Legal:DMCA/Tonga

Our community and legal teams spent significant time on this DMCA request as part of our ongoing vigilance against improper, sloppy, erroneous, and sometimes intentional misuse of the DMCA. This is one case where the DMCA request was wrong. In its DMCA notice, the company involved charged infringement, claiming that the article “Tonga” on the English Wikipedia contained content copied from their publication. Our investigation showed that the content in question had been on Wikipedia for years before their work was published, having been taken from public domain publications by the US Department of State (with proper attribution at the time of the edit). The company publication apparently copied from the same source. They have withdrawn their takedown notice, with apologies. We have reported this erroneous report to http://www.chillingeffects.org/.

Cengage Learning
<Contact information redacted>
www.cengage.com

VIA EMAIL

January 11, 2012

Sue Gardner, Designated Agent
Wikimedia Foundation
c/o CT Corporation System
818 West Seventh Street
Los Angeles, California 90017

DMCA NOTICE OF COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT

To Whom It May Concern:

Cengage Learning, Inc. (“Cengage”) is among the largest textbook and academic publishers in the world. I am authorized to act on behalf of Cengage whose copyright and other intellectual property rights it believes to be infringed as described herein.

Cengage is providing this notice pursuant to the Section 512 of Title 17 of the U.S. Code (as enacted by the Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act) to request that the you immediately take action with respect to infringement that is occurring at the web address identified in the Addendum below, which is being used to infringe Cengage's exclusive copyrights and other rights.

Based on the information at its disposal, Cengage has a good faith belief that infringement is occurring at the web address set forth below, which also describes the specific copyrighted work that has been infringed. The unauthorized copies are identified by their titles or variations thereof. The material that is the subject of infringing activities are hereinafter referred to as "Infringing Material."

Given the infringing activity that is occurring, Cengage urges you to cooperate with its efforts to protect its intellectual property rights by undertaking the following steps:

Notify the account holder of the Infringing Material;
Take steps to stop the infringing activity, and any other infringing activity of which you are aware or should reasonably be aware;
Notify any user who may have been responsible for reproducing or distributing the infringing material; and,
Take appropriate action against the account holder under your Abuse Policy/Terms of Service Agreement, including termination of repeat offenders under Section 512(i) of Title 17 of the U.S. Code.

Cengage believes that the information in this notification is accurate. Under penalty of perjury, Cengage hereby affirms that it is authorized to act with respect to the exclusive copyright rights set forth on the attached as described herein. By providing this notice, Cengage is not waiving their right to engage in other enforcement activities, and reserve all rights to do so at any time.

You may contact Cengage at the address listed below, with e-mail preferred.

Thank you for your cooperation and prompt response in this matter.

Sincerely,

<Name redacted>
Infringement & Anti-Piracy Paralegal
Cengage Learning
<Contact information redacted>

List of Infringing Item(s) or Material(s):
Title: “Tonga” from Countries of the World and Their Leaders 2007, Gale-Cengage Learning pg. 1873
URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonga#Economy