DMCA Notices So Stupid It Hurts
from the yay-dmca dept
Google's decision to be much more transparent about DMCA takedowns for search has revealed a swathe of absolutely ridiculously stupid DMCA notices. We've covered some already, but TorrentFreak has found some more -- including multiple cases of DMCA notices by copyright holders that aren't just against their own best interests, but are often against content they, themselves, put up. This isn't even a situation like Viacom suing YouTube over clips that Viacom's employees had uploaded. In those cases, at least, it involved attempts to make the clips look unauthorized.Here, however, it appears to just be ridiculous bad processes in place to make sure DMCA takedowns are legit. There is, for example, the case of Warner Bros. sending a DMCA takedown for the IMDB page of its own movie, Wrath of the Titans. It also demanded that the Guardian newspaper's showing of the official trailer of the movie be removed from Google search. Ditto the official trailer on Apple's site and Hulu's site. And, let's not forget the BBC America news article about how the film might be "critic proof" as well as a page from Charleston South Carolina's newspaper, The Post & Courier about the film and telling people where to go see it. Though, I guess Warner Bros. lawyers didn't want you to see it at all, because all of those were DMCA'd for being in Google's search.
It's almost as if the lawyers at Warner Bros. are so clueless that they were actively trying to hide any legitimate marketing for the movie. I'm sure their colleagues in the marketing department must have been just thrilled about these efforts.
The TorrentFreak article lists out a bunch more takedowns, directed at news sites, often promoting the works in question:
The more you play around, the more examples like this you can find. Zuffa, the notoriously litigious folks behind UFC, demanded a Hulu link be disappeared from Google search, despite Hulu only posting authorized content.In addition to the Warner instance mentioned above, the RIAA asked Google to delist a review of the album Own The Night published on The Guardian. The artist behind the album is Lady Antebellum, signed to RIAA-member Capitol Records.
Even more worrying, the RIAA asked Google to delist Last.fm’s entire Electro Pop section because they thought it carried a pirate copy of All About Tonight by Pixie Lott.
Warner also reappeared later on, asking Google to delist a page on news site NME which lists information on the latest movies, which at the time included information on the movie Hall Pass. The same page on NME was targeted on several other occasions, including by anti-piracy company DtecNet on behalf of Lionsgate, who had info on The Hunger Games delisted.
Hollywood Reporter didn’t fare much better either. Sony Pictures asked Google to swing the banhammer against the popular news site after it published an article called “Trent Reznor Releases Six Free Tracks From ‘Girl With the Dragon Tattoo’ Soundtrack” and Sony mistook it for a DVDRIP.
But as soon as Sony’s piracy fears on the first ‘Dragon Tattoo’ movie had subsided they were back as strong as ever with the sequel. This time the sinner was Wikipedia who dared to put up an information page on the movie The Girl Who Played With Fire. Luckily Sony were on hand to ask Google to delist the page.
Sony Music and the Estate of Michael Jackson tried to get a page on Last.fm for Slave to the Rhythm removed as infringing.
Let's see... we've got Universal Music/Interscope (by way of Web Sheriff) demanding that Google delete a link to Wall Street Journal post (reprinted from Mashable) embedding an official Lady Gaga video from last year. Oh, and that wasn't all. They also went after an MTV news article about the video shoot -- which did contain some footage that someone had shot from a distance, but that seems extreme to kill the whole article. Ditto for a NY Post article.
Sony Music Nashville was so worried about a Carrie Underwood leak that it tried to erase a Reuters archive page from 2008 that just lists a bunch of headlines -- none of which has anything to do with Carrie Underwood.
TorrentFreak noted above that the RIAA asked the Guardian to takedown its review of the Lady Antebellum album Own the Night, but that wasn't the only target. The RIAA demanded that Google remove a link to a review of Lady Antebellum songs on AOL's music site. Lady Antebellum was clearly so upset by AOL breaching its copyright that the band posed for a photo at AOL studios.
For most musicians, getting onto Pitchfork is a goal. For the RIAA? Well, apparently Pitchfork must be stopped. That's why it DMCA'd the tastemaker website for daring to post an article about Coldplay, in which they embedded a song directly from Coldplay's own YouTube account. The article even notes that the band had released the song to Pitchfork. Nice going RIAA, trying to stop your own bands from getting the publicity they seek.
Anyway, that's just after a little bit of searching... I'm sure we'll have more examples going forward... Thanks to the folks at Torrentfreak for their initial research which inspired some of these other findings as well.
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Filed Under: dmca, takedown, transparency report, wrath of the titans
Companies: google, riaa, viacom, warner bros, youtube
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Quid Est Macho?
Moreso when faced with the fact the corporations which issue false takedowns are never fined, never jailed, never punished.... just issue a takedown and content gets "disappeared"...
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Re: Quid Est Macho?
Stupid, my ass. That's exactly what modern America Inc. is - a country ruled by a corporate-driven conspiracy of Wealthy Anonymous Fascists out silence anyone and anything it bloody well pleases. Just ask Julian Assange or Kim Dotcom.
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Who is More Macho?
I said, Google, show what's goin' around.
.....
It's fun to ban with the DMCA...
(Here's hoping my post doesn't get taken down by the Village People!)
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Re: Who is More Macho?
It won't be your post, they'll want all of Techdirt taken down because of it. Use a 200 Megaton nuke from orbit, just to be sure.
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Looks legit to me.
/sarcasm
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Re: Looks legit to me.
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@ Ima Fish
Patents, copyrights, trademarks... these are the small fry distractions given to the public while corporate power becomes more absolute... smh
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How long before the metaphorical foot starts hurting
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Bots
Torrent Download Avengers Free.
Now the waiting game :-)
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Re: Bots
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Re: Bots
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If I were Google I'd just pass these suicide DMCA notices pass without scrutiny =D
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Wow
I am very impressed with Google's posting of this information.
But it makes me wonder. Why is violating copyright punished at thousands of dollars per occurrence, but incorrect DMCA takedowns are punished by "please give a lackluster apology...."
Wrongful DMCA takedowns should cost the copyright holders massive penalties per occurance.
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Re: Wow
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Re: Wow
your statement implies there are punishments of any sort at all for bogus DMCA takedowns.
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Try to see things from the studio's perspective...
Studios pay millions (sometimes billions) of dollars for marketing. In fact, some of the most successful movies pay more for marketing and advertising than they do for production! Likewise, music companies pay radio stations and other places thousands of dollars for marketing and airplay.
Then these evil filthy pirate sites like AOL, Hulu, and IMDB start doing the marketing for free, taking money away from hard working executives and marketers!
Please, won't someone think of the marketers?
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Re: Try to see things from the studio's perspective...
9/10 - u missed some swearing, it seems the new trend among the trolls
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Re: Re: Try to see things from the studio's perspective...
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Re: Re: Re: Try to see things from the studio's perspective...
Note that the DMCA notices were sent to Google, not to the places hosting the "infringment". It's possible that the actual websites received a notice as well, but since they're still up (and there's no trace of the notices on Chilling Effects) it seems that these notices were only sent to Google.
The only logical conclusion I could come up with was that the studios sending the notices knew they were bogus, but these sites were showing up before "paid" sites in Google.
The post just flowed from there.
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Re: Re: Try to see things from the studio's perspective...
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Re: Try to see things from the studio's perspective...
1.Any Artist who signs with the MAFIAA has made the Bed they will sleep in and they are immediately a Traitor in my eyes.
2.I have absolutely no sympathy for any Artist,Company,Worker, or asny person who is in MAFIAA.They are my Enemy and I want nothing to do with their greedy Industry.
3.I wish Google would just go and remove every single mention of any MAFIAA Content from its Search Engines.I would not care one bit.Just take the whole shebang down.Fuck the MAFIAA if they don't like it.
4.Great sarcasm on your comment
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Outta be a LAW!
Fine the bad claimants a stock $100,000 each.
Give the proceeds to ICE, viola! no needing to add 5 Mil to their funding to protect Hollywood!
And with the money left over, Lear jets for everyone!
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Re: Outta be a LAW!
I read this and started laughing because it reminded me of that Treehouse of Horror Simpsons episode where Kang and Kodos replace Bill Clinton and Bob Dole. The scene where Bob Dole/Kang says, "Hmm... Abortions for some, miniature American flags for others." And the crowd goes nuts (in a good way).
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Re: Re: Outta be a LAW!
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Re: Outta be a LAW!
"They want us to stop the sugar daddies...I mean, corporate citizens from making bad faith claims? Hell, we do that too! If we stop them, we'll have to stop doing that ourselves!"
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Response to: Anonymous Coward on May 30th, 2012 @ 11:30am
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Re: Response to: Anonymous Coward on May 30th, 2012 @ 11:30am
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Thinking Forward
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Oh please oh please
Please oh please google, please turn this into some sort of corporate espionage lawsuit. M$ keep spamming you with takedown requests while allowing those "evil" URLs to remain in their index (or shoebox or cookie jar or whatever M$'s scienticians call it). Surely that's just a way of wasting your time and resources?
In my mind, some such awesomeness just *has* to be brewing. This is more than just a toy which exists solely for the amusement of bloggers. This is more akin to the Jurassic Park water ripples. (Oh f*&^ can I get sued now?)
/rant
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Re: Oh please oh please
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Given the US box office for Wrath of the Titans, I'd have to say this is one of those rare cases where their attempts to "fight piracy" may have a actually had some success.
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Re:
Dude. Seriously?
Trust me, don't go down this route. Even though we've been showing repeatedly how consistently wrong you are, you don't want to be the guy who defends Warner Bros. DMCAing their own IMDB page on a movie.
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Re: Re:
I suddenly have a vison of Warner Bros DMCAing www.warnerbros.com for infringing content!
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Re:
Why does IMDB or NME or the New York Post need authorization from the "rights holder" to talk about the content? Sure, if they actually copied the content, I can see your request making sense, but talking about it/reviewing it is not the same as copying it. If anything, this is proof that the DMCA has some very, very serious First Amendment issues in regards to prior restraint.
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Re:
Asking for stats is fine; it'd be interesting to see what percentage of the invalid notices are for authorized content, and what percentage of all notices are invalid. But your mischaracterization of the article seems to suggest that you were actually asking a rhetorical question, trying desperately to cast doubt on the notion that the copyright owners and their agents are, at times, quite reckless in their methods, in ways that waste time & money and that ultimately limit people's access to non-infringing content.
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The Stupid! It burns!
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Re: The Stupid! It burns!
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Re: The Stupid! It burns!
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LOL
There is a class action lawyer just salivating
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With the loss of all the "word of mouth" and blog reviews, we'll see a big drop in attendance as no one will even know there are new movies out to go see.
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See, used to be terrible movies still got a pretty good showing, because everyone had to go and watch it themselves, or hear about it from their close friends and family to find out how it was. Now, just the first-day people can watch it, and tell the world via the internet. And from that point the sales will tank as people just don't go to see it.
So you see, reviews for movies like that actually are harming the film industry. Or, summed up in a single line:
The internet: Good for good movies, bad for bad movies.
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It really just proves that DMCA should be abolished - and we can return to the pre-DMCA days where all violations were straight up violations.
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It is their choice to go the lawyer threat route instead of offering compelling and reasonably priced alternatives.
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I don't know if it proves that, but I do agree that the DMCA needs to go.
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Re:
What guarantee do you have that no overstepping was done in the days before DMCA?
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Re: Re:
The "overreaching" that you seem to see here is nothing more than that insane amounts of efforts required by rights holders to try to stem the tide of illegal use ans distribution.
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It's funny that you insist that this is the correct route, but resist any suggestion that the **AAs need to fix their business models to fit a marketplace that has changed irrevocably over the last 15 years (and no, I'm not referring to piracy, before you start).
But, I'm sure you won't see the blatant hypocrisy there.
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Without DMCA
Fox would just send out a notice to youtube, "hey someone violates our rights", and youtube would take the respective content down. No lawsuits needed.
They would do the same to warez sites, and if they didn't take the content down _then_ a lawsuit would follow.
On the other hand, nobody would go to google or the piratebay or whatever to demand _references_ to infringing content to be taken down.
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They are NOT GOING FAR ENOUGH with these takedowns
Theaters, for example, must remove the names of all movies from, for example, but not limited to, all outdoor and indoor signage, all tickets, movie announcements, audio recordings of show schedules, or signs showing movie schedules, web sites showing movie schedules.
And ticket prices! -- (gasp!) those should be secret!
Critics giving positive or negative reviews should be cautioned never to use the actual name of the movie.
Furthermore, any references to characters should be omitted.
For those rare movies that have an actual plot or theme, no mention of any such alleged plot or theme should be permitted.
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Re: They are NOT GOING FAR ENOUGH with these takedowns
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Wonder how fast they would turn around and beg.
Unlikely tho, to many sheeple about.
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Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_Copyright_Infringement_Liability_Limitation_Act#Take down_example
so isn't each one of these considered perjury? how are they not being charged each time?
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Re:
even with a signed document (with witnesses) outlining someones direct intent to unlawfully and falsely file a takedown notice you would probably Still have a hard time getting actual charges pressed.
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Outsourced to Elbonia?
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huh
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Re:
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huh
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Proof of work..
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By his past methods, he's not planning on doing that. He's wanting to occupy your time so you can't put up more of the damaging articles that are continually coming forward. Ones that paint the vested and entrenched industries as they really are.
Yet during the time the DMCA was up for making it a law, the copyright industry was swearing up and down it would not abuse it, contrary to what we see today. If the copyright industry wants the law followed, how is it they can just blindly ignore with impunity the part of the law that says "on penalty of perjury". Perjury does carry punitive legal punishments that are not being sought out.
I think on the whole Google has exposed what is a burden to them financially to follow the law and is setting up the example on why it is a burden and what is going on that has been attempted to be hidden as much as possible. Again a willful act of violating the law to enforce the law. Seriously hard questions could be raised in the public sector as to why the DOJ is ignoring the breaking of the law.
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Processing Fee
That should slow them down.
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Re: Processing Fee
Although, it's incredibly ironic that Google isn't charging this fee while the ISPs are trying to pass on a fee to other claims of infringement.
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Now, isn't Google search fundamentally the same thing as a phone book? A catalog of webpages searchable by keywords?
So here's what I'm missing: How did a search engine's results become targets for DMCA takedowns? Can I get myself removed from phone books via DMCA? Is other data still safe to use?
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Now, isn't Google search fundamentally the same thing as a phone book? A catalog of webpages searchable by keywords?
So here's what I'm missing: How did a search engine's results become targets for DMCA takedowns? Can I get myself removed from phone books via DMCA? Is other data still safe to use?
The issue is 512(d), which is a part of copyright law created by the DMCA, which applies to "information location tools." Basically it grants them safe harbor if they do takedowns on notification of links to infringing content.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/512
I agree with you that it's *crazy* and makes no sense to think that there's any liability in links in the first place, but I don't think anyone wants to test that in court. The fear is that clueless judges would ignore the Feist issue you raise, and conclude instead that refusal to take down links acts as "inducement" under the Grokster decision.
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I rated an answer straight from The Masnick!
yup, that's what I was missing alright. That convenient little 'online' word that seems to negate physical-world allegories and precedents.
that'd be the D in DMCA, I guess
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Bad DMCA!
"Please delete The Clash of the Titans page. The movie was so bad it infringes on common decency, among other things. We're not sure if it's actually copyright infringement to talk about the film, but just to be on the safe side please never mention it again. And ban anyone who does."
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Hollywood accounting
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