Logo of Reporters Without Borders in defense of online free expression.
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A few weeks ago, we received a notice from blogger that one of our posts had been cited for copyright infringement, so our blog was taken down, the supposedly offensive post was put into draft form, and we were told that unless the offensive post was removed, our blog would be deleted. We deleted the post, but were totally mystified about how we had infringed on copyright.
As professional writers, copyright infringement is important to us. The story, from last November, was a seemingly innocuous post of two or three sentences about two of the deaths in the construction of the Hoover Dam, a father and son, the first and the last to die. We provided links to our sources and, the story is detailed in Wikipedia. On December 20, 1922, J.G. Tierney died while surveying for a site for the dam and thirteen years later to the day, his son, Patrick Tierney, was the last man to die during the dam’s construction.There you have it.
In the aftermath of the removal of the offending post, we noticed that someone from the Department of the Interior, which is in charge of sites like dams, had been on our blog a number of times, always searching for Hoover Dam. So we wrote to the Interior Department and asked if a copyright infringement complaint had been made by the department. We included blogger’s email to us and a screenshot of sitemeter showing the search words and the Interior Department’s name. We received a wonderful email from their public affairs specialist, who said she would look into. Quoting from her email:
Hi there, Rob!
I’m not sure who would be asking you to remove these facts since, as you mentioned, they’re well documented in a number of other sources, several of which we use here in our office as research resources. We even have this information listed on our own official Bureau of Reclamation Hoover Dam website at: https://www.usbr.gov/lc/hooverdam/History/essays/fatal.html , so I’m really not sure why Google or anyone associated with the Department would be making this request.
Do you have a copy of the request and/or a name as to who initiated this? I’d be happy to follow up with them to determine why this is being considered. Just let me know if there’s any way I can help. Thanks!
Colleen Dwyer, Public Affairs Specialist
Bureau of Reclamation, Boulder City, Nevada
Her followup was extensive. She checked with the Interior Department’s regional security staff and with the Hoover Dam Police Department “just in case they conduct some random security on the web to find any potential info that may impact security of Hoover Dam, but they do not conduct these kinds of actions.”
She went on to say:
“Frankly, I’m surprised that Google would ask for removal of a post based solely on one individual’s comment, and without specific proof of the copyright violation. I’m not sure of the procedure to contest the infringement claim, but if you can use my e-mails and/or contact information as proof of clearance by the Bureau of Reclamation for you to publish the information regarding the Tierneys, feel free to do so.”
On July 7, someone came onto the blog using the search term, “Hoover Dam crack image download.” They didn’t find anything on our blog because the post had been removed, and besides, we hadn’t written about any crack. It’s an amusing synchro, however, since we certainly found a crack in the dam with our experience writing about it.
So we have clearance from the Interior Department, which uses the same story in their materials. We haven’t copied anyone else’s material. The info in Wikipedia is still there. Who knows?
Good synchro, Ray!
A little synchro on my reading of the blog. Robert Perkinson speaking to CSPAN 2 on hs book TEXAS TOUGH about the prison crisis in America spoke of decivilization of the US.
Ray
Re copyrighting the Iraq War, DOD just did that by muzzling the military after the McChrystal affair. Rather than the Administration getting its act together it is trying to prevent debate on the war by stifling information on Afghanistan. The only thing the general did wrong was allow name calling by his staff. The opinions he expressed was exactly what the public has a right to know. What he said did not impact on the security of upcoming operations.
Didn't Google have several employees discovered to be using company software for personal use. I recall that several years ago AOL employees were giving out data on members.
Google was at one time privately held. Now that it is a publicly traded company there is more chance for corruption by not only rogue employees, but by senior management. I recall a shipboard administrator getting caught sharing crew members' emails with her friends. She was supposed to check email to make sure that security information did not leak, but ended up leaking the love life of the crew. The same happened with IRS employees using investigative information to further their own agenda. Shades of J Edgar Hoover and the FBI agenda. Google is acting like a shadow government.
There is the possibility of some hacker pretending to be Google.
Re Hoover Dam, there could be a hacker either within or external to Google with an axe to grind or just plain wanting to disrupt meaningful communication.
From an Internet banner: Burn censors, not books.
Ray
This is scary and bizarre. Govt. Is everywhere .I had something weird happen in collegecwhen I dated a guy from another country. they called him in for a "chat" and we found out that they knew all about me and they told him not to try and marry me to stay in the country.
I was shocked and shaken. I had recently told him that I had felt like someone was watching me for several days, yet I never noticed anyone.
This post is upsetting.
It does make you wonder. But I think the bottom line is that censorship is alive and well here and everywhere else.
I get regular visits from Washington, D.C., Colorado, Ottawa, and a couple of other places in Canada where there are government agencies. They used to come more often when I posted about the War of 1812 as it related to Canada and the United States. Since I've started back with my history posts the visitors have returned. My posts are all based on something others have said or written about, often a century or more ago.
After I completed the most recent historical post on Samuel Steele my computer seemed to get attacked by a virus which my internet protector stopped. Visitors had a difficult time in posting their comments as did I in responses.
Makes me wonder what will occur next once I resume the War of 1812 posts.
Healing – love the synchro you sent. will email you.
Gypsy – use the widget i sent you
just as an aside, i've gotten several "unknown" visitors – nothing comes up – but i managed to trace the geographical location to washington dc – right at the ellipse pool –
love this post! the story, the research, the Free Expression logo… your high spirit!
Keep up the wonderful job.
I hear you! I'm assuming my attorney was talking about the material in an original presentation such as in a novel or a textbook or music, etc. I still have my copyright documents for all three manuscripts, but never submitted them for publication. Spoke to my close friend in CO today. He's having major computer problems out there, and his blogs and emails, etc. are skewed. It isn't his system. Although he's a physician, he's a computer wizard, too, and also very much in the loop concerning current events, and does post comments re same.
It's only going to get worse, he says. He's so accurate about this stuff that if he called me one day and told me the earth was spinning in an opposite direction, I'd believe him! Weird goings-on.
cj in MU Oh for heaven's sake! Talk about synchronicity! My friend's email address is YODA xxxxx and the WV on this comment is jedite ! Can you believe that!!!!
Connie, your comments about the expiration of copyrights is interesting, but it certainly shouldn't apply here. You can't copyright historical facts, such as info about deaths in the construction of the Hoover Dam.
If you could, imagine the last administration copyrighting the entire history of the Iraq War! Instead, they just spun their own version.
Oops- posted my response to sansego in wrong place!
It looks like sansego's response to this post went missing.
I have had problems with emails and posts regarding Lama Gyatso (my former teacher who passed away). I know that Google did have data base servers in China, and Google was fighting them over censorship, esp. in re: Tibet & Buddhist information. Photos of Lama have "gone missing" after all my security software was disabled. Very frustrating.
Who has access to the US Federal Gov't servers and can pretend to be them, via Google?
Very Disturbing.
I wonder if this post will make it?
Mike – your story is harrowing. I guess freedom of expression no longer exists. WordPress is another blogging option, but it's not as easy to use as blogger.
Sansego – didn't meet Cruise. But he was more than fair in that book deal.
that's another very weird story of mike's –
perhaps its source was a northern ill wind blowing, as it is prone and known to do…..if you get my drift?
🙂
Very, very strange!
Scary and curious!
A mystifying report. Google seems to be a law unto itself sometimes. I've had one of these infringement notices from them in the past for a blog I used to publish. I didn't think I'd done anything wrong but, as they said my blog would be deleted if I didn't remove the post in question, I did what they asked.
On another instance I wrote about a UK celeb who had criticised the Chinese regime. In one day I got over 40,000 hits mostly from China. My blog was 'black balled' by Google and instead of getting about 200 hits regularly a day from their search engine this dropped to zero.
There's more censorship going on than we sometimes realise.
Here's another comment, from cjc, that didn't make it up:
Please correct me if I'm wrong….but it was my understanding from the GA attorney who assisted me, several years ago, to obtain copyrights for three different literary manuscripts, that there is a fifty-year limit of protection on copyrighted material. Further, that after the fifty-year period has passed, the material becomes public domain? From my (possibly wrong) understanding of the copyright law, this is the reason that songs, music, etc., that are more than fifty years old, and poetry, texts, quotes, etc, that have exceeded that limit, (Mozart, Chopin, Thoreau, Twain being examples), no longer require the permission of the original author to repeat. Has this changed? I would think that unless someone recently (within the last 49 years) produced some kind of material regarding a 1922 event and a subsequent event occurring in 1933, the material would be well past the copyright limitation law? I know that singers who cover songs written recently must have permission, such as on the TV show AMERICA'S GOT TALENT and the contestants sing songs from, for instance, Elvis Presley, the directors were required to obtain permission from the EP Estate to use Presley's (original) material. Contrarily, when they had nights where they sang songs from early Sinatra, etc., they needed no such permission. This was according to statements made during open forum conversations via computers with one of the show's producers. If this law is in effect, how can someone address you about copyright infringement? I'm befuddled about this! cj in MU
Here are two comments that were deleted when we temporarily took down the post.
from Djan…
That is fascinating reading. I cannot imagine who would be doing this research and then asking you to remove it. This seems very odd to me. Please post any followup information if you have any, since I also sometimes write about events and people and hope I've provided enough documentation.
From Natalie…
How odd. :'{