Status Back Baby

One of the hazards of commenting on evolving stories is that the ground can shift underneath you. That's what happened with yesterday's post. I spent a few days over the weekend compiling notes, and checking in occasionally on MPD to confirm it was still down. As I posted yesterday I thought I was in the clear. MPD was offline and looked as if it might stay that way a while.

About three minutes after my post went up, so did MPD. I'm glad it's back but now much of yesterday's post has become outdated. All of the comments referring to MPD's demise were obviously premature. Jumped the gun there. A simple verb flip might help correct the rest. What if the past tense uses of "was" now change to "is"? And my copyright thoughts still apply, although maybe MPD wasn't the perfect test case after all. Oh well. It's good to see him back online anyhow.

The oddest part of MPD's reinstatement is how it came about. MPD was initially expelled from Tumblr due to their three strike policy. If Tumblr receives three DMCA complaints about a site within a certain time period, down it goes. Mark had posted two songs without permission several months back. The third strike was apparently an unauthorized photo by the Swiss photographer Massimiliano Rossetto.

Now it turns out Rossetto didn't file the DMCA request after all. Instead it was filed by an identity thief posing illegally as Rosetto in an effort to gain control of his images. Say Wha? 

A brief explanation appeared yesterday on Rosetto's website:

Dear visitors, 

For the last four years I've been a victim of a serious identity theft from an unknown person living in France that used my photography work without my consent and published it on several websites. 

After reporting this person, things have been on the quiet side for almost a year, but I was recently contacted by several magazines and editors (see mpdrolet, C-HEADS and others), asking for explanations on why did I ask them to remove my pictures. And I didn't know anything about what they were talking about. As I later found out, this impostor from France had been trying to eliminate all my photography work and my identity from the internet, by using my own name "Massimiliano Rossetto" to send fake emails to the various publications/ blogs/ magazines in which my photography work was published and submitting fake DMCA requests, which were clamorously accepted for some reason. 

With this statement, would like to apologise for all the problems this has created. In case you'd like to provide me with legal help or if you were contacted by this impostor, please ignore the fake request and contact me by forwarding a copy of the email to: legal@massimilianorossetto.com

So not only was this guy stealing Rossetto's images, he was filing DMCA requests in an effort to squeeze him out of his own photo business, one of which brought down MPD as collateral damage. Wow. Talk about an Major Asshole Move. Who pulls a stunt like that? 

At the time his site went down, Mark didn't realize any of this. When he approached Tumblr yesterday about reinstatement, Tumblr said its hands were tied. The only alternative was to get the DMCA request removed by the filer. A tough chore...unless the filer was in impostor. 

Once Mark got in touch with the real Rossetto they both realized what had happened and Rossetto removed the takedown request filed in his name. This allowed MPD to go back online yesterday with complete archive intact, and he's been pumping out photos like a racehorse in the 21 hours since. It's as if last weekend never happened. And the real Rossetto? He's fine with MPD:

Problem solved, sort of. Most takedowns aren't this odd but the possibility still lurks. Mark has two strikes. Another one could bring it all Tumblring down again. They aren't hard to file. All it takes is one bad apple, and whoever stole Rossetto's identity is still out there. All of this could change in five minutes just like I could get run over by a bus in five minutes. Fuck it, I'm going to press now.