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Takedown Notice

Students Prevail Against Diebold in DMCA "Takedown Notice" Abuse Case

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on October 1, 2004 - 3:29am.
San Jose, Calif. -- In the first ruling regarding the application of Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) "takedown notices," a California district court has ruled that Diebold Election Systems violated several students' free speech rights when it attempted to prevent them from publishing company memos detailing flaws in its electronic voting machines. Two Swarthmore college students and the independent news site IndyMedia sued Diebold, with the help of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), claiming that Diebold knowingly misused the "takedown notice" as a means of quashing speech critical of its technology. "No reasonable copyright holder could have believed that portions of the e-mail archive discussing possible technical problems with Diebold's voting machines were protected by copyright," Judge Jeremy Fogel wrote, in his ruling. "Judge Fogel recognized the fair use of copyrighted materials in critical discussion and gave speakers a remedy when their speech is chilled by improper claims of copyright infringement," said EFF staff attorney Wendy Seltzer.
tags: Law | DMCA | Students | Diebold | Takedown Notice | Abuse Case |