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Last week, the big news in DMCA takedowns was the sweeping removal of Hitler parody videos . Earlier this year, it was Google suddenly wiping out six separate music blogs . Today, it's the removal of a tweet . While this might not seem like a big deal on the surface, it leads to some much bigger questions about free speech, what content should fall under a proper DMCA take-down and whether or not the DMCA is a legal method of applying censorship by any content owner. Sponsor Here's the story as told by TechDirt: The story involves a music blogger named JP, who runs the appropriately named JP's blog . Not surprisingly, JP also has a Twitter account , where he mostly seems to post links to his blog posts. One such post was about the leak of the new album by The National. That post includes a link to Amazon where people can purchase the new album... and also a link to a download of one song (in MP3 format) from the album. According to JP's blog post on the subject, Twitter sent him a message last Thursday "in response to a DMCA take-down notice". The email, he writes, read as follows: jp917, Apr 22 03:10 pm (PDT): Hello, The following material has been removed from your account in response to a DMCA take-down notice: Tweet: http://twitter.com/jp917/statuses/12499491144 - New Post: Leaked: The National - High Violet http://jpsblog.net/2010/04/20/leaked-the-national-high-violet/ JP denies posting any link to the leaked album in his tweeted blog post, saying that he will not bother filing a counterclaim to the take-down. He also links to an article in Plagiarism Today from a year ago that alleges that Twitter's handling of DMCA take-downs and counterclaims is problematic and that "there is clearly an organization issue here and that's leading to confusion." While last weeks' take-downs of parody videos may have been "overbroad take-downs of legal content" , as the Electronic Frontier Foundation asserted, this sort take-down may go an extra step, beyond constitutionally protected First Amendment speech. With the YouTube take-downs, at least there was copyrighted content present, although it may have been used according to the law in the end. In this case, according to JP, there was neither pirated content nor a link to any DMCA-violating content. While TechDirt argues that "specifically, nothing in the tweet itself is infringing -- which means that the DMCA take-down for the tweet is bogus, and a violation of the DMCA itself", we spoke with David Sohn, senior policy council with the Center for Democracy & Technology , who said that the question might not be so cut and dry. Section 5.12D of the DMCA relates to cases involving "information location tools" and "links". "One possibility here is that Twitter has gotten a take-down notice that might not stand up as a totally valid take-down notice," said Sohn. On Sohn's advice, we asked Wendy Seltzer, founder of ChillingEffects.org , what this all meant and she explained that the burden of proof lies with the person creating the content and not the platform. All the platform, in this case Twitter, needs to know is that the complaint me be valid and that, by removing the offending content, they cover themselves legally in the eyes of the DMCA. Whether or not section 5.12 D of the DMCA actually applies doesn't really matter. The introduction to her recent paper, "Free Speech Unmoored in Copyright's Safe Harbor: Chilling Effects of the DMCA on the First Amendment" (.pdf), speaks clearly to the problem we saw when first reading this story: Each week, more blog posts are redacted, more videos deleted, and more web pages removed from Internet search results based on private claims of copyright infringement. Under the "safe harbors" of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), Internet service providers are encouraged to respond to copyright complaints with content takedowns, assuring their immunity from liability while diminishing the rights of their subscribers and users. Paradoxically, the law's shield for service providers becomes a sword against the public who depend upon these providers as platforms for speech. The problem with the current format of the DMCA, especially in the case of something like a communication platform such as Twitter, is that a DMCA take-down notice becomes an extremely effective means of silencing information for a legally mandated period of 10 days. In essence, it provides those who wish to silence a voice a quick and legal means of enacting what is called a " prior restraint ", something clearly prohibited in First Amendment law. "When non-infringing speech is taken down, not only does its poster lose an opportunity to reach an audience, the public loses the benefit of hearing that lawful speech in the marketplace of ideas," writes Seltzer in the paper. Twitter offered this response: "Twitter regularly receives DMCA takedown notices. We strive to balance the interests of our users and copyright holders by reviewing each notice. After determining whether the notice is compliant with the law, we also consider other factors such as whether the notice is abusive to our users, or fails to take fair use into consideration. You can read more about our DMCA process here: http://help.twitter.com/entries/15795-copyright-and-dmca-policy "We are always working to improve our transparency. Users are notified immediately when content has been removed from their account. In this situation, we responded to a request to remove a Tweet containing a link to download content from an unreleased album. After reexamining our decision, we believe this was the correct first step. If the affected user believes we have made a mistake or that the notice is in error, the appropriate thing for the user to do is file a counter-claim. "We believe that the reasoning of the DMCA claim and its origin should be transparent to both the affected user and other interested parties. We are working on further steps to improve access to this information." So, our next logical question here is: Since this post includes the email from Twitter, which includes that original link to a blog post that supposedly linked to infringing content, can it too be removed according to the guidelines of the DMCA? Discuss
The rest is here:
Twitter, DMCA Take-downs & the Prior Restraint of First Amendment Speech
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Hyperlocal news aggregator EveryBlock is set to announce a new content partnership with government 2.0 mobile app and website SeeClickFix later today, according to an article by PaidContent . Sponsor Everyblock aggregates public records, blog posts and other content about very specific geographic locations, automatically. SeeClickFix acts on a similarly hyperlocal basis, giving its users the ability to report issues to their local government using their smartphone. EveryBlock just went "Web 2.0" last January, by allowing its users to make contributions to what was previously a editor and algorithm created compilation of block by block news. For now, the addition of SeeClickFix will be a one-way street, only adding more news into the content stream. Unfortunately, it doesn't currently allow users to do what we would really hope for in a partnership between these two companies - report issues to the local government in the most hyperlocal of newsy apps. Update : As noted by EveryBlock CEO Adrian Holovaty in the comments below, the lack of updatability is due to SeeClickFix not having a writable API, a problem that is likely to be solved in the near future. This sort of reporting is SeeClickFix's bread and butter, but for now EveryBlock is set to remain firmly in the read-only realm. While you will now be notified when someone down the street uses SeeClickFix to get the road crew to come fix that pesky pothole, you'll have to switch apps or dial trusty old 311 to get the same done. According to PaidContent, SeeClickFix has seen 14,000 issues, from potholes to clogged drains to crosswalk requests, over the past six weeks, which can be passed directly on to local government officials. EveryBlock was purchased last August by MSNBC and is currently available in 16 cities. EveryBlock competes in hyperlocal automated news publishing with Fwix , Outside.in and NozzlMedia . SeeClickFix competes in mobile municipal reporting with CitySourced . Discuss
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EveryBlock Going Government 2.0 With SeeClickFix
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A new study released earlier this month seems to contradict findings from Pew Internet Project's February report on the declining blog authorship and blog readership among the youngest generation of online users. Instead of seeing a downward trend in blogging, the latest research appears, at first glance, to have us questioning those prior reports. According to the latest study, this one from BlogHer and iVillage (red flag?) and co-sponsored by Ketchum and The Nielsen Company , young adults known as "millenials" are the top demographic group in both reading and writing blogs with nearly one-third reporting they read blogs and just over 40% saying they blog themselves. So was the earlier study - the one claiming "kids don't blog" anymore - wrong? Sponsor Odd Demographics Studied In the new study, the focus was on four age groups: millenials (ages 18-25), Gen X/Y (26-42), Boomers (43-61) and Seniors (62-76). This is a confusing segmentation of demographic groups because they've lumped in some of the millenials with the the "Gen X" group to create a hybrid group called "Gen X/Y." The term "millenials," however, is often used interchangeably with "Gen Y," so it's unclear why they've decided to break up that demographic group in this way. To boost Gen X's numbers, perhaps? We can't be sure. Ignoring Those Under 18 More importantly, the study simply ignores the youngest generation, the one we like to call "generation I" or the "iGeneration" (you can guess why), which was a major focus of Pew's study. In fact, Pew's study showed that only 14% of tweens and teens ages 12 to 17 now report that they blog , down from 25% only four years ago . And only 52% reporting reading and commenting on their friends' blog, down from over three-quarters back in 2006. In other words, the Internet's newest users aren't blogging or all that interested in reading blogs. Instead, they prefer Facebook, said the study. It's their method of communication between friends and for getting the latest news. Yes, sigh, Facebook is the new Internet. And the social network's latest moves will only further solidify that position with the launch of the universal "like" button for the entire web, the "instant personalization" provided by websites like Pandora and Yelp (to start), the "sign in with Facebook" boxes that appear on seemingly every site now and so on. How this youngest online generation uses the Internet is an important trend to watch. Although their habits may change over time, it's worth considering that their general disinterest in sharing their thoughts, feelings, news and ideas via blogging is a trend that will continue as they age. After all, who needs to blog when you have Facebook? BlogHer/iVillage's Findings For what it's worth, the BlogHer/iVillage study found that those 18-25 were the group most likely to write or read blogs, with 40.4% reporting the write blogs and 30.3% reporting they read them . The mysterious Gen X/Y group was a close second with 28.1% of the group saying they were blog authors and 29.3% saying they were blog readers. Some of the other numbers are questionable, although we have no way of proving their legitimacy or lack thereof. But really: 12.8% of bloggers are seniors? This is perhaps the most shocking number of them all. Nothing against seniors, of course, but I live in a state filled with them , and I have yet to meet a single senior who even knows what a blog is, much less authors one. At the end of the day, the study's numbers just feel a little too bullish on this whole blogging thing for my tastes. Plus, there's little info about the methodology included in the report and, then there's the fact that BlogHer, a blogging community for women, is, in part, behind the research. The truth of the matter is that neither this latest study nor Pew's research is likely painting an entirely accurate picture of the blogging landscape. We've questioned Pew's methodology many times in the past and we're skeptical of positive studies put out by those who would benefit from the news.
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Parsing real-time information that streams down a screen as a list of short text updates isn't easy. Thanks to two new visualization tools from PostRank , however, the company's users can now use PostRank's new entity extraction feature to see real-time updates in your stream on a map and through a tree map interface. These two new features will be available to developers through Postrank's real-time API . You can also find demos of PostRanks real-time geo and entity trends here and here . Sponsor The tree map view gives news organizations the ability to quickly see which of topics and stories they are tracking are currently trending. PostRank analyzes the updates it receives in real-time and extracts proper names, places and things. The tree map, which updates in real-time, then displays these updates and ranks them according to "share of voice." PostRank also performs sentiment analysis on these updates and colors the updates accordingly. The geo map works similarly, but instead of extracting proper names, places and things, this algorithm just focuses on places. Thanks to this, a PostRank customer can easily see which cities, countries and regions are currently being mentioned online. The demos are now available in PostRank's new Labs section - which opened earlier this month. Discuss
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PostRank Launches New Tools to Visualize the Real-Time Web
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Blippy , the controversial site where the over-sharing, web-connected generation can link their credit cards and share their purchases has just come under fire from numerous tech blogs as it has been discovered that people's credit card numbers are now available on Google. The site's value has been hotly debated since its launch with some saying it's an incredible recommendation service while others say it's a privacy disaster waiting to happen. Interestingly enough, it was featured yesterday on the New York Times , where that same question was posed to readers. Sponsor Now, thanks to a tipster who apparently emailed all the popular technology blogs (see: VentureBeat , Mashable , CenterNetworks for more coverage), there's a way to enter a simple search query into Google and get back the credit card numbers of Blippy users. The query is: site:blippy.com +"from card" At present, this security hole seems to be affecting Citibank-issued MasterCard numbers only, according to the bloggers at VentureBeat . Blippy proponents will likely argue that the mistake, although quite a large one, was caught in time before major damage could be done. It's doubtful that any identify thieves have been able to retrieve these credit card numbers quickly enough to cause harm to those affected. However, the users whose credit card info has been compromised will now have to cancel their cards and be issued new ones - a hassle to say the least. Was the benefit of using Blippy worth it? What if this security hole was only discovered by criminals and not a white-hat hacker type like the guy who contacted us? We've argued before that people should definitely weigh the risks to their privacy before using services like Blippy, especially since you're not just sharing info from one private credit card account, you're aggregating all of them. If Blippy's infrastructure was compromised, hackers could get all your credit card info and the usernames and passwords you use across the web, too. (Probably the same one you use everywhere, if you're like most people). If that risk is acceptable to you, then by all means, share away. You might find it interesting to see what others have shared too. But when something like this happens, don't be surprised. Nothing put on the Web is ever really private - as this breach clearly shows. Discuss
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Credit Card Numbers Now on Google Thanks to Blippy
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