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Comment by Shenglong | Hacker News Reader

I am not a Godaddy fan by any means, but I'm finding it difficult to ascribe blame to them for this incident. Godaddy lets people register domain names; it is not their responsibility to censor content.

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Except Godaddy regularly shuts down domains that they don't like. Yet in this case they continue to host it.

Once they started playing content cop, they lost that defense.

Yeah, whatever you think of GoDaddy's conduct, making hosts legally responsible for their clients' content is exactly what we don't want to see. (I think in this instance it could be argued they had an ethical duty to shut the site down after being notified, but certainly not a legal obligation)

As for Texxxan, if their business model was encouraging users to upload pictures of people in compromising positions without their consent and then charging for the takedown, it's just a shame the charges against them aren't criminal.

I think you could make the case that they had a legal obligation. Isn't this what the DMCA is for? You get safe harbour providing you take down content which is objected to on request.

The DMCA protects service providers against copyright violations, not extortion attempts.

This may be what the law says, but lets be honest: the DMCA has been used so many times when it is clearly not applicaple, yet nobody has ever been prosecuted for violating it.

If you send a DMCA takedown notice when you know you do not have the rights to the content, you are liable for all legal costs and economic damages incurred by the defense. Diebold was a notable defendant in a false takedown case in 2004, for example [1].

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OPG_v._Diebold

DMCA is not what you think. She does not hold the copyright to her nude photos unless she took the photos herself. The photographer or the company that employs the photographer holds the copyright.

A valid DMCA take-down notice, may only be made by a rights holder.

you hold the rights to your image, unless you're in public space and/or have signed a waiver.

Its not so clear cut. You have three rights: (1) a right to privacy, (2) a right to protect against defamation, and (3) a right to the use of your image to promote a product "only if the general public would recognize you". So only if you're famous.

http://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/controlling-th...

"while others she says she never sent to anyone and may have been lifted from her phone or computer"

There you go. Also as another commenter you need model release forms. You are the rights holder of any likenesses of yourself.

I believe this is their web hosting product being sued, not the domain registrar. While I still think there probably shouldn't be liability there, it's much more of a gray area than just a domain registrar would be.

GoDaddy does hosting too, but suing them for being the host would be like suing the owners' ISPs for giving them internet access.

GoDaddy is being sued because that's where the money is. Class action lawyers (and many other lawyers) are not trying to make the world a better place, they are trying to cash out.

That goes without saying, at least from the lawyers' perspective. I think it's possible that the victims are also just lashing out because the site would not exist if hosting providers refused to host it.

So what? If you know you are going to be sued and lose you wouldn't take that action.

This is all to true in a lot of cases. I regret there aren't more organizations like the Center for Class Action Fairness who object to ridiculous terms where lawyers just "cash out", often leaving the class with very little.

http://centerforclassactionfairness.blogspot.com/

Case law over domain names, domain registrars and such is very thorough. You'd be surprised how much regulation and existing cases concern domain names and registrars in particular.

In Texas, they might have more standing against GoDaddy than Texxxan.

Isn't that when there's a distinct naming concern, where a specific entity is target? JaneDoeNude.com or YCombinatorSucks.com are obvious. TeXXXan.com is generic, and an alteration of a word that describes 20+ million people.

Adult websites however are bound by federal law (18 USC 2257) requiring signed releases by all "models". Websites like Texxxan.com are in obvious violation of this, and bordering on organized crime.

The problem is suing both may cause the entire thing to be dismissed. (IANAL)

The requirement of a signed release doesn't seem to apply to user-posted content. The requirement applies to sites considered to be the producer of the content.

For example, if this requirement were enforceable against user-posted content, online adult personals wouldn't be legal. A little quick Googling finds me the Stranger's adult personals disclaimer: http://thestranger.selectalternatives.com/gyrobase/adult. According to 18 USC section 2257, you aren't considered a producer if you are limited to things like photo or film processing, digitization, distribution, an ISP, etc. (http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2257). Similarly, IANAL, but it seems that adult sites have a certain amount of protection for user-posted content similar to YouTube's copyright safe harbor.

Actually this makes me think of the flophouse case on another HN thread...

This is Texas. Texas lawyers use a "fan the hammer" approach when selecting defendants in civil lawsuits, especially when the Internet and notoriety is involved.