The admin of the Mastodon instance cyberspace.social just received an AI powered notice to delete the parody account @microsoft@lea.pet
The admin of the Mastodon instance cyberspace.social just received an AI powered notice to delete the parody account @microsoft@lea.pet
This is honestly a dumb post. It doesn’t say anything about “Microsoft” understanding or not understanding anything.
It just shows them using an automated system to try and take down an account that they think is infringing on their trademark. There are legal protections for parody accounts, but they are not absolute and it’s possible that Microsoft could get a court order compelling the owner to cease control of the account.
So I guess I’ll explain the post for you, since it seems you do not understand the fediverse, either.
cyberplace.social federates with lea.pet but is not responsible for and cannot control the Microsoft parody account on lea.pet. Microsoft sent the notice to the wrong server. That’s why Microsoft does not understand the fediverse or how federation works, and why the post is funny instead of dumb. Now you can laugh too! You’re welcome!
Holy shit. I can’t believe that 65 people upvoted this. Do you really believe that’s how the world works? Are you actually adults?
Lol please explain how the world works
You have full control over a server on which you chose to run certain Software. But you feel you don’t have to comply with takedown requests because that’s just how the software works? That may work on indulgent parents but not in court. If you’re too technically inept to know how to comply, then you’re just not complying. End of story.
LOL you think a court will enforce this C&D for a parody account??? 🤣 are you an adult??
Depends on the jurisdiction. This is a conflict between freedom of speech and the reputation of the brand (which has financial value). Countries with a more recent monarchical past tend to value reputation over free speech, eg Japan but also Europe. The US has been a republic for a quarter millennium. Since MS is a US company, I think they wouldn’t even pursue this in the first place.
Generally, service providers are exempt for liability for such things if they follow certain rules of conduct. EG the US DMCA says that you are not liable for copyright infringement, if you comply with takedown notices. I’m not sure how that works for trademarks in the US.
Generally, though, you should expect to be held responsible for any infringing content on your service, once you learn/are notified about it. You will be treated as if you had created the content yourself. That means that you will have to make the argument in court that the use of the trademark was legal. And if you lose, you will pay the damages.
Questions?
So it’s funny because the fediverse is so niche that no one designing automated copyright systems care about its odd and unique addressing system?
Yes, exactly! Now you get it!
An attempt at censorship failed because the censors didn’t understand the system they were trying to censor. I think that’s both funny and satisfying.
They didn’t care about this system. It just got caught up in their news sources.
This isn’t funny, it’s just a thing that happened.
☝️: 😐