said by BigMattock :

MobiTV said they didn't want to take Howard's 'sight' down. When does the First Amendment not apply? When it goes against the DMCA? Can't Mobi, the artist, sue MobiTV? Or does Mobi own part of it? Who had the name Mobi first... maybe Mobi(the artist) will have to change his name?

said by Ahrenl :

Horrible analogy.

This is more like someone who left their TV playing on the street, and threatened to sue anyone who told people where to go and watch said TV. No property is being withheld from the original owner, who is ACTUALLY PROVIDING the content to anyone who wishes to ask for it.

said by MyDogHsFleas :

It sounds like MoviTV is now in the process of redoing their (poor) security.

Sounds like this story is about over.

said by Karl Bode :

quote:

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Maybe on Planet Karl.

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Is that an insult? Here on "Planet Karl" we don't much like lame analogies used as a justification to stifle reasonable Internet discussion. Because even if the actual act being discussed is Illegal, discussing it is not.

I know. We're crazy. We also drink Drain-O and smoke big cigars.

MobiTV, a company that streams television channels to mobile devices, has backed away from its threats to censor a mobile forum Web site and pull the plug on its domain name.

Lawyers for the Emeryville, Calif., company had threatened the owner of HowardForums.com on March 4, saying that users of the Web site had posted an illegal link that allows anyone to watch television channels such as MSNBC or the Discovery Channel over the Internet for free without registering.

But after a firestorm of protest arose online, with Internet users saying that MobiTV should add greater security rather than dispatching their lawyers, the company backed down on Friday afternoon.

...statement from MobiTV co-founder and president Paul Scanlan, which we left unedited:

quote:

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Howard, great catching up today. Again, we're big fans of the sight and our intention was never to bring your entire sight down or to "censor the Internet" like we're being accused. The irony is that is quite the opposite type of company we are and as one of the leaders in new media, we couldn't be more supportive of the rights of sights like yours. Please know that our first priority is always to fix any security issues with our system and we're doing that. Additionally, we also have a responsibility to our content and carrier partners to reduce the impact of any breaches to the system once they occur and that was really the basis for the correspondence you had with our legal team.

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said by rosco :

MobiTv will start by trying to get Gnax to take the site offline.

»www.howardforums.com/announcement.php?f=57

said by MyDogHsFleas :

[...blah blah blah...][random analogy about stealing property][...blah blah blah...]

said by Noah Vail :

Does Canada subscribe and submit to the DCMA?

said by Camelot One :

I'm not arguing that they don't have a case against the person who posted it - which is what your arument is for. But the fact is, Howard Forums is being threatened under the DMCA for allowing a URL to a publicly available webpage. (yes, it's txt but still) Nothing more.

So to take my counter analogy to the proper level, it's like me saying "so and so left their stuff out in the PUBLIC street" There is absolutely no expectation of privacy when you publish something publicly to the web. The file isn't even in a password protected directory.

said by MyDogHsFleas :

Maybe on Planet Karl. On Earth, you're ignoring the fact that the steps involve:

1) figuring out a deep URL to a file
2) downloading and looking at that file (which is not obviously a text file)
3) pulling more deep URLs out of that file
4) firing those URLs at the web site

To say this is like you just happened to notice something on the Internet (like you just happened to notice someone walking in a green shirt) is deeply disingenuous. Someone deliberately walked down this path to find something that was non-obvious before they found it. And that someone knew, for sure, that they were bypassing (admittedly poorly secured) authentication/authorization steps that the website owners had in place.

Once it was found, it is now obvious, to those that are even moderately skilled at computers and the Internet. It's also obvious that their security is just a tad less than bulletproof. That doesn't change the fact that you can't blame the victim because they didn't resist the attack very well.