The silliness about Morgellons and Marc Neumann continues. This time around, it's someone sending me e-mail from Dr. Rolando Arafile's website. In my e-mail last night I found this gem:
From: "Health2Fit" health@health2fit.net
Subject: Violation
Date: February 12, 2010 3:54:59 PM EST
To: "Orac" orac@scienceblogs.comPlease remove our videos that you have on your blog. There are not there with any permissions.
I will not get into the politics of all this, everyone has an opinion, just remove the videos.
Webmaster
H2F
My response follows:
Dr. Arafiles (or is it Mr. Neumann?):Three points:
1. The videos were posted to YouTube. Once they are on YouTube, anyone can link to them or embed them. That is the whole reason YouTube exists. The account holder can change the settings to disallow embedding or to make the videos private, although that rather defeats the purpose of YouTube). However, unless the YouTube account holder does that there is absolutely nothing that can be done to prevent anyone from linking to the videos or embedding them. After all, I am not the one who originally posted them to YouTube. If you don't want them disseminated through blogs linking to them or embedding them, then take it up with Marc Neumann, who is the person who posted them to YouTube. If you are Marc Neumann, as I suspect, then take it up with yourself.
2. I ask you what I asked Mr. Neumann (or you before): Show me the proof that you are the lawful copyright holder, and I will consider your request. As I also cautioned Mr. Neumann, unless he is the legal copyright holder or has explicit permission to use these videos, then he is the one in violation of copyright. In any case, I do not take his word for it that he is the legal copyright holder or that he has permission to use the videos.
3. You apparently haven't bothered to notice that Mr. Neumann already set the videos to be private; they don't work any more. You have to be invited as a friend to view them. Rather cowardly of him, don't you think?
Finally, let me just take this opportunity I'm very, very happy that Anne Mitchell was acquitted and hope you lose the shirt off your back in the civil suit. You, Sheriff Roberts, and County Attorney Tidwell deserve it. The hospital too, although I regret that the obtuseness of its administration could hurt the people of Winkler County, as could the corrupt stupidity of its Sheriff and County Attorney. Maybe they will be wise enough to vote them out in the next election.
Sincerely,
Orac
P.S. The answer to your demand is no. I will not remove the videos. There's no point anyway. Mr. Neumann made them private. Perhaps he is asking me to remove them so that he can make them public again?
If there were any better evidence that Dr. Arafiles is working with Marc Neumann to spread Morgellons woo, I have a hard time thinking of it. If it is Dr. Arafiles or his webmaster who sent that e-mail, then clearly, Marc Neumann has been in contact with Dr. Arafiles or his webmaster. If it is Marc Neumann (as I suspect), then he apparently has access to the Health2Fit website's e-mail address. My guess is that Marc Neumann really, really wants to make his videos public again but doesn't want to do so as long as I have them embedded in my post. Sorry, Marc, but I'm not going to do it.
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Orac, don't you see? You're impinging on his right to scam people. He--wait...What? No right to scam? Oh...hmm. Scratch what I just said.
Orac, man, you're, like, crampin' his groove, dude.
There are no memory holes in the Information Age. Why do people like him keep trying to dig them?
Naturally, my first guess would be that the light of scrutiny and accountability is rather inconvenient for him.
This can't be Neumann, as it's far too coherent.
Any complaint signed, "Webmaster" can be safely ignored, or better yet, ridiculed.
Are you sure Dr. Arafiles and Marc Neumann are not one and the same person? A real-world sock-puppetry?
I'm sorta surprised he/they care. What percentage of likely customers are likely to read Respectful Insolence anyway?
Again, I don't see why anyone would want their videos taken down from an opponent's site, since it allows their own side to be fairly presented. If Orac made videos, he'd be thrilled to see them put up on alt med sites. Surprised, but happy. A skeptical audience is finally being directly exposed to someone's best case. Wouldn't that be a good thing?
So the complaint fails to make sense on multiple levels. One of the identifying aspects of alt med, apparently.
I'm amazed that you take the time to deal with these guys' complaints specifically, explain yourself to them, and actually tell them why they're wrong. You have a lot of patience. I guess this is why you blog about doctor stuffs and I just sit and read it and feel smug because I read really cool blogs. I know how my response would go:
Dear Dr. Arafiles,
No.
Sincerely,
Metatwaddle
Why doesn't he just take them down and re-upload them if he wants to do that? Of course, I would be watching the channel's behavior and as soon as that happened I would cheerfully update my original post to point to the new videos.
Actually, I've downloaded the videos, having had the foresight to anticipate just this move. However, it would be copyright infringement if I were to upload them to YouTube because I'm not the copyright holder. They're just in my possession in case I need proof that Neumann and Arafiles did say what I said they said.
Whoa, Orac--I would never want to truly piss you off! This is really becoming quite humorous because Neumann is so transparent and his tactics so pathetic.
On another note, Dana Ullmann has got a very pathetic and longwinded tirade against skeptics over on HP and not enough were defending themselves last I checked. He cites "studies" from all sorts of ridiculous sources, including his own "works" an refers to them as "scientific".
Well done, Orac. :-)
@Anthro, Ullman you say? How can we not all dive in? He's so gracious, so reflective, so responsive to constructive criticism.
I don't know if it's been brought up or not, but the page on swine flu on Arafiles' website includes the following PDF:
http://www.health2fit.net/FluLies.pdf
by the emperor of the Real Truth, Mike Adams.
THIS IS WHY I'm on Team Orac.
the stupid, it burns!
Team Orac FTW!
The English version of the Morgellons page (www.morgellons-research.org/morgellons) seems down right now although the German version remains. The English version had a notice at the bottom of the page that read:
"ALL TEXTURES AND PICTURES ARE THE PROPERTY OF M-R-O. YOU MAY COPY AND PUBLISH THEM IF YOU JUST LEAVE A REFERENCE TO THE SOURCE M-R-O TO INSURE ALL RIGHTS AND THE RESPECT FOR THE HARD WORK OF THE AUTHOR !! SITES WHICH ARE SELLING OR PROPAGADING PRODUCTS ON THEIR PAGES ARE NOT ALLOWED TO COPY M-R-O !!! THANKS A LOT THE AUTHOR MARC NEUMANN."
Note that I'm left a reference to the source of that texture in this comment so I guess I'm in the clear...
Did anyone bother to copy so that we could mirror?
It's the syntax. Not only is English not the mother tongue for either entity, but the usage vagaries are remarkably similar. There are other ways to tell, but I won't mention them as I don't want Arafiles/Neumann to figure out what he's doing wrong in this regard.
Good Lord. Bad English burns too.
I liked the way you closed your reply (i.e. the part after "Finally . . .").
Strong work.
Direct Hit!
He's on his way to Davy Jones' Locker!
And he deserves a good stretch in the Jug, while I'm tossing out old sayings.
Not having completely followed whatâs going on here, is it that an alternative medicine kook is harassing you via your personal e-mail account? If so, I can relate.
Not long ago, I made a comment in a local newspaper blog about how there was really no such thing as Adrenal Fatigue. Adrenal Fatigue had been the subject of an interview between the blogger and a local chiropractor. So what did the blogger go and do? She went and gave my personal (required) e-mail address to the chiropractor. And what did the chiropractor go and do? He started sending me harassing e-mails. Including ones with âIâm stuck in an airport, can you send moneyâ level of silliness. Of course, all my additional comments confronting the blogger and exposing the chiropractor got deleted. Eventually, I had to make telephone contact with the newspaperâs editor in order to bring things to a halt (sadly, though, the editor still somewhat failed to see where the actions of the blogger were completely inappropriate).
The ilk of people who are involved in alternative, holistic medicine are not only weird, theyâre kind of scary too!
Good luck.
E, in a few states (North Carolina is one), harrassing e-mails are not just "inappropriate", they are a misdemeanor.
I am currently pressing charges against a GSO NC blogger who typed my home address (which he obtained off the Internet) into the header of almost 30 threatening/insulting e-mails that he hurled into my Inbox over the course of an hour once evening last Novemember (threatening, among other things, to report me to the authorities because he deemed me "crazy").
In the wake of the Mitchell case, I think you can understand why I took his threats very seriously. I even contacted the N.C. Medical Board that very night to tell them what was going on.
My "crime" in this man's eyes was disagreeing (vigorously, I will admit) with a post on his blog (in which he had viciously attacked another blogger - a local government whistleblower - who has terminal cancer) . . . and taking up the subject matter up on my own blog after he started banning and deleting comments in his thread.
When I did not back down, he began publishing some really nasty/libelous stuff on his blog. I think he's also the source of some very ugly comments left anonymously on "Housecalls" (they were not published).
The "cyber-stalking" case (still pending) made the local news. While I refused to participate in the side-show (by giving interviews), this guy went on TV and confessed to sending the e-mails . . . even admitting that the methods he used may have been frightening to me.
The stupid it burns.
Among other things, he's asserting his right to free speech in his "defense". He's hired a lawyer (who happens to be a member of the local City Council) and he's gonna bring me down.
But the thing about "free speech" is that it does not protect communicating threats - or libel.
So Arafiles and Neumann could be the same person? Real-world sockpuppetry? *hoots* If true, that is . . . well, profoundly sad, really. At first I just thought it was funny, but the more I think about it, that would make Arafiles even less qualified to practice medicine, ethically speaking, and also a very sad and pathetic person if he craves attention so much that even with the attention he's obviously already got, he feels he has to invent some more. It would also explain why Neumann took it so oddly personally when Orac criticized Arafiles. Expressing sympathy for the nurses could be just a crude misdirection.
I will continue to assume they are different people, however. I have seen cases where two distinct people had very similar language usage, especially when both were non-native speakers, and so there is room to give them the benefit of the doubt.
Dr. Mary Johnson: Thatâs creepy. Makes me want to look up exactly what the laws in my own state are. Certainly hope your situation works out in your favor. Gee, knowing how these types are pros at endearing themselves to the media, the part about him going on TV is fairly easy to envision.
Mary is fine.
It was creepy. It remains creepy.
Please do not get me started on the discerning judgement of the media in my particular part of the world.
I expect it ranks right up there with the GOB's in Texas;)
The videos are newsworthy. Here they are.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCsyUbMLBi4
Maybe my understanding of copyright law is incomplete, but isn't the process that you have to get the copyright holder's permission *first*, then use the material, rather than use the material, then wait for the copyright holder to catch you?
I don't see that excuses anyone if their source is also violating the copyright.
I think you would have had a better rebuttal with a "Fair Use" argument.
Scott,
This issue was discussed on other posts about this topic as well. Fair use has come up, Orac wrote about it in an e-mail. In general though I think if the video is made embeddable on a site like youtube it is likely that you do not need to obtain permission to embed it on your site. I am not sure if there has been any cases that have come up to guide one on this issue though. It sort of defeats the purpose of youtube and the internet to stop videos from being spreadable.
I am not a lawyer, but as I understand it, if you are claiming a "fair use" right to use something, you should not ask for permission: the letter of request may be used as evidence that you think it isn't fair use.
Other than that, yes, copyright law is like many other laws in this: while in practice the copyright holder has to notice the infringement in order to take action, "they didn't ask me to stop until $date and then I did" is not a defense against infringement before then.
As I understand it, while immediately complying with a takedown request doesn't absolve you of guilt, it may make it more difficult for them to collect damages from you, since you did cooperate as soon as you were made aware that they objected to the use.