Michael Crook, the DMCA, and (hopefully) the straw that broke the camel’s back
For starters, go here and here for the back story (and Fark’s take here). Briefly, a web opportunist named Michael Crook sent a DMCA takedown notice to 10 Zen Monkeys‘ webhost demanding removal of an image of his face. The cited article is here. Said image was from Mr. Crook’s appearance on the Fox News program “Hannity and Colmes”. Did you follow that? The actual owner of the copyright on the image is Fox, not Michael Crook, but no matter, because of how the DMCA is written the host took down the site. It’s back up now, and the EFF is, rightfully so, suing Mr. Crook for abusing the DMCA.
The real point of this whole thing is that the DMCA is written in such a way that it is very easy to use it to silence protected free speech. I think the hope here is that such a flagrant abuse of the DMCA could actually cause some sort of rewrite of the law, at least that’s my hope. How many other people have filed false claims? This study found that about one third of DMCA claims are questionable, with only seven instances of counter-notices being sent. It’s obvious that criticism and free speech are being silenced by the DMCA, so perhaps Michael Crook’s foul is exactly what needed to happen. Hopefully.