It Happened Again: Antipiracy Outfit Asks Google To Delist 127.0.0.1 On Behalf Of Ukrainian TV Station

from the where-the-piracy-is dept

We've made this point before, but the moment you attempt to scale up copyright enforcement, you run into problems. Collateral damage from automated systems mistaking non-infringing content for infringing, the possibility of fraud and abuse, the blind eye towards Fair Use all become problems. But sometimes those problems are so silly that they expose what a pure fiasco this has become. Several years back, we discussed Universal Pictures asking Google to delist a bunch of supposedly infringing sites, listing one of them as 127.0.0.1. Depending on how computer savvy you are, you may recognize that this IP address is how a computer or system refers to itself. In other words, it essentially means "home."

And, yet, despite how silly this all is, it just keeps happening. Most recently, the anti-piracy outfit used by a Ukrainian television broadcaster may have outed its own client by also asking Google to delist 127.0.0.1.

Ukrainian TV channel TRK has sent a rather bizarre takedown request to Google. The company's anti-piracy partner Vindex asked the search engine to remove a search result that points to 127.0.0.1. Tech-savvy people will immediately recognize that the anti-piracy company apparently found copyright-infringing content on its own server.

The request was sent by TKR’s anti-piracy partner Vindex, which essentially flagged a file on its own machine. The ‘infringing’ link is 127.0.0.1:6878/ace/manifest.m3u. This points to a playlist file, possibly for the P2P streaming platform Ace Stream that’s often used to pirate content.

Now, a number of things here should be unsurprising to our regular readers. That an antipiracy outfit sucks at identifying proper sites for delisting is no surprise. Likewise, the idea that a company that is crying about copyright infringement might be guilty of infringement itself also fails to shock the mind. But what is surprising is that the antipiracy outfit may have accidentally outed its own client through its own stupidity as a party infringing copyrights so thoroughly.

Google obviously cannot delist the IP address, as there is nothing to delist. And, frankly, Vindex is known to suck at its one job.

Since 127.0.0.1 refers to the host computer, Google is technically asked to remove a file from its servers. A file that doesn’t exist. Needless to say, Google hasn’t taken any action in response.

The above suggests that Vindex may want to take a good look at its takedown bots. The company doesn’t have a stellar reputation when it comes to DMCA notices. Of all the links that were reported to Google, little more than 10% were removed by the search engine.

Adding to it that you imagine there are some uncomfortable conversations being had between Vindex and its client today and you're left with the impression that there is a ton of egg on its face right now.

Filed Under: 127.0.0.1, antipiracy, copyright, home, ip addresses, piracy, ukraine
Companies: google, trk

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. 127.0.0.1 is, of course, the IP address a machine uses to refer to itself. It's also known as "localhost." In other words, it basically means "home."
...Should we delist this house from the address books? This is obviously a case of these companies setting up some kind of automated system, working off of an obviously flawed algorithm, that is causing these errors, rather than having real people going through to see if the targets for these takedown notices are actually infringing. Why do we allow this kind of collateral damage in the DMCA system?

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): If we have to live with the DMCA, filers ought at least be forced to take responsibility for their own notices. Pointing back to their own flawed algorithms shouldn't be an excuse -- especially when the requests are so obviously wrong.

Filed Under: 127.0.0.1, copyright, dmca, france, hadopi, localhost, takedown
Companies: google, tmg, universal, universal pictures