Throwing It Out Into The Interwebs

Monday night and I find myself drinking alone. Is that as sad and depressing as it sounds? I have learned one thing, Googeling old friends when your already feeling a bit down is not productive. They will invariably be successful and good looking and that will make you feel like a putz for even wanting to know what they were up to.

Other things that seem like they will help but don't really:
1. Vodka - this seemingly joy-making liquid will only enhance your bad mood.
2. Radiohead - they may speak to your soul when you feel low, but the depressing chord progressions are just that, depressing.
3. Cats - no, not the musical but the fuzzy kind. They may seem furry and deliciously comforting but when you are busy being self deprecating they are only shitfull, fat distractions.

Despite these three insightful points I shall continue to drink and listen to Radiohead and I won't bake the cats in a pie just yet.

Only I may dance!

So you know, I back-dated this to coincide exactly with the 6 month anniversary of the blog. None but I may back-date without permission! Cheer up though. If you're here now, you get a free picture of me dancing.

Ok, so it's not me. But the kitty has permission to dance in my place. We shall call him 'Mono' and all will once again be right with the universe. Enjoy the 6 months dammit. I've rambled enough now, so it's over to the rest of my crew. Take it away crew.... crew?

-Salem
Happy 6 months all, now where's my crew at?

A Personal Struggle

No, it's probably not what you think. My struggle is that I can never decide when it comes to lawyers. Do I love them? Do I hate them? It's hard to say. Today, I think I'll concede that I love this one at least. I hope she's a looker and here's why:

NFL fumbles DMCA takedown battle, could face sanctions

By Jacqui Cheng Published: March 20, 2007 - 11:35AM CT

It's no secret that some content owners don't seem to understand how the DMCA works—that, or they simply don't care when sending mass takedown notices. This seems to be the case with the recent saga of legal maneuvers between the National Football League (NFL) and Brooklyn Law School professor Wendy Seltzer. The two have been going back and forth with DMCA-related "requests" since early February—with YouTube stuck in between—and in the process, the NFL itself appears to have violated the DMCA.

The story began when Seltzer posted a YouTube clip on her personal blog in early February. The clip showed the NFL's copyright message that aired during the Super Bowl:

This telecast is copyrighted by the NFL for the private use of our audience, and any other use of this telecast or of any pictures, descriptions or accounts of the game without the NFL's consent is prohibited

Seltzer took exception to this claim—as it clearly makes no concession for fair use—and wanted to show her students how content owners are beginning to exaggerate their rights.

Five days later, she received a DMCA takedown notice through YouTube, saying that the NFL had claimed copyright violation and that the clip had been removed. Ironic? Perhaps, but it gets better. Seltzer, law professor by day, is also staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) by night and founder of Chilling Effects, a web site dedicated to educating the public about online rights. Very well aware of her own rights under DMCA, she promptly sent a counter-notification to YouTube (generated by the Chilling Effects counter-notice generator, no less), citing Section 512 of the DMCA saying that YouTube must replace the material if they receive a counter-notification asserting "good faith belief" that the material removal was a mistake.

Several weeks after that, Seltzer's Super Bowl copyright notice clip came back online as a result of her counter-notification. Seltzer was happy that the system appeared to work the way it was designed to work and assumed that the NFL had decided not to sue to keep the video offline. She was wrong, however. Just 12 days later, the NFL filed yet another takedown notice with YouTube for the clip, and YouTube complied once again.

This is where the saga starts to get messy. Seltzer's counter-notification—which was forwarded to the NFL from YouTube—clearly described her use of the clip as fair use: "an educational excerpt featuring the NFL's overreaching copyright warning aired during the Super Bowl." As Seltzer outlines in her blog post, the NFL's only option in response to her counter-claim would be to force her to remove the clip via court proceedings. This obviously did not happen, and instead, the NFL chose to ignore her claims completely. After receiving her counter-notification claiming fair use, sending another takedown notice over the same content is considered a knowing misrepresentation that the clip is infringing, according to DMCA section 512(f)(1). Under the DMCA, the NFL would be liable for all legal fees incurred by the alleged infringer, along with damages.

Essentially, the NFL is now in violation of the same law that it is using to try to protect its own content. And, instead of following the proper procedures outlined in the DMCA, the NFL appears to be choosing to beat her over the head with takedown requests. Would this be happening if YouTube was not caught in the middle, hosting the clip for Seltzer? There is no way to know, but it seems that the trend du jour is for content owners to target YouTube with these requests, knowing that YouTube is likely to comply immediately and ask questions later. But Seltzer isn't likely to let this issue rest now, and seems more than happy to continue pushing back on the issue until it goes to court. It's hard to imagine that a court would do anything but decide in Seltzer's favor, and if that were to happen, it may force content owners to be more cautious about sending takedown notices in the future.

Here's the link to the article. I just get giddy when a large company/corporation/whatever decides that it can push people around and they push the wrong person. In this case, the NFL has pushed a lawyer into a legal battle and the lawyer was the one that actually knew what they were talking about. It looks like the NFL lost big time and man do I love that. There may be hope for humans after all.

-Salem
I am the law!

Rules of Engagement

1.) We post for nobody. What we do here, we do for ourselves. If it benefits anyone else, it is a coincidence that they find it as useful as we do. Someday we may be feeling generous and decide to help someone, but even then it won't be because they have asked it of us but because it pleases us to offer our assistance.

2.) We post in our own time. We will not plague this space with 'regular' posts. We will post only when we feel the need to do so, not because a preset time has come. If months pass without our presence, then you will just have to put up with it.

3.) We don't care what you think. No matter how much you may want to believe that we will care what you have to say or how much you think we need to fall into line with your way of thinking, I can promise you, it will not happen. By the same token, none of us expect you to care about what we say either and thus will not force our opinions on you. If you read this, it's your own choice so we will not take the blame if you don't like it.

4.) We will not hesitate to remove any comments that are left here that we don't like. Sometimes, just not having a clue who you are will be enough of a reason. If this is a problem, feel free to leave a comment. I'm sure you'll get the idea pretty quickly.

5.) Don't mock our spelling. We as a group have a better spoken vocabulary than most people coming out of university english courses these days. If we screw up the spelling on a rather obscure word and you pipe in telling us how stupid we are, I will direct you to the works of Chauser and then we will follow his example. You can have your 3 seconds of mockery, but we will eviscerate you in literature for all the world to see. If you don't think a blog can become that popular, then perhaps we won't need to put in the effort to make you look like the moron you are after all.

6.) At the end of the day, this is my blog. While I value the contributions that the few I have selected to share this space with, if I feel your post is not in the spirit of the blog, I will remove it. That includes you Ashen, you know I'm not down with your LJ links and whatnot. By the same token, if any of you start your own blogs, I'm happy to link out to you and thus help perpetuate the great circle of the internet. Should I be asked to post on your blogs from time to time, I would expect to be treated no differently than this.