The Science Fiction Writers of America, presumably acting on behalf of Robert Silverberg and Issac Asimov's estates, served a DMCA "takedown" notice that erroneously removed hundreds of unrelated works from the document-sharing startup Scribd. A mere mention of "Asimov" or "Silverberg" was enough to get a document booted from the site. [Boing Boing]

Backed by Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft, the Computer & Communications Industry Association, a lobbying group, is targeting everyone from Hollywood to book publishers in its Defend Fair Use crusade. The CCIA is trying to drum up popular support for its allegations, submitted to the Federal Trade Commission earlier this month, that corporations are misleading consumers about copyright law. Copyright holders may not condone certain uses of its material, but that doesn't necessarily mean those uses are illegal. Fair use, an abstruse area of copyright law meant to encourage scholarship and journalism, is widely misunderstood. It's certainly a curious standard for CCIA's supporters to bear, since Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo all implement fair-use-defying digital-rights-management software, and comply with "takedown" requests from copyright holders without considering fair use.