1: AT&T first to test RIAA antipiracy plan

First off today, AT&T, one of the United States’ largest ISPS, has begun a trial of the “graduated response” system, sending out warning letters to alleged file shares. They join Comcast and Cox in this project but AT&T has become the first to actually send out the first warning letters.

AT&T has clarified and said that they do not plan on disconnecting any customers without a court order but their letters do indicate that they reserve the right to terminate services. According to them, they have the right to terminate users that engage in “illegal activity” but that they are the finders of fact and will not disconnect solely on the word of copyright holders.

Where I am in New Orleans, the two major ISPs are Cox and AT&T with Comcast holding most of the neighboring area. Meaning file sharers near me don’t have a lot of options if they want to avoid this system.

2: AP Invokes DMCA Against Obama “Hope” Poster Artist

Next, the lawsuit between Shepard Fairey and the AP over the Obama Hope poster has taken yet another strange twist. As the EFF discusses, one of the elements of the AP’s counterclaims against Fairey includes a mention of stripping out Copyright Management Information (CMI).

According to the DMCA, it is illegal to strip out CMI, which the law defines as “identifying information about the work, the author, the copyright owner, and in certain cases, the performer, writer or director of the work, as well as the terms and conditions for use of the work,” however the information must be affixed to the work itself, not displayed around it.

The complaint alleges that Fairey’s removal of metadata and an attribution line beside the image amount to a violation of their CMI and are seeking damages, in part, on those grounds.

3: Myspace Banishment, LastFM, my Mp3 albums for $1.09

Finally today, in a tale of content identification gone horribly wrong, when musician Emily Bezar attempted to upload some of her own music tracks to her Myspace page, she got an ugly surprise when Myspace flagged her MP3s as infringing.

According to Bezar, “somehow during the convoluted process of ripping them from my CDs, uploading, waiting around for myspace to crunch them into distorted granola and exhibit them for you here etc…. somehow I got flagged as a “copyright violator” who risked ‘termination of myspace privileges’ because I had, well, ripped and uploaded mp3s from my own self-produced CDs.”

Bezar has instead decided to stream her music from Last.FM and is offering her CDs for download for $1.09 at CDBaby.

Suggestions

That’s it for the three count today, we’ll be back tomorrow with three more copyright links. If you have a link that you want to suggest a link for the column or have any proposals to make it better. Feel free to leave a comment or send me an email. I hope to hear from you.

Want the Full Story?

Tune in every Saturday morning for the live recording of the Copyright 2.0 Show or wait and get the edited version Monday morning right here on Plagiarism Today.

However, this has given me a strange chance to monitor and track Myspace’s responses to DMCA notices and I’ve found it to be both worrying and interesting as it seems much of the response has been far from traditional.

In short, rather than simply taking down the infringing content or suspending users, especially those that repeatedly infringe, Myspace is marking their blogs or profiles as private and thus blocking them to all but the friends of blogger, making it unclear if the work has been removed or what other reprimands the person involved has received.

This new tactic is very disconcerting both from the perspective of a copyright holder seeking removal of the work and the user, who could be censored far beyond what is needed.

It is a bad policy for everyone and it has already ensnared at least one major Myspace user.

What Happens

If you file a DMCA notice, or likely an other abuse request, with Myspace, the reaction to it is inconsistent. Though this is somewhat expected given that the site seems to have many dozens of agents working on these issues, at least some of the responses are very frustrating.

Generally, you can break down the responses into one of three categories:

1. No Response: A few notices seem to fall through the cracks and receive no response at all. This is to be expected to a small degree and resending the notice almost always fixes the issues. The number is higher than I would like, but not so high as to frustrate me.
2. Remove the Work Directly: Myspace typically removes the work surgically, neither disabling the account nor the page itself if there is any non-infringing material. Photos are removed from galleries, individual blog entries are removed, etc.
3. Mark as Private: Finally, and most worrisome, is that Myspace will frequently mark blogs and profiles that have been the subject of notices private, thus removing them from the public view and making them only visible to the friends of the person.

Of the three outcomes, it can be difficult to predict which will happen and I am yet to find anything that seems to be an indicator of which will happen. Whether this is a case of individual agents having a wide amount of leeway in making decisions or me simply not having a large enough sample is hard to say.

Why this is Worrisome

This is a DMCA strategy where nobody wins. Though setting a blog or profile to private might seem like a great way to quickly remove an infringing work, it actually hurts both the complaining copyright holder and the person who is the subject of the complaint.

Consider the following:

• No Confirmation of Removal: If you’re the copyright holder, there is no confirmation that the infringing work has been removed and you are actually barred from seeing it for yourself (unless you can trick the other person onto “friending” you). If the work has been removed, there is no way to prove it.
• Doesn’t Resolve the Issue: If the work has not been removed, setting the blog to private does not resolve the issue as many Myspace members have hundreds, or even thousands, of friends that can still see it. Though search engines won’t be able to access it, many of the other dangers of plagiarism remain intact.
• The “Censorship” Factor: If you are the member that had the notice filed against you, this can turn what would usually be a very simple removal of infringing material into a censoring of everything posted. Where removing a single image or blog post might have sufficed, this censors all material posted, including that which is not infringing.

In short, it does not matter if you are the copyright holder or the user, this system has potential to backfire and backfire it has.

The PostSecret Debacle

Earlier this month, PostSecret, the popular blog and art project, had their Myspace blog shut down by the admins. At the time, the Postsecret Myspace blog was the most popular blog on the service but the Myspace admins set the blog to private, making it so that only friends of the PostSecret account could see it.

Though there was no clear explanation as to why the blog was set to private. The operators of PostSecret have since reposted the controversial postcards and have published a response from the Myspace admins saying the following:

As you may know, MySpace currently has nearly 118 million monthly active users around the globe. As we continue to grow we stay focused on keeping our online community safer, comfortable, entertained and informed.

While we welcome self expression and the ability for users to connect and share their offline lives online, we think it is important to keep you informed of how to have a safer and more secure online experience. And that is why we encourage you not to post personal information such as your cell phone number.

Though the matter seems to be resolved, the incident has left the PostSecret community, along with others on the Web, with a very bad taste in their mouth about how Myspace handles questions of abuse.

Conclusions

Dealing with abuse is difficult. Companies like Myspace and Facebook have my sympathies as they have millions of members, many of whom spam, post inappropriate content, use the service for copyright infringement or generally create trouble for the community. It is hard to create good abuse guidelines, even harder to find good abuse personnel and still even more difficult to implement those policies effectively.

However, it is important that users and copyright holders alike keep on top of companies to insure that their policies are both fair and effective. The reason is simply that it only takes one or two negligent hosts to create headaches for millions and a host with a bad policy toward its users can create a hostile environment for creativity and posting works.

Balance is the key but the current Myspace solution seems to injure both sides equally. In that regard, it needs to be stopped, if for no reason than to avoid future incidents like the PostSecret one.

It is the first week for our new co-host Patrick O’Keefe. It’s a special show not only because he is on it, but because it will be the last show for at least one week as I’ll be in the Netherlands starting tomorrow.

All of that aside, it was a very big week for copyright news with a new business model for video, a potential assassination, more international news on “Three Strikes” and news from the wrestling world.

All in all, there were thirteen stories this week including news from all over the copyright world including our “Weird Story of the Week”.

This week’s stories include:

• Myspace and Viacom Seek to Profit from Pirated Videos
• Anti-Pirate Crusader Shot and Killed
• Three Strikes Wins and Loses
• iPhone Subway App Stripped for Copyright Violation
• John Cena Sued Over Theme Song
• And Many more…

You can download the MP3 file here (direct download). Those interested in subscribing to the show can do so via this feed.

Show Notes

When I first started dealing with plagiarists in 2001, the problem was primarily on message boards and forums. This made sense. Forums were the most popular means of socialization at the time and they were by far the easiest way for someone with limited Web experience to publish content.

So, even though I regularly ran across a personal home page or even a blog that had plagiarized copies of my work, most of my time was spent working with forum admins.

However, over the years that has shifted. Forums are now more of an Internet curiosity than an established meeting place. Social networking is now, quite literally, the hottest thing on the Web and with profile, blogging and image tools built in, they are by far the easiest way to publish a work on the Web.

So, with this trend, plagiarists have also begun to flock to social networks. Of all of the human-made plagiarism of my content I deal with, approximately 75% take place on social networking sites.

However, whenever I say “Social Networking”, I am actually being generous. Nearly 95% of all of my social networking issues, and thus well over half of all of my issues in general, come from one site: Myspace.

This is something that has me very worried.

Rupert Murdoch’s Empire of Social Plagiarism

Sadly, I am not alone in my issues with Myspace. Nearly every author I have asked about their plagiarism problems have put Myspace either at or near the top of their list. This is especially true for anyone who writes poetry, short stories or other creative works that might appeal to Myspace users.

The only group that doesn’t seem to put Myspace at the top of their list is fan fiction authors. They are one of the few groups that still see the worst issue with forums and community sites. However, fan fiction plagiarism creates a whole new set of problems beyond the scope of this article.

The Myspace issue isn’t limited to writers either. Ask any artist or photographer where they see the most unwanted copying, they’ll usually mention Photobucket. Photobucket, however, is owned by Fox Corp., which also owns Myspace, and the two sites are closely linked. In fact, much of Photobucket’s initial popularity, before it was bought out, was derived from Myspace users wanting to host images and videos in their profiles.

But while it makes sense that the largest social networking site and the largest photo sharing site would attract the largest number of plagiarists, these sites see copyright infringement way out of proportion to their numbers. Where Myspace may be a little bit ahead of Facebook, I see hundreds of cases of plagiarism the former with almost none on the latter.

The question becomes “Why is that true?” and “What can be done about it?”

Copy and Paste Haven

To see the problem first hand, all you have to do is either browse around a few Myspace profiles or visit Photobucket’s home page. Though many people use these sites to post legitimate content, the majority seems to have performed at least one act of likely copyright infringement.

The problem is so serious that scripts have been developed exclusively to detect image copying on Photobucket (more on this script later) and it seems that you can’t go anywhere on Myspace or Photobucket without encountering likely infringements.

Users of these sites are content hungry. They need text, images, video and audio to complete their profiles. On one hand, this has created a whole cottage industry around providing licensed content for Myspace, including profile layouts. On the other, it has lead to a copy and paste culture that can be very dangerous.

Though plagiarism and copyright infringement takes place everywhere, in my experience, the number of likely infringements on Myspace profiles dwarf those on Facebook. Why this is seemingly true is complicated, but there are five potential reasons I see for it.

1. Public Profiles: Myspace profiles are, for the most part, visible to general public. This not only makes it easier to find infringements, thus increasing the number found, but adds motivation for people to beef up their profiles, sometimes motivating people to take content that is not theirs. I see a similar trend on dating sites that have public profiles.
2. Younger Audience: Most of the plagiarists I deal with on Myspace are under the age of 25. Myspace seems to cater to a younger audience and, for whatever reason, they seem more prone to abusing copy and paste on the Web.
3. Low Expectation of Originality: In a way, it is hard to call much of the content use on Myspace plagiarism. There is a very low expectation of originality on the site as most people recognize that the images and other profile touches came from somewhere else, attributed or not. This is less true with the blogs and profile information sections, but it is clear that most Myspace users don’t expect fellow members to create every element of their profile.
4. Permissive Takedown System: Though Fox responds quickly to all DMCA notices and removes infringing works, it is very slow to ban users. I have seen many cases where a Myspace user has lifted ten or more works and Myspace simply removed the infringing work without deleting the user as a repeat infringer.
5. High Degree of Customization: Myspace, unlike many other networks, allows users to edit almost every aspect of their profile’s look and feel, leading to far more opportunities for abuse.

All in all, the reason Myspace is such a haven for plagiarists is not a simple question to answer, but rather, there seems to be a combination of factors contributing to the problem.

Fixing it, however, is going to be even more difficult.

Solving the Problem

Myspace, as a site presents several critical challenges for writers and artists.

First, there is almost no way to contact the infringer directly unless you already have a Myspace account and can send them a message. However, such messages are a risky way to resolve copyright disputes as the paper trail is very limited.

Second, as mentioned above, Myspace does respond well to DMCA notices but rarely takes action against heavily infringing users. This can make it difficult to handle any infringer that has taken many different works.

Finally, the nature of Myspace is one where works posted are passed around almost immediately. It is something of an enclosed ecosystem where a poem, an image or an article will enter into the environment and then travel throughout the service, often carrying dozens of different names.

Overcoming this will not be easy and there is no way that a single Webmaster or copyright holder can do so. It is going to take a concerted effort to change both the culture of Myspace and the approach of its parent company.

The best advice I can give right now is to be aggressive when dealing with infringements on Photobucket and Myspace. Actively seek out infringements on the sites and report them quickly. Once image search tools allow users to detect infringements on Photobucket, use those tools as well and aggressively demand removal.

The goal is two fold. First, motivate Fox to create a more efficient and usable copyright system and the second is to change the culture of these sites. Currently, on YouTube, there is a great deal of infringement but users, for the most part, expect any likely infringing video to be pulled down. As a result, those who care about their YouTube account are careful not to post such videos and the most successful YouTube users feature original content.

The goal is not to eliminate copyright infringement on the site, that will never happen, but create an ecosystem that encourages creativity and rewards originality. The difference in such a system is obvious when one looks at a site such as Flickr and then goes to visit Photobucket.

Conclusions

The sad truth is that there is very little that we can do from the outside to help shape the type of site Myspace is to become. In addition to its large size and strong, if at times annoying, culture, there seems to be a lot of foot dragging on Fox’s end.

But what is frustrating about this problem is just that infringement seems to be so rampant on these sites, but that legitimate users of them seem to share the burden.

There is a reason why Myspace is not taken as seriously as Facebook or Photobucket as seriously as Flickr and the issue of copyright infringement is a big part of the equation.

This is most unfortunate not just for the artists and writers that have their work misused, but those that use those sites and try to do good things with it. Their reputations are tarnished by association.

Fortunately, most of those who use or did use those sites for the purpose of displaying their own work have at least established presences elsewhere.

If one wants to be taken seriously, it is clear that Myspace nor Photobucket is the place to do it.

At issue specifically are two elements of PhotoBucket’s services. First, their image printing service, which is powered by Qoop, and second, their takedown system, which often leaves the work available on other parts of the site.

Some of the artists have banded together by creating a petition directed at PhotoBucket, which I helped author, asking them to change some of their policies to help better protect artists and photographers whose works are being posted, and even sold, on the service.

What makes this case unique is that the artists have not just specific concerns, but also specific solutions to the problem and have requested that PhotoBucket take a series of steps to help ensure that their rights are protected.

Buying Prints

The first complaint deals with PhotoBucket’s relationship with print-on-demand service Qoop.

Qoop works with other image sharing sites, including Flickr and Webshots, but at those sites the relationship is a bit different. Elsewhere, users can only request prints of their own photographs. however, with PhotoBucket, strangers can access users accounts, including those not logged in to the site, and request prints. All that they need is the “Share” URL, which is available in most search results.

This feature of PhotoBucket is not mentioned clearly in any of the marketing materials. Nowhere on the front page of the site or the registration page does PhotoBucket mention that, by default, prints of your work will be available to anyone finds your account.

Furthermore, PhotoBucket does not mention in any clear location that the way to prevent this from happening is to set your account to private or not display the “Share” URL under your images. This creates a very worrisome situation where not only are artists likely having their works printed after being uploaded without permission, but also photos being uploaded in the intended manner can be printed by complete strangers.

Few, I doubt, would be comfortable with a stranger printing a calendar based upon their family photos and this raises many unsettling possibilities.

Artists, however, also have to contend with Qoop’s printing service. Qoop does not make any attempt to filter out infringing material from their service, other than providing a standard terms of service and presenting warnings to the user. One artist, Sandi Baker of Wolf Song Studio tested this by logging into visiting a strangers account (she did not log into PB in any regard), one who had uploaded some of her images without permission, and printed several stickers of her own work, seen right.

All of this without her explicit permission or the permission of the person who created the account.

However, if an effective take down regime were in place at PhotoBucket, this problem might be significantly lessened. Unfortunately, as many artists have discovered, the take down system at PhotoBucket does little to actually stop distribution of their work.

Take Down Problems

Though all of the artists who have filed takedown notices with PhotoBucket agree that the staff is friendly and efficient, the problem is that takedowns rarely remove the work from the site.

Several artists have reported that their images are reuploaded, often within minutes. This often takes place through a series of spam-like accounts owned by usernames that contain a large amount of numbers and don’t seem likely to have been created by a human being.

However, filing a takedown of an image does not result in removal of all copies of the work, just the specific one mentioned. Given that there are over four billion images on PhotoBucket and the difficulties in search for images on the Web, especially if the title has been changed, it is unlikely that an artist can find all or even most copies of their image.

Many artists feel that, between the other copies of the work and the reuploading of removed images, that filing takedown notices with PhotoBucket is almost completely. It is impossible to remove an image, especially one that is popular with PhotoBucket’s users, from the service.

However, the answer to this problem might actually rest with PhotoBucket’s parent company Myspace as they have already cracked this problem, at least as it applies to video.

Solutions

According to the artists, the issue of photo printing can be greatly mitigated by limiting access to the service. The default setting for the printing feature should be set to “off”. This can be achieved initially by ensuring that all PhotoBucket accounts are initially set to private and are only turned to public with the express understanding that it enables printing.

A more permanent solution, however, would be to turn off the printing service itself, unless specifically requested, and limiting it to the user’s own account. Exceptions might be available in cases where well-known artists use PhotoBucket, such as with director accounts on YouTube, but those accounts would carry special rules and require more effort to create.

Though such a system would still enable users to grab an image they wanted to print, upload it to their own account and print the image, limiting the access to the feature greatly reduces the number of people who can produce prints and ensures that the person who requested the image is also the original infringer. This eliminates much of the “innocent infringer” argument and prevents people from accidentally making works available for commercial printing.

Regarding the takedown system, PhotoBucket’s parent company Myspace introduced a “Take Down Stay Down” system for their video offerings in May of last year.

The system works by taking a fingerprint of any video that a takdown is requested for and comparing it against all future uploads. If the video matches, the upload is blocked preventing the work from reappearing on the site.

Theoretically, such a system could easily be applied to images. Once a takedown of an image is requested and a counter-notice seems unlikely, the image could be fingerprinted, compared against other images on the service and against other uploads. If other copies are detected, they are either removed or blocked, meaning that the artist need only submit one DMCA notice to secure the removal of all of their images.

This would likely service PhotoBucket as well as the artists as, most likely, the majority of PhotoBucket’s DMCA complaints stem from a small group of artists dealing with a relatively finite number of pictures.

The technology for such a system already exists and can even detect if the image has been reduced, cropped or otherwise trivially edited. It is at least technically possible for Myspace and PhotoBucket alike to implement such a system.

Conclusions

There is little doubt among the artists that PhotoBucket is a good service and was built with the best of intentions. However, the service is having some unintended consequences and needs to be adjusted to make sure that rampant copyright infringement does not harm the reputation of the service with its target audience, artists and photographers.

There is no desire to “kill” PhotoBucket or to hinder the usefulness of the service for its millions of legitimate users. However, there is a growing expression of concern regarding the service.

As of this writing, the petition is closing in on fifty signatures despite being up less than 24 hours (Update: 10 PM CT Currently at 575 signatures). All of the signatories of the petition are visual artists, many of whom have had their works abused by PhotoBucket members. The current list includes many well-known artists, especially in the airbrush art communities.

Hopefully Photobucket will see these issues and make the needed changes before it is too late. Otherwise, it is only a matter of time before the artists get more hostile towards the service and both the reputation of PhotoBucket and of its legitimate members starts to suffer.

But most importantly, the artists are trying to avoid a situation where others are tempted to try the Viacom route and simply go after PhotoBucket in court. That is not in anyone’s best interest.

With that in mind though, Myspace does not tolerate these types of issues with their video offerings and should not tolerate them with their image offerings either. Art and photography, though not always backed with the most powerful lawyers, are no less creative and require no less effort than video. They are also no less protected.

Still images deserve the same protections as videos. Let us hope that Myspace and PhotoBucket see it the same way.

The response was very divided. Many supported Scoble for what he did while others accused him of being dishonest about the whole issue.

Personally, I feel ambivalent about the matter. Though I am not comfortable with data lock-ins, as they artificially pad a company’s customer retention, I do not support Scoble knowingly violating a TOS and then complaining when he is banned and working to obtain reinstatement.

However, Scoble-gate, as it is being called on some sites, highlights a larger, much more worrisome issue. What would happen if the data involved wasn’t the information for his Facebook contacts, but rather, his blog postings or photos?

That would be very different and it raises some difficult issues.

I did some looking around and it became clear that many sites are executing a form of reverse content theft, locking in your work to their site and making it hard, or even impossible, to get out.

No longer do we have to just worry about our content appearing where we don’t want it, but also getting it where we need it in the first place.

The Premise

The idea of content theft itself is pretty simple. When you post a work to the Web, you have a choice in what sites it appears on. You can make that choice explicitly, by posting it yourself or directly granting permission, or implicitly through a license, such as a Creative Commons License, or other broad transfer of rights.

Most of the time, we worry about our content appearing where we don’t want it it. Spammers, scrapers and plagiarists can take content almost instantly and post it all over the Web, often times confusing the market and diluting the search results.

However, what happens when we post content to the Web, want to move it or copy it to another site but are prevented from doing so? It is a form of content theft in that it is a loss of control over placement. However, it is not traditional content theft but it is still a limitation on the rights of a copyright holder, in this case the right to share his or her own work with whomever he/she pleases.

As we become more and more reliant on third-party services, many of which we use for free, this issue of “reverse” content theft becomes more and more serious. As we add data to our various presences on the Web, our ability to export and move it around becomes critical.

However, what I discovered when looking at many of the popular services is that most don’t offer much in the way of portability. Here is a wrap up of some of the better known services and what I found when trying to export my data.

Blog Hosts

Blogger: Blogger does not have any export functionality. However, you can modify your Blogger template to convert the site itself into an exportable format. However, that does nothing to help move images or videos, just text.
WordPress.com: WordPress.com has the same import/export functionality that stand-alone installs do. Though, once again, it doesn’t help with moving media, this is at least an example of how to do exporting correctly.
LiveJournal: Offers an easy Web export tool as well as downloadable clients to make the process easy. Does not appear to be able to export comments and no word on moving images.

Note: With blog hosts, you can do a great deal of importing and exporting through the RSS feed. However, RSS feeds typically only cover the past ten entries, don’t include comments and don’t help with obtaining media. In some cases it can help, but is not a viable solution for large blogs.

Social Networks

MySpace: Myspace is a member of OpenSocial and allows a high amount of data portability. However, no clear way to export blog entries or photos.
Facebook: As Scoble discovered, Facebook, despite having a robust API, places severe limits on the amount of data that can leave the service and bans users that attempt to take it by force.
LinkedIn: Also a member of OpenSocial, LinkedIn allows you to export your connections into a variety of formats. Another good example of making data portable. However, LinkedIn hosts very little content produced by the user and most exportable data deals with others on the service.

Image Hosts

Flickr: Exporting images from FLickr can easily be done via their API. Though it is not an ideal solution, it is easy enough to work around.
PhotoBucket: Has no documented API and Flock does not support downloading to the hard drive (at least in my tests). Pro users, however, can download their images via FTP and others can order a CD for ten dollars. Sadly, all export options come at a price.
ImageShack: No simple way of retrieving images in bulk. Their tools only put files onto the service, not pull them down.

Video Hosts

All: Pretty much all of the video hosts are in the same position. They do not offer a means to easily download your own videos but hacks exist, especially using the Download Helper Firefox Extension, to get around that obstruction. The video sharing sites do not seem to be hostile toward such downloading. However, there is currently no means to go from a Web video to the original work as originals are destroyed shortly after conversion. It is important to save your original videos after upload.

The Problem

The issue with this limited portability of data is simple. The more you invest into a service, the harder and harder it is to get all of your own content back out.

For example, if you run a blog on a service that does not allow easy extraction, the longer you run that blog, the harder it is to move. When it is just a few entries it is feasible to hand copy/paste the text, but after a few months or years, it grows to be a monumental task.

Similarly, it is easy to save and download a few dozen images by hand, but what happens if you have hundreds, or even thousands, in your account? Should the service close down or a newer, better option come along, you may be stuck.

With paid hosting, you can always download your databases and grab all of your files via FTP. Moving to a new host is never a fun process, but it can be done without losing any data.

However, that is not the case for many of these free services. Many times, you are at their mercy. Unfortunately, as these services play a larger role both on the Web and in our lives, that lock in could be especially dangerous.

The good news is that there are ways to mitigate against this problem and prevent it from being the death of your content.

Mitigation

If you are worried about your content being locked in to a service there are several steps that you can take to prevent that from happening.

Granted, most of this is purely common sense, but it pays to think about these issues before you are setting up a new account or before you delve too deeply into it.

After all, most people don’t think create an exit strategy for an account when they are creating it. As with other things in life, when something is new, most of us are one only thinking about the potential while assuming it will last forever.

Sadly, on the Web, that never seems to be the case.

Conclusions

The idea of a lock-in is nothing new. Companies have been throwing up obstacles to leaving for centuries.

However, one thing that history has shown us is that companies do not lock in users because it is difficult to allow them to leave or burdensome to create features that make transitioning easy, but because it is better for their bottom line if they don’t.

The problem with this is, unlike cell phone contracts that simply hold our plan hostage, Web services are holding our content, something we spent a great deal of time and energy to create, to their whims.

Whether it is family photos, a blog or a collection of witty videos, the content we upload to these services is a part of who we are and the fact that companies would withhold it from us as part of their business model is offensive.

This is especially true since our uploading of content is exactly what makes their business model possible in the first place. Though these sites are a symbiotic relationship where we receive a free service and they get content to advertise against, one has to wonder about any partnership where one half tries to trap the other.

To be fair, none of these sites use technology to actively prevent you from moving your content elsewhere. They all leave open the possibility of hand copying/saving and don’t prevent you from doing that.

However, without automated tools to speed the process up, doing so is impractical to the point of being impossible. Considering that many of these sites prohibit users from creating their own tools for the purpose, such as what Facebook did, there is no practical way to escape these services.

This can be a big problem for content creators and, in some cases, can actually be a much bigger issue than traditional content theft. This will be something to discuss and follow in the weeks and months to come.

In each case we will evaluate their policy, look for weaknesses and, as necessary, recommend steps for improvement.

However, as you can see below, for most of these sites, there is a lot of room for improvement. Worse yet, some have very critical issues that make it almost impossible to report copyright infringement, or other abuse problems, to the host.

Format: Email
Email Address: copyrightagent at myspace dot com
Location of Policy: Item Nine, Terms & Conditions
Registered with USCO: Yes (outdated)
Comments: Inconsistency is the word of choice for the Myspace policy. There are actually three different versions of it on the Web. First is their USCO submission, linked above, which is no longer valid. Second is the one provided in their terms and conditions, which provides the email address listed above. The third is the information provided under their “Contact” page, which directs you to yet another policy and a form to send your notice. Though the email address above works best, there is clearly room for confusion here. All in all though, the policy itself is the bare minimum and strives do enough to get by and not much else, a practice reflected by how they handle claims on the back end. Their policy provides only the basics for filing a DMCA notice with no mention of a counter-notice and does so in a very bare-bones way. The bottom line is that MySpace needs to clean up, update and unify its DMCA policy before serious problems emerge.
Grade: C-

Format: Email
Email Address: amac at google dot com
Location of Policy: Google’s DMCA Policy
Registered with USCO: No (registered as Google)
Comments: Orkut is Google’s social networking site and it shares its DMCA policy with the rest of Google’s services. Unfortunately, as I’ve commented before, that is not a good thing. Google’s DMCA policy is notoriously obstructionist and roundly criticized no the Web. Its requirement of a physical signature does not mesh with the law, in particular the ESIGN act, and makes it nearly impossible to email a notice in. You can get around these requirements by scanning in your signature, placing it in a PDF (I recommend OpenOffice) and emailing that, but it is a huge hassle that is unnecessary and adds work for both the submitter and the processor. That issue aside, Google’s policy is very robust, containing the necessary information to file a notice and a counter-notice. It also provides links to several relevant sites and I do agree with their submitting notices to Chilling Effects. However, the policy is difficult to find from the Orkut Web site, buried in the terms of use, and the actual Google policy is more targeted at the search engine, not the hosting services such as Orkut and Blogspot.
Grade: D

Format: Email/Form
Email Address: copyright at facebook dot com
Location of Policy: Facebook’s Copyright Policy
Registered with USCO: Yes
Comments: Facebook is a trend setter in so many ways, hopefully it can be one here as well. Facebook’s copyright policy is amazingly robust, including both notice and counter-notice information as well as well-worded cautions against sending false notices and providing a useful Copyright FAQ that can answer many of a member’s or a copyright holder’s questions. Best of all, Facebook provides a very easy-to-use form for submitting either a DMCA notice or a counter-notice. The form automatically checks that the notice is valid and aids inexperienced rightsholders in sending a notice in. All in all, it is almost the perfect policy with the perfect method for receiving notices, either via email or form. The only complaint I have about the policy is that the link to it is buried in the terms of use, under “Copyright Complaints” but, beyond that, Facebook sets the bar up to which other social networking sites will be held.
Grade: A

Format: Email
Email Address: ??? (help at friendster dot com?)
Location of Policy: Item Eight, Terms of Service
Registered with USCO: No
Comments: I’d love to talk more about Friendster’s DMCA/Copyright policy but there isn’t much to say. The site denotes one meager paragraph to the issue in their terms of service, of which but one sentence is targeted as those wishing to file a DMCA notice. However, following the “Contact Us” link provided takes you to a page with no clear contact information to report such an infringement. The policy is woefully incomplete, buried in their terms of service, does not provide adequate contact information and offers no guidance on filing a notice at all. Worst of all, the site is not registered with the USCO, so it is impossible to obtain the information through that database. This policy is effective non-existent.
Grade: F

Format: Postal Mail
Email Address: None
Location of Policy: User Conduct, User Agreement
Registered with USCO: No
Comments: As bad as the Friendster policy is, this one is much worse. Not only do the only denote one sentence to copyright issues, but they do not provide information to contact a DMCA agent anywhere on their site or with the USCO. Worst of all, the only means of contact they provide for handling abuse complaints, all abuse complaints, is a postal address in California. Though LinkedIn’s structure makes it slightly less of a copyright danger, there are still many potential problems and their policy is beyond reckless. It is a shame that the social network targeted at business users has such a sloppy policy. Most likely, I’ll be removing my own LinkedIn profile in the coming days/weeks after now that I am aware of this issue. I am officially taking suggestions on where to move to.
Grade: F

Format: Email
Email Address: copyright at bebo dot com
Location of Policy: Copyright Policy, Terms of Service
Registered with USCO: No
Comments: Previously derided on this site, Bebo has taken some solid steps to deal with these issues more appropriately. They have done away with the registration requirement, have posted a full DMCA policy in their terms of use and have designated an agent to handle all such claims. The policy itself is very robust, if a bit hidden, containing all of the necessary elements to file a notice and a counter-notice. However, I do find it a bit strange that the notice and counter-notice go to the same person, but to different email addresses. It is a complete policy that, for whatever reason, is not supplemented by an actual registration with the USCO. Still, the progress has been impressive and I hope that the site will continue to push forward in this area, perhaps bringing it to full safe harbor compliance.
Grade: C-

Format: Email
Email Address: help-dmca at xanga dot com
Location of Policy: Xanga’s DMCA Policy
Registered with USCO: Yes
Comments: In the past, I have been very hard on Xanga. Initially there was no DMCA information on their site and no registration with the USCO. After letters, calls and emails, I was able to get in touch with Xanga and, at least in a small way, push them toward becoming DMCA compliant. Now their policy is a model for other sites in the field to look at. Though not as practical as Facebook’s they have a well-written and robust policy that details both notice and counter-notice procedures. Their policy provides full contact information, including fax, email and snail mail as well as reasonable cautions on filing a false notice and links to relevant pages. They’ve also registered with the USCO and all of their information is consistent. My only complaint is that their DMCA policy is buried as a link in their terms of use, under “Copyright Infringement” and can be a little bit hard to find. The only other place the policy appears is as a link under “Legal” in the “Help” section. All in all, it is a very robust and very effective policy that, since the initial problems were resolved, has worked very well.
Grade: B+

Conclusions

When it was all said and done, I was very disappointed in how the social networking sites followed the DMCA. Two, Friendster and LinkedIn, outright failed, having incomplete and inadequate policies, one was barely passable, another was below average and only Xanga and Facebook were real standouts.

Given the importance of social networking sites on the Web, it is a great shame that they seem to struggle so dearly in this area. I am going to open up a dialog with both Friendster and LinkedIn to see about addressing these issues, previous attempts to speak with Google have been failed.

But as the Web becomes more and more reliant on social networking sites, their DMCA/copyright policies will become more and more important. We simple can not allow these sites to have weak or ineffective policies, lest they become homes to plagiarists, spammers and others that want to misuse content.

The time to act is now and I intend to start working on it today.

What the Ratings Mean

A – A complete policy that goes well above and beyond what is required. Often shows real innovation.
B – A solid policy that is well-thought out and is very complete. Shows consideration for submitters and users.
C – An average policy, follows the law to the letter but doesn’t go out of its way to help those submitting a notice or its users.
D – A policy that, while mostly complete, still raises severe ethical and/or legal questions.
F – An incomplete policy that fails to follow the DMCA or local laws in a severe way.

Pluses or minuses are used to indicate how the where a host fits in relationship to other hosts in that that tier.

Up Next: Blog Hosting Companies

According to Dash, the LiveJournal service, though having a larger user base than WordPress.com and being equally free to use, is also relatively free of spam blogs. He attributes this to both a similar kind of vigilance that WordPress.com exhibits in fighting spam blogs but also lists an unusual ally, the social networking element.

It turns out, LJ’s best defense may be the Myspace-like features.

Friends Have Benefits

According to Dash, spam blogs and spam accounts don’t have friends other than spam blogs in the same network. No one, in their right mind, would knowingly befriend a spam blog.

This knowledge makes it easy for LiveJournal to not just crush individual spam blogs, but entire networks. This works very similar to Microsoft’s proposal for dealing with Internet spam, but in a much more controlled environment.

In short, by detecting one spam blog and then looking at that blog’s friends, you can detect others and, by looking at their friends you can eventually fan out until you’ve detected the entire network with relative certainty.

This is hugely powerful in that, rather than dealing with spam blogs one at a time, LiveJournal can stop large groups of them with relative ease, once again preventing them from ever gaining a foothold on the service.

An Interesting Solution

Using the social network against spammers is definitely a very powerful technique, however, it isn’t one that will work for sites without that kind of functionality. It might work well for Myspace or Xanga, but not so much for WordPress.com, Blogspot or other services that don’t emphasize those elements.

It will be interesting to see if social networks take advantage of the human element to aid them in stopping spam and what, if anything, spammers to do to counter that. Already on some networks, like MyBlogLog and Myspace, there is a great deal of “friend spam” being sent out. If humans can be duped into linking to spam profiles and spam blogs, then such a technique would become much less effective as filtering out the legitimate users would become more time consuming.

Still, at the moment at least, it seems to be working well for LiveJournal as Dash reports that they are regularly targeted by spammers but have little trouble keeping them at bay. I hope that is how it remains.

Conclusions

Personally, I am still very concerned about LiveJournal’s other copyright and splogging issues and I am working with Dash as well as others at Six Apart to address them. In the meantime though, many will consider the syndicated LiveJournal accounts to be a form of sanctioned spam blogging on the service as they effectively scrap content from other sites without permission.

Hopefully those issues will be resolved soon.

Regardless, Six Apart’s ability to keep spammers off of their service is very impressive. Hopefully others services, especially those who have been inundated with spam, will learn from their techniques and be able to better control their own servers.

If that happens, then perhaps the Internet can become a much more spam-free place.