rbacal - 11:12 pm on Aug 6, 2004 (gmt 0)

Farla:

Theoretically, what you say is correct, but in practice the DMCA/yahoogroup combo is a major barrier.

First, the list is restricted and membership requires approval of the individual responsible for the mail forging and copyright infringements. A significant amount of the infringed material has had the copyright notices removed. In any event you have to be approved to view both the messages and files.

Second, DMCA disallows third party involvements. So, for example, if I find 100 infringing documents on yahoogroups, I, as a third party, have no standing to file a DMCA complaint unless they belong to me.

That means identifying owners, contacting them, explaining how to file a DMCA complaint with yahoogroups. The process is hugely timeconsuming, particularly when there are hundreds of files to go through...

Yahoogroups simply would not investigate the large scale theft reported to them, since they used the DMCA as a sort of shield,.

Because of the restricted access, the hassles involved and the desire for most of the copyright owners to basically try to avoid additional effort, I'm guessing that few actually filed DMCA complaints. I know speaking to a number of those infringed that they were prepared to consider it "over-exuberance" on the part of the infringer. That's another problem -- that when you steal one thing from a lot of people, rather than a lot of things from one person, most people don't see it as a big deal, and ignore the overall pattern.

I can understand yahoo not wanting to inspect every little thing, but I would expect that ONCE THEY ARE NOTIFIED, that they would look into something like widespread infringement on their own.

But isn't that the focus of the law suit re: abusive messages? Inaction?