Why does Wiki not get a DMCA for publishing illegal documents?

Everyone seems to throw DMCA theats around, but here is a well
known company Wiki that has violated US copyright laws by publishing
illegal content that was not approved to be published....

Isnt this a DMCA violation.

Why does the govt not just issue a DMCA takedown,
and take the domain for violating copyright laws?

and Wiki is on CNN every single day...

DMCA must not be as easy as people claim if Wiki is getting
away with publishing illegal documents on their website.

I mean if the govt can not do anything about Wiki that
is publishing their content without permission, then this
just makes DMCA an idea and a idle threat action rather then
it being an idea you can take action against....

It makes me wonder when I see these posts saying
"my domain was taken or shutdown due to dmca" really? because wiki
is getting universal exposure daily, and yet Wiki
is still online for publishing illegal content....

Makes me wonder if some are you are telling the truth
about your domain really being taken via dmca.

Maybe I spoke too soon...

WikiLeaks website kicked off Amazon's servers
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/top/all/7319447.html

 

The site your thinking of is

WIKILEAKS

not Wikipedia

and anyways the latest update was about a manhunt for the owner of the site.

 

DMCA is a US law that only applies to US hosted content.

It has nothing to do with your domain being taken.

Domains are taken for trademark violations via a WIPO action or lawsuit. Domains can also be seized in some cases by the government or lost in a civil lawsuit for copyright infringement.

Other countries have copyright laws that have both criminal and civil consequences - as "The Pirate Bay" operators have found out first hand.

Spend some time on educating yourself about what a DMCA notice actually is.

 

"Spend some time on educating yourself about what a DMCA notice actually is."

I get my education from DP...

I guess that says alot...

I guess 99% of people do not know what they are talking about anyway....

 

Many times when your exposing something you need the evidence. Many times this is protected by laws put in place by a country, but I think this is protected by them being in a haven for this type of activity. Iceland is the country they come from I think. Even though Julian Assange is swedish?

 

What do you mean by 'illegal content' anyway?

 

Nothing beats learning from real-world, established legal resources on the subject or two.

 

What I mean is that documents/content stolen, and uploaded to wikileaks without the permission of our govt.

correct me if I am wrong, but wikileaks founder accepted this content, and now publishes some or all of it online,
if his website is still up, and he is still on the run...if you or I did this, we would have been in jail the same day
for even accepting classified govt documents...

something also sounds off on this....

since when does interpol send out arrest notification warrants for rape?

If you google search "interpol rape"

Guess you comes up? Not some common rapist...

but the founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange

 

Man where do I start? Contrary to what "our govt." thinks and how it acts, its not in charge of the whole world. If you and I went to Chicago, smoked some pot and banged whores we'd be in jail the same day for that. However, people doing the same in Amsterdam would not. Illegal is a relative term.

Also, he's not on the run, he's in England and his attorney is in contact with their authorities. England doesn't know if they want to apprehend him on these dubiously supported claims of rape.

 

It is a legitimate point that DMCA could be used to achieve a purpose.

DMCA does give you a mechanism for shutting it down. You use whatever mechanism is available to shut something down quickly whatever it takes.

A US Government wanting something done is a very impatient litigant.

They could get it before a Judge in the middle of the night in an out of sessions hearing if need be to get the ruling they wanted.

They could call up the Norwegian Police or Swedish Police to go and shut down the server if they wanted. They have done stuff like that in the past. Politically it might be too expensive, and heighten the level of embarrassment associated with the revelations.

I suspect if they did issue a DMCA notice it wouldn't be a wise political move.

It would bring into sharper focus the fact that DMCA notices are issued for all kinds of nefarious reasons OTHER than copyright infringement.

It is obvious that Wikileaks didn't have permission to copy the documents.

In addition to whatever criminal laws they breached, they were also violating copyright. Copyright has historically been used as an instrument of censorship. It's historical roots are what a modern person would call 'censorship'.

The intellectual property gangsters, the big motion picture studios have little problem getting take-downs and this is a case of "national security"!!!!

There were major newspapers (NYT, WSJ and others). Getting them p****d off wouldn't be politically smart. Obama hasn't been known so far as being the kind of President that is really a friend of free speech as it is, and it would probably alienate the last few libertarians that still believe in him.

Every entity has a right to have control over their own documents. Even Doctors in Australia have protected their medical reports from disclosure by claiming copyright over them fairly recently

DMCA was legislation that arose out of World Treaty obligations in 1996 which gave rise to obligations of countries to implement 'DMCA like provisions'. In Australia we loosely refer to our '2000 Digital Reform Agenda' as our DMCA obligations.

It is merely an implementation by a country of their treaty obligations in 1996. (which would obviously vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, in terms of the implementation) There would be some kind of system for take-downs for protecting copyright. People refer to it loosely as DMCA legislation even in other countries.

Domains may be taken for trademark violations via WIPO or court proceedings but also for many other reasons (we have seen ICE do it, I have seen it done without legislation, and it has been done via DMCA. It will continue to occur under COICA)

Ultimately the US does have physical control over the custody of the switch - Virginia.

The Virginia domain name registrar co-operates with foreign Governments routinely through international law enforcement agents from consumer regulatory agencies to LEAs.

Eg in Purple Harmony Plates the defendant went to jail for contempt for not surrendering his domain name contrary to a Court order. Australian Government through the ACCC sought co-operation of the Registar who flipped the switch.

The point is the domain name registrar though is not intended to be an arm of the US Government.

When push comes to shove it may turn out like that. Even if you cynically believe that they control it completely they would at least have an interest in maintaining an illusion of independence. If they did how long would it take external entities to route around the problem. They'd probably figure out technical solutions fairly quickly.

It would be just a rather large scale temporary shut down followed by a by-pass.

The biggest obstacle would be getting universal consensus, as some countries dislike each other more than they dislike the US (believe it or not)

 

It could be trumped up charges.
I would like to know more about the details.
If it is that would be a pretty silly thing to do.
It will probably be one of the most heavily scrutinised criminal trials of the century.
He isn't without friends.

 

Where is all this google adsense appearing from on my posts???

 

Care to share actual examples of domains being taken with a DMCA filing?

 

While not necessarily a legal source, it should give one an almost layperson explanation:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DMCA

Then you might understand why DMCA won't apply in Wikileaks' case.

And I haven't heard of a domain taken by a DMCA, either...

 

@mjewel, no I cannot name IDs. I said done "without legislation" meaning extralegally via DMCA type take-down notices.

@Dave Zan thanks for the reference to Wikipedia I do realise that the DMCA is US law. I am a lawyer with a Masters in IP/IT law. (please re-read my post - DMCA 'type' take down notices). I think Wikipedia is great but because something is not reported either on Wikipedia, located in any global legislation, case-law or legal textbook doesn't mean that it hasn't happened. I guess that is why Wikileaks started...just a thought?

There would be much easier ways to deal with him. Have him extradited and prosecute him under the Espionage Act, declare Wikileaks an FTO and threaten anyone providing material support to it.

Amazon didn't take long to roll over did it? Before you say it...thank you...I do realise Wikileaks is run over multiple national jurisdictions on multiple online servers and under different domain names. They can hop from host to host but for how long. I hope forever.

Lieberman was involved in the Amazon take-down, or so it is alleged. Do you remember the Wikileaks judgement of Judge Jeffrey White? It happened at the speed of light.

It may seem a bit of a stretch to use DMCA 'type' take-downs, given past unsuccessful attempts against Wikileaks to do so and easier means are available.

The point I was making is that it has been done before. I can say that people and entities have been ACTIVELY encouraged to direct their other alleged multiple violations (re: illegal/infringing content - various kinds) from another division of Google to be happily processed by the DMCA take-down division and processed through them under the guise of copyright take-down notices.

Other dirty tactics:

Repeat the process of sending C&D letters to all online intermediaries:

-webhosts
-ISPs
-domain registrars
-all search engines

In a world of overlapping economic interests, registrars, hosts, advertisers and supporters can all be strongarmed. In the 'real world' people go after payment processors, advertisers, associates, business partners, ISP upstreams, legally or illegally.

 

Ah yes, I remember that. I also remember some lawyers also questioning the "wisdom" of
that judge issuing the shut-down order based on that DCMA complaint.

I guess you just needed to clarify that it's shutdown, not "seizure". Heh.

 

I mean both can and have occurred.
I didn't say they have with Wikileaks.

 

Its also worth mentioning that many people including the Church of Sceintology abuse the DMCA Takedown process

http://www.thezach.net/blog/abuse-of-the-dmca-takedown-process/

 

The abuses have been legion. The one that is most vivid in my mind wasn't a take-down notice but the arrest by the FBI of Skylarov for giving a speech to a bunch of academics in the USA. He was charged with distributing a product designed to circumvent copyright protection measures. Eventually they released him but it certainly chilled free speech and caused a few scientists to re-arrange their travel plans to America.

 

WikiLeaks.org is now offline....

This should tell you how hard it can be to bring down a website...

Wikileaks had to get negative nationwide and worldwide attention before someone acted to shut down the wiki website...

Your website is fairly safe as long as you do not do the following:

(1) Do not piss off the govt....
(2) Do not piss off the world....
(3) Do not conduct illegal activities....

It almost took an act of god to bring down the wiki website....

If Julian Assange rec'd a DMCA notice, then he laughed at it....

He had to get worldwide attention before anyone took action....