HBO Asks Google To Take Down "Infringing" VLC Media Player

another random user writes with an excerpt from TorrentFreak: "It's no secret that copyright holders are trying to take down as much pirated content as they can, but their targeting of open source software is something new. In an attempt to remove pirated copies of Game of Thrones from the Internet, HBO sent a DMCA takedown to Google, listing a copy of the popular media player VLC as a copyright infringement. An honest mistake, perhaps, but a worrying one. ... Usually these notices ask Google to get rid of links to pirate sites, but for some reason the cable network also wants Google to remove a link to the highly popular open source video player VLC. ... The same DMCA notice also lists various other links that don't appear to link to HBO content, including a lot of porn related material, Ben Harper's album Give Till It's Gone, Naruto, free Java applets and Prince of Persia 5."

looks like copy paste fail

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like they just copied the VLC link by accident. There was only one link there(besides its probably a virus and not a real VLC copy anyways). Yawn.

Re:VLC is illegal in the USA

[Rob the Bold]

While it is not "infringing content", VLC player IS illegal in the USA. It is a digital lock-breaking device. Linux distrobutions which include DVD playback capabilities are also illegal.

This is not surprising to me, but it hardly matters because it's not like VLC will cease to ever be easily available.

Maybe my memory is faulty or not up-to-date, but VLC on Linux doesn't pay DVDs out of the box, does it? I seem to remember needing to specifically enable a non-default repository and explicitly install playback libraries for DRM'd DVDs before they would play.

Re:Penalties

[MacDork]

DMCA takedown requests are filed and sworn to be accurate under penalty of perjury. Perjury is a felony. Perjury penalties include fines and up to 5 years in prison. I doubt we will see any such thing applied to HBO for lying to the courts. There are two sets of laws in the US. Laws for the rich (HBO) and laws for the rest (file sharers).

Re:AHAHA, what?

[pipatron]

A surprising amount of (mostly windows) users have been brainwashed to believe that all software and culture is by illegal to share. Free software is just some unknown crap, likely communist propaganda. If you have to download software from a warez site, it must be good quality software.

Re:three strikes

[Holi]

No the three strikes rule should be you lose your IP to the public domain. If you cannot be trusted to not claim ownership of other peoples property, you should lose your right to claim copyright at all.

We take a felons right to vote (without a doubt a more important right) so why can't we take away their copy right.

Even now

[Endo13]

I'd still pay HBO a reasonable amount of money to watch their shows online. But I can't. First, I have to buy cable TV ($60/mo), then I also have to buy a special package that includes HBO ($30/mo), and then I still have to pay extra for HBOGO. So over $100/mo to watch a couple good shows. Yeah, I'll just keep using torrents. Even though it's still a huge ripoff compared to other services like Netflix and Hulu, I'd pay $10-15 per month just for HBO online. Let me know when you're serious about wanting my money, HBO.