Man Sued For Using Bogus YouTube Takedowns To Get Address For Swatting (arstechnica.com) 78
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: YouTube is suing a Nebraska man the company says has blatantly abused its copyright takedown process. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act offers online platforms like YouTube legal protections if they promptly take down content flagged by copyright holders. However, this process can be abused -- and boy did defendant Christopher L. Brady abuse it, according to YouTube's legal complaint (pdf). Brady allegedly made fraudulent takedown notices against YouTube videos from at least three well-known Minecraft streamers. In one case, Brady made two false claims against a YouTuber and then sent the user an anonymous message demanding a payment of $150 by PayPal -- or $75 in bitcoin.
"If you decide not to pay us, we will file a 3rd strike," the message said. When a YouTube user receives a third copyright strike, the YouTuber's account gets terminated. A second target was ordered to pay $300 by PayPal or $200 in Bitcoin to avoid a third fraudulent copyright strike. A third incident was arguably even more egregious. According to YouTube, Brady filed several fraudulent copyright notices against another YouTuber with whom he was "engaged in some sort of online dispute." The YouTuber responded with a formal counter-notice stating that the content wasn't infringing -- a move that allows the content to be reinstated. However, the law requires the person filing the counter-notice to provide his or her real-world name and address -- information that's passed along to the person who filed the takedown request. This contact information is supposed to enable a legitimate copyright holder to file an infringement lawsuit in court. Shortly after filing a counter-notice, the targeted YouTuber "announced via Twitter that he had been the victim of a swatting scheme."
YouTube says it doesn't have hard proof that Brady was responsible for the swatting call -- even though it "appears" that way, but it does have compelling evidence that Brady was responsible for the fraudulent takedown notices, which are against the law.
"If you decide not to pay us, we will file a 3rd strike," the message said. When a YouTube user receives a third copyright strike, the YouTuber's account gets terminated. A second target was ordered to pay $300 by PayPal or $200 in Bitcoin to avoid a third fraudulent copyright strike. A third incident was arguably even more egregious. According to YouTube, Brady filed several fraudulent copyright notices against another YouTuber with whom he was "engaged in some sort of online dispute." The YouTuber responded with a formal counter-notice stating that the content wasn't infringing -- a move that allows the content to be reinstated. However, the law requires the person filing the counter-notice to provide his or her real-world name and address -- information that's passed along to the person who filed the takedown request. This contact information is supposed to enable a legitimate copyright holder to file an infringement lawsuit in court. Shortly after filing a counter-notice, the targeted YouTuber "announced via Twitter that he had been the victim of a swatting scheme."
YouTube says it doesn't have hard proof that Brady was responsible for the swatting call -- even though it "appears" that way, but it does have compelling evidence that Brady was responsible for the fraudulent takedown notices, which are against the law.
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Indeed, I agree dear Sir and I recommend watching him here at the link below to figure it out some more:
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Watch Stephen Creimer [youtube.com] for shakes and giggles!
Reform (Score:2)
This is not necessarily undesirable when considered in a proper context. More egregious abuses of the DMCA will call for significant reforms of the law. It would be outrageous if political opponents abused the DMCA takedown process during an election.
Re:Reform (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Reform (Score:4, Interesting)
There are currently no penalties for abusing the DMCA.
That is not true in general: there is no specific penalty, and a DMCA letter in good faith is not criminal, but One who sends a false DMCA letter could be sued by the affected party for compensation if there are damages or harm --
which are a simple tort; the letter writer made a false representation they were not legally allowed to make that another party relied upon causing harm.
Even if they can show they acted in good faith; the DMCA does not shield the author of the DMCA letter from liability for harm caused by their negligence.
Re:Reform (Score:5, Informative)
It's true in practice. Nobody has ever gotten so much as a slap on the wrist for it.
make DMCA claim use the court system where you (Score:2)
make DMCA claim use the court system where you really don't want to be reporting fake crimes
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make DMCA claim use the court system where you really don't want to be reporting fake crimes
IIRC, I believe the early drafts of the DMCA did involve putting actions through the court system but Hollyweird/RIAA/MPAA/Disney lobbyists paid off enough legislators to ditch that in favor of the current system because they said going through courts and judges would delay take-downs too much, so to hell with due process when it comes to protecting the copyright cartels (and just coincidentally allowing them to abuse the system to quash competition with little fear of legal repercussions even if caught red
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If people wanted to get dmca fixed very fast then everyone should start filing false dmca takedowns and do it against everything. Yes it would cause chaos as innocent videos got hit, but if regular folks all started launching them and getting corporate videos taken down, create fake names and don't steal anyone's identity. Once everyone in Hollywood /Silicon Valley /etc woke up next morning to their legit content removed and all the innocent videos removed everyone screaming for heads to roll, then shit wou
Perjury, too? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Perjury, too? (Score:5, Insightful)
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How could you fix that? There have been cases a company thought they had the rights for literally decades, almost everyone agreed, they got lots of royalties, and then they lost in Court [wikipedia.org]. You don't want to send the entirety of Tie Warner to prison for Perjury, so penalty of perjury applying only if you know you don't own the copyright is fine.
Penalty of perjury = jail time. And you know they woudn't arrest the CoA or the actual attorney, it would be the $10-an-hour contractor.
Monetary penalties would be a m
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In this case it seems unlikely that the guy would be able to argue that he genuinely thought he had the rights to the copyright. Clearly his intention was to SWAT people, and there is no plausible explanation as to why he would have though he owned those copyrights.
Solution (Score:1)
SUED? (Score:2)
FFS he should be jailed for attempted murder.
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There is a solution.
When the law fails, it's time to act accordingly.
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Wrong Move! (Score:3, Interesting)
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(Un?)fortunately this is how the DMCA works. If Youtube takes down videos on demand, the law is on their side and they can't be held liable for the copyright infringement that might be contained within.
Unfortunately, Youtube is at the scale where the sheer number of incoming videos and number of claims is too high to be human-screened, so they have to err on the side of taking stuff down to stay on the side of the law they want to be.
I don't like it, but it's definitely the right call for Youtube to make.
So
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Unfortunately, Youtube is at the scale where the sheer number of incoming videos and number of claims is too high to be human-screened, so they have to err on the side of taking stuff down to stay on the side of the law they want to be.
That's it in a nutshell.
They'd need an army of people working 24/7 to manually screen what comes in. The last stat I saw was that ~300 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute.
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I got a dmca claim against a vid of mine and for hell of it I filed the counter claim and it went back and forth twice and I kept countering. When time for sending real info I of course didn't when Gmail was in beta and you got invites to create an account I sent myself invites once my beta account had extra invites and ever since I've had a dozen accounts, and none of my accounts were created with any real name info as hell it wasn't even required back in Gmail beta.
Anyhow I figured my vid would get remove
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Eventually these commercial "influencers" will realize that their business requires being able to disclose a legal name and address, and they'll spend the hundred bucks or so to register an LLC so that they can defend their content without giving out their personal name and address.
YouTube has no standing (Score:2, Interesting)
This is an issue between the claimant of the copyright and the accused. However, YouTube is also going well beyond what the DMCA requires. If YouTube simply stood by the strictest letter of the law like the copyright houses are doing, they should just pass the claim on and proxy the counterclaim and then let the courts figure it out. No takedown without court order should be the policy, then we wouldn't have this first strike mess.
Re:YouTube has no standing (Score:5, Insightful)
No, they're not. If they don't take it down upon receipt of a properly formed notice, they lose their safe harbor. See section (c)(1)(c)
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bah. it lost the link [cornell.edu]
Re: YouTube has no standing (Score:3, Insightful)
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Uhh...
That's very arguable. The legal system is not really designed to deal with lawsuits against anonymous people, it can be kludged into doing so; but if Youtube tells a Judge "we didn't give up his info until the suit against John Doe was filed because we don't have to" it is possible the Judge will go along with that, but it is also entirely possible the Judge will respond with a "and fuck you too Youtube."
You don't risk a company on the hop no Judge will ever go with fuck you.
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Nope. That's complete bullshit.
It is completely normal to file suit before knowing the person's name, if there is a way to then get the name after filing.
And the judge wouldn't be telling youtube anything. That's absurd.
Large corporations don't fear some judge issuing an illegal ruling on a fit of pique, that goes away easily on appeal. It is somewhat the other way around; judges are reticent to over-criticize corporations, because getting overturned on appeal isn't fun. They send it back to that judge, and
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You didn't understand a word the other person posted.
"YouTube is also going well beyond what the DMCA requires" refers to YouTube being involved at all after the claim is contested.
YouTube has to act quickly once a claim is received. But once the claim is contested, YouTube is off the hook.
YouTube should not be furnishing personal details of uploaders to the claimants.
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Youtube is only of the hook if it lets the claimer sue the uploader. Which means they either have to turn over the legal address if the uploader in the counter-claim (so that they can be properly served notice of lawsuit at a legal address), or they have todo so when proof of a John Doe lawsuit has been submitted. The latter strategy would be risky because everyone who actually sued would sue both Youtube and John Doe, whilst some Judges would let Youtube off if their lawyer makes an appearance and gives th
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The latter case is a big win for youtube, because it is so ridiculous that the Judge is going to risk being sanctioned, and it would actually make it harder for others to sue them in the same district.
Judges don't have that sort of power. The legislature already defined when their safe harbor exists and when it doesn't.
I'm going to assume you live in some sort of dictatorship where laws don't matter.
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I'm going to assume you do not know how the Federal courts work, and have no experience with either statutory interpretation or legal gamemanship.
In this case, it is theoretically possible that a plaintiff could do what you want and sue "John Doe," then use that suit to get a subpoena, and get the info from Youtube that way. However, John Doe is likely less rich than Youtube, so the smart lawyer thing to do is claim that a) Youtube protected the copyright infringement by not giving you the name you need to
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You can't just wave your hands at people with a statutory safe harbor and lawyers and play games with them.
You would lose that game, and it would cost you a lot of money.
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That's kind of my point.
Congress intended for companies like Youtube to give copyright holders an address where they could be served with a lawsuit. Youtube refusing to do so when it re-enables a video is Youtube playing statutory games with their lawyers. Eventually they'd lose and it would cost them a lot of money.
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You're right, that's not at all how I understood what they posted.
"YouTube is also going well beyond what the DMCA requires... they should just pass the claim along and proxy the counterclaim" makes it sound a lot like they think YouTube should forward the copyright claim to the alleged infringer and do nothing else.
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YouTube has no standing
This is an issue between the claimant of the copyright and the accused.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/512 [cornell.edu]
(f)Misrepresentations. - Any person who knowingly materially misrepresents under this section -
(1) that material or activity is infringing, or
(2) that material or activity was removed or disabled by mistake or misidentification,
shall be liable for any damages, including costs and attorneys' fees, incurred by the alleged infringer, by any copyright owner or copyright owner's authorized licensee, or by a service provider, who is injured by such misrepresentation,
PO Box (Score:2, Informative)
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Always use a PO Box for anything online.
Online or real-world, a P.O. Box is a good way to keep the average whackos from finding their way to your door.
DMCA needs statutory damages for a false report (Score:2)
$50,000 in statutory damages for a false report might fix this problem right quick.
Lesson learned? (Score:5, Informative)
If you are a Youtuber and want to do a DMCA counternotice, then either have your lawyer do it.....
Or operate under a legal DBA with a 3rd party registered agent so that the subscriber is your business name as official legal name and use your PO Box as the mailing address on your letter -- your own name signing your letter can be a legal pseudonym.
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You don't need all that.
You just need to use a "fake" name (your name is whatever you want it to be) and a PO Box or a fake address. The troll will never attempt to file in court. YouTube doesn't follow up on any of that shit, they just need to be able to say "We're not liable because they both said they were going to court to deal with it.".
Re:Lesson learned? (Score:4, Interesting)
That's assuming it's a troll.
You do that to Universal Music Service for one of their bullshit claims, and they notice? They can get you imprisoned for lying on legal paperwork. And they are not nice people at Universal.
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Well, even if you use an alias or name that is not on your birth certificate in sending the letter --- the infringer who was sued and lost will still be the one the final judgements can be enforced against, as long as it can be shown they are the same person... if it meets the counternotice requirements, then the counternotice included a signed statement that the subscriber will accept service for the jurisdiction at that name and address,
And service by mail (or notification by mail and service by waiver)
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IANAL, but my wife is, and she has pointed out that for a number of legal matters, a P.O. Box simply will not be accepted. I'm not sure whether that's the case for DCMA counter-notices, but it's possible Google may reject it automatically if you use a P.O. Box. There are alternatives to get around that, but they cost more.
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Maybe, maybe not.... However;
there should be no problem
receiving mail or service by mail to an agent at a PO Box.
For example, Amazon Legal has a PO Box, and that's even their DMCA Agent.
And... any kind of Refusal to honor a counternotice may invalidate their safe harbor protection.
Google is not free to simply choose to reject a counternotice that meets the requirements
under the statute (Which says nothing about what qualifies as a valid address or phone number),
Or else if they choose to do so, then th
Don't Feed the Beast (Score:1)
As Rusty Shackleford put it, "I'm not giving my name to a machine.".
If you need to be on social media in any prominent way, get a PO Box and use that as the address for EVERYTHING going into or out of your social media account. Real name? Use a business name that has your last name in it. Scmoe Productions. Last name too unique? Use your first name. Nobody gonna do shit. For bonus points, make your persona a "character" with their own name (and stay in character online).
You're gonna have far less trou
Only in the US... (Score:1, Troll)
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... is calling the police a death sentence for somebody else. What a horrible, violent, militaristic timeline we line in.
The sad fact is that if you look outside one night and there's a crowd of cops and a sea of lights out front of your place and they're telling you to come out, there's a damn good chance that you're going to get shot no matter what you do.
What's even worse it that the police are rarely punished in any meaningful way after they shoot someone without just cause. They get a maybe-kinda-sort-of-investigation, some time off (usually with pay), counseling, etc. while the person they shot is dead in their grave.
Y
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Time for criminal charges. (Score:4, Informative)
Killed for Copyright (Score:2)
Somebody is going to get killed in one of these SWATings.
And the apologists will claim it was an "unintended consequence" of intellectual property.
As they teach at Yale Law, never advocate for a law you're not willing to kill for.
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https://www.google.com/search?... [google.com]
There has already been at least one, I think it was covered on slashdot.
Help desk? (Score:2)
Maybe it's time Alphabet stop relying so much on algorithms and actually get a help desk with people, like most major companies have.
Not so anonymous (Score:3)
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Sorry for the french... I forgot I even knew a foreign language.
You didn't know one, as it was definitely Germanic.
Re: Not so anonymous (Score:2)