I’m all for protecting the rights of copyright holders, but there’s a growing trend of people and organizations who aggressively use (and misuse) copyright and trademark claims to censor and silence others.
This Guardian article details an example of this tactic where a company attempted to remove negative reviews by claiming copyright infringement. Commonly called a takedown request, this happens when a claim is made under the American Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) that copyrighted material has been published without permission.
The DMCA notification and takedown process is a powerful weapon in the battle against copyright infringement, but it can also cause severe harm to freedom of speech when used inappropriately.(#)
The average person writing a review or a blog post or whatever doesn’t have the time or resources to go after big players like Janet Jackson [1] and Suburu [1] (see other Hall of Shame examples). That’s why I’m proud to work for a company that pushes back against this digital censorship and I hope more online publishing platforms will do the same.
1. sure hope neither of them files a takedown notice on this post since I had the audacity to actually type out their name.
wendy {dot} blog 