John R. Levine wrote:
As long as it takes. Otherwise we will have a system in which a mere accusation is sufficient.
Do you really think it is a good idea to require a court case and a trial to take down a phish site pretending to be Paypal or the Bank of America?
How does one know that a particular web site is "a phish site pretending to be Paypal or the Bank of America"? Perhaps it is operating under a license? Perhaps it is a permissible parody. We ought not to allow the takedown of things simply on accusation. There needs to be some process in which a impartial person takes a look at the facts and hears arguments. This need not be a heavyweight process. Once the door is open for takedown by accusation then we've just handed every disgruntled person or over exuberant politico a means of causing trouble. This is hardly a fantasy. We can look at the unjustified DMCA takedown claims and the heavyhanded Cease and Desist letters that have become routine tools by those who have highly inflated notions about the extent of their trademark and copyright rights. Our history is full of periods in which simple accusation was translated into suppression - For instance in the early 1950's Senator Macarthy and his ilk ruined many innocent people by nothing more than unsubstantiated accusation. The last election indicated that Youtube clips are going to be a big element of future campaigns. We can imagine that in the next election that opponents of a video will start to generate takedown notices on the most flimsily of grounds - perhaps on the basis of a trademarked name on a sign in the background or a bit of music that is drifted in during an interview. I suspect that it will get very nasty. That's the kind of world we are going to end up with if we allow vigilante decisions to restrict the use of the internet. --karl--