Lumen

The concept of "chilling effects" or a "chilling effect" refers to the deterrent effect of legal threats or posturing, largely cease and desist letters independent of litigation, on lawful conduct. The Lumen database collects cease and desist notices and other requests to remove online content in order to to educate the public and to facilitate research about the different kinds of complaints and requests for removal--both legitimate and questionable--that are being sent to Internet publishers and service providers, and to provide as much transparency as possible about the “ecology” of such notices, in terms of who is sending them and why, and to what effect.

The Lumen project invites recipients and senders of cease and desist notices to send them to a central point (here, at lumendatabase.org) for analysis, and to browse the website for background information and explanation of the relevant legal issues. Our goals are to educate the public, to facilitate research about the different kinds of complaints and requests for removal--both legitimate and questionable--that are being sent to Internet publishers and service providers, and to provide as much transparency as possible about the “ecology” of such notices, in terms of who is sending them and why, and to what effect. Site visitors may search the database along one or more of many different facets

For more about Lumen, see here.

This website is meant as an aid to help you decipher Cease and Desist notices so you can make informed decisions about your course of action. If, after reading this, you think the C&D you received might have some merit, or you think you might engage your opponent in battle even if the C&D is, in your opinion, baseless, consultation with an attorney is always a good idea.

The Online Media Legal Network (OMLN) is a network of law firms, law school clinics, in-house counsel, and individual lawyers throughout the United States willing to provide pro bono (free) and reduced-fee legal assistance to qualifying online journalism ventures and other digital media creators.

You can find an intellectual property attorney at www.martindale.com or by calling your state or local Bar Association and asking for a referral.

Lumen is an independent 3rd party research project studying cease and desist letters concerning online content. We collect and analyze complaints about online activity, especially requests to remove content from online. Our goals are to educate the public, to facilitate research about the different kinds of complaints and requests for removal--both legitimate and questionable--that are being sent to Internet publishers and service providers, and to provide as much transparency as possible about the “ecology” of such notices, in terms of who is sending them and why, and to what effect.

Our database contains millions of notices, some of them with valid legal basis, some of them without, and some on the murky border. Our posting of a notice does not indicate a judgment among these possibilities, nor are we authenticating the provenance of notices or making any judgment on the validity of the claims they raise.

Lumen is a unique collaboration among law school clinics and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Conceived and developed at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society by Berkman Fellow Wendy Seltzer, Lumen was nurtured with help from law clinics at Harvard, Berkeley, Stanford, University of San Francisco, University of Maine, George Washington School of Law, and Santa Clara University School of Law. The information and reports on the lumendatabase.org website are written by law students, under the supervision of the participating organizations.

Please see the About page for more information and contacts.

Lumen is a United States organization and the majority of information on this website is based on U.S. law. Other countries' laws differ, often significantly, so you should not assume that the analyses presented here apply outside the United States. If you have further questions about non-U.S. law, we recommend contacting a lawyer in your jurisdiction.

The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution says that "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press." Under the First Amendment and cases interpreting it, the federal government (and states, under the Fourteenth Amendment) must meet a high level of scrutiny before restricting any kind of speech. In the first Supreme Court case dealing with the Internet, Reno v. ACLU, the Supreme Court affirmed that online speech deserves as much protection as off-line speech.

If the cease-and-desist misinterprets what your website is doing, for example claiming you're "reproducing" things you just link to, you can try to send a response that clarifies the facts -- especially if the factual difference is legally relevant. First, though, you may want to judge from the tone of the letter whether that's likely to resolve the matter, or instead just to draw more attention to you and make the requester angrier.

Copyright can be claimed on any original expression, but some uses of copyrighted works, including use for commentary and criticism, are fair uses, not infringement. It is highly unlikely that someone could sue successfully for the posting of a cease-and-desist notice (most notices are minimally creative; the use is for purposes of commentary and research; the amount used is necessary to the understanding; and there is no effect on a "market" for cease-and-desist letters).

There is ordinarily no expectation of privacy or confidentiality in a letter sent to an adversary. Unless you have made a specific promise of confidentiality beforehand, such as in a protective agreement or NDA, a letter demanding confidentiality doesn't bind you.

No. Lumen serves as a database of cease and desist letters and other requests to remove content from online. Our goal is to provide a resource for researchers and the public so that they can study for themselves the many different kinds of cease and desist letters and other requests to remove online content--both legitimate and questionable--that are being sent to Internet publishers. We collect as many letters as possible to help understand the types of letters that are being sent and what searches are affected by them. By posting notices and other requests, we are not authenticating them or making any judgment on the validity of the claims they raise.

The "Streisand Effect" refers to the likelihood of a cease-and-desist demand attracting far more attention to the complained-of material than it had before the demand.

The effect gets its name from a 2003 incident in which Barbra Streisand sued a California photographer for including aerial photographs of her Malibu house on his coastal survey website. Instead of removing the image, the photographer publicized the suit, drawing further attention to the photo. See Andy Greenberg, The Streisand Effect, Forbes. Adelman, who maintained californiacoastline.org, obtained dismissal of the suit under California’s anti-SLAPP law, and won attorneys’ fees and costs. See Streisand v. Adelman, No. SC 077 257 (L.A. Sup. Ct. May 10, 2004).

Lumen is not and cannot be your lawyer.

We cannot help you execute a request to remove online content. Lumen serves as a repository of requests made to others, along with analyses of the legal claims. We are not responsible for the removal of material.

The submitter reports that only some of the materials identified in this complaint have been removed or disabled.

In order to ensure that copyright owners do not wrongly insist on the removal of materials that actually do not infringe their copyrights, the safe harbor provisions require service providers to notify the subscribers if their materials have been removed and to provide them with an opportunity to send a written notice to the service provider stating that the material has been wrongly removed. [512(g)] If a subscriber provides a proper "counter-notice" claiming that the material does not infringe copyrights, the service provider must then promptly notify the claiming party of the individual's objection. [512(g)(2)] If the copyright owner does not bring a lawsuit in district court within 14 days, the service provider is then required to restore the material to its location on its network. [512(g)(2)(C)]

A proper counter-notice must contain the following information:

• The subscriber's name, address, phone number and physical or electronic signature [512(g)(3)(A)]
• Identification of the material and its location before removal [512(g)(3)(B)]
• A statement under penalty of perjury that the material was removed by mistake or misidentification [512(g)(3)(C)]
• Subscriber consent to local federal court jurisdiction, or if overseas, to an appropriate judicial body. [512(g)(3)(D)]

If it is determined that the copyright holder misrepresented its claim regarding the infringing material, the copyright holder then becomes liable to the person harmed for any damages that resulted from the improper removal of the material. [512(f)]