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A comment on EasyList: Ad-serving domain removed due to DMCA takedown request. Parent comment

Re:EasyList: Ad-serving domain removed due to DMCA takedown ... by downandout on Thursday August 10, 2017 @07:26AM (#14978571)
From the page you linked to:

"...Prohibited acts therefore include descrambling a scrambled work, decrypting an encrypted work, or otherwise avoiding, bypassing, removing, deactivating or impairing a technological measure without the authority of the copyright owner..."

It likely wasn't functionalclam.com itself that filed the request. Rather, the owner of a site that uses some ad tech hosted there is likely claiming that EasyList is aiding in the impairment of a technological measure they implemented, which according to this interpretation, is a violation of the DMCA.

It would likely be an interesting court battle, but apparently isn't one that the EasyList folks are willing to defend at the moment.

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Re:EasyList: Ad-serving domain removed due to DMCA takedown ... by e_proxus on Thursday August 10, 2017 @07:34AM (#14978624)
I wonder how it would hold up in court, since EasyList is just a list, not the technology itself (like uBlock for example).

Could my comment "Everyone, please block functionalclam.com" also be subject of a DMCA takedown request then?

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Re:EasyList: Ad-serving domain removed due to DMCA takedown ... by MichaelBurge on Thursday August 10, 2017 @08:07AM (#14978808)
Anyone can send you a scary letter claiming anything at any time. Your choices are always A. Ignore it B. Delete your comment or C. Pay a lawyer $500/hour for advice.

People have trouble conceptualizing small probabilities, so that minimum threshold of choosing A and being wrong times "all the money in the world"[1] might be > $500, so it's always rational[2] to delete your comment if you don't want to schedule time with a lawyer.

[1] http://www.pcworld.com/article/223431/riaa_thinks_limewire_o...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_mugging

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Re:EasyList: Ad-serving domain removed due to DMCA takedown ... by OzzyB on Thursday August 10, 2017 @08:54AM (#14979106)
So in other words, scary letters work because they're scary and make people scared. Sounds like the more people choose C the more these scary letters become self-fulfilling.
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