How to take down a website using the DMCA
I was reading an article about the fancy HD-DVD decryption key that’s been causing all sorts of trouble.
The key now has over 1.8 MILLION hits on Google.
The article mentions how people have been posting the key in comments to articles all over IDGs website and how moderators have been unable to keep up. I browsed through some comments on a related article at IDG and their editor stated that they are removing those posts since IDG is in fact legally responsible for all content on their site, even user-posted comments.
This brings to mind the idea that if this number is in fact illegal and if this can be enforced, it now becomes easy to bring down pretty much any website where users can comment. Just post the key in question (or another tidbit of information that is hated by the entertainment industry) and watch the site self-censor, get sued or do other stupid things that are known to bring down good sites.
I suppose this isn’t really a new thought, since you could arguably post hate speech or spam or whatever in there. Still, it creates something that I call an LDoS (Legal Denial of Service) attack!
Something for lawmakers and humans to think about.
PS: There are at least 142 pages with the code in question on idg.se according to Google.