Wow, well I certainly didn’t think that the story I wrote last week about Edublogs getting whacked for a DMCA complaint was going to take off like that.
It got covered pretty much far and wide, from Boing Boing to Techdirt to ZDNet to the BBC (yes, the BBC!)
And I’d be being disingenuous if I didn’t say that the aim of the post was to get some coverage, so that:
- ServerBeach (and hopefully some other hosts) wouldn’t do that to us, or their other customers, again… and so I could (quite literally) get some sleep when the US is awake
- Hopefully this’d have an impact on some of the ridiculous approaches to the DMCA that educational publishers, especially Pearson, are pursuing.
But I never dreamed that it’d go that wide, or far.
And achieve, by the looks of things, my first aim… if not the second.
So, in the first case ServerBeach have been the epitome of good grace.
- Their GM Dax Moreno was calling me from Friday to try to get it fixed up
- I’ve since spoken to him at length and he was unreservedly apologetic about the situation, and it won’t be happening again
- They are also going to work actively in making sure that ‘this type of incident does not happen again’
“ my General Counsel and I are actively working together to revisit the escalation notification policies of our Abuse department in general. We want to ensure that we’re staying consistent in our goal of delivering excellent customer service to our customers, regardless of the situation, and this means that we will be adjusting the appropriate procedures to ensure this type of incident does not happen again. “
Which is great, as we have never had the slightest issue with them previously (in fact we’ve really loved using them!) and so we can now stay put with added assurances.
Pearson, however, are another kettle of fish… here’s what they had to say:
And that’s it.
Did we get a call? Nope.
Are they trying to improve their policies to make sure this sort of thing won’t happen again? Nope
Do they look like they give a shit? I’ll leave that one up to you ;)
Here’s what you could and should have done Pearson, it’s really simple.
CONTACT US ABOUT THE ISSUE IN THE FIRST PLACE SO WE CAN SORT IT, RATHER THAN RESORTING TO STRONG-ARMING HOSTS
Ahem.
Or even better, as I suggested in the first post why not actually commit to the open and free exchange of ideas by, you know, letting a teacher discuss something as a simple list of 20 questions with their class.
Because from the responses around the web so far, it looks like you might have a bit of a bigger issue you now need to address.
I’m pretty sick of the, “We sure are sorry… we got called out on our bad behavior and are losing business.” I guess it’s better than doubling down on wrong though.
Pearson’s reply reminds me of a position that a certain church once took, viz. that only trained ministers should read the Bible, because the “uneducated” public might misinterpret the contents. That position did not work well for them regardless of the “good intentions” behind the stance.
…If history teaches us anything it is that the Battle of Hastings was in 1066.
-John johnlamerand.com
Maybe there is another lesson here to be learnt for all students and teachers — a lesson on that “clinical” test: apparently this test is anything else than robust (since making the questions available publicly makes the test fail). It might actually be better to dump that piece of “science” where it belongs: in the museum of psychological and methodological misconceptions.
Looks like Pearson tried to play the “Oh we dint think that would happen’ act. Any jack wagon knows that getting lawyers involved is a strong arm tactic. BUT my favorite is the fact that they are worried about the integrity of the test. Maybe they should also include this statement if they are really concerned.
“Warning the father of psychology “Sigmund Freud” was a self-proclaimed Cocaine addict that believed many aliments could be fixed with the proper dosage of Cocaine.” He later changed his mind once he realized he destroyed one of his good friends life with this treatment. They should also consider telling people that Physicians “people who read the material” has the highest suicide rate. But that wouldn’t help them sell any material now would it!