Warner Bros Issues Takedown For Own Website (bbc.co.uk) 77
An anonymous reader writes: In a case of sloppy automation run amok, Warner Bros' copyright enforcement contractor -- Vobile -- issued takedown notices for legitimate distributors and Warner Bros' own website, according to the BBC. It also asked the search giant to remove links to legitimate movie streaming websites run by Amazon and Sky, as well as Amazon-owned film database IMDB. Fortunately for them, Google chose to cut them a break and ignore those requests.
RIAA (Score:1)
This shows how much rigor is being used in applying the "law" justly.
What about perjury? (Score:5, Insightful)
Isn't there some penalty (preferably disproportionately large to discourage such behavior) for trying to take down what shouldn't be taken down?
Re:What about perjury? (Score:4, Interesting)
how come i have not seen one single time that fine has actually been applied???
also, google SHOULD have taken down those sites, just to prove a point
Re: (Score:1)
Google should have taken them down for that, but also because (according to the DMCA) they are legally required to.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, Google failing to take down the links makes Google legally vulnerable to being included with copyright infringement. And for them to pick and choose which DMCA requests to follow could open a big can of worms for them w.r.t. Safe Harbor provisions...
Re:What about perjury? (Score:5, Informative)
No, they are not legally required to. DMCA does not require that.
By failing to take down, they merely become potentially liable for whatever infringement may have occurred (which happens be none, in this case). Complying with the DMCA takedown notice procedure is a means of avoiding such potential liability.
If they're sure there was no infringement, and also if they're sure that Warner Bros' isn't going to sue in spite of the lack of infringement (because even winning in court, can be expensive), then this is a reasonable safe decision.
If they were less sure (e.g. if it were your video instead of Warner Bros') then they would take it down. Not because they're required to (they're not) but because they'd want to not be party for any resulting lawsuit between the other two parties (e.g. you and Warner Bros).
Re: What about perjury? (Score:5, Funny)
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But that's all they have to submit. As long as they represent A copyright holder, they can basically issue takedown notices of anything, including your family pictures, if they claim it infringes the copyrights of their holder.
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I could have sworn that DMCA has a clause where if you abuse it you owe a fine
how come i have not seen one single time that fine has actually been applied???
also, google SHOULD have taken down those sites, just to prove a point
There's no such clause. The clause is that you swear, on penalty of perjury, that you represent the asserted copyright in good faith. If the reported infringement is not actual copyright infringement, there's no legal penalty whatsoever.
You couldn't, for example, file a DMCA takedown notice on behalf of Warner Bros just to make them look bad, unless you represented Warner Bros. Then you're welcome to make them look as bad as you like without legal repercussion.
maybe it should (Score:1)
maybe it should be taken down? those guys are obviously so bad they shouldn't be on the internet
Re:What about perjury? (Score:5, Informative)
Nope. There isn't. That's one of peoples' objections to how DCMA works: it wasn't realized back in 1997 that millions of bogus, negligent, bad-faith or frivolous DMCA notices could simply be spammed without any consequences for the attackers.
You might be thinking of the part of DMCA which says it's perjury to misrepresent your ownership of a copyrighted work.
Let's say I don't hold the copyright on Hogan's Heroes, and I send a DMCA notice about your Cowboy Bebop fan page, claiming you are infringing my [fake] Hogan's Heroes copyright. That's perjury, per DMCA.
But nobody does that. As long as you hold the copyright to something, and claim that is what is infringed, you're safe.
Let's say I do hold the copyright on Hogan's Heroes and I send a DMCA notice about your Cowboy Bebop fanpage (and your Ride the Lightning lyrics page) (and your game walk-through) (and your Scientology OT III tuition invoice) (and a poem you wrote when you were 12 years old), claiming you are infringing my Hogan's Heroes copyright. Consequences: none. I can be as wrong as I want about whether or not you're infringing, but as long I have the copyright on the work I'm incorrectly claiming to be infringed (Hogan's Heroes), there's no perjury.
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Isn't there some penalty .. for trying to take down what shouldn't be taken down?
Nope. There isn't. (...) Let's say I do hold the copyright on Hogan's Heroes and I send a DMCA notice about your Cowboy Bebop fanpage (and your Ride the Lightning lyrics page) (and your game walk-through) (and your Scientology OT III tuition invoice) (and a poem you wrote when you were 12 years old), claiming you are infringing my Hogan's Heroes copyright. Consequences: none.
Actually if you ran some kind of targeted attack trying to harass someone there are penalties if you "knowingly materially misrepresents" infringing activity, even if you own the copyright. It doesn't cover accidental or reckless notices by a bot though, so ignorance is bliss.
Re:What about perjury? (Score:4, Informative)
It was realized but it was pretended that the perjury clause would stop it and that anyone who disputed that it would not was just a foaming at the mouth geek software pirate. Some of the early stories on this site were about it.
Re:What about perjury? (Score:4, Insightful)
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No. DMCA puts the onus on the accused to proof her innocense.
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No. DMCA puts the onus on the accused to proof her innocense.
You just need to file a counternotice; you don't have to prove anything, but the problem is the damage is already done by the time your hosting provider processes your counter-notice. Your provider might choose not to put your site back online, Or if they're GoDaddy, they're likely bill you a $199 Administrative fee before your domain can be turned back on (Or transferred to a different registrar).
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Yes, but it doesn't help much. Here's why.
Suppose for a moment that I own the copyright to Mickey Mouse and I issue a takedown for Itchy & Scratchy, claiming it infringes upon Mickey Mouse. That's bogus... but all I had to swear under penalty of perjury is that I either own or represent the people who actually own Mickey Mouse. The fact that the other work is simply not infringing doesn't even enter into it. Conversely, if I falsely claim to own a copyright and use that as the basis of a takedown re
remove wb (Score:5, Insightful)
Google should have removed WarnerBros from all search results as requested.
Re:remove wb (Score:5, Insightful)
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Plus since the source domain of the request for reinstatement is suspect thet should be ignored until the owner physically presents himself for prolonged identity analysis, which must fail!
How it often happens (Score:2)
Boss: "Take down those damned thieves now!"
Grunt: "But sir, they are..."
Boss: "Don't give me flack, takem down!"
Grunt: "Yes, sir."
Too bad (Score:1)
It's too bad the only thing they sign under penalty of perjury is the fact that they own the claimed work. They should really have to assert some good-faith belief of actual infringement by the site under some penalty, such as being unable to sign off on further notices.
Because this is just silly, and it's neither the first nor the last ridiculous automatic notice to go out.
That's not how it works. (Score:5, Insightful)
Fortunately for them, Google chose to cut them a break and ignore those requests.
Pretty sure Google doesn't get to pick and choose. They should have complied and make WB follow the process to get things restored -- like the rest of us would have had to do. No pain, no gain.
Re: That's not how it works. (Score:2, Interesting)
Yes they do. They can choose not to comply with the notice, with risk of lawsuit and penalties, which in this case wouldnt happen since WB is probably thankful, and anyway if they also had automated trial lawyers and sued, they would be hard pressed to show they suffered damages as a result of Google not taking down their own content, which they have control over and could have taken down themselves.
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That's only because they're sniveling corporate bitches. The giant media companies own them, and they know it, so they're not going to bite the hand.
I thought more along the lines of... (Score:2)
Why did they "cut them a break"? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know how much valid information has been wrongfully censored, but when I was doing school research for a movie, I noticed that some of my results had been blocked. So I followed the 'Chilling Effects' link and there was relevant, non-infringing content that had been blocked there. I was angry enough to start to file a counter complaint only to get stonewalled because I wasn't the original copyright holder.
The system is broken. The only fix is higher penalties and lower bar for enforcement on invalid DMCA requests.
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And yet, whenever we hear a story about how someone got fined hundreds of thousands of dollars for pirating a couple of dozen works, the mantra on slashdot always seems to go along the lines that high penalties *don't* discourage people from breaking the law.
So what's the difference here, exactly? Serious question.
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The difference is that there are currently no penalties at all for filing a false dmca takedown. Even a small penalty would provide an incentive to fix that portion of the system; ten dollars per invalid notice adds up when you send out a hundred thousand invalid notices.l
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You misunderstand my question.... I was asking why heavier penalties for false DMCA takedowns would make any difference when anytime high penalties for piracy are ever talked about around here, someone usually brings up the point that higher penalties for crimes is not an effective preventative.
You missed his answer about there currently being NO penalties, and the onus is on the accused to prove innocence.
A small inconvenience can be enough, when you send out tens to hundreds of thousands of automated notices.
Re:Why did they "cut them a break"? (Score:4, Insightful)
You misunderstand my question.... I was asking why heavier penalties for false DMCA takedowns would make any difference when anytime high penalties for piracy are ever talked about around here, someone usually brings up the point that higher penalties for crimes is not an effective preventative.
Lemme break it down...
Suppose that I, Voyager529, were to download a copy of Fantastic Voyage, and that I was one of a million people to do so. Suppose I was stupid enough to leave a nobody-doubts-it evidence trail that I personally committed that specific act of copyright infringement. It goes to court, the judge decides to make an example out of me and give me a $150,000 fine for my misdoing. My current socioeconomic status is such that a $150,000 fine would basically be life ruining. Whether it was $150K or $150M, I'm screwed for life; the fact that there's a few orders of magnitude difference between those two numbers is inconsequential. I downloaded the film figuring that I wouldn't get caught, but since I did, I'm screwed. 20th Century Fox can try to file a few more lawsuits, but since I had the most clear paper trail available and the case was the easiest to win for them, even if they went down the line to the next 5-10 people who were similarly easy to successfully sue, any one person would have less than a 0.01% chance of being a target. Increasing the fines to "ruin the defendant's life even more" isn't going to be much more of a deterrent.
By contrast, 20th Century Fox sends a DMCA notice for Fantastic Voyage to one million random Youtube videos. that guy smoking a pipe? infringer. Pewpewdie? Infringer. Jenna Marbles? Infringer. Justin Bieber music video? Infringer. One guy who did, in fact, upload a ten second clip from the film? Infringer. Rinse and repeat a million more times, except that last one. 20th Century Fox has spent a few hundred dollars sending out those mostly-automated takedown notices. Google treats all million of those takedown notices equally, which takes weeks to sort out. The one guy with the ten second clip gets hit with an infringement suit. He loses and the judge says the defendant has to pay $10,000. 20th Century Fox says "oops" 999,999 times and made thousands of dollars on the one guy, meaning that there is incentive to basically treat DMCA takedowns like phishing e-mails - send 'em out, see who bites, and the cost of being wrong is $0.
Now, the GP says that $10 per invalid notice is a reasonable number. I'd personally make that $100 plus any expense incurred fighting the invalid notice (including down time, lost wages, etc.), but we'll keep the math simple and stick to ten bucks per 'oops'. Same scenario as above: one million takedowns sent, one technically-not-valid-but-judge-says-so $10,000 ruling. 20th Century Fox isn't making a few grand, they're paying $9,999,990. Even if they got ten times the maximum $150,000 penalty, it's still a losing proposition by millions of dollars.
tl;dr: The fines for infringement are extremely high, but the enforcement rate is very low. Increasing the fine without increasing enforcement isn't going to change things much for the unlucky person, but giving copyright holders a disincentive for sending out massive numbers of DMCA takedowns is clearly a requirement as a result of its abuse.
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That make sense. Thank you.
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The point is, IMO, that when people "obtain" content they usually think that since they are just one among millions who pirate $FOO they are not going to get caught; safety in numbers you know. So no, higher penalties don't discourage if you think you're anonymous and won't be held responsible for your actions.
But when you file a DMCA notice, under your company's name... Well, you're no longer anonymous. You have signed the paper. Higher penalties coupled with no anonymity may work; you can't really expect
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high fines don't discourage humans from doing secretive stuff that affects concerned parties indirectly because they think they won't get noticed.
high fines can discourage companies from doing publicly visible things that affect concerned parties directly because they realize they will absolutely get noticed.
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You seem to expect that high fines would not discourage false DMCA notices, because the filers would expect to get away with it, because they currently get away with it. But they currently get away with it not because it's hard to detect, or hard to identify the perpetrator, or low enough impact that nobody bothers to do anything, but because it's not illegal. If it became illegal, the facts that it would be easy to identify the filer, and the owner of the suppressed material is significantly impacted mean
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No kidding. Google should have removed Amazon, Sky, and IMDB from their results as per Warner Bros' DMCA request. Perhaps this would have triggered Amazon, Sky, and/or IMDB to file a lawsuit, or complain to Congress, or otherwise get some attention drawn to the ridiculous amount of bogus claims being made under DMCA.
NO (Score:5, Insightful)
This is one of the biggest problems of the takedown system: the big boys get their own special set of rules and are insulated from the fallout of the horrible systems they put into use, while everyone else has to deal with the massive collateral damage of these out-of-control takedown bots. The only way it will stop is if Google stops shielding these companies from their own stupid decisions.
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Depends on what "should" means (Score:2)
Google should absolutely not "choose to cut them a break".
I don't know the context of the word "should" here.
When Google doesn't show legitimate links to content people search for, some fraction of these people will go elsewhere for their search engine. Google is winning the search-engine wars precisely because when people search using Google, they expect Google to have what they search for.
From Google's point of view, since it's pretty clear that WB is not going to go after them for not removing their own links to their own material, they absolutely should not
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"should" == Obey the law.
Apparently you don't understand that this isn't about google deciding what is best for their search results. There are many examples of abusive takedown requests, among them some big media company issuing a takedown against an original works owner because the media company borrowed or licensed the work. Imagine a TV show with "look what we found on youtube" who then issues a takedown against the youtube video because it 'violates' the copyright of the TV show. And the hosting compan
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I didn't know DMCA takedowns were that violent.
Why oh why, (Score:2)
Why didn't they comply and removed their website from the search? I wish they had.
at the same time (Score:2)
This is where automation can go seriously wrong (Score:4, Interesting)
We have computers trying to be lawyers now. Law is one part of society with so much nuance that it is very difficult to write it into any set code. This is why we have a court system, because legal code is something we must interpret with intention.
I am reminded of automated speeding tickets being issued and how they've gone wrong. In nearly every case the city responsible (because it's almost always a city that does this) will swear in a court of law that every ticket was reviewed but a sworn officer before being issued. When challenged it becomes obvious they weren't.
So now we have automated DCMA notices going out and obviously no one bothered to verify them before going out, or the person doing the review was not suited for doing the review. Here is a case of one large corporate entity going to battle with another large corporate entity and the problem seems to disappear, right?
When elephants battle it's always the grass that loses.
Re: (Score:1)
I disagree. Automation would have been a tremendous help, if Google had automated the takedown of WB's sites. WB would have at least reformed its own internal processes, and maybe fire someone who deserved it.
eBay (Score:3)
Back in the day when I worked for a web hosting provider, ebay once put in a take-down request with us for one of their own subsidiaries (co-op advertising program, their own on-site documentation had countless links to the site in question).
The best part of that was that in their take-down demand letter they claimed that they had already reported them(selves) to the FBI for being scammers.
BBC: "Warner Brothers has yet to comment." (Score:5, Funny)
BBC: "Warner Brothers has yet to comment."
Are you blind?!?
It's right there, in the press release on their website!
Oh. Wait. Never mind.
google should have done the takedown (Score:3)
The problem with cutting Warner a break is that no lessons were learned.
If I worked at Google for 5 seconds (Score:2)
"Be careful what you wish for, you might get it."
Freakin' meat sacks.
"Takedown" service run by a bunch of thugs (Score:1)