Saidit.net Canary #9

submitted by magnora7 from self.SaiditCanary

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[–]magnora7[S,M] [score hidden] stickied comment (10 children)

I just want to add an addendum to this Canary for clarity and transparency: We did receive a DMCA notice many months ago regarding a video streaming sub that we were forced to shut down in response (or else saidit would be shut down). We also received fake DMCA notices for another sub, but we recognized those as fake (because they originated from cloudflare rather than our server company) and took no action. However this all happened while hosted on US servers, and very soon after it happened (but not because of it) we moved the servers to Switzerland.

So technically I could consider removing the following lines:

We have not been contacted by any lawyers

and

We have not had any censorship problems with the server company

because the DMCA notice we got through the server company probably originated from a lawyer (although we don't know that for sure) and our server company's hand was forced (they have a "black box" kind of policy where they just pass along the DMCA notices, they don't make any decisions as to the validity of them). So technically our server company was censoring us via the lawyer request, although they were only requesting the removal of copyrighted material.

If we didn't remove the offending content (they cited 22 links all in the same sub) then the entire site would've been shut down. There was a lot of discussion about this as it was happening many months ago.

So technically I could remove those 2 lines from the canary. However, since our move to Switzerland, we no longer have any obligations to the original DMCA request originating from some lawyers, as we're outside of the US now (as well as the fact we fully complied with and resolved the original request to ensure the longevity of the site). So the 2 lines I could potentially take out, I am leaving in the canary, because of the fact they only were a problem for a period of about 1 month, and were completely resolved with no leftover issues, and furthermore the laws themselves no longer apply, due to our relocation outside the US. Given the relocation to a new set of national laws and a new server company, I consider the clock "reset" on those two lines. While I could see the argument for taking them out I have decided to leave them in as we are currently functioning as legally unimpeded as we were when the site originally launched, and the period during which we were affected was very brief and no longer applies.

[–][deleted] 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

I vote for removal of those lines, they're super vague anyway.

[–]magnora7[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Yeah we could do that. We could also clarify them and add more parts to them. I think the more indicators the canary has, the more useful it is.

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I'd be fine with that too, maybe adding a list of our DMCA contacts with dates at the end. I just don't like "have not" because it implies for all time.

[–]magnora7[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

True. I'll mull it over some more. Maybe we can just add 'since we moved to switzerland' for those lines

[–][deleted] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

The DMCA notice probably came from a low paid third party, through a lawyers office. Very few corporations use local talent these days for mundane tasks. Why not pay someone $1 an hour, rather than $600 per hour for a corporate lawyer, to do the actual dirty work?

[–]magnora7[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

Yeah I agree. There are cheap lawyer offices that churn out these DMCA notices at the drop of a hat. Similar to copyright/patent trolls. One of the many benefits to now being hosted in Switzerland

[–]swordofdamocles42 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

what about reinstating the sub with the links to see what happens... that would be a real canary. can always delete again.

[–]magnora7[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

They've already made backup subs so the content is back on saidit

[–]swordofdamocles42 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

oh cool thanks.

[–]swordofdamocles42 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

well if that is the casewe know the canary is fine.....