All Of Justin Bieber's Music Removed From YouTube Via 'Prank' DMCA Claims

from the not-so-funny dept

Wed, Aug 31st 2011 3:13pm — Mike Masnick

As a bunch of folks have been sending in a "prankster" was able to remove all of Justin Bieber's videos from YouTube by filing a bunch of bogus DMCA notices. While a lot of people find this amusing for one reason or another, it really highlights a key problem with the DMCA's notice-and-takedown process, which is a "censor now, deal with the consequences later" system. As has been pointed out in the past, it seems like this process is a violation of the First Amendment, in that it involves the shutting down of speech prior to any sort of due process or adversarial hearing. I'm still amazed that the DMCA doesn't allow for at least a notice-and-notice process, giving the uploader/host a chance to respond before the content is removed. In a case such as this, it would have prevented the removal. As for the "prankster," he might want to be careful. Filing totally false DMCA claims can open you up to serious legal penalties, and assuming that Bieber makes a fair bit of money from his videos on YouTube, his representatives probably have decent reason to go after the prankster. And that might not be a bad thing. In the process, perhaps they could establish greater precedence for the ability to punish those who file bogus DMCA takedowns.

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Filed Under: copyright, dmca, first amendment, justin bieber, youtube

73 Comments

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xenomancer (profile), 31 Aug 2011 @ 2:58pm

Sounds like someone took a youtube comment WAY too seriously.
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Rikuo (profile), 31 Aug 2011 @ 3:19pm

This is the one time I applaud the DMCA. Thanks, pranskter, for protecting us from Bieber!
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Anonymous Coward, 31 Aug 2011 @ 3:24pm

I wonder how many times this has to happen before a policy maker wakes up and realizes there might be a problem with the system
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Rikuo (profile), 31 Aug 2011 @ 3:29pm

Ya know, I got to thinking about the DMCA here, and I have a question. How did the DMCA get signed in the first place? Weren't there big questions about prior restraint - it basically cuts off a form of speech and sorts it out later, or was it simply that the world didn't care about digital speech being blocked so easily back then?
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Anonymous Coward, 31 Aug 2011 @ 3:29pm

Re:
The first time, every time?

Revenue loss occurred from two parties here. Youtube loses out on eyeballs.

Non-U.S. competitors look better and better the more their video services stay up and running and youtube's don't.
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The eejit (profile), 31 Aug 2011 @ 3:31pm

Re:
It depends on how much cash you think it cost - probably half of all Madonna's plastic work for the "trade unions" the RIAA and MPAA.
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RD, 31 Aug 2011 @ 3:35pm

Yeah right
"Filing totally false DMCA claims can open you up to serious legal penalties"

It does? Since when? Seems to me filing a DMCA claim is rubber-stamped and takedown without ANY oversight whatsoever. There certainly has been ZERO repercussions from any of the many incorrect or later-determined bad takedowns that have happened from any of the *IAA's. Or is it only the little people who need to worry? One law for them, one law for us...
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The Riddler (profile), 31 Aug 2011 @ 3:45pm

Riddle me this:
How do you know there is a violation of copyright?
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Anonymous Coward, 31 Aug 2011 @ 3:48pm

Re:
...big questions about prior restraint...

�State Action�, or rather lack of state action when a private party takes down speech.
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drewmerc (profile), 31 Aug 2011 @ 3:53pm

"Filing totally false DMCA claims can open you up to serious legal penalties"

i'm not american so so really what are these legal penaltes for me, if i keep sending these notices
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Anonymous Coward, 31 Aug 2011 @ 3:55pm

This is a popular form of trolling. It's not just Justin Bieber music.
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Anonymous Coward, 31 Aug 2011 @ 3:56pm

Re: Yeah right
The penalties are written into the law.

But no one has (to my knowledge) successfully won a suit based on it.

So it's Theory vs. Practice... but in theory, yes, "Filing totally false DMCA claims can open you up to serious legal penalties".
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Anonymous Coward, 31 Aug 2011 @ 4:00pm

Re: Re: Yeah right
But no one has (to my knowledge) successfully won a suit based on it.

Online Policy Group v. Diebold

EFF helped protect online speakers by bringing the first successful suit against abusive copyright claims under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). This landmark case set a precedent that allows other Internet users and their ISPs to fight back against improper copyright threats.

In OPG v. Diebold, a California district court has determined that Diebold, Inc., a manufacturer of electronic voting machines, knowingly misrepresented that online commentators, including IndyMedia and two Swarthmore college students, had infringed the company's copyrights. EFF and the Center for Internet and Society Cyberlaw Clinic at Stanford Law School sued on behalf of nonprofit Internet Service Provider (ISP) Online Policy Group (OPG) and the two students to prevent Diebold's abusive copyright claims from silencing public debate about voting.

Diebold sent dozens of cease-and-desist letters to ISPs hosting leaked internal documents revealing flaws in Diebold's e-voting machines. The company claimed copyright violations and used the DMCA to demand that the documents be taken down. One ISP, OPG, refused to remove them in the name of free speech, and thus became the first ISP to test whether it would be held liable for the actions of its users in such a situation.

In his decision, Judge Jeremy Fogel wrote, "No reasonable copyright holder could have believed that the portions of the email archive discussing possible technical problems with Diebold's voting machines were protected by copyright." In turn, Diebold had violated section 512(f) of the DMCA, which makes it unlawful to use DMCA takedown threats when the copyright holder knows that infringement has not actually occured.

Outcome: In addition to creating the first caselaw applying 512(f) of the DMCA to remedy abusive copyright claims under the DMCA, Diebold subsequently agreed to pay $125,000 in damages and fees.
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Chosen Reject (profile), 31 Aug 2011 @ 4:05pm

Re:
Since when has being a foreigner had anything to do with whether or not the US will go after you?
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Beta (profile), 31 Aug 2011 @ 4:08pm

something's gotta give
It is still possible to send DMCA notices pseudonymously (or, as drewmerc points out, from overseas). So eventually I see three possibilities:

1) Everyone will accept the fact that videos can be taken down, including those put up by Big Players.

2) The "put-'em-back-up" process will be greatly streamlined for Big Players, to the point where the interruptions are barely noticeable.

3) The DMCA will be amended to correct the "notice-and-takedown" protocol.

4) The DMCA will be amended with a hideous tangle of legal language which works out to "videos put up by Big Players may not be taken down".

5) Like 4, but it works out to "only Big Players may file notices".
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Anonymous Coward, 31 Aug 2011 @ 4:08pm

YouTube asked for this by abdicating
I bet the YouTube lawyers were thinking that they were so blessed by the DMCA. They could force the content creators to jump through nutty hoops and then be freed of all responsibilty for aiding and abetting the infringement. Woo hoo!

But now they have no controls for detecting fake forms. If they were actually nice to the creators, if they worked with the artists, if they didn't think of the creators as sheep to be shorn, they would have the deep relationships that would allow them to detect fraud.

But no. They insist that Google+ users use their real names, but they could care less who uploads stuff to YouTube because it's so much easier to look the other way when the infringers deliver the free content.
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Beta (profile), 31 Aug 2011 @ 4:10pm

Re: something's gotta give
For "three" read "five". (Why the hell can't we have an "edit" button?)
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Donnicton, 31 Aug 2011 @ 4:21pm

Re: Riddle me this:
Because there was a DMCA form submitted. Didn't you read the article at all?!
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Anonymous Coward, 31 Aug 2011 @ 4:22pm

Re: Re: Re: Yeah right
Thank you!

I amend my previous comment to the following:

"Yes."
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Anonymous Coward, 31 Aug 2011 @ 4:25pm

Re: YouTube asked for this by abdicating
That is an A+ level of trolling. Well done!
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Zot-Sindi, 31 Aug 2011 @ 4:30pm

the same thing is happening with my little pony episodes

someone made a fake account called "haBSro" (instead of haSBro) and filed a whole crapload of takedown claims and managed to get a bunch of the videos removed

pure stupidity
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Zot-Sindi, 31 Aug 2011 @ 4:31pm

Re: YouTube asked for this by abdicating
... what??
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Anonymous Coward, 31 Aug 2011 @ 4:37pm

Re: YouTube asked for this by abdicating
As usual, TAM has no idea what he is talking about.
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AG (profile), 31 Aug 2011 @ 4:41pm

Is it just me or does everyone finding getting rid of Bieber's music infinitely desirable? The DMCA came through on one good thing at least...
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Anonymous Coward, 31 Aug 2011 @ 4:54pm

Re:
Is it just me or...

Everyone wants to censor something. That's human nature.
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mojo, 31 Aug 2011 @ 5:25pm

Unfortunately, it's ONLY because we have a giant-corporation friendly DMCA system in place that sites like YouTube and Vimeo are even allowed to exist. Part of the agreement everyone came too is that there would be a quick and easy way for content to be taken down at the request of the copyright holder.

But it does seem like a huge over sight to have never built in any parameters in which you have to prove infraction or, at the very least, the alleged infractor should be given an opportunity to respond BEFORE the content is taken down.

I think as it stands, the video is automatically put back up as long as the person served with the takedown notice responds with a counter-notice.

In any case, it is a system that assumes guilt and is very open to abuse. You can get anyone's video taken down by claiming DMCA and it's probably easy enough to send in the notice with a fake ID and email - at least so that you won't be easy to track down unless they REALLY want to go after you, and with the number of takedown notices issued every day i'm sure very few of the fraudelent claims are followed up.
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Anonymous Coward, 31 Aug 2011 @ 5:32pm

Re: Re: YouTube asked for this by abdicating
Any cogent non-freetard point = trolling.

Gotcha.
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Anonymous Coward, 31 Aug 2011 @ 5:39pm

Re: Re: Re: YouTube asked for this by abdicating
This was cogent?!
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Anonymous Coward, 31 Aug 2011 @ 5:40pm

Re:
...counter-notice....

The counter-notice provision still ordinarily results in 10-14 days of takedown.

From 17 U.S.C. � 512(g)(2):

�.�.�.�.

(B) upon receipt of a counter notification described in paragraph (3), promptly provides the person who provided the notification under subsection (c)(1)(C) with a copy of the counter notification, and informs that person that it will replace the removed material or cease disabling access to it in 10 business days; and

(C) replaces the removed material and ceases disabling access to it not less than 10, nor more than 14, business days following receipt of the counter notice, unless...

(Emphasis added.)

I do notice that Bieber wasn't forced to wait 10 days to get his material replaced on YouTube. He got special treatment there.
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Anonymous Coward, 31 Aug 2011 @ 6:00pm

Re: Yeah right
The golden rule, those that have the gold make the rules.
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DinDaddy (profile), 31 Aug 2011 @ 6:55pm

Not likely
"In the process, perhaps they could establish greater precedence for the ability to punish those who file bogus DMCA takedowns."

Which is why there is no chance they will use that approach. Instead, they will lean on a DA to prosecute him under some other broadly worded computer hacking or other inapplicable law.
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Anonymous Coward, 31 Aug 2011 @ 6:59pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: YouTube asked for this by abdicating
It is when you can blame Big Tech!
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Anonymous Coward, 31 Aug 2011 @ 8:00pm

"a "prankster" was able to remove all of Justin Bieber's videos from YouTube by filing a bunch of bogus DMCA notices.

While a lot of people find this amusing for one reason or another"

ROFLOL!!!!

Wow, that's a good one.

ROFLOL!!!!

HAHAHAHAHA!!!

That's just too funny.

Sorry, I couldn't help myself.

ROFLOL!!!
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Anonymous Coward, 31 Aug 2011 @ 8:35pm

so what happens when someone writes a program to automatically send take down notices?
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G Thompson (profile), 31 Aug 2011 @ 9:13pm

a "prankster" was able to remove all of Justin Bieber's videos from YouTube

Cannot people leave this poor GIRL alone?
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Anonymous Coward, 31 Aug 2011 @ 9:33pm

Re: Re:
Youku is the new Youtube :)
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Anonymous Coward, 31 Aug 2011 @ 9:41pm

I would like to see the studio's sue google/youtube for taking down the video's without notifying them first or trying to confirm the notices.
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Anonymous Coward, 31 Aug 2011 @ 9:42pm

Re: Re:
If you are European you are screwed but if you are Chinese.
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Anonymous Coward, 31 Aug 2011 @ 9:46pm

Re: Re:
Of course he got special treatment, who wants to get thousands of emails from 12 years old girls complaining they can't see Bieber?

Dun'goofing. (RIP old angry moustache)
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Anonymous Coward, 31 Aug 2011 @ 9:48pm

Re:
That is not a bad idea, people could right automated bots to take down each and every video from Youtube that belongs to studios and labels.

That would be great, no that would be fantastic.
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Anonymous Coward, 31 Aug 2011 @ 9:56pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: YouTube asked for this by abdicating
I believe the unpronounced word here is impotent.

Since Google tried everything to work with the studios and labels and even now it is giving signs it wants to work with them.

Those speculations about how Youtube didn't want to do anything are understated and unprepared, hence the impotency of the argument not to mention the speculation about the trolls own capabilities.
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fb39ca4, 31 Aug 2011 @ 9:59pm

This is Justin Beiber we're talking about...
so it doesn't matter!
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Anonymous Coward, 31 Aug 2011 @ 10:02pm

Re: Re:
It's not just big players, youtube does put back blatantly obvious censoring quickly. Scientology took down a few thousand videos by critics, along with Anonymous, a couple years ago, which youtube put back up once they realized the problem. However, they can only do this when it is clear that it was for censoring, because they lose safe harbors if they don't wait the period, and because of this, outside of the most obvious censoring they choose to wait.
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Blatant Coward (profile), 1 Sep 2011 @ 3:45am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: YouTube asked for this by abdicating
I thought we were blaming big pharma this week, agra business next week then big tech week after?

I never get the memo's.
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btrussell (profile), 1 Sep 2011 @ 4:39am

Re: Re: Re:
How about Canadian?

Got your stealth snowmobiles yet?
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btrussell (profile), 1 Sep 2011 @ 4:46am

Re:
I'd like to see a real youtube, not a studio tube.
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Jake (profile), 1 Sep 2011 @ 5:31am

Re:
Honestly, I would like to see them sue the Government for being the root cause of the loss of income from the take down. If there was not a horrible, likely unconstitutional, law in the first place no revenue would have been lost. Just sayin'
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ahow628 (profile), 1 Sep 2011 @ 5:41am

When I awoke...
I woke up this morning and the internet just FELT like a better place.
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Lisa Westveld (profile), 1 Sep 2011 @ 5:43am

Just wondering... Wouldn't those Justin Bieber video's be more popular now, since they're mentioned in various articles? How many people here have personally checked if those video's are up and running again? Isn't this similar to the Streisant effect? Justin Bieber is mentioned, thus Justin Bieber becomes more popular. What more can this girl wish for? ;-)
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btrussell (profile), 1 Sep 2011 @ 6:06am

Re:
I didn't check. I don't need verification as to their status either.

The sun is still shining here.
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Bergman (profile), 1 Sep 2011 @ 6:13am

Re:
It's not terribly unusual for members of Congress to vote in favor of a bill they've never read. They believe what the media is saying about it being a good bill (despite those media talking heads never having read it themselves) or vote out of loyalty to a party or alliance or coalition within congress, and after the vote, they don't read the bill because it's no longer topical.

Sometimes, one or more of them will read the bill after pledging to support it, realize in horror it goes against everything they stand for, and suddenly reverse their previous pledge. But this is fairly rare.
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Hephaestus (profile), 1 Sep 2011 @ 6:17am

Re:
"I wonder how many times this has to happen before a policy maker wakes up and realizes there might be a problem with the system"

That would be the day that a politician loses an election because of this sort of false DMCA take down ....
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Bergman (profile), 1 Sep 2011 @ 6:21am

Re:
Are you in a country that is a signatory to the WIPO treaties of 1996? Then the DMCA applies to you, since it isn't a U.S. law, but rather, legislation that adds a signed treaty into U.S. law.

Plus, it's long been a set-in-stone precedent that U.S. courts simply do not care how a defendant came to be in the courtroom, they consider it irrelevant. If you break U.S. laws, then at some future date set foot in the U.S. (or a country that has an extradition treaty) you get to go to U.S. court and then in all probability to a U.S. prison.
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Bergman (profile), 1 Sep 2011 @ 6:29am

Re: Re:
Unfortunately, while such bots would have to be written by net-savvy programmers, the payloads of what they go after would in all probability be written by someone from the legal department, who has no clue what the internet is beyond a vaguely confusing set of tubes.

I recall a cease & desist/takedown notice some years back, that amounted a series screen captures of an FTP site's directory tree. The takedown notice included the entire site (only one directory out of hundreds was actually even arguably infringing) and listed every single file in the FTP site, regardless of actual owner or content, including things like .message files.

It looks like a decent idea at first read, but you assume competence in application, and that has never actually happened in the past, nor is it likely to in the future as long as the people in charge of targeting such a thing are completely ignorant of what the system does.
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JR Smith (profile), 1 Sep 2011 @ 7:03am

Bieber
Too bad his junk can't be removed from existence.
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DannyB (profile), 1 Sep 2011 @ 7:58am

Re: Re: Yeah right
That golden rule only works until they go too far the the masses revolt.
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Jimmy D, 1 Sep 2011 @ 8:18am

Surprised hackers have not exploited DMCA
The sending of fake takedown notices seems to be an opportunity for Anonymous, etc., no?

Imagine if Google/Youtube and others were disrupted by hackers via takedown notices.
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Miff (profile), 1 Sep 2011 @ 8:24am

1) Write a script that problematically creates DMCA takedown notices.
2) Make it crawl YouTube and send a takedown notice on everything it finds.
3) ???
4) Profit
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xenomancer (profile), 1 Sep 2011 @ 8:31am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: YouTube asked for this by abdicating
They were an addendum to last week's TPS report.
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xenomancer (profile), 1 Sep 2011 @ 8:40am

Re: Re: Re:
Who said anything about involving a legal department? I see this arriving as an angry netizen's response in its first rendition.
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nasch (profile), 1 Sep 2011 @ 8:54am

Re: YouTube asked for this by abdicating
If they were actually nice to the creators, if they worked with the artists, if they didn't think of the creators as sheep to be shorn, they would have the deep relationships that would allow them to detect fraud.

Literally LOLed at this! Voted you funny, too. Thanks.
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nasch (profile), 1 Sep 2011 @ 8:56am

Re:
I'm sure it's not just you, but I would prefer to just not listen to it (it's really easy, I've never heard any of his songs AFAIK) than let people censor music.
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nasch (profile), 1 Sep 2011 @ 8:58am

Re:
1) Write a script that problematically creates DMCA takedown notices.

Programatically? I agree it would be a problem for some parties, but that reads strangely. :-)
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chris, 1 Sep 2011 @ 9:03am

Re: Re: Re: Yeah right
One problem with this remedy is that it relies on the accused party filing suit themselves, in civil court, which few can afford to do, even if they're in the right. There needs to be an automatic, criminal penalty, for false DMCA claims and officials that are willing to enforce it.
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The Infamous Joe (profile), 1 Sep 2011 @ 9:39am

Re: Re:
I've never heard any of his songs AFAIK

I used to think that too. The problem is you're assuming he sounds like a boy. Only recently did I realize that I had heard some of his songs on the radio, I just thought it was a girl singing.
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Ninja (profile), 1 Sep 2011 @ 11:58am

Re:
That. I'd make a list of other things that should be taken down in Youtube (or rather, the internet) but I'd text flood TD and possibly my ISP.
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nasch (profile), 1 Sep 2011 @ 12:04pm

Re: Re: Re:
I don't listen to music on the radio, so if I've heard him it would have been in passing, or at a restaurant or something like that. Like I said, it's possible I've heard his music, but if I have I don't know about it. I assume it's neither as good as his fans say nor as bad as his detractors. :-)
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nasch (profile), 1 Sep 2011 @ 12:14pm

Re: Re:
Yeah, let's just have content that everybody likes! There will lots of that, right?
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bhuvana, 19 Nov 2011 @ 9:23pm

justin
i love you justin bieber
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Dec 2011 @ 12:27pm

johnthan ok wath edwin ok you de okro mo you
fr jkfu ds rir riruw ruowuiow iuerui iu uiu u i i e erueri e u uiuiui feuiiuere ruueuuier uirreuruieu i u ieiwuo3iw
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camilly, 20 Jan 2012 @ 5:48pm

JUSTIN BIBER EU TEAMO DE MAS DO MUMDO
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Lizzie, 7 May 2012 @ 11:21am

Wow
Wow really who would do something so stupid. That hurts alot of people and i would sue him if i was Justin. Because Justin Bieber made those videos for his grandma and grandpa and peole who enjoyed listening to them. I wish i know who this was becuz then i would go off on them. Btw I'm a Huge BELIEBER!!!!!! GO JUSTIN WE LOVE YOU!
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Lizzie, 7 May 2012 @ 11:23am

Wow
Wow really who would do something so stupid. That hurts alot of people and i would sue him if i was Justin. Because Justin Bieber made those videos for his grandma and grandpa and peole who enjoyed listening to them. I wish i know who this was becuz then i would go off on them. Btw I'm a Huge BELIEBER!!!!!! GO JUSTIN WE LOVE YOU!
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