Warner Brothers: Automated Takedown Notices Hit Files That Weren't Ours

itwbennett writes "In a court case between Hotfile.com and Hollywood studios, Warner Brothers admitted they sent takedown orders for thousands of files they didn't own or control. Using an automated takedown tool provided by Hotfile, Warner Brothers used automated software crawlers based on keywords to generate legal takedown orders. This is akin to not holding the Post Office liable for what people mail, or the phone companies liable for what people say. But the flip side is that hosters must remove files when receiving a legal takedown notice from the copyright holder — even when the copyright holders themselves don't know what material they actually own."

Article on Techdirt

[mariushm]

Techdirt has a great article about this: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111110/10135116708/glimpse-future-under-sopa-warner-bros-admits-it-filed-many-false-takedown-notices.shtml [techdirt.com]

It makes some interesting parallels to SOPA and E-Parasites bills and why the laws shouldn't be passed.

Pedant

[anagama]

trying not be pedantic, but the line:

This is akin to not holding the Post Office liable for what people mail, or the phone companies liable for what people say.

That "not" shouldn't be there. And it feels like there is something missing from this analogy. Perhaps it would be like "holding the post office responsible to stop mailing privileges for people wrongly accused of mailing fireworks."

Re:If they don't own it, then it's not a legal not

[Cyberllama]

Especially since they were repeatedly warned that they were misreporting files and refused to stop and it just so happens they had a financial motive in acting improperly given that the page generated by using the removal tool had links to purchase the alleged infringing work legally--free page views on free advertisements, effectively.

Re:Takedown?

[TheRaven64]

Nope, it's perjury. A DMCA takedown notice is (according to the DMCA itself) issued under penalty of perjury. It may also be fraud, anticompetitive behaviour, and a variety of other things, but issuing a DMCA takedown notice without being sure that it is accurate is perjury. It is not analogous to perjury, the fact that it is perjury is written into the DMCA. It's time someone started prosecuting people who send false takedown notices.

Re:nonsense

[TheRaven64]

No, they have two choices: take it down immediately or lose their DMCA safe harbour protection. Without the safe harbour protection, they are liable for any copyright infringement that occurs on their site, so become liable for statutory fines of $7.5K or more per work that is uploaded to YouTube and infringes anyone's copyright. i.e. enough to bankrupt Google. I am not certain what happens if they don't put things back after receiving a counternotice. I would hope that this incurs the same liability.

Sending a takedown notice is using the legal process to have it taken down, so your points 1 and 2 are the same. If the uploader files a counternotice and they put it back, then it has to proceed through the courts and the host is not liable for any infringement (as long as they take it down if the court tells them to).

Re:If they don't own it, then it's not a legal not

[Hatta]

The problem is the way the DMCA is written:

`(vi) A statement that the information in the notification is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, that the complaining party is authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.

See, you're not swearing that the file in question belongs to the copyright holder that you represent. You're only swearing that you allege that the file in question belongs to a copyright holder that you represent. BIG difference.

The only explanation for this kind of language is that it was deliberately written to be unenforceable.