Reuters
Misuses
DMCA
"Copyright" To
Cover Up Its
Attacks on
Press at UN
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
December 27 --
Can Reuters
use the US
Digital
Millennium
Copyright Act
to get Google
to remove a
telling
document from
its
search engine?
Based on a sworn
statement
under the DMCA
by Reuters'
bureau
chief at the
United Nations
Louis
Charbonneau,
Google has
blocked
search access
to a leaked
copy of a
written
request by
Charbonneau of
Reuters to get
an
investigative
journalist
from Inner
City Press
thrown out of
the UN. Click
here to view
the DMCA
notice.
The
DMCA was
enacted after
massive
industry
lobbying 15
years ago. It
has
been used to
take
copyrighted
movies and
video games
off free
Internet
sites; it has
been subject
to abuse in
these fields.
But to
misuse the
DMCA to
cover-up a
Reuters
complaint to
the UN against
a
smaller
competitor?
This is a new
low, for
Reuters, the
DMCA, the UN
and Google
(which have a
previous and
perhaps
related
history
together.)
Reuters,
like
Inner City
Press and
other media,
seeks to
obtain and
publish
documents
without the
consent of
their authors.
These are
called
leaks, and
Reuters brags
when it gets
them, calls
them
exclusives.
But
it has emerged
that on August
14, 2013,
Reuters'
Charbonneau
made a
sworn
statement to
Google under
the DMCA
seeking and
obtaining the
exclusion from
Search and
thus censoring
of a complain
he had filed
with the UN's
top two Media
Accreditation
officials in
2012.
Ironically,
Charbonneau
later in 2012
leaked
an internal
anti Inner
City Press
document of
the United
Nations
Correspondents
Association,
of which
he was first
vice
president, to
the UN. So
the user of
leaks tries to
misuse the
DMCA law to
censor others'
leaks.
Here
is what
Charbonneau
told Google,
under oath:
The
copyrighted
material is a
private email
I wrote in
April 2012 and
for
which I never
gave
permission to
be published.
It has been
published
on a blog and
appears in on
the first page
of search
results for my
name and the
firm I work
for, Reuters.
It can be seen
here:
http://www.innercitypress.com/reutersLC3unmalu.pdf
Original
work
URL(s):
http://www.innercitypress.com/reutersLC3unmalu.pdf
Allegedly
infringing
URLs:
http://www.innercitypress.com/reutersLC3unmalu.pdf
SWORN
STATEMENTS
I
have a good
faith belief
that use of
the
copyrighted
materials
described
above as
allegedly
infringing is
not authorized
by the
copyright
owner, its
agent, or the
law. [checked]
The
information
in this
notification
is accurate,
and I swear,
under
penalty of
perjury, that
I am the
copyright
owner or am
authorized to
act on behalf
of the owner
of an
exclusive
right that is
allegedly
infringed.
Here
is the text of
Charbonneau's
communication
to the UN's
top Media
Accreditation
and Liaison
Unit official
Stephane
Dujarric and
MALU's
manager, to
which he
claimed
"copyright"
and sought to
censor from
Search:
Hi
Isabelle
and Stephane,
I
just wanted to
pass on for
the record
that I was
just
confronted by
Matt Lee in
the DHL
auditorium in
very hostile
fashion a
short while
ago (there
were several
witnesses,
including
Giampaolo).
He's
obviously
gotten wind
that there's a
movement afoot
to expel him
from
the UNCA
executive
committee,
though he
doesn't know
the details
yet.
But he was
going out of
his way to be
as
intimidating
and aggressive
as possible
towards me,
told me I
"disgust" him,
etc.
In
all
my 20+ years
of reporting
I've never
been
approached
like that by
a follow
journalist in
any press
corps, no
matter how
stressful
things got.
He's become
someone who's
making it very
hard for me
and
others in the
UN press to do
our jobs. His
harassment of
fellow
reporters is
reaching a new
fever pitch.
I
just thought
you should
know this.
Cheers,
Lou
Louis
Charbonneau
Bureau Chief.
United Nations
Reuters
News Thomson
Reuters
reuters. com
This
email
was sent to
you by Thomson
Reuters, the
global news
and
information
company.
It
is a spurious
use of
copyright. The
e-mail was
complaint to
UN
officials to
try to get
another
journalist
thrown out of
the UN.
It
came after
Inner City
Press
published a
story
reporting that
then
UNCA president
Giampaolo
Pioli
(referred to
as a witness
in
Charbonneau's
"copyrighted"
email) had a
previous
financial
relationship
with Sri
Lanka's
ambassador and
then agreed to
screen
inside
the UN a Sri
Lanka
government
film
denying war
crimes. Click
here
and here
for more on
that.
This,
then, is a
cover-up.
Previous
misuses of the
DMCA,
cataloged in
March
2013 by the
Electronic
Frontier
Foundation,
include for
example Apple
threatening
Blu Wiki "for
hosting a
discussion
about reverse
engineering
iPods to
inter-operate
with software
other than
Apple's
own iTunes."
"Censorware"
vendor N2H2
claimed that
the DMCA
should block
researchers
like Seth
Finkelstein
from examining
its software,
and blocked a
variety of
legitimate
websites,
evidence that
assisted the ACLU
in
challenging a
law requiring
the use web
filtering
software by
federally-funded
public
libraries. See,
e.g.,
Mainstream
Loudoun v. Bd.
of Trs., 24
F.Supp.2d 552
(E.D. Va.
1998),
available (for
now) at
http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=13796536557265673818.
Sony
threatened the
Norwegian
website
Gitorious, "a
platform for
open-source
programmers to
collaborate on
new projects."
But
to misuse the
DMCA to
cover-up a
Reuters
complaint to
the UN against
a smaller
competitor?
This is
something new.
The
new Free
UN Coalition
for Access
has been
formed to
oppose
censorship
attempts by
and at the
United
Nations,
including by
UNCA now
headed
without
reforms by
Pamela Falk of
CBS. How will
Google and the
UN,
and Reuters
now that it
has been
exposed, act
on the false
statement
under and
misuse of the
Digital
Millennium
Copyright Act?
Reuters
has
been on
notice. Inner
City Press
asked Reuters
editor Stephen
J.
Adler and
three "ethics"
colleagues
about
ThomsonReuters'
policies,
including how
its UN bureau
chief's
attempts to
oust Inner
City Press
from the UN
complied with
the wire
services'
claimed
commitment to
freedom of the
press. Now the
DCMA has been
misused to
try to cover
up just one
such Reuters
attempt. This
is a new low.
Watch this
site.
, 
