MPAA Issues Overly Broad Takedown Of Little Used Reddit Film Community; Creates Much Bigger Reddit Film Community

from the do-they-have-any-streisand-movies-available? dept

Fri, Jun 27th 2014 1:27pm — Mike Masnick

Oh that wacky MPAA. Earlier this week, TorrentFreak noted that the MPAA issued a massively overbroad DMCA takedown to Google, asking it to remove an entire subreddit from its search results. The subreddit in question was r/FullLengthFilms, which really wasn't that popular.

It's not difficult to guess why the MPAA wanted this community gone, though it is a bit odd that the MPAA thinks that just because it finds one link to a potentially infringing movie that it thinks an entire subreddit should disappear down the search engine memory hole. If that's the criteria, a lot of the internet would go missing. Google didn't take it out of its search results, but the resulting publicity from the bogus takedown attempt... suddenly made r/FullLengthFilms a hell of a lot more popular.

One of the mods for the subreddit points out that he'd long considered it to be a dead subreddit, but now it was suddenly booming again. There are a bunch of new subscribers, plenty of new mods and a bunch of new films -- and, yes, many of them are perfectly legal and authorized. I wonder if there are any movies that star Barbra Streisand linked from the subreddit...

Filed Under: dmca takedown, full length films, streisand effect, subreddit
Companies: google, mpaa, reddit

18 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 27 Jun 2014 @ 1:32pm

I had read this a couple of days ago. I've been chuckling ever since as you could pretty well write the script on the play out of what was going to happen.
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Jun 2014 @ 1:37pm

i propose a name change
Major Dumbass Association of America
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- Anonymous Coward, 27 Jun 2014 @ 1:46pm
  
  Re: i propose a name change
  MPAA= Major PoopieHeads Association of America
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  - Techanon, 27 Jun 2014 @ 8:02pm
    
    Re: Re: i propose a name change
    I prefer: 'Most Pathetic Association of America'.
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Roger Strong (profile), 27 Jun 2014 @ 2:31pm

It's been said that Fred Phelps Sr. and his Westboro Baptist congregation ultimately helped the gay rights movement, giving the movement allies who are horrified by the his hate and tactics. Along the way he forced federal government and more than 40 states to pass laws to limit his protests.

The MPAA's protests seem less reasonable over time, while the average person is becoming more educated in what's reasonable and what isn't.

Perhaps we should print some signs for them, "GOD HATES PUBLIC DOMAIN" and whatnot.
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observer, 27 Jun 2014 @ 3:31pm

Honestly, what did they even expect? What they've done is the equivalent of pulling a lever marked "horse manure dispenser" and being surprised when horse manure is in fact dispensed.
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- Anonymous Coward, 27 Jun 2014 @ 4:08pm
  
  Re:
  I'll get you McFly
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- S. T. Stone, 27 Jun 2014 @ 4:25pm
  
  Re:
  This implies that the MPAA hates manure. They keep letting Michael Bay make films, after all…
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G Thompson (profile), 28 Jun 2014 @ 1:38am

and it seems a Reddit Admin caved into pressure and has now removed the subreddit in question
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- banjo kazooie, 28 Jun 2014 @ 1:53pm
  
  Re:
  They didn't. A rouge mod/troll came in and deleted everything. They lost their library, but people are still posting movies.
  
  http://www.reddit.com/r/FullLengthFilms/comments/29bp2o/meta_the_good_news_and_the_bad_news/
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  - That One Guy (profile), 28 Jun 2014 @ 8:56pm
    
    Re: Re:
    Another good example of why you always save offline copies of anything interesting you run across online if you can at all manage it, you never know when it might up and disappear on you.
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Anonymous Coward, 29 Jun 2014 @ 11:13am

Why only focus on perceived abuses from rightholders? You do realize that infringers are abusing the law as well, don't you?
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- That One Guy (profile), 29 Jun 2014 @ 6:39pm
  
  Re:
  And if the MPAA was going after just those people, you might have a point, but they tried to get the entire thing de-listed, infringing and non-infringing alike.
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- That One Guy (profile), 29 Jun 2014 @ 6:42pm
  
  Re:
  Also, can't help but notice the wording there, 'perceived abuses from rightsholders' vs 'infringers are abusing the law', nice little bit of spin there.
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- Anonymous Coward, 29 Jun 2014 @ 8:12pm
  
  Re:
  Your question is stupid.
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- Anonymous Coward, 29 Jun 2014 @ 10:46pm
  
  Re:
  average_joe just hates it when due process is enforced.
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- PaulT (profile), 30 Jun 2014 @ 12:29am
  
  Re:
  "Why only focus on perceived abuses from rightholders? "
  
  Yes, why focus on abuses and illegal activity from those who are claiming to uphold the law? Why focus on the stripping of rights and attacks on innocent people to save a broken business model? Someone else is bad so let's ignore them!
  
  I bet you're really this stupid, aren't you? Yes, infringers are breaking the law. But those who claim to uphold it are far worse.
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Barbara Wagnet, 29 Jun 2014 @ 11:49am

Barbara
There's a vampire in the village that's controlling the ghouls.
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