Comments

• • sarah beth@sarahma108

  

  sarah beth December 19, 2012 - 8:29pm

  Here's some commentary on how Victoria's Secret used the DMCA and the copyright policies of various third party websites (Twitter, Pinterest, Facebook and the feminist group's hosting company) to try to stall and take down the campaign, rather than sending cease and desist letters directly to FORCE (which would be unlikely to work). 

  http://www.dailydot.com/news/love-consent-victoria-secret-force/

   

  The Electronic Frontier Foundation describes this as the "weakest link problem": https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/12/i-see-london-i-see-france

  These takedowns highlight, once again, the weakest link problem that plagues Internet speech. Individuals and organizations rely on service providers to help them communicate with the world (YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, etc.). A copyright complaint to an intermediary generally triggers a virtually automatic takedown, because the intermediary has a strong interest in complying with the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) and preserving its safe harbor from copyright liability. A trademark complaint directed to one of those providers can also mean a fast and easy takedown given that those service providers usually don’t have the resources and/or the inclination to investigate trademark infringement claims. Moreover, because there is no counter-notice procedure, the targets of an improper trademark takedown have no easy way to get their content back up.