Fox Issues DMCA Takedown To Google Over SF Chronicle Article... Claiming It Was The Movie 'Chronicle'
from the on-the-penalty-of-perjury dept
So, Google just revealed its copyright takedown transparency report and it's turning into the gift that keeps on giving. We've already discussed how it shows Microsoft DMCAing links that remain in Microsoft's own search engine... and now reader David Sanger points us to another amusing one. On March 14th, apparently BayTSP (one of the more well-known "anti-piracy" firms), working for Twentieth Century Fox (a News Corp. company), demanded the removal of a link to SFGate.com.![](https://i.imgur.com/UEGKr.png)
SFGate? That's the website for the San Francisco Chronicle -- the main newspaper in San Francisco. So what was infringing? According to the DMCA notice (which says the filing came from Irdeto, the company that acquired BayTSP last year), insisted that what was actually at that link was:
"The copyrighted work at issue is the film "Chronicle", which is owned by "Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation"Now, wouldn't that be something if the SF Chronicle was distributing the movie Chronicle illegally? But, of course, that's hogwash. The truth is that BayTSP and Fox screwed up. The SFGate article is now back online and you can see it's just an editorial about how SF Muni (the local public transit authority) should let students ride for free. That has nothing, whatsoever, to do with the movie Chronicle. What's amazing is the word "Chronicle" doesn't even show up in the article. It obviously shows up elsewhere on the page. After all, it is the website for the SF Chronicle.
Of course, in filing this DMCA takedown, BayTSP -- who is a "trusted user" of the takedown system -- swears upon the following statements:
I have a good faith belief that use of the copyrighted materials described in all notifications submitted through the Program as allegedly infringing is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.That's clearly bunk, however, since nothing on that page is even remotely related to the movie Chronicle. How do you have a "good faith belief" that there's infringement when you clearly didn't even take the briefest second to look.
The information in all notifications submitted through the Program will be accurate, and I swear, under penalty of perjury, that with respect to those notifications, I am the copyright owner or am authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.
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Filed Under: chronicle, dmca, sfgate, takedown
Companies: baytsp, news corp, twentieth century fox
Reader Comments
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Re:
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Re: Re:perjury is normally an imprisonable offence.
Only when the little people do it.
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Re: Re: Re:perjury is normally an imprisonable offence.
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Re: Re: Re:perjury is normally an imprisonable offence.
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Re: Re:
Sorry, but if your going to build your industries on the very ideas you are now trying to criminalize, willfully commit perjury, bribery (and openly brag/complain about it), and extortion without punishment, than nothing you have to say has the least bit of relevance as far as I am concerned.
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because it so very true
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Corporations are people....
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Remove any and all Mafiaa Content and put up all Kickstarter Links for New cool Indie Stuff.
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Calling someone an internet pirate, given the industries claims piracy is theft, is calling someone a criminal. Issuing the takedown notice is doing so in public.
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1 out of millions
/s
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Re: 1 out of millions
Just think about Google transparency site released recently. I remember seeing numbers like 800k, 1M. Now if you consider Google gives these requests at least some depth of scrutiny they must need like 5 minutes to read the takedown and proceed with that minimum verification process then we are talking about 5 million minutes wasted, more than 83k work hours. That's a person working over TWO YEARS 24h a day, 7 days a week. So these 1M takedown notices cost Google something near 1,5 million dollars considering a $20/hour wage. Along with other material/processing not included. So I think a $10 fee would be the minimum rights-holders should pay. If you consider they claim one person sharing one music/movie costs them millions then they will be preventing further sharing so the investment is very profitable. Love when their twisted logic bites back.
Obviously I may have made some mistakes here (wrong assumptions) but you can get the whole picture. Google has to scrutinize the takedowns because the copywrong tards won't do it properly beforehand. Makes sense they charge for it, no?
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Re: Re: 1 out of millions
That would make indexing sites like Isohunt profitable... so I guess that will not happen.
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Re: Re: Re: 1 out of millions
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Re: Re: Re: Re: 1 out of millions
Nah, too sensible.
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It would at least be nice to see those supposed perjury penalties used against people doing such things. There at least needs to be some human intervention to see if the content being attacked passes basic common sense tests (as the above clearly doesn't), and a human being associated who actually approved the takedown before being sent. Someone should at least be in the position to tell the court how a takedown notice was issued against innocent content based on a dictionary word, and I'd suggest the company be heavily fined if the only answer is "I dunno, computer told me to". If people are sending these notices, they need to be aware that there are consequences for false accusations.
Until then, we see the same old story - ineffective and unworkable attacks, no effect on piracy, and a nice payday for lawyers at the expense of everybody else.
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Jail time. Even just 10 days. That will very quickly cause them to spend at least as much time as Google must spend to scrutinize these bogus DMCA takedowns.
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Perjury, eh?
It would be interesting to see if one of these copyright trolls gets sued by a company. The issue (I think) is that perjury charges must be brought by the "state".
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Re: Perjury, eh?
Dumb people need to have something to get excited about, and so there is sports.
There is increasing evidence connecting the two so that we can conclude that brain damage causes football.
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So true..
That is SO true! Different rules for different people..
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Purgery?
The fact is, because prosecution is discretionary, these abusers don't get punished.
So, as WE all suspected, the law was written SOLELY and COMPLETELY for the copyright holders without sufficient recourse for the public.
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A hint: It wasn't because we all liked him
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"Give me your tired old billionaire,
Your upper class yearning to destroy TV,
With silver spoon and not much hair,
Send the shameless money grabber to me:
I lift my lamp beside the paywall stair."
- proposed changes to the quote on the Statue of Liberty
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http://torrentfreak.com/should-websites-charge-a-fee-to-process-copyright-takedowns-1205 28/
Maybe that would make them only issue verified ones...
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Even making it $75 would do the trick. If these guys had to pay anything, they'd use it less than they currently are. Right now there is no penalty at all for doing the wrong thing, and $75 could be more justifiable for being a "fee" for service.
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With or without a payment being required, I'd just prefer to see someone held accountable for wrongful accusations, and preferably a process to prevent automated notices being filed without human intervention. Simply having to pay people to check the content manually should stop most of the blanket notices.
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That said, I prefer the jail time punishment mentioned a few posts up. For a big company even 75K would be pretty paltry, but jail time...
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I think that'd be effective.
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Reverse 3 strikes
After all, stopping all electronic requests like that would support their 3 strikes idea of not completely cutting people off. We would just be slowing them down. They always tell us that is acceptable so it should be acceptable to put this plan into place, correct?
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Re: Reverse 3 strikes
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10 Days of JAIL time for each bogus DMCA request
They would then at least spend at least 10 MINUTES of research to avoid the potential of 10 DAYS of jail.
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Akin to DOS Attack
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Re: Akin to DOS Attack
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Around and around it goes
Now BayTSP steps up to take the vacant position of copyright troll perhaps somewhat more intelligently than it's successor/
Perhaps not.
BayTSP, who swear in their automated statement that their automated "The Program" will identify only the guilty. Yet this indicates that it operates on keywords and little more. I can't see any other way it confused the SF Chronicle with the movie.
What surprises me even more is that "The Program" didn't catch that well known pirate CS Lewis and his obvious misuse of the movie name in "The Chronicles of Narnia". This sort of rampant piracy just can't be allowed to continue!!!!
/s
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Re: Around and around it goes
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Re: Re: Around and around it goes
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Re: Re: Around and around it goes
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30 days in County for each case of perjury
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Re: 30 days in County for each case of perjury
I agree with your sentiment, but the buck stops with the boss: the executives should be the first ones thrown in the clink.
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If they refuse to look, they can shut down whatever they want and have a "good faith belief".. If they bother to check the things they want to shut down, then they would have to lie and might get in trouble.
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Re:
These guys have a "good faith" belief that absolutely everything on the internet is infringing. It's delusional, but that's what they honestly believe.
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Banking System
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I believe, I believe, I believe, and who are you to challenge my belief? :-)
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Re:
According to that Memorandum, the methods used to detect infringement are a Trade Secret. They may not be disclosed, and since they are (metaphorically) a sealed black box, they may not be challenged.
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Because if you falsely accuse someone of infringement and you are wrong, there is hardly ever any punishment. If someone accidentally infringes and they are wrong they can get fined huge sums of money.
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punishment for false positive
they DON'T get to persecute a real copyright violation, starting with worst offender to least.
this is the proper penalty for "crying wolf"
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Re: punishment for false positive
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How odd....
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Safe Harbor
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Re: Safe Harbor
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What about this take down notice?
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120524/14064719069/copylaundering-jay-leno-airs-campaign -video-youtube-nbc-claims-ownership-original.shtml
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It's about time we outlawed automated takedown notices.
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Aside from the money paid to Odex through legally dodgy settlement letters, BayTSP is a joke.
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Anonymous
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