News report on Scientology's successful attempt to have pages removed from the Internet Archive (at archive.org): http://news.com.com/2100-1023-959236.html Scientology's recent white paper a church spokeswoman sent to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/p-03917.html I'd like to invite both the Archive folks (who provide an excellent and valuable service) and a Scientology representative to reply to Politech and clarify what's going on. It would be a public service for the Archive to publicize what procedures it will follow when receiving DMCA cease-and-desist letters in the future. It could, for instance: (1) change the default "page deleted" text; (2) forward the letter to chillingeffects.org; (3) offer the archivee the opportunity to reply; (4) investigate the request to make sure it's not overly broad; (5) pledge to do its best to preserve the public availability of information in the Archive. It would be a public service for Scientology to state that it's interested only in pursuing legitimate violations of its copyrights that are not protected by a reasonable definition of fair use and it has no intention of going further than that. If its request to the Archive was broader, and it seems to be, I'd encourage Scientology to narrow it. -Declan --- From: Dave_Touretzkyat_private To: infoat_private cc: brewsterat_private, media-relationsat_private, hugh.scottat_private, declanat_private Subject: open letter to the Internet Archive Date: Tue, 24 Sep 2002 19:48:06 -0400 As the owners of SlatkinFraud.com, one of the websites that has been blocked completely from the Internet Archive, we were left puzzled and disturbed by the recent explanation provided by archive.org for our site's omission. While we understand that the organization behind the Wayback Machine does not want to unwittingly contribute to copyright infringement, we are distressed by the way in which the removal of our site was conducted, and the lack of feedback that we received from archive.org when we questioned this decision earlier this year. When a Wayback Machine user attempts to access the archived version of SlatkinFraud.com, they are instead provided with a misleading message claiming that the 'site owners' requested that it not be included in the archive. This is wholly untrue, and entirely in contradiction to the actual views of the website owners in question, who would very much like to see our site become part of the Internet Archive. The material contained within SlatkinFraud.com is wholly owned and maintained by its site owners. Unfortunately, as has become clear in recent days, SlatkinFraud.com is not the only site that has been summarily removed from the Archive based on complaints from the Church of Scientology. In the explanation recently provided by archive.org, the writer notes that the Church "asserted ownership" of an unknown quantity of material that was, at the time, available through the Wayback Machine archives. The maintainers of archive.org, however, have apparently made no effort whatsoever to inform site owners of these complaints lodged against their material, and in fact, until now, had not even replied to direct questions regarding the removal of certain sites when asked by the site owners in question. This is clearly not an acceptable system for determining what sites or material should be archived by the Wayback Machine, since it does not adhere to one of the main provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act: the counter-notification process. Under the DMCA, the owner of a site that has been alleged to contain infringing material has the right to challenge that claim via a counternotification letter to the hosting ISP if he or she believes that the material in question does not infringe on the copyright in question. After receiving this counter-notification from the user, the ISP is obliged to replace any files that were temporarily removed pending the complaint, at which point the original complainant must either initiate formal legal action against the owner of the site, or drop the matter entirely. This system provides an important check to the sometimes perilous balance between the rights of copyright owners, and those of users. By formalizing the process, and allowing a response from the individual responsible for the alleged infringement, it frees the hosting company from the annoyance of dealing with frivolous claims. A similar situation that arose resulted from similar complaints made by Church of Scientology lawyers about certain listings on the popular search engine Google. These complaints initially resulted in the wholesale removal of several Scientology-related sites from the Google database. Once this omission was discovered, the decision taken by Google to remove the sites without notice led to an outcry from its users. In fact, on closer examination of the complaints from Scientology, it became immediately obvious that the Church's lawyers were acting in bad faith by deliberately mixing trademark and copyright complaints, even though trademark complaints are not covered under the DMCA at all. The ensuing barrage of criticism and media coverage both national and international forced Google to reconsider its decision. After several days, the company replaced the links in question, and agreed to make public any further DMCA complaints in cooperation with Chilling Effects, a non-profit website dedicated to preventing abuse of existing copyright law. This solution was welcomed by Google users, who had felt betrayed not only by the removal itself, but by the lack of disclosure on the part of Google regarding the initial complaints. The explanation offered by the Internet Archive does not mention whether the original complaints received from the Church of Scientology were made under the provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Such information would be helpful to site owners such as ourselves, as it would assist us in determining whether a complaint is justified, and remove any infringing material on our own volition. Assuming that it was, in fact, a DMCA request, it would serve archive.org well to follow the same procedure as that eventually and successfully - - adopted by Google, and make every effort to inform site owners of such complaints in a timely manner. This could be done through a simple email alert system that would inform the site owner that a complaint had been made, or through a similar policy to that of Google, and publicizing the letters, either on the archive.org website itself or through an interested third party such as Chilling Effects. This would allow the site owners to decide whether or not to issue a counter-notification, and relieve the Internet Archive of any concerns over contributory liability that may have played a role in its decision to remove the material without warning. It would also discourage copyright owners from making frivolous complaints about material that is obviously protected by fair use, since the process requires that formal legal action be taken within thirty days of receiving the counter notification letter. Should archive.org decide not to re-list a site within the Wayback Machine at this point, which is, of course, its right, it should also refrain from suggesting that this was at the request of the site owner, and instead, explain its own concerns over potential infringement. Finally, given the enormity of the Internet Archive project, and the benefits that it has provided, and, we hope, will continue to provide to the online community, it is essential for the Library maintainers to be open and transparent about the methodology used in selecting sites to be archived. Removing sites from the archive in a clandestine fashion, as dictated by the current policy, will only lead to increased concern that the Archive itself is rewriting the Internet history that it seeks to chronicle. The Internet Archive's stated commitment is to provide a useful, wide-ranging resource for researchers, historians and scholars. It is surely in part due to such an admirable mandate that the Internet Archive has benefited from contributions from sponsors such as Alexa Internet, AT&T, Compaq and Xerox PARC, not to mention many individual supporters who believe in the idea of an Internet history that is freely accessible to all. It is doubtful that these supporters would want to see this ambitious initiative tainted by the suggestion that the integrity of the archive itself has been corrupted by those who would misuse copyright and trademark laws to censor views with which they disagree. The risk of such silent, selective discrimination against protected speech is great; the power to prevent such abuses by making all information related to such attempts to discriminate will always be greater. Clearly, the best course of action is for the Internet Archive to adopt policy that is not only transparent, but dedicated to protecting not only its own interests, but those of copyright owners, site creators and, of course, the thousands of individuals who use the Wayback Machine and other Internet Archive services on a daily basis. On balance, the approach taken by Google, modified appropriately for the particular situation faced by the Internet Archive, would seem to be an excellent roadmap for the Internet Archive to follow. Kady O'Malley, Dave Touretzky, and Scott Pilutik Owners of SlatkinFraud.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Like Politech? Make a donation here: http://www.politechbot.com/donate/ Recent CNET News.com articles: http://news.search.com/search?q=declan CNET Radio 9:40 am ET weekdays: http://cnet.com/broadband/0-7227152.html -------------------------------------------------------------------------
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