Google Wins Lawsuit Against Scammers Who 'Weaponized' DMCA Takedowns (torrentfreak.com) 63
Google has obtained (PDF) a default judgment against two men who abused its DMCA takedown system to falsely target 117,000 URLs of competitors' online stores. With none of the defendants showing up in court, a California federal court sided with the search engine. Through an injunction, the men are now prohibited from sending false takedown notices and creating new Google accounts. TorrentFreak reports: Last November, Google decided to take action against the rampant DMCA abuse. In a lawsuit filed at a federal court in California, it accused Nguyen Van Duc and Pham Van Thien of sending over 100,000 fraudulent takedown requests. Many of these notices were allegedly filed against third-party T-shirt shops. [...] Following the complaint, the defendants, who are believed to reside in Vietnam, were summoned via their Gmail accounts and SMS. However, the pair remained quiet and didn't respond in court. Without the defendants representing themselves, Google requested a default judgment. According to the tech giant, it's clear that the duo violated the DMCA with their false takedown notices. In addition, they committed contract breach under California law.
Google said that, absent a default judgment, the defendants would continue to harm consumers and third-party businesses. These actions, in turn, will damage Google's reputation as a search engine. In July, U.S. Magistrate Judge Sallie Kim recommended granting Google's motion for default judgment. The recommendation included an injunction that prevents the two men from abusing Google's services going forward. However, the District Judge had the final say. Last Friday, U.S. District Court Judge Edward Davila adopted the recommendations, issuing a default judgment in favor of Google. The order confirms that defendants Nguyen Van Duc and Pham Van Thien violated the DMCA with their false takedown notices. In addition, they committed contract breach under California law.
In typical copyrights-related verdicts, most attention is paid to the monetary damages, but not here. While Google could have requested millions of dollars in compensation, it didn't request a penny. Google's primary goal was to put an end to the abusive behavior, not to seek financial compensation. Therefore, the company asked for an injunction to prohibit the defendants from sending false takedowns going forward. This includes a ban on registering any new Google accounts. The request ticked all the boxes and, without a word from the defendants, Judge Davila granted the default judgment as well as the associated injunction.
Google said that, absent a default judgment, the defendants would continue to harm consumers and third-party businesses. These actions, in turn, will damage Google's reputation as a search engine. In July, U.S. Magistrate Judge Sallie Kim recommended granting Google's motion for default judgment. The recommendation included an injunction that prevents the two men from abusing Google's services going forward. However, the District Judge had the final say. Last Friday, U.S. District Court Judge Edward Davila adopted the recommendations, issuing a default judgment in favor of Google. The order confirms that defendants Nguyen Van Duc and Pham Van Thien violated the DMCA with their false takedown notices. In addition, they committed contract breach under California law.
In typical copyrights-related verdicts, most attention is paid to the monetary damages, but not here. While Google could have requested millions of dollars in compensation, it didn't request a penny. Google's primary goal was to put an end to the abusive behavior, not to seek financial compensation. Therefore, the company asked for an injunction to prohibit the defendants from sending false takedowns going forward. This includes a ban on registering any new Google accounts. The request ticked all the boxes and, without a word from the defendants, Judge Davila granted the default judgment as well as the associated injunction.
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That's how DMCA is supposed to work. Just looking at the report for legitimacy could create legal liability for you - you're supposed to let the creator file a counternoitice.
The only thing they could or should do is go after the people filing these.
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Maybe Google is taking this action to try to avoid a judgement against their automated system.
They're in Viet Nam (Score:2)
Re: They're in Viet Nam (Score:2)
it's a way of putting indirect pressure on china that's a little more subtle than say an aircraft carrier would be. i would imagine that the communist party understands the concept of a state-corporate partnership.
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I don't know if this still applies, but Vietnam's ally was the Soviet Union - and now presumably Russia - a few years back.
When the Khmer Rouge were massacring their own population in 1978, they eventually got around to the ethnic Vietnamese population there and at that point Vietnam - knowing the consequences - marched in and stopped them. The consequences? Sanctions from Jimmy Carter's USA and an invasion by Cambodia's ally China which launched a surprise attack in February 1979 [nationalinterest.org]. Large losses on both s
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Taxpayers are saving on products from companies who were spending money hiring these guys. Taxpayers are also consumers and there's more than one way to save money. Truthfully, they will probably just pocket what they're not spending and they won't get taxed at a very high rate on it. But that's a whole separate problem.
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I don't see where this is coming from? Are lawsuits supposed to go through a special tribunal of volunteer tax-saving-zealots before being allowed to proceed? If the suit was frivolous then Google could have been fined, but as it was this was not a frivolous lawsuit.
Next up, complain that police try to stop crime because it uses tax dollars?
SCAM (Score:4, Insightful)
The whole DMCA system is an abusive scam.
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The DMCA is a way to avoid the slow processing by a court and directly strike anyone that is disliked regardless of actual infringement or not.
So the DMCA was flawed from the beginning.
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Re:SCAM (Score:4, Insightful)
The whole DMCA system is an abusive scam.
That's nonsense. DMCA is an excellent solution when people commit low levels of copyright infringement, to stop the infringement without having to take anyone to court.
If you look at the situation here, one of the conditions to make a DMCA takedown notice legal is that you declare under penalty of perjury that you believe to be the copyright holder or to represent the copyright holder. These two guys are probably guilty of about 100,000 cases or so of perjury. Should be hung up by their toes above a lake filled with live piranhas. But that is about the same as sending a letter to the police that you watched X break into their neighbours house, for each of 100,000 citizens X in your town. Doesn't make the police corrupt.
Re:SCAM (Score:5, Insightful)
The whole DMCA system is an abusive scam.
That's nonsense. DMCA is an excellent solution when people commit low levels of copyright infringement, to stop the infringement without having to take anyone to court.
The reason the DMCA is an abusive scam is that it requires takedown before review. It can therefore be used to suppress speech.
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It's the same sort of safe harbor provision in Section 203. If they review it for legitimacy, they take on legal responsibility for their interpretation of the accuracy. The problem is the companies abusing it, not the automation of the process. Google is the first I'm aware of even trying to go after it because they have standing to sue due to potential loss of advertising revenue.
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The reason the DMCA is an abusive scam is that it requires takedown before review. It can therefore be used to suppress speech.
And you talk about things without having a clue what you are talking about.
If it is _your_ speech and someone sends a DMCA takedown notice, then they need to explain why they think they own the copyright. If they can't do that, then they committed perjury. You get yourself a lawyer and sue them.
If you _did_ commit copyright infringement then the alternative is that the copyright holder sues you. Now _that_ gets expensive for you.
Re:SCAM (Score:4, Interesting)
The reason the DMCA is an abusive scam is that it requires takedown before review. It can therefore be used to suppress speech.
And you talk about things without having a clue what you are talking about.
If it is _your_ speech and someone sends a DMCA takedown notice, then they need to explain why they think they own the copyright. If they can't do that, then they committed perjury. You get yourself a lawyer and sue them.
Must be nice, living in this cozy alternative dimension where the "under penalty of perjury" clause of DMCA actually has ANY sort of teeth.
It doesn't.
I challenge you to show me just 3 actual court cases where somebody was succesfully convincted of perjury for submitting fraudulent DMCA notices. Can you do it?
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Because everyone just says "oops". So just commit perjury and then apologize. Ie, large music owners who slap out random takedowns without consulting actual copyright owners first, then the video owner spends weeks or months getting it cleared up, if they weren't outright banned. Because there are automated processes going around to ding anything that an algorithm decides is infringing, fair use be damned. Music playing in the background of a mall while someone shot a quick video on their phone, ban it!
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The reason the DMCA is an abusive scam is that it requires takedown before review. It can therefore be used to suppress speech.
The other is that the DMCA Fails to create a liability for malicious or erroneous DMCA notices. If you want to sue someone for a False DMCA, then you have to be prepared to prove the notice was made in bad faith; which is essentially impossible 99% of the time even if the notice WAS in bad faith.
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The whole DMCA system is an abusive scam.
That's nonsense. DMCA is an excellent solution when people commit low levels of copyright infringement, to stop the infringement without having to take anyone to court.
No, THAT's nonsense. The DMCA is entirely useless forr anything BUT abuse, since for some obscure legal reason it's "under penalty of perjury" clause is basically entirely null and void.
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The whole DMCA system is an abusive scam.
This, the law needs to be fixed rather than playing whack-a-mole with people who abuse it because the law is far too open to abuse.
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At the very least it should be legally required to be issued directly by a human being and not some bullshit automated system
Without a monetary consequence (Score:2)
This deters ONE bad actor.
With a monetary consequence others would have been deterred
sigh
Internet whack-a-mole continues
Re: Without a monetary consequence (Score:2)
There canâ(TM)t really be monetary consequences considering the âoeoffendersâ are in Vietnam.
I doubt there is proof these are legitimate names of real people.
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Pay for each DMCA takedown request.
Now define what each request shall cost.
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Pay for each DMCA takedown request.
And then you complain why a musician making fifty dollars from his music cannot stop the music industry from copying it. Why don't you try to think about the consequences first?
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Does not even deter the One Bad Actor (Score:2)
Their legal intervention (Score:2)
I am not a lawyer, so what is a "false" notice? AFAIK, the DMCA, 1998 does not define such a thing: If the complaint form is completed, it is a valid request to protect intellectual property. The lack of responsibility is why Google YouTube gives copyright brokers direct access to their blocking and de-listing tools. Google doesn't have legal standing here, by my calculation.
I don't want to complain that a judge gave Google cart-blanche over malicious actors, but legally, this is a band-aid on a hole
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But is there any proof that the one that does the request owns the copyright?
That's the first step - don't allow DMCA takedowns without proof of copyright ownership.
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That's the way things were before and it was also broken. We should have had more protections against repeated abuse in the beginning but at the time "penalty of perjury" seemed to be pretty strong. The answer is definitely not going backwards. That leads to every YouTube copyright violator getting directly sued by RIAA/MPAA.
If your stuff is falsely taken down you can immediately file a counternotice. The DMCA party then has to either ignore it or take you to court. Most individuals or small businesses
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If your stuff is falsely taken down you can immediately file a counternotice.
Here's the biggest issue with counternotice: YOU HAVE TO GIVE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION.
Many Youtubers go to great lengths to keep their personal details a secret, because mobs of people on the internet are extremely abusive, and their very life can be put in danger by revealing this personal information to the wrong person.
Then sometimes these evildoers will submit malicious DMCA notices, and the content creators will let the c
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That's the first step - don't allow DMCA takedowns without proof of copyright ownership.
That wouldn't make the slightest change. If I can make false claims about it, then I can provide false proof of ownership which just increases the cost for everyone.
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I think that the real change needed is a different set of rules for anyone outside the U.S. who is not within the usual jurisdiction of the courts.
This is probably the fault of companies' DMCA agents. Nowhere does the DMCA require service providers to accept notices by email from around the world... they could opt to require delivery by an in-person courier in order for a DMCA notice to be received. Preumably if you can pay a courier in the US to deliver your message -- you must be licensed to do bus
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That wouldn't make the slightest change. If I can make false claims about it, then I can provide false proof of ownership
That should be: Without the title of the work and proof of a copyright registration covering the work; that is a specific claimed copyright registration number.
Also, the law should make the sender of the Notice or the person who makes any filing alleging copyright infringement liable for any damages or loss of revenue that result from filing or sending an erroneous allegation of infrin
Re: Their legal intervention (Score:1)
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Anything creative anyone produces is protected by copyright automatically without needing any kind of registration.
In the US that's not entirely true. If you want to file a lawsuit against someone for infringement, then you will have to provide proof of either an issued Copyright registration or a pending application for a copyright registration in order to proceed in court.
If you do not have the registration, then your legal remedies are very limited. Can ask for an injunction and possibly provable
Re: Their legal intervention (Score:2)
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You're right. Under penalty of perjury. Except who is going to be able to bring them up on perjury charges? Google sort of did. They have standing on the civil side due to the monetary loss caused by the perjury.
Since they didn't show up in court, the injunction is perfectly fair and doesn't abridge the law in any way. But Google can safely ignore their requests unless the defendants want to go to court. If they did come to the US to show up in court, they do face perjury charges in addition to losing
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I am not a lawyer, so what is a "false" notice? AFAIK, the DMCA, 1998 does not define such a thing: If the complaint form is completed, it is a valid request to protect intellectual property. The lack of responsibility is why Google YouTube gives copyright brokers direct access to their blocking and de-listing tools. Google doesn't have legal standing here, by my calculation.
You need to state, under penalty of perjury, that you believe that you are the copyright holder or that you represent the copyright holder. Now you can make mistakes. For example, there are cases of different songs with identical title, if you send a DMCA notice about the wrong one, that's not illegal. But in this case, there were about 117,000 cases of perjury and therefore a "false" DMCA notification. And any cost that Google had gives them legal standing. Count the total number of DMCA notifications in a
Bogus! Where are the perjury charges? (Score:1)
We have to kill the DMCA, CDA, etc etc etc.
Big win (Score:5, Insightful)
These people will need to use a new fake identity now that one of their current fake identities is banned
Re: Big win (Score:3)
Or their master will use other two trafficked slaves to do his bidding.
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Or their master will use other two trafficked slaves to do his bidding
There are no "masters". There are two low-life little scam artists, that's all.
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Maybe it means Google can legally ignore DMCA requests from these people?
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I suspect that's exactly the main reason for this.
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They got an injunction and they got a court precedent for their next biggest target. Sounds like they're going to work here. It's not like they're so starved for cash they're trying to get money out of a small business in Vietnam.
Google doing something right? (Score:2)
Wooohoo! (Score:1)
Two down, three trillion to go.
I wish there was some company that had the technology and data to detect these automatically!
Did anything at all change? (Score:2)
Weren't they already prohibited from sending "false" DMCA takedown notices? If that isn't already illegal, why isn't it?
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The US doesn't have an extradition treaty with Vietnam. Google can't directly charge them with perjury - they aren't law enforcement - but they can take civil action that will bring the criminal charges to light. Keep in mind that they need strong precedent to go after the more light-grey fair use takedown notices - where any screenshots/footage of copyrighted material gets a DMCA notice even when it's plainly obvious fair use.
was google really financially impacted? (Score:2)
"While Google could have requested millions of dollars in compensation, it didn't request a penny. Google's primary goal was to put an end to the abusive behavior, not to seek financial compensation."...
was google really financially impacted by the bogus DMCA takedowns? I'm reluctant to think so... more likely the impacted retailers who had to fight these DMCA's wanted to sue Google for damages for blindly following the bogus DMCA takedowns. And that would have actually cost them... instead they ban 2 na
OK, now for copyright strikes on YouTube (Score:2)
A summons via email and SMS? (Score:2)
So its ok to send false DMCA takedowns what fun! (Score:2)
What a funny lawsuit (Score:2)
- It doesn't need a court victory to take punishing actions against abusers. They can simply nuke the accounts. But they will never be able to stop Vietnamese from creating new ones. In that country lots of people use internet in the form of an internet
maybe this will establish a precident (Score:2)
DMCA abuse has to end. Maybe this is the start of that.