How Internet copyright law is abused
In 1996 the the UN's World Intellectual Property Organization created a law. The law lets people that claim that their copyrights are being infringed have the offending material quickly removed from the Internet.
A good idea in theory, but as this Boing Boing Internet Copyright Abuse Study shows how it's actually worked in practise.
And yes you've guessed right. It's being abused by people.
I must admit as I read this study about how certain organisations have got stuff taken down without any proof of infringement I wondered whether "astute and cynical" commerical companies would do the same.
Sure enough a little later in the study it says.
"Over half -57% - of notices sent to Google to demand removal of links in the index were sent by businesses targeting apparent competitors;"
And just in case you think this only applies to companies in the USA the study also notes that 37% of the notices recevied by Google were for sites that apparently are outside the United States.
PS in case you were wondering about my previous post on Do You Know The Relative Importance of A Marketing Guru, Consultant or Expert? Find Out Now. the answer is that a Marketing expert appears to have more importance than either of the other titles. Who'd have thought? What price Guru's now?
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