wordpress fighting dmca

[silicon_toad2000]

http://torrentfreak.com/wordpress-demands-10000-dmca-takedown-abuse-140615/

Automattic, the company behind the popular WordPress blogging platform, has seen a rapid increase in DMCA takedown notices in recent years.

Most requests are legitimate, aimed at disabling access to copyright-infringing material. However, there are also many overbroad and abusive takedown notices which take up a lot of the company’s time and resources.

Last November, WordPress decided to take a stand against these fraudulent practices. The company teamed up with student journalist Oliver Hotham who had one of his articles censored by a false takedown notice.

Hotham wrote an article about “Straight Pride UK” which included a comment he received from the organization’s press officer Nick Steiner. The latter didn’t like the article Hotham wrote, and after publication Steiner sent WordPress a takedown notice claiming it was infringing on his copyrights.

Through a lawsuit filed in a California federal court, WordPress and Hotham now hope to be compensated for the damage this abuse caused them.

“The information in the press release that Hotham published on his blog did not infringe any copyright because Hotham had permission to publish it. It was a press release, which by its very nature conveys the intent to ‘release’ information to the ‘press’,” WordPress’ attorney explains to the court.

The company says that as an online service provider it faces overwhelming and crippling copyright liability if it fails to take down content. People such as Steiner abuse this weakness to censor critics or competitors, and they have to be stopped.

“Steiner’s fraudulent takedown notice forced WordPress to take down Hotham’s post under threat of losing the protection of the DMCA safe harbor,” WordPress argues.

“Steiner did not do this to protect any legitimate intellectual property interest, but in an attempt to censor Hotham’s lawful expression critical of Straight Pride UK. He forced WordPress to delete perfectly lawful content from its website.As a result, WordPress has suffered damage to its reputation,” the company adds.

[GhostShip]

I think they should take on the guy in the UK courts as this is akin to filing for a case in a foreign jurisdiction when its clear the other party may have no way to defend the case, thus weakening the importance of any judgement.

Simple libel or even human rights act laws cover this case in the UK so theres no reason to file it outside of the UK except to create possible hurdles to representation and worse it could indicate the case may be weaker than claimed and thus they have cherry picked the court to file complaint in to gain an advantage.

I think both sides in this are playing a poor game of morals disguised under the veneer of a DMCA case, the classic "I don't agree with your views" argument turned nasty, in such cases there is no winner.