6 ms·

Reminder that just a few weeks ago DigitalOcean rolled over on one of their customers and took down 38,000 websites after receiving a claim of infringement from

Reminder that just a few weeks ago DigitalOcean rolled over on one of their customers and took down 38,000 websites after receiving a claim of infringement from the NRA against a parody site hosted on surge.sh: http://motherboard.vice.com/read/nra-complaint-takes-down-38000-websites http://motherboard.vice.com/read/nra-complaint-takes-down-38...

treehau5 10y ago
Just a reminder that most businesses would do this exact same thing in this position and the problem is with the policy and enforcement. Get out and vote for the right people this November.
- cmdrfred 10y ago
  Find me a viable candidate who will work for the people and I will.
  - unethical_ban 10y ago
    Gary Johnson isn't as insane as the other two.
    - fweespeech 10y ago
      Yeah, tbh, just throwing your vote that way to pollsters may be enough to get him on the debate stage and that is the best you can really do.
    - btilly 10y ago
      Remember the old joke that I can't be a Democrat because I want to spend my own money, and I can't be a Republican because of what I want to spend my money on? If you chuckled at it, you should check Gary Johnson out. For real.
      - acehyzer 10y ago
        Does not support net neutrality. Game over for me.
        btilly 10y ago
        But does support undoing NSA surveillance. If I'm going to pick tech issues to vote on, I care more about that one than net neutrality.
    - Spivak 10y ago
      And, assuming you don't like Hillary or Trump, the most positive thing you could do with your vote this cycle is help a 3rd party get federal funding and a national stage to promote their platform.
      - happyslobro 10y ago
        This is exactly why I have been voting for the Canadian green party for my entire adult life. We finally got an MP (equivalent to a senator, I think) in a few years ago, Elizabeth May. You should hear her rip into the mainstream parties in the middle of parliament, it's awesome. Harper tried passing a bunch of new laws to shut her up, but he lost an election before he could pull it off.
        cvwright 10y ago
        In the US there's a green party candidate for president this year too, Jill Stein. Last I heard, they were able to get onto the ballot in most states.
    - wcummings 10y ago
      Gary Johnson is a neo-con hack. Voting for him is like barely voting for a 3rd party.
corobo 10y ago
Reminder that you have to act on abuse notifications sharpish. You're providing a service, it's on you if you ignore abuse notifies. "We received notice on behalf of a trademark holder that a customer of DigitalOcean was hosting infringing content on our network. DigitalOcean immediately notified our customer of the infringement, and the customer was given a five day period to resolve the issue. The infringing content was not removed within the specified period even though several notifications were issued. Per DigitalOcean’s terms of service, a final reminder was issued to our customer and, when no action was taken, access to the content was disabled. The infringing content was subsequently removed by the customer and all services were restored in less than two hours."
- Someone1234 10y ago
  That statement is problematic, namely this: > The infringing content was not removed within the specified period even though several notifications were issued. You don't have to remove content under the DMCA, you can also file a counter-notice which gets the content host off the hook and then the matter goes to court[0]. But that also assumes DMCA which, if memory serves, was not in play here. It was a trademark complaint, which DigitalOcean has no responsibility to resolve. Ultimately DigitalOcean's response, even with that statement, seems at odds with how the law is actually written. The other party also claimed they did respond to DigitalOcean, they just never removed the legal parody material which is their right. DigitalOcean's understanding of the NRA's rights is more expansive than the law itself. Effectively their trademark policy is to automatically side with the trademark holder, irrespective of fair use[1] (see page 9+). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_Act#Title_II:_Online_Copyright_Infringement_Liability_Limitation_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_A... [1] https://apps.americanbar.org/litigation/committees/intellectual/roundtables/0506_outline.pdf https://apps.americanbar.org/litigation/committees/intellect...
  - franey 10y ago
    It's against DO's terms of service to "use the Services in violation of the copyrights, trademarks, patents or trade secrets of third parties", which appears to be the issue here. https://www.digitalocean.com/legal/terms/ https://www.digitalocean.com/legal/terms/
mark212 10y ago
exactly why I moved off of Digital Ocean a couple of years ago, after a similar incident.
happyslobro 10y ago
DMCA takedown: the new orbital ion cannon
- lorenzhs 10y ago
  The surge.sh case was not a DMCA takedown, it was about a trademark infringement notice. There are no counterclaims in such cases.
15155 10y ago
I haven't forgotten about their little "we don't automatically zero-out SSDs, it's a feature, the customer is wrong" issue. I also haven't forgotten about their private blog censorship debacle. DO is not a serious player and should not be trusted.

treehau5 10y ago

Just a reminder that most businesses would do this exact same thing in this position and the problem is with the policy and enforcement. Get out and vote for the right people this November.

cmdrfred 10y ago
Find me a viable candidate who will work for the people and I will.
- unethical_ban 10y ago
  Gary Johnson isn't as insane as the other two.
  - fweespeech 10y ago
    Yeah, tbh, just throwing your vote that way to pollsters may be enough to get him on the debate stage and that is the best you can really do.
  - btilly 10y ago
    Remember the old joke that I can't be a Democrat because I want to spend my own money, and I can't be a Republican because of what I want to spend my money on? If you chuckled at it, you should check Gary Johnson out. For real.
    - acehyzer 10y ago
      Does not support net neutrality. Game over for me.
      - btilly 10y ago
        But does support undoing NSA surveillance. If I'm going to pick tech issues to vote on, I care more about that one than net neutrality.
  - Spivak 10y ago
    And, assuming you don't like Hillary or Trump, the most positive thing you could do with your vote this cycle is help a 3rd party get federal funding and a national stage to promote their platform.
    - happyslobro 10y ago
      This is exactly why I have been voting for the Canadian green party for my entire adult life. We finally got an MP (equivalent to a senator, I think) in a few years ago, Elizabeth May. You should hear her rip into the mainstream parties in the middle of parliament, it's awesome. Harper tried passing a bunch of new laws to shut her up, but he lost an election before he could pull it off.
      - cvwright 10y ago
        In the US there's a green party candidate for president this year too, Jill Stein. Last I heard, they were able to get onto the ballot in most states.
  - wcummings 10y ago
    Gary Johnson is a neo-con hack. Voting for him is like barely voting for a 3rd party.

corobo 10y ago

Reminder that you have to act on abuse notifications sharpish. You're providing a service, it's on you if you ignore abuse notifies. "We received notice on behalf of a trademark holder that a customer of DigitalOcean was hosting infringing content on our network. DigitalOcean immediately notified our customer of the infringement, and the customer was given a five day period to resolve the issue. The infringing content was not removed within the specified period even though several notifications were issued. Per DigitalOcean’s terms of service, a final reminder was issued to our customer and, when no action was taken, access to the content was disabled. The infringing content was subsequently removed by the customer and all services were restored in less than two hours."

Someone1234 10y ago
That statement is problematic, namely this: > The infringing content was not removed within the specified period even though several notifications were issued. You don't have to remove content under the DMCA, you can also file a counter-notice which gets the content host off the hook and then the matter goes to court[0]. But that also assumes DMCA which, if memory serves, was not in play here. It was a trademark complaint, which DigitalOcean has no responsibility to resolve. Ultimately DigitalOcean's response, even with that statement, seems at odds with how the law is actually written. The other party also claimed they did respond to DigitalOcean, they just never removed the legal parody material which is their right. DigitalOcean's understanding of the NRA's rights is more expansive than the law itself. Effectively their trademark policy is to automatically side with the trademark holder, irrespective of fair use[1] (see page 9+). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_Act#Title_II:_Online_Copyright_Infringement_Liability_Limitation_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_A... [1] https://apps.americanbar.org/litigation/committees/intellectual/roundtables/0506_outline.pdf https://apps.americanbar.org/litigation/committees/intellect...
- franey 10y ago
  It's against DO's terms of service to "use the Services in violation of the copyrights, trademarks, patents or trade secrets of third parties", which appears to be the issue here. https://www.digitalocean.com/legal/terms/ https://www.digitalocean.com/legal/terms/

mark212 10y ago

exactly why I moved off of Digital Ocean a couple of years ago, after a similar incident.

happyslobro 10y ago

DMCA takedown: the new orbital ion cannon

lorenzhs 10y ago
The surge.sh case was not a DMCA takedown, it was about a trademark infringement notice. There are no counterclaims in such cases.

15155 10y ago

I haven't forgotten about their little "we don't automatically zero-out SSDs, it's a feature, the customer is wrong" issue. I also haven't forgotten about their private blog censorship debacle. DO is not a serious player and should not be trusted.