well, that's great

[astolat]

mightygodking's journal (the one with the hilarious and snarky page-by-page review of DH) has been suspended. He had said in the post that he had gotten a DMCA takedown notice (for posting the review before the book came out, evidently), so he took down the post and put it back up again after the publication date

Comments

[rivkat]

If Scholastic sent a DMCA notice that complied with the formalities -- essentially stating under penalty of perjury that the sender represents the copyright owner, and stating (not under penalty of perjury) that the page identified infringes, then LJ has to take it down and give the poster notice in order to stay within the DMCA safe harbors, which it very much wants to do. If the notice is bogus, as this one pretty clearly is, then the proper response is to sent a counternotification, at which point LJ has to put the post back up unless the copyright owner actually sues in federal court. And, if you're really mad, sue the copyright owner for abusing the process, which occasionally happens. LJ's behaving pretty much as it should -- the issue is the DMCA and the misbehavior of Scholastic.

[alixtii]

That's what I thought.

[ltlj]

Okay, that makes sense. It sounds like Scholastic is taking advantage of the process, hoping that the reviewer won't know how to respond.

[kudra2324]

not to suggest getting overly involved, but might it be worth making sure the user in question knows this stuff?

[liviapenn]

It's actually pretty easy to find this stuff out by googling "DMCA takedown notice." One hopes that mightygodking has done at least that much research.

[kudra2324]

ah. i think i may have become overly contented with the "fandom knows everything" approach to research.

[abbylee]

While I haven't seen his letter nor am I on the Abuse Prevention team, as far as I know that information is contained in every letter the APT sends with DCMA stuff. At least the bit that says something along the lines of "if you believe you do have the rights, and are willing to go to court about it, here's how to file a counter notification."

[skalja]

If I read his post-suspension comments properly, he's aware that he has rights, but doesn't have the financial wherewithal to file and is choosing to leave lj instead.

[kudra2324]

wait but - from my reading of rivkat's post, finances don't become an issue unless scholastic actually sues. is there also a cost to simply sending the counternotification?

[skalja]

Well, someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought filing was the legal equivalent of saying, "Oh, yeah? Bring it!" It's saying you will fight this in the courts if the offended party really wants to sue, meaning - if you don't have the money to defend yourself in court, don't send a counternotification.

[kudra2324]

that's good to know.