Sony recently demanded Gitorious to take down PS3 related repositories that are in violation of their copyrights/patents. Gitorious complied and removed what was asked but now they are refusing to remove any more content until Sony can prove that it is in violation of Norwegian law--since the claim made on February 1st, 2011 was referencing US law. Below is the complete e-mail sent by Gitorious to Sony's legal department.
An update on the Sony DMCA issue:
We have just sent an email to Sony’s legal attournes in reply to their DMCA takedown notice sent to us yesterday:
Re: Demand for removal of claimed copyright infringing content from Gitorious.org
This is in reply to your notification of United States Copyright Law Violations at Listed URLs, dated February 1st 2011. As we confirmed via email yesterday, the content was taken down from gitorious.org yesterday at 3.18PM CET.
Your claim made reference to US law, which is not applicable in Norway. When removing the content from our server placed in Norway, we did so to avoid being in violation with Norwegian law, to the degree that Norwegian and US copyright law is compatible.
However, it is unreasonable, and in conflict with basic legal principles, to assume someone as guilty until proven innocent. Allowing any third party to demand the removal of content on gitorious.org based on unproven claims of copyright infringement would assume any gitorious.org user would need to prove his innoncence under Norwegian law. This is unacceptable to us.
Our Infringement Notice Policy (http://en.gitorious.org/infringement_policy/) requires any Infringement Notice to include:
- An identification of the intellectual property right claimed to have been infringed
Since your letter of yesterday contained no reference to Norwegian law we kindly ask that you prove that the content is in fact in violation of Norwegian law. We will not act on further Infringement Notices related to this content until SCEA provides a Norwegian court order that deems the content in question as being in violation of Norwegian law.
Gitorious wants to make it absolutely clear that we have no agenda relating to the repositories in question. Our initial response to this notice was motivated by the fact that Gitorious could possibly be held accountable for not responding should this content be deemed illegal (with reference to “Ehandelsloven” §18). We object deeply to any violation of the basic legal principle of being innocent until proven guilty. This is why we have passed the ball back to Sony.
We hope you understand that it is not in Gitorious’, or the majority of its users’, best interest to pick this fight. We don’t have the resources nor necessary domain knowledge to assess the legality of all of our projects, which is why we have terms of service that state that users carry this responsibility.
source gitorious.org via psx-scene.com
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