsier [/tags]
Complaint department
This is good:
Saw it on HorsePigCow.
[tags] complaints, funny, john koetsier [/tags]
Acrobat is a real space hog
One thing that has always irritated me about Adobe’s Acrobat applications is that they are real space hogs. Upon launch, they immediately expand to fill all available space:
Note, that’s all available space - as wide as your monitor will allow. Not, as one might expect, a reasonable size that is commensurate with the size of the document that you’re opening and viewing. To me, this makes Acrobat one on the long list of rude applications.
Annoying!
[tags] acrobat, space hog, PDF, john koetsier [/tags]
Chris DiBona or Fabio?
Whoa … I see Chris DiBona of Google’s open source program is helping NASA move 120 terabytes of data … all the data that the Hubble space telescope has ever collected.
Now that’s a LOT of data. Very cool. Hope they don’t lose any spare terabytes here or there.
But what’s with this pic? Is it Chris DiBona or Fabio?
This has gotta be a gag shot …
[tags] chris dibona, google, nasa, terabytes, hubble, john koetsier [/tags]
DMCA takedown notice retracted
I’ve been in touch with the owner of Motiono.com, Sumer Kolcak, and we’ve decided to amicably resolve the differences between us.
Sumer has sent an email to MT telling them that he is withdrawing the DMCA takedown notice that he sent; I’ll preface my posts on this issue with a line stating that we’ve resolved our differences.
This is really good news, and a wonderful resolution to the somewhat stressful events of the past few days.
More info later …
[tags] motiono.com, john koetsier, dmca, resolution [/tags]
GUST … Timothy Johnson’s at it again
Just opened a package in the mail - it’s Timothy Johnson’s new GUST: the “Tale” Wind of Office Politics.
Where does the guy get the time? It seems like just a few months ago that he came out with Race Through the Forest: a Project Management Fable.
Very cool … I’ll be reading it in the next week or so and post some thoughts. Thanks, Tim!
. . .
. . .
FYI here’s Tim’s blog post announcing the book. And if you’re wondering what GUST stands for, here’s his explanation:
GUST is an acronym to describe a process of approaching office politics:
- Game - figure out what is being manipulated and the source of friction
- Understand - determine what is behind the players, the behaviors, and the motivations
- Strategize - establish an approach that will get you as close to win-win as possible
- Take Action - get your ducks in a row as you implement your political strategy
[tags] timothy johnson, books, gust, john koetsier, office politics [/tags]
MediaTemple not here when we need them
March 22 note added:
I’ve been in touch with the owner of Motiono.com and we’ve resolved our differences amicably. The DMCA takedown notice has been removed.
Recent bogus DMCA notice submitted to Chilling Effects
March 22 note added:
I’ve been in touch with the owner of Motiono.com and we’ve resolved our differences amicably. The DMCA takedown notice has been removed.
Thank-you EFF for DMCA help!
March 22 note added:
I’ve been in touch with the owner of Motiono.com and we’ve resolved our differences amicably. The DMCA takedown notice has been removed.
DMCA takedown notice from MediaTemple
March 22 note added:
I’ve been in touch with the owner of Motiono.com and we’ve resolved our differences amicably. The DMCA takedown notice has been removed.
-
-
About
Sparkplug 9 is John Koetsier's blog on life, the universe, and everything,
but mostly the stuff you see big in the tags to the left.
Welcome, enjoy, buy the T-shirt, take a picture, tell your friends. -
Virtual me
-
Blogroll