Bonum Certa Men Certa

Benchmark Reviews is Plagiarism, Exposed, Resorts to DMCA Abuse (to Censor Critics)

"Shoot first, ask questions later"



Summary: Another new case of DMCA abuse (bogus takedown request as means of censorship) shows why the likes of ACTA are a threat -- not a treat(y) -- to people's freedom and why DMCA should be weakened or repealed

THIS post does not deal with software, for a change. LiberalViewer spoke to YouTube/Google earlier this month about DMCA abuse and fair use (see video above and bear in mind that it's only part 1). These are important issues which increasingly impede or facilitate our freedom of speech on the Web.



Last year we wrote quite a lot about Microsoft's laptop bribes [1, 2, 3, 4], which are a way of earning positive reviews for Microsoft products, notably Vista 7. Fake reviews of Microsoft products are not uncommon and they are sometimes posted by former or existing employees of the company. Over the years we have given several examples and offered concrete proof.

It is with some delight that we found out a corrupt reviewer getting busted over a fake review. This reviewer then resorted to DMCA abuse rather than apology, retraction, or stepping down from what now seems like a corruptible 'publication', namely Benchmark Reviews, which typically just excerpts (copies) almost everything from Phoronix and perhaps other benchmark/review sites. Here is what TechDirt wrote about it:

Reviewer Caught Posting Marketing Material As A Review... Uses DMCA To Takedown Site Of Guy Who Exposed Him



Duncan writes in to alert us to what must the mother of all stories of a guy caught doing something questionable online, who then goes to amazingly great lengths -- including publishing private info, blocking users, changing content surreptitiously and (finally) using a bogus DMCA takedown to takedown the entire site of the guy who caught him. It's quite a story, so let's start from the beginning.


Read on as it gets interesting and the takedown request is clearly a bogus one. So get ready for the likes of ACTA, which introduce yet more draconian terms that hinder sharing for purposes of criticism (fair use). The whole situation around DMCA is made worse by the fact that there is burden of proof on the accused. What a ridiculous law and how sad it must be that Google, based on the panel discussion regarding YouTube, prioritises the MAFIAA at the expense of YouTube users when it comes to balancing fair use. See the full series of videos and you will find out that Google is quite pretentious about it (or maybe it's just that spokesman of theirs).

Guess who among the software CEOs is a fan or a proponent of the DMCA? The guy who has stakes in Disney, Steve Jobs. That's right, but he's losing:

AFTER YEARS of taking a very conservative approach to the US Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA), the US Library of Congress has issued a wave of rulings that all but turn the law on its head.

Every three years, the Library of Congress reviews its policy on the DMCA and releases its opinions about how it should be interpreted.

This time the Library allowed widespread circumvention of the CSS encryption on DVDs, under some conditions. And in an opinion that sails up the nose of Steve Jobs it has ruled that jailbreaking Iphones qualifies as "Fair Use". It also will let punters crack their legally purchased e-books in order to have them read aloud by computers.


Yesterday the EFF made the following announcement:

EFF Wins New Legal Protections for Video Artists, Cell Phone Jailbreakers, and Unlockers



San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) won three critical exemptions to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) anticircumvention provisions today, carving out new legal protections for consumers who modify their cell phones and artists who remix videos — people who, until now, could have been sued for their non-infringing or fair use activities.


Here is another new article titled "Why Fair Use is Not Just Acceptable, It's Essential for the Future"

The Library of Congress added a number of ambitious new exceptions to the Digital Millenium Copyright Act's prohibition of breaking copyright technologies today, most notably concerning iPhone jailbreaking and unlocking.


Too bad for Apple, eh? That company which Groklaw seems to be defending for reasons we cannot understand.

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

SoylentNews Grows Up, Registers as a Business, Site Traffic Reportedly Grows
More people realise that social control media may in fact be a passing fad
 
Garden Season Starts Today
Outdoor time, officially...
More Information About Public Talks That Richard Stallman Gave This Week in Europe
Two talks in Switzerland
Engadget is Still a Spamfarm, It's Just an Amazon Catalogue (SPAM/SEO), a Sea of Junk Disguised as "Articles" With Few 'Fillers' (Real Articles) in Between
Engadget writes for bots now, not for humans
Richard Stallman's Talks in Switzerland This Week
We need to put an end to 'cancer culture'; it's trying to kill people and it is even swatting people
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, March 28, 2024
IRC logs for Thursday, March 28, 2024
[Meme] EPO's New Ways of Working (NWoW), a.k.a. You Don't Even Get a Desk at Work and Cannot be Near Known Colleagues
Seems more like union-busting (divide and rule)
Hiding Microsoft's Culpability in Security Breaches and Other Major Blunders (in the United Kingdom, This May Mean You Can't Get Food)
Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) is vast
Giving back to the community
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 28/03/2024: Sega, Nintendo, and Bell Layoffs
Links for the day
Open letter to the ACM regarding Codes of Conduct impersonating the Code of Ethics
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
With 9 Mentions of Azure In Its Latest Blog Post, Canonical is Again Promoting Microsoft and Intel Vendor Lock-in, Surveillance, Back Doors, Considerable Power Waste, and Defects That Cannot be Fixed
Microsoft did not even have to buy Canonical (for Canonical to act like it happened)
Links 28/03/2024: GAFAM Replacing Full-Time Workers With Interns Now
Links for the day
Consent & Debian's illegitimate constitution
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
The Time Our Server Host Died in a Car Accident
If Debian has internal problems, then they need to be illuminated and then tackled, at the very least in order to ensure we do not end up with "Deadian"
China's New 'IT' Rules Are a Massive Headache for Microsoft
On the issue of China we're neutral except when it comes to human rights issues
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, March 27, 2024
IRC logs for Wednesday, March 27, 2024
WeMakeFedora.org: harassment decision, victory for volunteers and Fedora Foundations
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 27/03/2024: Terrorism Grows in Africa, Unemployment in Finland Rose Sharply in a Year, Chinese Aggression Escalates
Links for the day
Links 27/03/2024: Ericsson and Tencent Layoffs
Links for the day
Amid Online Reports of XBox Sales Collapsing, Mass Layoffs in More Teams, and Windows Making Things Worse (Admission of Losses, Rumours About XBox Canceled as a Hardware Unit)...
Windows has loads of issues, also as a gaming platform
Links 27/03/2024: BBC Resorts to CG Cruft, Akamai Blocking Blunders in Piracy Shield
Links for the day
Android Approaches 90% of the Operating Systems Market in Chad (Windows Down From 99.5% 15 Years Ago to Just 2.5% Right Now)
Windows is down to about 2% on the Web-connected client side as measured by statCounter
Sainsbury's: Let Them Eat Yoghurts (and Microsoft Downtimes When They Need Proper Food)
a social control media 'scandal' this week
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, March 26, 2024
IRC logs for Tuesday, March 26, 2024
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
Windows/Client at Microsoft Falling Sharply (Well Over 10% Decline Every Quarter), So For His Next Trick the Ponzi in Chief Merges Units, Spices Everything Up With "AI"
Hiding the steep decline of Windows/Client at Microsoft?
Free technology in housing and construction
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
We Need Open Standards With Free Software Implementations, Not "Interoperability" Alone
Sadly we're confronting misguided managers and a bunch of clowns trying to herd us all - sometimes without consent - into "clown computing"
Microsoft's Collapse in the Web Server Space Continued This Month
Microsoft is the "2%", just like Windows in some countries