Unknown copyright claim kills Ars Technica’s Facebook page

by Steve Ragan - Apr 28 2011, 17:19

Ars Technica, one of the most popular destinations for tech news on the Web, watched helplessly as their Facebook account was blocked on Thursday. That in itself is a problem, but there are other issues to consider. It was entirely too easy to kill the page with no notice, and Facebook offers few options when it comes to remediation.

As reported by Ken Fisher, Ars discovered the account lockout Thursday morning, around the same time the rest of the world did. The only notice they received was an email from Facebook explaining the account was blocked due to a “…notice from a third party that the content infringes or otherwise violates their rights.”

That’s it. No mention of who the party was. No mention of what content was infringing on their rights, and nothing to explain what steps to take in order to resolve the issue. The only option offered was to email ip@fb.com. Even then, there is no promise the disabled or removed access will be returned.

In addition, based on updates to the story provided by Jacqui Cheng, Ars is not alone. Other domains, such as Neowin, have faced similar problems. [Source] There are several examples of the issue on the Ars story, linked below.

To issue an IP complaint, all one needs to do is complete a simple form.

“But what happens if that person did so maliciously, or put in bogus contact info? Too bad, because that mystery person can apparently file a fake claim and never check the Internet again, leaving you with no Facebook page,” Cheng wrote.

Facebook, after a spike in media coverage on the topic, has told Ars that they are looking into the takedown request. While that is a positive move forward, they did not explain why the account was locked so easily, nor did they explain the lack of mitigation.

Ars should not have had to rely on their readers and others to send them numerous sources of contact within Facebook. If the infringement process is automated, then it only seems fair that the counter claim process should be as well.

The Ars story, along with several updates is here.

As this went to press, Facebook emailed The Tech Herald with a confirmation:

"I just wanted to let you know that we're working with Ars Technica and looking into this issue. We will keep you updated as we have more information."

Update:

Facebook sent over the following:

We have investigated a number of recent intellectual property cases and have restored four pages as a result.  We apologize for any inconvenience. Abuse of DMCA and other intellectual property notice procedures is a challenge for every major Internet service and we take it seriously. We have invested significant resources into creating a dedicated team that uses specialized tools, systems and technology to review and properly handle intellectual property notices.

This system evaluates a number of factors when deciding how to respond and, in many cases, we require the reporter to provide additional information before we can take action. As a result of these efforts, the vast majority of intellectual property notices that we receive are handled without incident. Of course, no system is perfect and we are always striving to improve our practices. As such, we will be considering the results of our investigation into this matter as we continue to refine our systems and procedures.

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