[tahoe-dev] any progress on rebooting the Test Grid?

[Shawn Willden]

On Wed, Jun 22, 2011 at 10:40 AM, Ted Rolle Jr. <stercor at gmail.com> wrote:

> The node was shut down ``Just because.''  If I understand tahoe-LAFS
> correctly, there is no possibility or reasonable suspicion to infer that the
> file was indeed stolen, based solely on the file's (unreadable) content;
> perhaps the party who put the file on tahoe-LAFS confessed to having done
> so. _This_ would constitute PC.
>

There's some specific law which is relevant in this case, and it says what
Zooko said.

It's the "Safe Harbor" provision of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act,
codified in 17 USC section 512.  Basically what it says is that if you
operate an on-line service and someone uploads material to it which some
copyright owner claims is infringing, you can completely shield yourself
from all civil and criminal liability if you immediately take it down.  If
in fact it was not infringing, the person who uploaded it can send you a
letter saying so and then you can put it back up, without fear of any
liability, while the uploader and the copyright owner duke it out.

If you choose NOT to take the allegedly infringing material down, then you
will end up as a party to the subsequent lawsuits and may have some
liability.

Note that there is no question of suspicion or probable cause anywhere in
this.  The only evidence of infringement that is required is that the
copyright holder claims that there is something infringing.  This seems kind
of crazy at first glance -- like the police arresting someone based on a
completely unsupported allegation -- but it actually makes sense in general
in that it provides an easy way for online service providers to protect
themselves, and given the provision for the "counter-notice" from the
uploader saying "Nuh, uh!   This is NOT theirs!", it the process doesn't
unduly interfere with the distribution of information which isn't actually
infringing (and non-infringing use can include Fair Use of copyrighted
material).

The interesting variation with Tahoe is that it's not necessarily easy for
the operator of the on-line service to take down specific pieces of
information without just shutting down the whole thing.

(I also am not a lawyer, but I'm quite interested in the law, and
particularly in copyright law).

-- 
Shawn
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