How is it a good thing in general that you got an infringing site taken down based on your word without it going through some sort of public oversight before removal?
This kind of thing makes the US horribly dangerous to internet businesses and now that you have done it to a much bigger shark than yourself, they will be gunning for you.
Imagine it the other way around, perhaps on something much more innocuous that is easy to miss. Would you rather a court case to decide an appropriate action against you, or your site ripped off the net, requiring you to then go to court to get it reinstated?
The speed that was so helpful to you as a startup in this instance is what will leave you dead in the water if you mess up, even accidentally, in the future (I am not suggesting that what was done to you was accidental, although many of their management may not have understood the details).
> your site ripped off the net, requiring you to then go to court to get it reinstated
Getting your site reinstated is as easy as the other person having it taken down: a one-page counter-notice sent to the same contact at the service provider attesting that you are not infringing the other person's copyright.
For the service provider to have "safe harbor" from liability, they must also put your content back up just as quickly as they took it down. Now the other party has to actually take you to court to take your content down again.
Though, if it's significant enough, you can recover. If the copyright holder misrepresented their claims, they are liable for the damages that resulted from the improper removal of the content. Those damages would include your lost customers.
Sorry, I did think you needed more faffing to get the stuff back up.
Point still stands though, there should be at the very least an accountable, transparent public third party (ideally a legal court) that deals with both parties involved, before content that isn't explicitly criminal is removed.
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How is it a good thing in general that you got an infringing site taken down based on your word without it going through some sort of public oversight before removal?
This kind of thing makes the US horribly dangerous to internet businesses and now that you have done it to a much bigger shark than yourself, they will be gunning for you.
Imagine it the other way around, perhaps on something much more innocuous that is easy to miss. Would you rather a court case to decide an appropriate action against you, or your site ripped off the net, requiring you to then go to court to get it reinstated?
The speed that was so helpful to you as a startup in this instance is what will leave you dead in the water if you mess up, even accidentally, in the future (I am not suggesting that what was done to you was accidental, although many of their management may not have understood the details).
> your site ripped off the net, requiring you to then go to court to get it reinstated
Getting your site reinstated is as easy as the other person having it taken down: a one-page counter-notice sent to the same contact at the service provider attesting that you are not infringing the other person's copyright.
For the service provider to have "safe harbor" from liability, they must also put your content back up just as quickly as they took it down. Now the other party has to actually take you to court to take your content down again.
The service provider actually has to wait 10 days before reinstating the content.
More than enough time for the profit margin of a startup's customers to walk off then.
Though, if it's significant enough, you can recover. If the copyright holder misrepresented their claims, they are liable for the damages that resulted from the improper removal of the content. Those damages would include your lost customers.
Sorry, I did think you needed more faffing to get the stuff back up.
Point still stands though, there should be at the very least an accountable, transparent public third party (ideally a legal court) that deals with both parties involved, before content that isn't explicitly criminal is removed.
nobody pays attention to the law, but everyone must live under it.
Like reading Kafka. This guy will be crying about the dmca when they use it to remove things such as listings from his site.
Also, the company is in Canada, i was ignorant of this reach. Til
I love Kafka, but I also find much of it hysterically funny.
I think you might be right on the parallel here, we'll see over time if it plays out into an irony filled bureaucratic tragedy for them.
[edit] I think of the DMCA as being something of an area weapon, and startups usually have a much smaller surface area than everybody else.