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Wikileaks was kicked off Amazon for breaking their Terms of Service: http://aws.amazon.com/message/65348/ http://aws.amazon.com/message/65348/ Follow Amazon's

Wikileaks was kicked off Amazon for breaking their Terms of Service: http://aws.amazon.com/message/65348/ http://aws.amazon.com/message/65348/ Follow Amazon's rules, and you can use their service. Not sure what's so hard to understand here.

frozenflame 16y ago
The problem is that the rules are broad enough that many sites could be construed to be breaking them leaving you up to Amazon's whimsy in enforcing them.
- angdis 16y ago
  I think Amazon has made a pragmatic decision here. There are certainly all kinds of wild things on Amazon's servers and I bet they tolerate quite a lot of deviation from their terms of service. What happened with wikileaks, however, is a extraordinarily high profile controversy. It was material of very questionable legality, and material whose presence has lead to very serious cyber attacks. It is not reasonable to expect any 3rd party host like amazon to defend this "type" of free speech to the point of exposing themselves to huge risks.
bbatsell 16y ago
a) Works produced by the U.S. federal government, with the sole exception of protected trademarks, are legally in the public domain. Amazon's wording is unfortunately murky — it does say "own or otherwise control", which can never apply to works in the public domain, so am I in violation of AWS ToS for hosting any single file that I do not have full control over? Items in the public domain, for example, or rights-managed content? If I've purchased a license to publish rights-managed content for one single usage, I in no way "own or otherwise control" the content. Where do I stand there? b) Amazon further claimed that because Wikileaks released 250,000 documents, that demonstrated that there was no care taken in releasing them and thus they could cause harm to someone, somewhere. The only problem with this is that it is a complete and utter falsity. At the time, Wikileaks had released less than 1,000 documents (and at the end of the releases, less than 1,500 to my knowledge). Every single document released had been pre-cleared and redacted by five well-respected international newspapers they partnered with.
- bradly 16y ago
  > Works produced by the U.S. federal government, with the sole exception of protected trademarks, are legally in the public domain. Is this really true? Does anyone have a source for this? Wouldn't this imply that it is illegal for the U.S. federal government to hold any information confidential?
  - bbatsell 16y ago
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_status_of_work_by_the_U.S._government http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_status_of_work_by_the... I don't know of a statute that makes it illegal to attempt to restrict access to works legally in the public domain, so no, I don't think that implication follows. Once a classified work is public, however, the government cannot assert copyright. They must use clauses in laws such as the Espionage Act to attack the release, and the Supreme Court has not looked kindly upon those attemptsº. ºhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times_Co._v._United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times_Co._v._United_St...
- firemanx 16y ago
  Has anyone bothered to ask the question of "public domain for who?". I would assume that works created by the US taxpayers (via the government) would be public domain for US citizens, but is there a clear cut definition of them being public domain for non-US citizens? I can think of several restrictions on such things (such as crypto), that prove otherwise. If that's the case, does Wikileaks count as a US citizen? I'll admit, I'm completely unfamiliar with the makeup of the organization outside of Julian Assange (who is not a US citizen). If Wikileaks couldn't count as a US citizen, how would they be considered as "owning the data" if the above points are true? I ask this not to be contrary or confrontational, but simply because I'm curious. This occurred to me awhile back but I haven't seen this position represented since.
  - alextgordon 16y ago
    It seems you are correct, the public domain status only applies inside the US. http://www.cendi.gov/publications/04-8copyright.html#317 http://www.cendi.gov/publications/04-8copyright.html#317
marcusbooster 16y ago
Their arguments in that statement are: 1) copyright infringement, 2) putting innocent people in danger. The first point is debatable, does that mean the NY Times is unable to use their service? As an ISP will they roll over at the first cease-and-desist order from some copyright lawyer? (Of course they will.) Point two is absolute conjecture. Amazon is in no position to know who is being put in danger by these documents, let alone what innocent person is in danger by not releasing them. Furthermore, WikiLeaks has already addressed these criticisms, they are already redacting such information and the government has not pointed to a single case where some one has been harmed because of a release. It's their servers, they can do with them what they want. But let's not pretend they are a viable solution for any company that has any potential for legal conflict. And in this day and age, that's every company.
- eli 16y ago
  "But let's not pretend they are a viable solution for any company that has any potential for legal conflict." And why should they be? Amazon isn't your lawyer and you shouldn't expect them to defend you against legal threats. Just figuring out whether the threat is credible or not would likely cost Amazon more than they'd ever make in profit for hosting your site.
  - marcusbooster 16y ago
    I agree, they're not my lawyer, they're my hosting company. If there's a legal conflict then it should use the court system that has been established to handle such disputes. If Amazon is a de facto agent of the complainant then to answer the original article's question: Can we use them to host free speech? Then I think the answer is no. Which begs the question, if Amazon can't be used to host free speech, what other kind of speech is worth hosting?
- davewiner 16y ago
  The DMCA was put in place to deal with the copyright issue, so Amazon was covered. No one could hold them liable for copyright infringement. The putting innocent people in danger argument, if they really made that argument, is a ridiculous standard. Almost anything can put innocent people in danger.
cma 16y ago
It is impossible to follow those rules if you have any form of user-submitted content. Even if you have a TOS that gives you some rights to their content, you can't guarantee a user doesn't post something of someone else's. Amazon's TOS is basically a private partial nullification of the DMCA and says that rather than having to take something copyrighted down once notified, you have to ensure it never gets put up there in the first place. That is something you can't do, even if you manually screen everything before it is allowed to be posted (because there is no universal way to search for whether or not something is under copyright).

frozenflame 16y ago

The problem is that the rules are broad enough that many sites could be construed to be breaking them leaving you up to Amazon's whimsy in enforcing them.

angdis 16y ago
I think Amazon has made a pragmatic decision here. There are certainly all kinds of wild things on Amazon's servers and I bet they tolerate quite a lot of deviation from their terms of service. What happened with wikileaks, however, is a extraordinarily high profile controversy. It was material of very questionable legality, and material whose presence has lead to very serious cyber attacks. It is not reasonable to expect any 3rd party host like amazon to defend this "type" of free speech to the point of exposing themselves to huge risks.

bbatsell 16y ago

a) Works produced by the U.S. federal government, with the sole exception of protected trademarks, are legally in the public domain. Amazon's wording is unfortunately murky — it does say "own or otherwise control", which can never apply to works in the public domain, so am I in violation of AWS ToS for hosting any single file that I do not have full control over? Items in the public domain, for example, or rights-managed content? If I've purchased a license to publish rights-managed content for one single usage, I in no way "own or otherwise control" the content. Where do I stand there? b) Amazon further claimed that because Wikileaks released 250,000 documents, that demonstrated that there was no care taken in releasing them and thus they could cause harm to someone, somewhere. The only problem with this is that it is a complete and utter falsity. At the time, Wikileaks had released less than 1,000 documents (and at the end of the releases, less than 1,500 to my knowledge). Every single document released had been pre-cleared and redacted by five well-respected international newspapers they partnered with.

bradly 16y ago
> Works produced by the U.S. federal government, with the sole exception of protected trademarks, are legally in the public domain. Is this really true? Does anyone have a source for this? Wouldn't this imply that it is illegal for the U.S. federal government to hold any information confidential?
- bbatsell 16y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_status_of_work_by_the_U.S._government http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_status_of_work_by_the... I don't know of a statute that makes it illegal to attempt to restrict access to works legally in the public domain, so no, I don't think that implication follows. Once a classified work is public, however, the government cannot assert copyright. They must use clauses in laws such as the Espionage Act to attack the release, and the Supreme Court has not looked kindly upon those attemptsº. ºhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times_Co._v._United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times_Co._v._United_St...
firemanx 16y ago
Has anyone bothered to ask the question of "public domain for who?". I would assume that works created by the US taxpayers (via the government) would be public domain for US citizens, but is there a clear cut definition of them being public domain for non-US citizens? I can think of several restrictions on such things (such as crypto), that prove otherwise. If that's the case, does Wikileaks count as a US citizen? I'll admit, I'm completely unfamiliar with the makeup of the organization outside of Julian Assange (who is not a US citizen). If Wikileaks couldn't count as a US citizen, how would they be considered as "owning the data" if the above points are true? I ask this not to be contrary or confrontational, but simply because I'm curious. This occurred to me awhile back but I haven't seen this position represented since.
- alextgordon 16y ago
  It seems you are correct, the public domain status only applies inside the US. http://www.cendi.gov/publications/04-8copyright.html#317 http://www.cendi.gov/publications/04-8copyright.html#317

marcusbooster 16y ago

Their arguments in that statement are: 1) copyright infringement, 2) putting innocent people in danger. The first point is debatable, does that mean the NY Times is unable to use their service? As an ISP will they roll over at the first cease-and-desist order from some copyright lawyer? (Of course they will.) Point two is absolute conjecture. Amazon is in no position to know who is being put in danger by these documents, let alone what innocent person is in danger by not releasing them. Furthermore, WikiLeaks has already addressed these criticisms, they are already redacting such information and the government has not pointed to a single case where some one has been harmed because of a release. It's their servers, they can do with them what they want. But let's not pretend they are a viable solution for any company that has any potential for legal conflict. And in this day and age, that's every company.

eli 16y ago
"But let's not pretend they are a viable solution for any company that has any potential for legal conflict." And why should they be? Amazon isn't your lawyer and you shouldn't expect them to defend you against legal threats. Just figuring out whether the threat is credible or not would likely cost Amazon more than they'd ever make in profit for hosting your site.
- marcusbooster 16y ago
  I agree, they're not my lawyer, they're my hosting company. If there's a legal conflict then it should use the court system that has been established to handle such disputes. If Amazon is a de facto agent of the complainant then to answer the original article's question: Can we use them to host free speech? Then I think the answer is no. Which begs the question, if Amazon can't be used to host free speech, what other kind of speech is worth hosting?
davewiner 16y ago
The DMCA was put in place to deal with the copyright issue, so Amazon was covered. No one could hold them liable for copyright infringement. The putting innocent people in danger argument, if they really made that argument, is a ridiculous standard. Almost anything can put innocent people in danger.

cma 16y ago

It is impossible to follow those rules if you have any form of user-submitted content. Even if you have a TOS that gives you some rights to their content, you can't guarantee a user doesn't post something of someone else's. Amazon's TOS is basically a private partial nullification of the DMCA and says that rather than having to take something copyrighted down once notified, you have to ensure it never gets put up there in the first place. That is something you can't do, even if you manually screen everything before it is allowed to be posted (because there is no universal way to search for whether or not something is under copyright).