Starz Issues Laughably Unbelievable Excuse And Apology For Taking Down Tweets

from the not-how-it-works-guys dept

Earlier today, I posted my article about how Starz was issuing obviously bogus takedowns concerning tweets about a news story on TorrentFreak concering how a social media agency, The Social Element, had issued bogus DMCA takedown notices to Twitter, about another story on TorrentFreak about some TV shows leaking online.

Last night I had reached out to Twitter, The Social Element, and Starz, but had not received a real response by the time the story went out (Starz had emailed back suggesting that I did not give them enough time to respond, but had somehow managed to issue a weird apology statement to others). Eventually, more than half an hour after my story went out, Starz emailed me the following statement:

STARZ takes piracy and copyright infringement very seriously and must take steps, when necessary, to protect our content and creative IP as it is the core of our business. As such, we engage a third-party vendor to seek out and remove social media posts that provide access to illegally acquired content. The techniques and technologies employed in these efforts are not always perfect, and it appears that in this case, some posts were inadvertently caught up in the sweep that may fall outside the DMCA guidelines. That was never our intention and we apologize to those who were incorrectly targeted. We are in the process of reviewing all of the impacted posts as well as the scope and procedure for the previous takedowns and are working with our vendors to reinstate any such content that was inappropriately targeted for removal.

This statement appears to differ, slightly, from the one they gave to Variety, where they sort of tried to imply that mysterious hackers were responsible, saying that the company had 'recently incurred a security breach" which somehow (why?!?) "prompted the company to hire a third party for copyright enforcement." I don't see how a security breach would necessitate such a hiring. Nor do I see what that has to do with sending bogus takedowns, many of which appeared to come directly from Starz, and not from any third party. At the very least, Starz didn't use the "security breach" claim in the statement it sent me.

However, that does not make the statement any more believable. By my count, using Lumen Database (which might not be complete), The Social Element sent 42 DMCA takedowns to Twitter over this topic between April 8th and April 11th. Then Starz itself took over on Saturday the 13th and sent another 31 notices on Saturday and Sunday, for a total of 73 such notices. Both of the notices are notable for the lack of any information other than the links to the tweets, which would at least suggest that they may have been sent by the same individual or firm, who then changed who it claimed to actually be sending the takedowns.

I asked Starz if it could say if The Social Element was the third-party vendor in question, and Starz informed me that it "cannot confirm which vendor" was involved. The Social Element itself has not responded to multiple emails (and a phone call).

Meanwhile, the other aspects of Starz's statement are similarly unbelievable. We agree with Starz that the "techniques and technologies" employed by companies who file DMCA takedowns are not always perfect (though, it's nice for a Hollywood company to finally acknowledge as much), but the idea that it was not Starz's intention to target people reporting on news and that the tweets were "incorrectly targeted" is literally unbelievable given the notices that Twitter users received. Multiple ones stated that the takedown demand forwarded to them by Twitter noted that the takedown was specifically because the tweet "leads to article containing unreleased show imagery." In other words, they knew exactly what they were doing.

The other problematic part of the statement from Starz is the claim that some of those "caught up in the sweep... may fall outside the DMCA guidelines." No, it's not the "DMCA guidelines" that are the problem. It's the actual law. Copyright law does not allow you to censor news articles you don't like, or tweets about those news articles, and yet that's exactly what Starz has done.

I responded to Starz by pointing out these problems with the statement and suggesting, politely, that the statement would come off as entirely unbelievable, and that the company might want to consider putting out a more believable statement. The company declined to do so, simply reiterating:

"... we are reviewing and addressing all of the processes and procedures by which we are identifying and acting on social posts and activity that may have triggered these notices being sent, as there were clearly individuals and posts being targeted that should not have been per the guidelines."

Again, it's not "guidelines" that are the issue here, but copyright law itself.

Either way, thanks to Starz for, once again, demonstrating why demanding more aggressive copyright and enforcement almost always leads to out and out censorship.

Filed Under: censorship, copyright, dmca, takedowns, tweets
Companies: starz, the social element, twitter

Starz Really, Really Doesn't Want You To Know That TorrentFreak Wrote About Leaked Shows, Or That Anyone Tweeted About It

from the and-twitter-is-assisting dept

Something weird is going on with Starz over the past few days. Either it really, really doesn't want you to know that a bunch of unreleased episodes of well known TV shows were recently leaked online. Or it really, really, really wants you to know all about it. Which one of those two things is true may depend on just how familiar whoever is manning the Starz copyright-takedown desk is with the concept of the Streisand Effect.

You see, a week ago, TorrentFreak published the article linked above. This is a pretty typical TorrentFreak kind of article, noting that some high profile shows or movies have leaked, perhaps providing screenshots, but not providing any links or really telling anyone how to get the shows. It is just reporting that the leaks exist. Two of the shows leaked were from Starz. As TorrentFreak wrote:

There are also two full and unreleased seasons of Starz’ “The Spanish Princess” and Hulu’s “Ramy” among the leaked files. Both series have yet to premiere and were leaked from screener sources.

Then, last Thursday, TorrentFreak published a new article, noting that Starz had, in fact, filed a copyright claim with Twitter for TorrentFreak's tweet to its original story. The takedown was sent by an operation called The Social Element, which holds itself out to be a "social media agency" who can "simplify complex social media for global brands." It also describes itself as:

A global team of geeky pioneers, using our social media super powers to help our clients connect with their audience in the most powerful way.

I was at an event late last week, and only saw the latter story of the takedown message late Friday evening after returning to my hotel. I set it aside, thinking maybe I'd write up something this week. And then, over the weekend, things got weirder. Reporter Mathew Ingram told me, oddly, that his tweet about TorrentFreak's article about Stars/The Social Element pulling down TorrentFreak's tweet... also received a DMCA takedown and was removed:

He was not the only one. Copyright law professor Annemarie Bridy, who is regularly featured on these pages received one as well:

Also, the twitter account for SJD, who runs Fight Copyright Trolls:

And others as well:

And, to take it one step further, into the "asking for real trouble" category, EFF itself has announced that it had a tweet taken down for linking to the TorrentFreak article. EFF's staff attorney Kit Walsh was quoted in the original, saying "Starz has no right to silence TorrentFreak’s news article or block links to it." Then EFF tweeted a link to the article with text similar to Walsh's quote... and that tweet got taken down due to a Starz copyright claim. That's playing with fire.

A quick search of the Lumen Database shows dozens of DMCA notices sent to Twitter, many within the last week or so. I can't see most of those tweets because Twitter has taken them down. Except somewhere after a few days, it appears that Starz took the ball itself, and boy did it run with it. It just started issuing takedown after takedown on basically any tweet about this. If, initially, this was a story about a clueless social media agency gone rogue, Starz's actions over the weekend suggested otherwise.

Let's just review how messed up this and how far removed any of this is from actual copyright infringement.

TorrentFreak, a popular news source, published an article merely noting the fact that some Starz TV shows had leaked online. This bizarre "social media agency" called The Social Element decides, on behalf of Starz, that this is no good at all, and sends a DMCA notice to Twitter for TorrentFreak's tweet about the article. Already, this is ridiculous. The article was not infringing anything, nor linking to anything infringing (it doesn't even tell anyone how to get the infringing works). The tweet is even less infringing.

But then, Starz doesn't just decide to double down on what The Social Element did, it goes full on censorship crazy, sending takedowns on every tweet about TorrentFreak's new article about the bogus takedown of the tweet to the new article. This is so far removed from any kind of copyright infringement that it is beyond frivolous.

It's also a very clear violation of 512(f) of the DMCA, which would matter if 512(f) had any legal teeth at all.

Equally concerning is the question of why Twitter is agreeing to take down these tweets based on obviously bogus DMCA claims. I know that many sites do automatically take down any content on the receiving end of a DMCA notice, but most larger companies at least do a cursory review to make sure they're not obviously bogus. I'd be surprised if that's not the case with Twitter, but for whatever reason, all those tweets are being taken down -- even the one from EFF, which you might think would at least make someone at Twitter take a second look.

Of course, as you might imagine, the more Starz doubles down on this destructive and abusive campaign, the more people are hearing about how its TV shows have been leaked online. Perhaps it's some sort of sophisticated viral marketing play... or, more likely, some people who have never heard of the Streisand Effect, but are getting a very big lesson in it today.

Last night I reached out to Twitter, Starz and The Social Element with a whole bunch of questions, and may update this piece if any of them get back to me with answers.

Filed Under: 512(f), abuse, copyright, dmca, dmca 512(f), free speech, journalism, reporting, takedowns
Companies: starz, the social element, torrentfreak, twitter