Removal of item from archive

[Erik Trulsson]

On Tue, Feb 22, 2005 at 09:54:57AM -0800, Beth Gibbs wrote:

> I request information on how to remove a message from the list. Please
> respond to this email address. Thank you.

The simple answer is that you can't do it.

(This list is archived by many different people all over the world.
Removing a message from all those archives is essentially impossible.)



--
<Insert your favourite quote here.>
Erik Trulsson
[email]ertr1013@student.uu.se[/email]

[Beth Gibbs]

I request information on how to remove a message from the list. Please
respond to this email address. Thank you.





Beth Gibbs

Everest Consultants, Inc

15100 SW Koll Pkwy Suite K

Beaverton, Oregon 97006

Phone: (503) 643-3990 ext. 113

Fax: (503) 643-3991

[Donald J. O'Neill]

On Tuesday 22 February 2005 11:52 am, Erik Trulsson wrote:

> On Tue, Feb 22, 2005 at 09:54:57AM -0800, Beth Gibbs wrote:

> > I request information on how to remove a message from the list.
> > Please respond to this email address. Thank you.

>
> The simple answer is that you can't do it.
>
> (This list is archived by many different people all over the world.
> Removing a message from all those archives is essentially
> impossible.)

Didn't we go through this a few weeks ago? I could have sworn we did. As
I recall, the answer at that time, after much debate about what
constituted a copywrite and and other pertinent and non-pertinet
opinions, was no.

Don

--
Donald J. O'Neill
[email]donaldj1066@fastmail.fm[/email]

I'm not totally useless,
I can be used as a bad example.

[Erik Trulsson]

On Tue, Feb 22, 2005 at 01:22:35PM -0600, Donald J. O'Neill wrote:

> On Tuesday 22 February 2005 11:52 am, Erik Trulsson wrote:

> > On Tue, Feb 22, 2005 at 09:54:57AM -0800, Beth Gibbs wrote:

> > > I request information on how to remove a message from the list.
> > > Please respond to this email address. Thank you.

> >
> > The simple answer is that you can't do it.
> >
> > (This list is archived by many different people all over the world.
> > Removing a message from all those archives is essentially
> > impossible.)

>
> Didn't we go through this a few weeks ago? I could have sworn we did.

We sure did. We have gone through this several times over the last
couple of years. So far the answer has always been the same: No.

> As
> I recall, the answer at that time, after much debate about what
> constituted a copywrite and and other pertinent and non-pertinet
> opinions, was no.

--
<Insert your favourite quote here.>
Erik Trulsson
[email]ertr1013@student.uu.se[/email]

[Anthony Atkielski]

Erik Trulsson writes:

> We sure did. We have gone through this several times over the last
> couple of years. So far the answer has always been the same: No.

You can submit DMCAs to any organization hosting archives and using any
equipment based in the U.S. (including any kind of telecommunications
link), and to their upstream providers as required. You have to submit
to U.S. jurisdiction as part of the process (no matter where you
actually live).

You can also sue organizations directly for copyright infringement (or
file complaints for criminal infringement, although that might be hard
to apply in many jurisdictions).

This requires considerable resources and determination but nothing
absolutely prevents you from pursuing it. It would make an excellent
test case and precedent, although a loss for the FreeBSD organization
would most likely put it out of business. Although many parties have
pointed out that archiving of mailing lists without explicit permission
is infringement, I don't know of any suitable cases that have gone to
court and to judgement and execution. The current trend towards ever
more restrictive copyright laws would appear to favor plaintiff authors.

All of this applies to materal to which you own the copyright. If
you're not the copyright holder, about your only option is libel, which
is quite difficult to prove in many cases.

--
Anthony

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email]owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org[/email]
> [mailto:owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org]On Behalf Of Anthony
> Atkielski
> Sent: Tuesday, February 22, 2005 12:58 PM
> To: [email]freebsd-questions@freebsd.org[/email]
> Subject: Re: Removal of item from archive
>
>
> Erik Trulsson writes:
>

> > We sure did. We have gone through this several times over the last
> > couple of years. So far the answer has always been the same: No.

>
> You can submit DMCAs to any organization hosting archives and using any
> equipment based in the U.S. (including any kind of telecommunications
> link), and to their upstream providers as required. You have to submit
> to U.S. jurisdiction as part of the process (no matter where you
> actually live).
>

The DMCA doesen't apply here unless the post she wants to have removed
was a copy protection circuvention device. (because the primary reason
for the DMCA was to define electronically posted software as a "device"
rather than as speech, thus taking it out of First Amendment
protections.)
Note of course that this hasn't yet been tried before the US Supreme
Court, so the DMCA isn't the be-all and end-all of this argument by
any means.

And yes I am aware of the free speech sky-is-falling people who seem
to think the DMCA applies to everything, this is false despite your
frothing at the mouth about it.

> You can also sue organizations directly for copyright infringement (or
> file complaints for criminal infringement, although that might be hard
> to apply in many jurisdictions).
>

That is how you would legally force the mailing list archive
(at [url]http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-questions/[/url]) to
remove the post. The only problem of course is that you would have
a pretty weak case for several reasons, first you knew you were posting
to a publically archived mailing list when you made the post, so
you gave permission by your posting for it to be archived, second,
assuming it's been posted for some time, without complaint, it would
be difficult to prove that now you are suddenly suffering damages,
so therefore no grounds to sue.

And lastly, if SOMEONE ELSE makes a post to the list, and INCLUDES
part of your post, they are doing so under Fair Use, and you CANNOT
legally compel the archive owner to remove their post, because it
is copyright by them. All you can do is sue them and if you win
you can force them to sue the archive owners to remove their post -
and if yet again a 3rd person included their post, then there is
yet another person in the chain of lawsuits.

So I think from a practical point of view suing anyone will go
nowhere also.

Beth, part of the problem here is that you have NEVER actually
listed the post or posts you want removed in the archive, for example:

[url]http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-questions/2005-February/075296[/url]
..html

the above is a specific post. (not yours, by the way) Unless you
reference the posts you have a problem with like this, nobody is
going to go to the bother
of doing your work for you. And if I was an archive owner I would
ignore the kinds of "fishing expedition" requests you are making
here - without listing the specific posts you could keep the
owner running back and forth forever deleting post after post.

Secondly, you are e-mailing the list itself, NOT the maintainers of
the list. The list maintainers are

[email]freebsd-questions-owner@freebsd.org[/email]

As is clearly spelled out on this webpage:

[url]http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions[/url]

In my humble opinion, if you really want a specific post removed,
and you have a GOOD reason for it, a polite e-mail to the list
maintainer, listing the EXACT url of the post, would PROBABLY
work. After all it's not like they would have to do a great
deal of work ONCE YOU SPECIFIED the post.

But continuing to mail this question to the actual list itself, as
you seem to keep doing, while it serves to provide endless hours of
amusement for the readers of the list, is pretty much a waste of
time.

This by the way is one of the fates of people like yourself who
fail to READ THE DIRECTIONS. I'll bet you haven't bothered to
read the owners manual of your car, either, yet you probably
consider yourself a good driver. Uh huh.

Ted

[Jason Stewart]

On 23/02/05 02:33 -0800, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:

> Beth, part of the problem here is that you have NEVER actually
> listed the post or posts you want removed in the archive, for example:
>
> [url]http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-questions/2005-February/075296[/url]
> .html
>
> the above is a specific post. (not yours, by the way) Unless you
> reference the posts you have a problem with like this, nobody is
> going to go to the bother
> of doing your work for you. And if I was an archive owner I would
> ignore the kinds of "fishing expedition" requests you are making
> here - without listing the specific posts you could keep the
> owner running back and forth forever deleting post after post.
>

I'll do some of the legwork here. Doing a simple google search on
everstinc.com reveals a spammy, dodgy past. My guess is that Beth has
been given the task of erasing this past so potential customers cannot
see the truth about everestinc.com.

See this post specifically to the freeBSD list back in 98:
[url]http://tinyurl.com/3osmm[/url]

The rest of the hits in google's usenet archive are to
news.admin.net-abuse.usenet

Jason

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jason Stewart [mailto:jstewart@rtl.org]
> Sent: Wednesday, February 23, 2005 5:49 AM
> To: Ted Mittelstaedt
> Cc: [email]freebsd-questions@freebsd.org[/email]; [email]beth@everestinc.com[/email]
> Subject: Re: Removal of item from archive
>
>
> I'll do some of the legwork here. Doing a simple google search on
> everstinc.com reveals a spammy, dodgy past. My guess is that Beth has
> been given the task of erasing this past so potential customers cannot
> see the truth about everestinc.com.
>
> See this post specifically to the freeBSD list back in 98:
> [url]http://tinyurl.com/3osmm[/url]
>

:-) That may be true but that was over 8 years ago after all.
Perhaps they have changed. At least the fact that they want
it erased shows that they aren't proud of their former spam
anymore, which is a step in the right direction.

Of course, an apology to the list for the spamming in the
first place followed by an explanation stating that Mr. So-and-So
who was pro-spamming had been fired, would be even better,
but you can't expect too much. :-)

Seriously, though, even though someone could find the posts on
Google, that's not good enough for a removal. The person or
organization requesting the removal absolutely must state precisely
what they want removed if they have any chance of it happening.

Ted