Not all American hosting companies get it right

While there was a British company that took months to respond to the equivalent of a DMCA complaint (under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act), generally American firms are very on the ball.
   There are exceptions. I won’t name this outfit but the weekend’s responses were laughable.

March 21: Pirate puts up a copy of one of our pages.
March 22: We find out about it and ask if the poster could cut the piece down to an excerpt at the least, or remove it altogether.
March 24: After getting no response, we track down the hosting company to ask for its assistance under its AUP.
March 30, 2.17 p.m. PDT: After getting no response, we open a ticket via its website and send the complaint again.
March 30, 6.06 p.m. PDT: Host company: here’s the address of the guy who runs the server.
March 30, 6.37 p.m. PDT: I’ll send him an email and keep you posted.
March 31, 7 a.m. PDT: Hosting company staff member closes the ticket, though the matter is not resolved.
March 31, 2.15 p.m. PDT: I add a comment to say that there is no response, and that, as stated, I would keep them posted, to keep the ticket open.
April 1, 1.51 a.m. PDT: Still nothing.
April 1, 6.47 p.m. PDT: OK guys, evidently they’re not going to do anything so your company now needs to remove our content, please.
April 2, 9.04 a.m. PDT: Hosting company, exact words: ‘what contents exactly?’! (The guy who asked me was the same one who gave me the email address on March 30—so he has access to it.)
April 2, 8.02 p.m. PDT: I respond with the link. Guess it was too hard for them to dig out a PDF in their own possession.
April 2, 11.03 p.m. PDT: The chap who runs the server replies, and I go and tell the hosts that that has happened.
April 3, 11.59 a.m. PDT: Hosting company staff member closes the ticket, though the matter is not resolved. (The page is still online.)
April 3, 2.40 p.m. PDT: I ask that the ticket remain open till the page is removed.

   I don’t mind giving away some of my content, and don’t check for my personal entries, and there’s stuff I do for Creative Commons. When work articles are stolen, I have to look after our team members and licensors, and our agreements with them.
   But for a hosting company to need to be told three times what page is at issue (and it’s only one page)—it’s not good enough.
   Still, waiting from March 22 to April 3 (so far) is not as bad as dealing with those chaps in Manchester, whose client was emailed, commented and Tweeted, and who themselves were emailed and Tweeted, in a copyright claim that went on from November to March. At least this lot is giving me replies regularly—just not quite the replies I want!
   Incidentally, at least one host—which did respond (and has always responded) immediately—requires DMCA notices to be sent via fax. So when folks ask why we still keep our fax machine, there’s one good example already. Even the last time we had to approach Google on a DMCA matter, we had to use the fax.
   You’ve got to love the irony.

PS.: As of the evening of April 4, GMT, the page at issue is gone. However, I can’t let the hosting company know directly any more because its secure server certificate is out of date! Let’s hope they get my email notice to close the ticket.—JY


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