Geniuses Representing Universal Pictures Ask Google To Delist 127.0.0.1 For Piracy
from the furiously-dumb dept
We recently wrote about a German film distributor that went on a DMCA takedown blitz and managed to send notices for sites that had nothing to do with infringing files (such as IMDB and, er, Techdirt). In a somewhat related story, we learn that representatives of Universal Pictures have likewise gone DMCA happy over infringing versions of movies like Furious 7 and Jurassic World -- even to the point of issuing takedowns not only for the film's IMDB page (for Furious 7), but for "127.0.0.1" for Jurassic World.And while we’re on the topic of self censorship, it’s worth noting that Universal Pictures also asked Google, in a separate notice, to remove http://127.0.0.1 from the search results. The mistakes were made by the French branch of the movie studio, which only recently began sending takedown notices to Google. The company has reported less than 200 URLs thus far including the mistakes above.You can see the notice here.
...Should we delist this house from the address books?
Even more ridiculous? The organization representing Universal who sent this notice is TMG, or Trident Media Guard, which is the company that is officially working with the French government on its Hadopi copyright enforcement program. You'd think that a company so closely involved in such issues, working with a major movie studio, might try to be a little more careful about these things. But, of course, when have copyright defenders ever cared about collateral damage like this?
And here's the really crazy part: it's not like this is even particularly rare. Chilling Effects has long lists of DMCA complaints that point to 127.0.0.1. We're talking about a whole lot of armed militias running around utilizing a targeting system that wouldn't be trusted in a snowball fight, never mind in the realm of something as important as speech and communication via the internet. Here are just some of the most recent (many filed by NBC Universal):
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Filed Under: 127.0.0.1, copyright, dmca, france, hadopi, localhost, takedown
Companies: google, tmg, universal, universal pictures
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That a hole has been port scanning my computer for years!
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Sure, why not? In fact, I think I'll patent delisting 127.0.0.1 as the Internet equivalent of going ex-directory. ;)
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DMCA Takedown of 127.0.0.1 equivalent to
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Re: DMCA Takedown of 127.0.0.1 equivalent to
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Re: DMCA Takedown of 127.0.0.1 equivalent to
Find that box. Find its owner. Find all copyrighted files on that box. Ask no questions. Have the court impose statutory judgement against the owner of the 127.0.0.1 box for $150,000 per copyrighted file found on 127.0.0.1. Donate the judgement to fund the development of open source projects. Or other worthy projects such as Whistleblowers Without Borders.
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Re:
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This anomaly probably due to automated skimming, such as of publicly available "hosts" files that blacklist: "127.0.0.1 piratesite.com",
Next anomaly, if you have one, dull day so far.
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Re: This anomaly probably due to automated skimming, such as of publicly available "hosts" files that blacklist: "127.0.0.1 piratesite.com",
Huh, good example of Poe's law. I think this guy is actually serious.
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Re:
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This anomaly probably due to automated skimming, such as of publicly available "hosts" files that blacklist: "127.0.0.1 piratesite.com",
Next anomaly, if you have one, dull day so far.
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Re: This anomaly probably due to automated skimming, such as of publicly available "hosts" files that blacklist: "127.0.0.1 piratesite.com",
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Re: This anomaly probably due to automated skimming, such as of publicly available "hosts" files that blacklist: "127.0.0.1 piratesite.com",
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Re: This anomaly probably due to automated skimming, such as of publicly available "hosts" files that blacklist: "127.0.0.1 piratesite.com",
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Re: This anomaly probably due to automated skimming, such as of publicly available "hosts" files that blacklist: "127.0.0.1 piratesite.com",
Its obvious these are actual urls, not a localhost redirect.
It looks more like where ever they are doing the scanning from, is on the same server as these urls hosts.
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Re: Re: This anomaly probably due to automated skimming, such as of publicly available "hosts" files that blacklist: "127.0.0.1 piratesite.com",
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Re: This anomaly probably due to automated skimming, such as of publicly available "hosts" files that blacklist: "127.0.0.1 piratesite.com",
An anomaly, by its very definition, is an outlier, a singular instance. *THOUSANDS* of instances are not "anomalies", they are abuse.
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The computer downloaded those files, not the end user.
Up yours, asshole.
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Re: This anomaly probably due to automated skimming, such as of publicly available "hosts" files that blacklist: "127.0.0.1 piratesite.com",
Yet if a UGC site has as many infringing files as there are these DMCA "anomalies," rights holders would successfully sue them out of existence.
Funny how you consider "oh, it's a mistake that got through our system" to be a valid defence when censoring protected speech, but when the censors use that excuse, you defend them to your dying breath.
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Re: This anomaly probably due to automated skimming, such as of publicly available "hosts" files that blacklist: "127.0.0.1 piratesite.com",
Are you seriously trying to sell that horse shit here?
It's shitty programming. And the fact is hasn't been fixed shows that not only is it shitty programming, but a lack of sense to even fix the fucking problem.
Anomaly my ass. Your software just sucks. Keep making excuses - I'm sure you work in an industry where less-than-mediocre is perfectly acceptable.
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Re: This anomaly probably due to automated skimming, such as of publicly available "hosts" files that blacklist: "127.0.0.1 piratesite.com",
Please, I beg of you. Permit me to have your offspring.
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Re: This anomaly probably due to automated skimming, such as of publicly available "hosts" files that blacklist: "127.0.0.1 piratesite.com",
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Since they insisted....
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Re: Since they insisted....
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Re: Since they insisted....
127.0.0.1 is a non-routable address that every machine with an IP stack has whether or not they're connected to the internet. Which means that an ISP removing service doesn't do anything relevant to the takedown request.
Also, Google doesn't index anything with that address (for what I hope are obvious reasons), so they're already effectively "delisted".
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Re: Re: Since they insisted....
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And they wonder
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Re: And they wonder
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Never attribute to algorithms that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
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Somebody tell them
Note the file GUIDs that they are seeding and don't download those ones.
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Where can I get one of those door mats?
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Re: Where can I get one of those door mats?
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Re: Where can I get one of those door mats?
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Re: Where can I get one of those door mats?
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Re: Where can I get one of those door mats?
You can also find several different, cheaper, variations of it on Amazon.
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Multicast Addresses
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Notice a common idiot in the list?
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I'm with Orrin Hatch on this one
(Feel free to invite the FBI's Intellectual Property enforcement squad to participate in the assault).
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Re: I'm with Orrin Hatch on this one
Though the real question is if these guys aren't competent enough to know what 127.0.0.1 even means they are probably not competent enough to hack anything including their own machines.
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Re: I'm with Orrin Hatch on this one
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Chilling Effects search
This includes things like a "bot spawner" with localhost in the description field of ChillingEffect's record.
Some of the other description field localhost records include this trippy vietnamese takedown request reminiscent of Dr Bronner. Even better, that one describes the offending work as an image, but the description seems to be talking about a cracked version of Adobe Illustrator...
So yeah, a trivial search of Chilling Effects leads to lots of 127.0.0.1 address DMCA takedown requests, but not as many as simply looking at the page count would have you believe.
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The greatest example
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Re: The greatest example
Shouldn't the correct and safe response to these stupid errors be a complete ignoring of the entire DMCA takedown request message instead of just that one URL?
I mean, if they make this kind of obvious errors, how can anyone trust the takedown sender on the other URL's?
Maybe that will at least improve the quality of the takedown requests...
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Instant round-file
Anyone that stupid should simply be ignored until they get their shit together.
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???
Profit.
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are they dumbasses, or geniuses?
"Lets host pirated versions of our movies on the internet, then we can claim people are pirating our movie, then we can get our legislation passed!"
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Hey Universal pictures!
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- It honours the company's request.
- Bulk requesters might care more what goes into their DMCA requests.
- The public will note major sites going offline.
- News agencies might take note and be inclined to cover DMCA abuse.
Google should also implement this algorithmically.
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IMDB should comply
Would all the people who worked on the movie complain... you know, the people whose jobs are at stake when movies are pirated, but who now don't credit for working on a movie because the site has been taken down by the movie's owner.
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CFAA?
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Probably not malware
These are the format of file-download URLs used by the Cacaoweb collaboration / file-sharing software, which runs a local webserver to provide access to content hosted on its overlay network. So I think somebody's been searching for pirated content on that while being completely clueless about how it works.
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Calling in a DMCA takedown notice on 127.0.0.1
you become an instant Darwin Award winner!
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So which TMG is it?
Or is it that all media companies spouting DMCA-nonsense are abbreviated to TMG?
At least we know where we stand with this one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telegraaf_Media_Groep
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Re: So which TMG is it?
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Blast from the past...
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Yes please help them....
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Universal -- Demand Justice from the court !!!
* Find the actual computer that Universal identified as 127.0.0.1
* Find the owner of that computer
* Seize all of that criminal's assets
* Order the criminal to cease any use of the internet forever
* Investigate the principals directing the criminal operations of the criminal enterprise that owns that server to potentially uncover other criminal activities they are almost certainly involved in
* Donate all seized assets to a foundation that distributes the funds to develop and improve open source projects
* And whatever other penalties the court may find just and fair
I think that would help.
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