http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/editorials/2013/12/19/phony-copyright-claims-exploit-holes-in-u-s--internet-law.html
This story has a blurb about how the President of Ecuador uses copyright law to keep damning news stories off the internet. If there is a cause for gamer's to attach themselves to it needs to be the complete overhaul of the copyright and patent system and news stories like this make our case even stronger.
"Rosie Gray, a reporter for Buzzfeed.com, learned that when she published a story based on leaked government documents that revealed Correa is trying to buy surveillance drones and telecommunications devices that would allow his spies to monkey with people?s cellphones.
Ecuador promptly filed a copyright-infringement notice that got the documents supporting her story removed from the Internet. Gray posted them on a different site, and Ecuador got them yanked again.
?It was a pretty ham-fisted attempt to intimidate us and put the genie back in the bottle,? Gray told me this week. Only on her third try did she find a site, DocumentCloud.com, with the spine to stand up to Correa.
There?s another reason to care about this: If Correa gets away with using the Digital Millenium Copyright Act to jerk around his enemies, it won?t be long until others follow suit.
?And it won?t always be a foreign state,? says blogger Steinbaugh. ?This abuse is growing. Any person or corporation can misuse this law to punish someone who criticizes them. It?s a real weakness in the law, which offers no incentive for Internet companies to question copyright-infringement claims, no matter how doubtful they are.? Unlike bananas and oil, this is an Ecuadorian export we can do without."
This story has a blurb about how the President of Ecuador uses copyright law to keep damning news stories off the internet. If there is a cause for gamer's to attach themselves to it needs to be the complete overhaul of the copyright and patent system and news stories like this make our case even stronger.
"Rosie Gray, a reporter for Buzzfeed.com, learned that when she published a story based on leaked government documents that revealed Correa is trying to buy surveillance drones and telecommunications devices that would allow his spies to monkey with people?s cellphones.
Ecuador promptly filed a copyright-infringement notice that got the documents supporting her story removed from the Internet. Gray posted them on a different site, and Ecuador got them yanked again.
?It was a pretty ham-fisted attempt to intimidate us and put the genie back in the bottle,? Gray told me this week. Only on her third try did she find a site, DocumentCloud.com, with the spine to stand up to Correa.
There?s another reason to care about this: If Correa gets away with using the Digital Millenium Copyright Act to jerk around his enemies, it won?t be long until others follow suit.
?And it won?t always be a foreign state,? says blogger Steinbaugh. ?This abuse is growing. Any person or corporation can misuse this law to punish someone who criticizes them. It?s a real weakness in the law, which offers no incentive for Internet companies to question copyright-infringement claims, no matter how doubtful they are.? Unlike bananas and oil, this is an Ecuadorian export we can do without."