Sued Sex Shamer Defends Takedown Notices (Updated)

Michael Crook, the copycat sex shamer sued yesterday by the Electronic Frontier Foundation for allegedly abusing copyright takedown notices to punish one of his critics, says he only filed the notices to protect his rights and that his critic's use of copyrighted images is different than his own posting of copyrighted photos from men he lured into sending him images through fake Craigslist personal ads.

Crook sent takedown notices to Jeff Diehl, who runs 10 Zen Monkeys, after he harshly criticized Crook in mid-September and illustrated the article with a unflattering screen cap taken from a Fox News interview of Crook (image is currently visible over at Boing Boing). Under the Digital Millenium Copyright
Act, an ISP is immune from liablity if they immediately take steps to have material removed after getting a takedown notice, which is only supposed to be filed by the copyright owner or an authorized agent.

According to Crook:

I feel because it is my image I do own some copyright interest in it. My permission was given to Fox News, not to 10 Zen Monkeys.

All I was trying to do was defend my rights.

I never claimed that I owned the image. I realize this is what EFF does.This is reverse internet terrorism. Their goal is to protect people's rights, but in so doing, they also tramp on the rights of the very same people who they would also defend. Under their operations, nobody wins. There are two sides to every story and there are two sides to the DMCA.

When asked what was the difference between posting photos sent to him by men who thought they were picking up an adventurous female via Craigslist and Diehl's use of a screen cap from Fox News, Crook told Wired News:

The guys who sent their pics did so willingly, not withstanding the fact they didn't know who "Nicole", et al. really was. Once they e-mailed it to "Nicole" without a disclaimer, the material within the e-mail became mine. Granted, this is a grey area, it would appear, but drastically different than the FNC issue.

In my case, I gave permission to Fox News for my image to be used on Hannity and Colmes or other Fox properties. That consent did not extend to blogs, other websites, and so forth. I stand behind my belief that Fox did not explicitly authorize all these websites to pervert the use of the picture, and even if they did, I still have say as it is ultimately my image, i.e. a picture of me.

While Crook's original site craigslist-perverts.org has since been shut down, pictures of and emails from his victims can still be found on a subdomain of Crook's website, which also links to his Holocaust denial site.

UPDATE: Crook filed a DMCA notice to Boing Boing's ISP (based in Canada where DMCA doesn't apply). Boing Boing's copy of the image is actually hosted on Laughing Squid, where Diehl moved his website. Fox News producer also tells Boing Boing it is free to use the image.

UPDATE: In a nice ironic twist, it seems that one of the victims of the original Craigslist Sex con got his picture temporarily removed from Jason Fortuny's website using a DMCA takedown notice. Fortuny says he filed a counter notice, which wasn't responded to, and now the image is back up.

UPDATE: Smart lawyer Ethan Ackerman writes in to clarify how DMCA works.

Previous Coverage:

EFF Sues Sex Shamer

Links:

• [Scott Beale of Laughing Squid](http://laughingsquid.com/2006/11/01/eff-sues-michael-crook-for-bogus-dmca-claims/)
• [Original Craigslist Sex Shamer](https://www.wired.com/27bstroke6/2006/09/craigslist.html?entry_id=1553329)
• [10 Zen Monkeys](http://www.10zenmonkeys.com/2006/11/01/eff-crook-dmca-lawsuit/)
• [EFF complaint (.pdf)](http://www.eff.org/legal/cases/diehl_v_crook/crook_complaint.pdf)
• [DMCA takedown FAQ](http://www.chillingeffects.org/dmca512/faq.cgi)

Photo: Lester of Puppets