Takedown Policy and Requests

Freezenet takes a balanced approach to takedown requests. Takedowns can fall into two categories: rule violations and copyright takedown requests.

Rule Violations
If you see a comment that has been published that may violate the commenting rules, please supply the URL of the comment in question (to retrieve, copy the URL in the date/time stamp of the comment in question) and state what rules have been broken. Submit the rule violation notification in the comments below.

Freezenet holds the right to judge whether or not to publish complaints as well as rulings.

Copyright Takedown Requests

In the spirit of a ruling in the Dancing Baby case, if you are a rights holder and think that a posting or comment is a violation of your copyright, you may request that the content may be taken down. However, there are guidelines that must be followed first.

No automated takedown requests or spam takedowns
Freezenet does not process automatically generated takedown requests. If we notice that a source is demanding the takedown of hundreds of URLs (often a sign of auto-generated takedown requests), Freezenet may refuse to comply on the basis of spam. This does not mean that multiple requests cannot be submitted. Try to keep requests down to a maximum of 3 a day and no more than 9 in a week.

No Takedowns of non-existent content
If a takedown requests specifies a post that is not viewable to the public, then the takedown request will be considered invalid. It must, at minimum, be available to the public first.

Fair Use and Free Speech
Takedown requests of content that may be considered fair use may be invalidated. Fair use can include, but not limited to, the “purposes of journalism”. We will also consider among other things, whether or not something is considered free speech.

You must be the valid copyright holder
If you are submitting a takedown request, you must be a valid copyright holder and have a way of verifying that you have the right to make that takedown request. In short, please include some form of ID of who you are.

Infringement must be cited
When submitting a takedown request, you must include the passage or URL that is considered infringing. Whole pages or articles being cited as infringing is not a valid complaint.

Other Suspicious Activity
If a takedown request is submitted and breaks the spirit of fairness that may not necessarily fit within the above rules, Freezenet holds the right to judge whether or not the takedown request is valid.

Edit first, takedown last
By submitting a takedown request, you acknowledge that Freezenet has an edit first policy. This means that if a takedown request is considered valid, Freezenet will try to amend the content in question to be in compliance. In other words, we will try and simply remove any violating passages or URLs before we even consider taking down the entire posting.

Transparency
By submitting a takedown request, you acknowledge that your request will be published (without infringing material) on this page. If you want the takedown request to be private, then your takedown request will not be fulfilled.

Repeated Infractions
Freezenet does not tolerate abuse of this system. If you submit invalid complaints repeatedly, you may be subject to a temporary or even permanent ban from making requests. Temporary bans may start as 1 day, but will grow exponentially for repeated infractions thereafter. An example would be 1 day, 2 days, 4 days, 8 days, etc. Rulings of this nature will be published here. Freezenet also holds the right to issue a permanent ban at any time on violators. Freezenet also holds the right to simply invalidate a complaint without a ban or issue warnings.

The takedown request form
If you feel that your takedown request is in compliance with the above rules, you may copy and paste the below form so that you may fill it out. Submit the request in the comments below.

Copyright Holder Information:

Legal URL of the copyrighted material in question:

URL of infringing article or comment (comment URLs can be obtained by copying the date/time URL of the comment in question):

Passage or URL of infringement in question (won’t be published if request is valid):

Reason it is infringing:

Other Information

Right to Modify Rules
Freezenet holds the right to modify the above rules/form for any purpose at any time without notice or warning.

2 thoughts on “Takedown Policy and Requests”

  1. I am a lawyer for Unifor and Jerry Dias.

    I am writing to request that you immediately remove defamatory statements from a post about Unifor’s National President, Jerry Dias here: https://www.freezenet.ca/unifor-president-peddles-counterfeit-loss-statistic-justify-censorship/ The post is defamatory because it says or implies that Jerry Dias made false or invented claims in support of a recent statement with which you apparently disagree.

    Unifor has no record of you attempting to contact Mr. Dias for a response before you published these defamatory statements.

    Dias wrote that an estimated $500 million dollars is being lost by Canadian media companies based on a great deal of research and information from several media companies.

    In fact, the cost of piracy in most countries is being measured in the billions and this “estimate” is considered a conservative one in Canada.

    For example, it is well documented that piracy will cost streaming services like Netflix and Amazon more than $50 billion between 2016 and 2022. (http://variety.com/2017/tv/news/piracy-cost-streaming-players-over-50-billion-1202602184/)

    Canada is in the top 15% of countries globally for piracy use according to the MUSO piracy demand rank in this research report, and Canadians made 1.8 billion visits to piracy sites in 2016:
    https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5a68f49af6576e4326f50337/t/5a6f31a1ec212d3a1503db00/1517236645551/FairPlay+Canada+2018-01-29+Exhibit+1.pdf

    Failure to comply with this request may result in legal action against you.

    Signed,
    Anthony F Dale
    Unifor Legal Department

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