Anil Potti posts restored to Retraction Watch following false DMCA claim

As expected, ten Retraction Watch posts about Anil Potti that were mistakenly removed for a false Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown notice have been restored.

Automattic, which runs WordPress, notified us tonight of the move, which comes two weeks after the original notice. The claim against Retraction Watch was ridiculous, of course; a site in India plagiarized our posts, then claimed we had violated their copyright. That site, perhaps not surprisingly, has been taken down.

In the meantime, another site has been hit with a DMCA notice for a post about Potti, and Potti has told us that he had nothing to do with the takedown notice filed against us.

If you missed those posts — one of which is an accounting of Potti’s retraction record so far — here they are:

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  http://retractionwatch.wordpress.com/2012/10/05/another-retraction-for-anil-potti-with-an-inscrutable-notice/
  
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  http://retractionwatch.wordpress.com/2012/08/20/anil-potti-resurfaces-with-job-at-north-dakota-cancer-center/
  
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  http://retractionwatch.wordpress.com/2012/06/04/lead-author-of-major-breast-cancer-study-announced-at-asco-co-authored-two-corrected-papers-with-anil-potti/
  
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  http://retractionwatch.wordpress.com/2012/04/02/a-retraction-in-part-for-anil-potti-and-colleagues-in-molecular-cancer-therapeutics/
  
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  http://retractionwatch.wordpress.com/2012/03/10/missouri-medical-board-reprimands-anil-potti/
  
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  http://retractionwatch.wordpress.com/2012/02/22/developing-anil-pottis-future-at-coastal-cancer-center-seems-unclear/
  
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  http://retractionwatch.wordpress.com/2012/02/14/the-anil-potti-retraction-record-so-far/
  
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  http://retractionwatch.wordpress.com/2012/02/10/two-mega-corrections-for-anil-potti-in-the-journal-of-clinical-oncology/
  
• 
  http://retractionwatch.wordpress.com/2012/02/06/anil-potti-and-colleagues-retract-ninth-paper-this-one-in-jco/
  
• 
  http://retractionwatch.wordpress.com/2011/12/29/seven-retractions-a-resignation-and-lawsuit-settlements-havent-stopped-anil-potti-from-publishing/
  

As we learned, Automattic’s process, which many people found maddening, was necessary for them to retain their “safe harbor” status — otherwise, they would be liable for damages following a successful copyright infringement claim, and shut down sites completely. Some have suggested that having the blog hosted somewhere other than WordPress would prevent future such attacks, but our understanding is that any host would do the same thing if it wanted to maintain its safe harbor status.

Thanks to all of our loyal readers for your support, and to a number of news outlets and blogs that covered the story. We want to also thank Quinn Heraty, a terrific lawyer in New York who we’d heartily recommend for anyone facing similar issues.