Hotfile Sues Warner Bros Over Abuse of Takedown Tool

schwit1 writes with a piece in Torrent Freak about ongoing litigation between Hotfile and a few movie studios. From the article: "Hotfile has sued Warner Bros. for fraud and abuse. Hotfile accuses the movie studio of systematically abusing its anti-piracy tool by taking down hundreds of titles they don't hold the copyrights to, including open source software. Among other things, Hotfile is looking for damages to compensate the company for the losses they suffered." Near the end of the article it is mentioned that files taken down by the tool were replaced with links to legally procure similar works from Warner Bros.

under penalty of perjury

[gstoddart]

I would really like someone to hold them to that.

Yes, copyright infringement is illegal. But, stating under penalty of perjury that you own a copyrighted work, and clearly not having checked to see if you do ... well, that should be treated with some pretty harsh legal consequences. In fact, maybe someone can spin it so that the Warner pays the statutory damages as if they pirated the work ... what's that, like 9 trillion dollars per offending file?

Hopefully Hotfile gets some traction on this one.

Interference with Contracts

[Tekfactory]

The article states loss of accounts and goodwill, but a software publisher was using hotfile to distribute his freeware app, and Warner deleted his files.

Hopefully Hotfile has the money to go the distance on this one and not settle out of court.

Hopefully the judge won't let Warner and the other four studios drop the case so no precedent can be set.

I might almost buy that Warner was using a piece of software and a script and made some mistakes, btu that the mistakes got worse after they were notified that is negligence.

Too bad they won't get fined MAFFIAA imaginary numbers. How many freeware downloads didn't happen because they deleted the file, must have been millions at $750 a piece right?

Replacement Links

[Fnord666]

Near the end of the article it is mentioned that files taken down by the tool were replaced with links to legally procure similar works from Warner Bros.

Just to clarify any misunderstandings about what this meant(Emphasis mine):

Hotfile suspects that the overbroad takedowns were not only an attempt to prevent copyright infringement, but also a scheme to make profits. Warner proposed to Hotfile an affiliate deal where content that was taken down would be replaced with links to movie stores where users could buy Warner movies. More takedowns thus means more potential revenue.
"Warner had an economic motive to make these misrepresentations. As noted above, in early 2010, Warner proposed a business arrangement with Hotfile whereby Warner sought to present ecommerce links to Hotfile users who might purchase a Warner file for Warner's profit in place of links that Warner had deleted using its SRA."

Lenz v. Universal

[tepples]

Also, Warner Bros should loose their rights under the DMCA to issue takedown requests at all, since they clearly cannot be trusted to issue valid requests.

I wonder to what extent Lenz v. Universal and the unclean hands doctrine can be extrapolated to keep a service provider's safe harbor intact when faced with takedown requests from someone suspected of perjury.

Re:under penalty of perjury

[Maximus633]

I have worked for an ISP Abuse department and routinely had to enforce DMCA.

You're section of stating you have an authorized right to act on behalf of the rights holder. The DMCA requires that you have looked at the file to determine that it in fact is a copyright to which you own. Thus you are saying you have the right to enforce the copyright in regards to that /file/ since it was your work or a work for which you have the right to enforce copyright action to. The fact is you HAVE to establish that you own the copyrights to the work in that file. Otherwise you mis-represent yourself. As you already said that 512(f) does give people the right to come after you.