HBO's Latest DMCA Abuse: Issues Takedown To Google Over Popular VLC Media Player
from the take-it-all-down! dept
I was at a copyright conference recently, where a Congressional representative, who couldn't attend in person, had sent a recorded video message, which was played over the event's screens via a computer using the popular open source media player VLC. One of the copyright lawyers in attendance pointed out -- only half-jokingly -- that since VLC actually gets around some forms of DRM, some could define it as an anti-circumvention device, and thus illegal under the DMCA anti-circumvention provisions. Of course, it seems crazy that anyone would actually make such a claim -- but we live in crazy times.I doubt that's what HBO intended when, as Torrentfreak discovered, it sent a DMCA takedown notice to Google with a bunch of links for supposedly infringing content, including various HBO shows. However, mixed in with everything else was a link to a copy of VLC. The notice claims that VLC is actually a copy of Game of Thrones, suggesting that this is yet another case where an overeager copyright holder isn't being very careful with the power given to it via the DMCA's notice-and-takedown procedures.
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Filed Under: copyright, dmca takedown, vlc
Companies: hbo
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Unintended ANOMALY. Man, you think this PROVES anything?
WHAT ABOUT ALL THOSE LINKS TO ACTUAL PIRATED CONTENT? Never a mention here, ONLY anomalies.
Take a loopy tour of Techdirt.com! You always end up same place!
http://techdirt.com/
Where Mike "supports copyright" but always overlooks or excuses piracy.
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Re: Unintended ANOMALY. Man, you think this PROVES anything?
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Re: Unintended ANOMALY. Man, you think this PROVES anything?
Even if there's only one out of thousands, that's not an anomaly, it's a miscarriage of justice.
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Re: Unintended ANOMALY. Man, you think this PROVES anything?
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Re: Unintended ANOMALY. Man, you think this PROVES anything?
Amusingly enough you using the word to refer to actual anomalies is in itself an anomaly.
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Re: Unintended ANOMALY. Man, you think this PROVES anything?
There sure are a LOT of these anomalies aren't there? Almost as if there's a trend, even if it's not the majority... How many anomalies are needed before they become routine? Because this seems pretty damn routine to me at this point.
"It's clearly a file on "torrentportal.com", not the home site of VLC."
So f**king what? Are you honestly trying to say that software can only be distributed on the site of the developer? As ever, your objection is idiotic, but then you are one of those who tries to pretend that torrents can't be used for legal activity. Like it or not, VLC has every right to be on that site, has every permission to be distributed like that by its owner, and a 3rd party with no copyright claim to it is trying to take it down. Sorry, not acceptable.
"WHAT ABOUT ALL THOSE LINKS TO ACTUAL PIRATED CONTENT? Never a mention here, ONLY anomalies."
The pirated content is listed in the same damn article you're complaining about, moron. Nobody's defending that, but HBO's profits should not be protected by damaging VLC's distribution. Got it? All of these "anomalies" negatively affect people who are OBEYING THE LAW. Sorry, if your corporate gods can't make money without killing some independent innocent people, but that's not acceptable in any way.
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Re: Re: Unintended ANOMALY. Man, you think this PROVES anything?
Therefor it should not have been DMCA'd
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Re: Unintended ANOMALY. Man, you think this PROVES anything?
Vegeta: It is over 8000!
Ootb: Higher than 8000? That is something wrong! It's an anomaly!
These pesky anomalies...
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Maybe if they faced punishments for invalid requests, they would get motivated to make the system work better.
It really is time to move the bar up from , well we think it might be infringing, and make it hurt when they are wrong.
If you accidentally download something copyrighted you can face $150K, if your on the other side of the table and screw up you face public ridicule. Somethings off here, I just can't put my finger on it.
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To be fair, $150K is only for willful infringement.
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Copyrights holders get 6 'false alarms' per year per copyrighted item, because anyone can make mistakes. Once they've used up that allotment, then they start getting hit with penalties, hard.
-First of all make it so that only the person who owns the copyright, or a personal legally designated as holding the rights to sue can issue takedown requests(this is important for a later point). Don't have those legal rights, the ones issuing the false claims get hit with the same penalty as though they had willfully infringed on the copyright in question, paid to the person/group that got the takedown.
-False takedown requests would be subject to a fine, as well as requiring those that issue them to pay any related legal fees incurred by the ones being issued the takedown. Fines would start relatively small, but would grow quickly. Say $500, to $1K, to $2K, to $5K for the first five bogus takedown requests.
-If a sixth bogus takedown request is issued, the copyright in question immediately and irrevocably enters the public domain, and is no longer able to be sued over. Misuse something and it's only right that it be taken away after all.
And for anyone worried about the harshness of the penalties, given the usual defense of the insane penalties applied to those that pirate tend to be 'well they should have just not broken the law!', I'll just respond with 'All the copyright owners have to do to avoid those penalties is follow the law', surely that's not such a hard thing to ask of them?.
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The point isn't to punish the copy'right' holder, it's to punish someone claiming to be the copy'right' holder who really isn't.
They'll try to wiggle their way around it.
A: A person doesn't hold the copy privilege, a company does.
B: It will be a shell company.
C: When the shell company has exhausted its limit it will simply be closed and another shell company will open, claiming more 'rights' that it doesn't have.
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yeah, not gonna happen
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PS I am pretty sure if you were the guy who made VLC that you would have a valid lawsuit if .torrent was your main distribution channel. Or be pissed off at the very least that these things are not being checked at all.
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AJ really hates Due Process, the American Constitution and the Bill of rights.
AJ is a traitor to America and the countries core values.
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Actually, yes he does. He notes that the Game Of Thrones is targeted in the above article, for example, and doesn't question their right to target links claiming to be their TV show. But, whatever masturbatory fantasy you've cooked up about your corporate masters, the fact is that they tried pulling down legal content because they or their algorithm is too stupid to realise that the legally distributed application VLC is not an episode of Game Of Thrones. I know you love to worship the major studios while pouring scorn on talented independent creators, but you don't get to attack innocent people without criticism.
But, you're too single-mindedly stupid to understand that.
"Just don't ask him to discuss his beliefs"
Repeatedly, after he's already answered the question, but whiny asshole ACs keep repeating the same question ad nauseum because the answer isn't what they had as a fantasy in their head? No, because that would be stupid. Ask him honestly, he'll probably just point you to the hundreds of articles where he's already discussed it in public.
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If any of us masturbated that much we'd be dickless by now =/
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If the program actually circumvents things in violation of the DMCA, then why does it "seem[] crazy that anyone would actually make such a claim," Mike? Are you saying that you support things that violate the DMCA?
Don't worry, we all know that you won't actually address any criticisms on the merits. You don't do that. You just censor critics.
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lets see things that get around DRM.
CD/DVD burners
Any program that can re-record an audio/video stream or pass that video audio output to another program which then records it.
That covers about a bajillion things. Were these programs developed to specifically get around DRM? (no) which is why nothing has happened. Were they designed and later used to get around DRM (yes)
Should you hold a car manufacturer responsible if a guy he sells a car to eggs your house. (no because its silly and it makes no sense)
Its a sad state of affairs that this had to be explained to you. Please look your self in the mirror and really think about going back to school.
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As for why...
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120818/01171420087/funniestmost-insightful-comments-week- techdirt.shtml#c1210
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Citation needed.
He may support the free and legal distribution of VLC - a program developed in country outside of the DMCA's jurisdiction that has not been found guilty of violating any laws in a US court. He may support the due process and right to a defence and presumption of innocence that would be afforded VLC before it's punished for any such violation. He certainly would support the right for 3rd parties to distribute a tool within that tool's licence without fear of prosecution because some 3rd party decides they don't like it.
But, please, cite whatever you're trying to claim is "clearly" his opinion. Or, are you too chicken to back up your own words with facts?
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Now, Address the criticism that a DMCA takedown notice, which can only be applied to CONTENT which infringes copyright, is being inappropriately used to takedown a legitimate video player because it is actually an infringing copy of Game of Thrones on its merits, rather then use it as a basis of an ad hominim attaxk.
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Don't worry, we all know that you won't actually address any criticisms on the merits. You don't do that. You just spam websites with adhominems and vitriol.
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If the program is actually in violation of the DMCA, why is the developer videolan.org not targeted under the clause that prevents the creation and distribution of circumvention tools? Why, instead, is an innocent 3rd party being targeted for distributing a program under complete adherence to the program's licence, a program that's never been found infringing in any court?
"Are you saying that you support things that violate the DMCA?"
Are you saying you support the violation of the perjury clause in the DMCA? Are you saying that it's OK for HBO to perjure themselves and take down innocent, non-infringing content on a whim? Why do you support breaking the law?
"You just censor critics."
No, members of the community vote to hide comments from obnoxious morons who troll anonymously with same tired lies. Mike has no direct involvement, it's the rest of us telling you that you're an idiot. But you know this. Why do you constantly lie about everything?
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The VLC project is based in France, where different laws apply.
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Besides, doesn't that highlight how stupid the whole thing is? They can get the tool removed from somewhere that's redistributing the tool legally, but they can't address the actual source for the tool? How much of a waste of time is it to be targeting 3rd parties for distributing something that's legally available from sites outside of the US? That's even if the tool has been found as infringing under the DMCA in the first place, which AFAIK it has not.
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VLC doesn't actually remove any DRM, it simply plays DRM-protected content.
Technically, any device that can play DRM-protected content could be said to violate the DMCA's anti-circumvention laws.
Of course, under that theory, nearly all media players are illegal. Which is why a purely technical reading of the law is a bad idea.
Are you saying that you support things that violate the DMCA?
I can't speak for Mike, but I certainly support some of those things. Things like jailbreaking a cell phone, modding an XBox. You know, things that don't infringe upon a consumer's inalienable property rights. Plus, of course, the aforementioned VLC, if anyone ever does seriously claim that it violates the DMCA.
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Actually, here's an example: eBook DRM.
I like to have all of my eBooks in one program's library. (Because I know your plan is to be a lawyer who specializes in unnecessary copyright litigation, I won't reveal the name of this particular program.)
But that poses a problem. I have bought several eBooks from multiple vendors: Amazon (which works only with Kindle), or Barnes & Noble (which works only with NOOK Study). Each has their own format with their own DRM, and you can't open one book in the other vendor's program. Much less a program from a third party.
And never mind the mess trying to get them to play on my Android device. Amazon has a program for this, but B&N doesn't - in fact, their books won't even work with their own NOOK devices.
The whole thing is a mess. In order to get around this, I use plug-ins to my third-party program (written by users) to strip the DRM and save the books in a non-proprietary format (either ePub or DRM-free PDF). Now, I have no problem including those books in my third-party program, nor do I have any issue with reading them on my Android device.
Note that I am doing this for eBooks that I bought, not that I pirated. It's almost certain that my use would be fair use under copyright law.
Under the letter of the law, the third-party eBook library program could be violating the DMCA anti-circumvention laws, and the people who own and distribute the program could face criminal charges and jail time.
That seems, not only monumentally unfair, but actually detrimental to everyone involved - including Amazon and B&N. It certainly goes against the primary purpose of copyright law: to benefit the public, and promote the widespread distribution of content.
Frankly, because DMCA anti-circumvention laws are primarily used in situations like this, I think it would be better if Congress scrapped those laws altogether. The detriment to the public far, far outweighs whatever benefits the public gets from those laws being there in the first place.
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They dont give a damn. Theyre pissing in our well and they dont care. Everything they do is in bad faith on grounds of massive negligence and disconcern.
They probably think theyre heroes, and theyre being forced into a mercenary position by a take-down notice regime which is badly stacked against their favor.
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TSR FREAKED. They started issuing hundreds of cease and desist letters, making (baseless) legal threats, etc, to the extent people were wondering if their legal department had grown by an order of magnitude, or more.
I saw several of their legal nastygrams, and they typically listed the entire contents of an FTP site, down to the file list file, the welcome message and other metadata contents of the site. Usually including all directories on the site, regardless of owner or content, claiming the entire thing to be a violation of their copyrights.
Most site operators caved, although 99.99% of TSR's ownership claims would have been laughed out of court.
History repeats itself. Over and over and over.
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Well, just a nit . . .
The anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA prohibit circumvention devices.
HM
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So, most of the links are either impossible to determine, or merely take down a search result and not the actual infringing content itself (which would easily be found by other means). Whether you agree that VLC's legally distributed software is acceptable collateral damage or not, it's hard to see how delisting a site's internet search result from Google, for example, would do anything to reduce piracy.
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When asked about the untapped market of internet-only users, many of whom resort to piracy, he replied, "We are addressing those markets."
Yeah, with nastygrams.
Not good business practice, and in the long run, not profitable.
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:)
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Sensationalism
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Re: Sensationalism
"Copyright claim #4:
Game of Thrones (Original TV Show)
Original work URL(s):
http://www.hbo.com/game-of-thrones/index.html
Allegedly infringing URLs:"
So, they're claiming that the URL
"407. http://www.torrentportal.com/details/6093721/VLC-Media-Player-2.0.7-Final-(32-64-bit)-Official.html"
Is a copy of Game Of Thrones or otherwise infringes on that copyright. So, sadly, you're the moron here.
As a quick note, I've has a quick scroll down that list, and of 872 URLs, there's at least 200 I can see that are not Game Of Thrones, or are just search page results (so even if they point to GoT, they are not copies of said work). If only that perjury clause meant something...
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