DMCA Takedown Company Thinks It's Making A Point With 'Transparency Report' -- Really Just Looks Like A Jackass
from the what-point-are-they-making-really dept
Over the weekend, TorrentFreak picked up on yet another weird case of some copyright extremists trying to "make a point" but really just coming across as jackasses instead. It involves one of a group of wacky companies that promise to help issue DMCA takedown notices for copyright holders. In this case, it's an outfit called "Remove Your Media" (creative!) which put up a Tumblr site and a tweet pretending that it was "turning the tables" on the famous and useful Lumen Database (formerly known as the Chilling Effects database):
The "point" that Remove Your Media is so weakly trying to make is that there is a tiny group of copyright extremists who think that Lumen / Chilling Effects is itself a source of piracy because in posting DMCA notices, it leaves the links that copyright holders are demanding be taken down (it's noteworthy that Lumen does redact personal information, though). Of course, these are apples to oranges differences. The reason that Lumen leaves up those links is because the whole point of Lumen is to act as a clearinghouse of data for people to understand how the DMCA is used. And, in fact, it's been an invaluable tool for us and other researchers in finding examples of DMCA abuse. That would be significantly more difficult if the links in the notices were redacted. In fact, it would take away nearly all of the value of the database.
In response to the TorrentFreak article, it appears that Remove Your Media has taken down the information that it posted, and replaced it with a link to the head cheerleader of the anti-Lumen/Chilling Effects crowd, Ellen Seidler. Seidler has spent many, many, many years
However, as was pointed out at the time, there is basically no evidence whatsoever that Lumen is used as a source to find pirated links to any extent that matters at all. Without any evidence of pirate hordes searching an academic database of DMCA takedown notices, this hardly seems like a worthwhile thing to bitch about. And, besides, what Remove Your Media did in "turning the tables" doesn't even make the point it wanted to make. There's a world of difference between posting the details included in a DMCA notice in such a database, and deliberately revealing someone's private info. One is a legitimate attempt to collect useful data on how DMCAs are being used.
The other is just acting like a complete jackass.
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Filed Under: database, dmca, ellen seidler, takedowns, transparency
Companies: lumen database, remove your media
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Or..
The goal here is to make them pay-up immediately.
(Dealing with counternotices costs extra money.)
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At least, in the EU, you'd have some grounds to bring the case to the EU Data Protection authorities.
In fact, I'm asking myself if people from the EU could sue them. They are a US based company, but they are operating with EU data, so they have to follow European laws.
Well, more or less, I guess...
Not sure if the data also include names, but it isn't that hard to link a name to a phone and to an email if you have the proper (illegally obtained) data.
And yes, phone numbers aren't always public information. Home phones are public, but mobile phones not so much. It isn't even allowed to keep a phone guide of mobile phones.
PS: now, it's things like these why the Europeans don't trust in US companies to handle their personal data; and why the Privacy Safe Harbour was challenged (and the new one will, most probably).
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Utter balderdash, you simply must be mistaken, as the only alternative would be those people being wrong, which I'm sure can't be the case.
/s
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The way the twisted law works, the "special" people in the copyright industry can get away with all kinds of things that other people can't.
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If they went after them in the EU, even if they won, when they tried to collect against a US company they would quickly run up against the Speech Act. Foreign judgements that would not have gotten past the FA in the US cannot be collected in the US.
Both the FA and the Speech Act are critical instruments for defending free speech here in the US. But we have to accept that it protects the speech of jackasses as much as the speech of saints.
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So a lawyer or a doctor can make public data about his customers and he's protected by freedom of speech?
In fact, those citizens can sue that company for putting them at risk (of terrorists or hackers, for example) for publishing their personal data.
I'm not that sure that it would be covered by Freedom of Speech.
And also, if that company doesn't comply with EU rules, an EU Court could perfectly rule that she can't operate with EU based customers, nor send DMCAs or any other kind of notice to EU based companies (some follow them).
And again. People get surprised at what happened with the EU-US Data Safe Harbours?
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re: lumen database
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Re: re: lumen database
First, most of these notices are not filed against originating hosts, they're filed against 3rd parties like Google, Twitter and Reddit. So, even if successful, the DMCA notice would not affect the original link and the content is still available. All the DMCA notice will have done is removed it from Google's index and placed it in Lumen's.
Second, if the takedown was successfully countered, then by definition it should not be infringing under the terms of the DMCA and there's no problem with it being in the Lumen database.
Similarly, there's also the point that the reason the Lumen database exists to begin with is to keep track of DMCA abuse, meaning that there are many links that were never problematic in the first place, and so will rightfully remain active.
So, claiming the Lumen database is a problem to begin with is a near-admission of the fact that they understand that DMCA notices against 3rd parties is useless, yet it seems to be the tool they claim is needed. They need an easy target, and going after those actually infringing is somehow too difficult.
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But lets say Google or Lumen counter notice successfully. Then that would imply that the content is being legally hosted by the originator and that any third party linking to it can legally do so as well.
I guess the reason for going after third parties is that they'll be far far less likely to counter notice and they will also be in a far worse position to defend against the takedown notice being that the originator of the content knows much more about it (ie: if they are licensed to use it or do they plan to use a fair use defense, do they own the content or not). This is especially useful if you suspect that you will lose a counter notice if you went after the originator but you are much more likely to either win against a third party that links to it or you are much more likely to just get them to take down the content without a challenge that you might lose to.
This can be a huge problem. If you want to quell political speech say at a critical time during an election you can simply file a bogus takedown notice against a third party that hosts the content and effectively reduce the traffic to the content. The third party will likely just shoot first and ask questions later being that the law is so one sided against them. Then, after the critical period has passed, perhaps the content can then be restored. Thanks to the entirely one sided nature of the law you will likely face almost no legal repercussions for filing a bogus takedown.
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Re: Re: Re: re: lumen database
Well, yes, that makes more sense. But, they then have to deal with thousands or millions of individual hosts, most of who are not based in the US. They also miss the publicity of going after a large target and the press/propaganda that gets them (look at the comments of the trolls coming out of the woodwork every time Google reports how many notices they deal with).
With these people, it's usually easier and even advantageous for them to file millions of ineffective notices to a handful of large 3rd parties than filing equally ineffective notices against actual infringing hosts. In the same vein, filing more notices against Lumen is less effective as propaganda than whining about its database.
"Thanks to the entirely one sided nature of the law you will likely face almost no legal repercussions for filing a bogus takedown."
Yes, that is the major problem with the DMCA. An innocent 3rd party can be greatly affected by a false notice, but there's rarely any punishment for filing such a notice.
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'rarely any'? Offhand I'm not aware of any, ever. The worst those that file bogus claims seem to have to deal with is telling a judge "I(or more often 'The program') made a mistake, my bad", and that's the end of it. That's not a punishment, that's not even a slap on the wrist.
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Re: Re: re: lumen database
That's not exactly accurate. If material was restored following a counter-notice, that doesn't mean it's not infringing. It just means that whomever filed the takedown notice didn't proceed to file a lawsuit post-counterclaim.
I work for a US-based hosting provider. I recall one particular occasion a few years ago where a blog post author sent us a DMCA notice because her post was copy/pasted in its entirety to one of the sites on our network. In my non-lawyer opinion, there was no fair use basis for the copy (No commentary, nothing transformative, etc.).
Our customer sent in a counterclaim. When we notified the author of the counterclaim and informed her that she would now have to file a lawsuit to keep the material down, she said that she couldn't afford to do that and dropped the complaint.
Other interesting tidbits: Of the DMCA notices we receive, most of them are not for TV/film or music piracy issues - they tend to be unlicensed photos or content copied from another site. Counter-notices are submitted on less than 1% of all received DMCA notices.
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Re: Re: Re: re: lumen database
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Re: Chilling Effects not useful for piracy
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Re: Re: Chilling Effects not useful for piracy
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*hordes
hoard
hɔːd/
noun
1.
a stock or store of money or valued objects, typically one that is secret or carefully guarded.
"he came back to rescue his little hoard of gold"
horde
hɔːd/
noun
a large group of people:
"hordes of students on bikes made crossing the road difficult"
Sorry, I'm a bit of a nazi where this kind of thing is concerned.
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Few of them had computers, let alone internet access...
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Modern hordes of pirates also have hoards
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No, thanks for pointing it out.
I know the difference... just a total brainfart.
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https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160728/18041935099/how-californias-identity-fraud-law-has- been-interpreted-to-criminalize-defamation-publicity-rights-violations-more.shtml
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That's because anyone who tried would immediately find that the vast majority of links were auto-generated garbage that did not lead to any actual content.
It seems obvious that auto-DMCA companies are intentionally padding their submissions to get a bigger paycheck from copyright owners, but it's also possible that copyright owners don't mind in the least that they're flooding Google with bogus copyright claims because it makes the ChillingEffects site next to worthless for anyone using the site as a source for finding infringing content.
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While that might be the case for some I imagine for most it's simply that the complete and utter lack of any penalty for bogus claims means they have no incentive to be accurate, so they write the programs they use to cast as wide a net as possible in order to find as much 'infringement' as possible with the least amount of work.
That large amounts of what's found and demanded taken down isn't infringing isn't a problem for them given the lack of penalties on that side of the law, and as such they simply don't care to fine-tune the programs or double-check the results for accuracy before sending out the claims.
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Which is exactly what being a baby about this makes you, Masnick.
What's fair for one side is fair for the other.
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Really, if you're going to throw around insults could you at least put some effort into it next time, maybe pick who and what you're going to defend just a little bit better? Because defending petty retaliatory actions just leaves you looking no better than they are, something I doubt you're very keen on.
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Heh, maybe that comment was from one of *them*.
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