14 ms·

YouTube Class Action: Same IP Address Upload Pirate Movies and File DMCA Notices

552 points by parsecs 6y ago

generalizations 6y ago
I wonder if this means "double jepoardy" is in play: once youtube gets this easily-dismissed lawsuit cleared away, no one can sue youtube again about state of DMCA takedowns on the site.
- deleted 6y ago
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- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > I wonder if this means “double jepoardy” is in play: once youtube gets this easily-dismissed lawsuit cleared away, no one can sue youtube again about state of DMCA takedowns on the site. No, because: (1) “Double jeopardy” applies to criminal charges only. (2) “Double jeopardy” applies to charges for conduct that is part of the same transaction, not a similar pattern of conduct carried out at different times against different people, much less suits whose similarity is that they are merely in the same broad category (“has something to do with how DMCA takedown notices are handled”.) As a general rule, you can’t lose the right to file a civil suit because of a lawsuit you didn’t participate in. (Class action might seem to be an exception, but class members are viewed as participants unless they opt out, so its technically not.)
  - jcranmer 6y ago
    While double jeopardy itself only applies to criminal cases, there is a principle in civil cases that you can't litigate the same issue twice. In practice, this is much narrower than double jeopardy's rule in criminal cases, and comes even less close to applying here than double jeopardy would [were it to apply to civil cases].
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- naniwaduni 6y ago
  Double jeopardy does not mean that, after being acquitted of your first murder, you're immune to prosecution for a subsequent killing spree.
  - anotherman554 6y ago
    Though there is a dumb movie called "double jeopardy" where the premise is that it works that way.
    - zeroimpl 6y ago
      They were not acquitted for the first murder, they served the full sentence. Then later subsequently threatened to murder the same individual whom they had supposedly already murdered.
      - not2b 6y ago
        It's still stupid: they could be prosecuted for murder, because if they were wrongly convicted for a murder that allegedly happened in 2003, a murder that happened in 2020 would be a different offense, even if it's the same alleged victim.
        em-bee 6y ago
        they should be tried again, but the sentence should be reduced by time served.
      - dragonwriter 6y ago
        Yeah, DJ still doesn’t work that way. That would be a distinct offense (now, it would be inconsistent, since the same person can only be killed once), but just as there have been, IIRC, a few instances where multiple different people were convicted of murdering the same person (like, directly, not some of them under vicarious liability rules that allow someone other than the proximate killer to be convicted of the offenses) in different trials despite the fact that it is logically inconsistent that all of those convictions could be accurate, it is quite possible to be (wrongfully) convicted of murdering someone and then convicted (rightfully) later if you then actually murder them thinking that having been previously convicted of doing that would give you a free pass. The same evidence used against you in your second trial might be useful in getting any lasting legal consequences of your first convinction expunged and negated as a wrongful conviction, but that’s likely to be of limited value if you are convicted of the second crime (though it might be useful to negate three-strikes or other repeat-offense enhancements.)
- parliament32 6y ago
  Can you imagine if you got a robbery charge dismissed once, you'd be able to rob as many people as you wanted for the rest of your life?
- Justsignedup 6y ago
  DJ is for criminal situations, and only for specific instances. For example: If I am accused of killing a man, and I am proven innocent, I cannot be accused of killing THAT SPECIFIC MAN again. If I was to go and kill a man, I cannot claim "but I was already exonarated for killing a man". Because it is not the same crime. DJ is all about being prosecuted for _the same instance of a crime_ more than once. Not that once I broke a law, I cannot break it again in the future. This can apply to civil cases if a judge dismisses the case with prejudice, which means that this specific case cannot be put to trial again. Sometimes a judge dismisses the case without prejudice which indicates that the judge felt there was a case, but not enough supporting evidence yet. If a case is not resolved, it goes up the chain of courts, eventually a court may reject the case, in which case a lower court's ruling takes hold. If a case is resolved I cannot go to trial for that same case again. Nor can I use the exact same evidence for a new case. Or rather... I can but it will get dismissed with prejudice. There is technically nothing stopping me from filing cases against you which were already resolved to harass you. But after like 2 times my lawyer's license will be revoked and possibly I will have a case against me for obvious harassment forcing me to cover any legal expenses. Overall courts really really don't like it when you act in bad faith, even if not criminally.
  - naniwaduni 6y ago
    Emphasizing "that specific man" is misleading. The only reason double jeopardy is likely to apply in this particularly situation is that most people don't generally die twice. For any other crime, you can most certainly be accused of perpetrating it upon a specific person multiple times.
  - fatnoah 6y ago
    >I cannot be accused of killing THAT SPECIFIC MAN again Nitpick: It's actually that you can't be accused of the SPECIFIC INSTANCE of killing that man. I only say this because there was a movie with a plot of a husband faking his death and the wife being convicted for it. The movie implies that the wife could find and kill the guy and not be tried because she'd already been convicted of killing him. While only one person was murdered, it was the two separate acts of killing the person that are the offenses, so double jeopardy would not apply.
justinlink 6y ago
Prenda Law used a similar tactic when they uploaded films to pirate bay and then sued anyone who downloaded them. You can bet if Schneider loses the case, she'll be left holding the bag as Virgin Islands-based Pirate Monitor Ltd disappears. Creative folks who hire these law firms that specialize in pirate hunters or "monitoring" companies need to realize they have incentives to pirate your content to keep your business. And when you sue people off information they provided you, it's your name on the lawsuit. Sure you can try to sue the companies after you lose, but good luck with that.
- runlevel1 6y ago
  It was even shadier than that. They were also producing content solely to upload to The Pirate Bay and sue whoever downloaded it. After years of running the scheme and raking in millions, they finally got caught when a defense attorney noticed some oddities while trying to identify who Prenda was representing. The Prenda attorneys continued to be evasive about the identity of the complainant in court. Pulling that thread eventually unveiled their shenanigans. The judge then referred the Prenda attorneys to the US Attorney for criminal indictment. Two of the attorneys behind Prenda were convicted and sentenced last year: One for 5 years, the other for 14. [1][2] [1]: https://www.justice.gov/usao-mn/pr/florida-attorney-sentenced-60-months-prison-multi-million-dollar-pornography-film https://www.justice.gov/usao-mn/pr/florida-attorney-sentence... [2]: https://www.startribune.com/judge-throws-the-book-at-minneapolis-lawyer-who-ran-a-porn-trolling-scheme/511302022/?refresh=true https://www.startribune.com/judge-throws-the-book-at-minneap...
  - imglorp 6y ago
    > Two of the attorneys behind Prenda were convicted and sentenced Thank you. A little heart warming sanity.
  - freeflight 6y ago
    > They were also producing content solely to upload to The Pirate Bay and sue whoever downloaded it. In 2013 Germany had a pretty high-profile case where a company bought up the rights to some movies on RedTube and then proceeded to send out C&D letters to anybody who streamed them [0]. The situation was extra nasty due to the nature of the content: Getting caught watching porn is already embarassing enough for a lot of people to simply pay up and not pursue any legal means. [0] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urmann-Abmahnaff%C3%A4re https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urmann-Abmahnaff%C3%A4re
mensetmanusman 6y ago
This reminds me of something hilarious happening on Twitch that I recently learned from younger relatives. There are normal people on the game ‘Among Us’ playing copyrighted music into their mic, so that if a celebrity Twitch streamer gets too close to this individual there is a chance their account would get banned due to the DMCA. They are using DMCA as an in-game defensive aurora. Ha
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > There are normal people on the game ‘Among Us’ playing copyrighted music into their mic, so that if a celebrity Twitch streamer gets too close to this individual there is a chance their account would get banned due to the DMCA. You mean “due to copyright law”. The DMCA doesn’t do anything to encourage the ban, it just stops Twitch from being liable for copyright infringement the moment the copyrighted content is on the stream at all.
  - toast0 6y ago
    It's not really copyright law either, it's just Twitch's policy. DMCA provides a safe harbor for Twitch as long as they take down content in a timely fashion when notitified; they can put it back if counter-notified, and they don't have an obligation of prior restraint. They just don't want to deal with the hassle involved with accounts that get a lot of DMCA notices, so if you do, they kick you off.
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      Fair point. My point was just that copyright law outside of the DMCA is the legal impetus here; the DMCA, if anything, weakens the incentives to a ban policy, it doesn’t create them.
  - devwastaken 6y ago
    DMCA is the copyright law in question.
    - 6y ago
AdmiralAsshat 6y ago
Will be interesting to see how this pans out. A similar ploy was committed by the infamous Prenda Law firm, resulting in their eventual imprisonment: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/07/prenda-law-porn-troll-saga-ends-with-prison-for-founder/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/07/prenda-law-porn-...
cduzz 6y ago
I spent some time at a university and got to field DMCA complaints. Typically they'd list the file getting shared and a timestamp (often without a timezone) and the university IP/port. They never included their own IP address... Of course, the traffic was behind a firewall. I had the logs but wasn't about to accuse / punish anyone when there were a bunch of potential students behind any given complaint, and without the other end of the connection I couldn't identify which one for certain. Funny thing is they refused to give their source IP because they didn't trust us to not leak it to whatever pirates to put on a blocklist. But of course, I had their source IP because I had the network traffic. Were I in kahoots I'd have just listed all 5 of the possible snitching peers to the badguys. Shady and incompetent then, same now I guess.
- mulmen 6y ago
  I worked in tech support at my university and also handled this type of request. Typically just triage to the network team because they didn't give students access to the network logs. We had strict requirements on not exposing student data. On the other hand we had to minimize the University's risk. This meant at least a nastygram to the offending student. I think there was some kind of three strike system where students may get booted off the campus network. The whole setup was pretty slick back then so if that happened they really wouldn't be able to do anything. Like they wouldn't even be able to get a wired connection in the library. Was a pretty neat place to work actually. Still have fond memories. Buy me a beer some time and ask me about working phones and email in ~2007 after news was published that Sarah Palin attended the Univeristy.
  - dmix 6y ago
    Punishing students that aggressively over DMCA requests sounds like a terrible idea. They are so easy to abuse. It also seems like it would affect their academic ability because they pirated a few movies. Who cares.
    - mulmen 6y ago
      We investigated each accusation and the strikes were only applied if the student was actually violating the terms of use of the network. Like actually pirating stuff. I forget what it took to lose network access but it wasn't something you could do on accident. Every "strike" would have included a warning. I mean they let us run Counter Strike servers out of our dorm rooms. It was a pretty relaxed environment really.
toast0 6y ago
> According to the Google-owned platform, the same IP address used to upload 'pirate' movies to the platform also sent DMCA notices targeting the same batch of content. Could be CGNAT? (I mean, it probably isn't, but IPv4 exhaustion is real!)
- FireBeyond 6y ago
  I wonder what ISP has customers in both Pakistan and Hungary...
  - toast0 6y ago
    An ISP that recently bought IPs formerly used in Pakistan and Hungary (or is in one country and bought the other block), and IP location data hasn't updated yet.
- indymike 6y ago
  More likely a VPN endpoint.
- sn_master 6y ago
  They can look into more logs and check fingerprinting elements (screen resolution, browser, OS, time zone etc) and they'll very likely all match up. Timezone alone actually should be sufficient to convince most doubters.
  - ckocagil 6y ago
    They can tell just by the first byte of the IP address. CGNAT addresses start with 100.
    - pstrateman 6y ago
      uhm CGNAT can be any ipv4 address edit: i realized you're talking about the internal private ip addresses which youtube cannot see... so still confused
- 6y ago
msla 6y ago
Now they'll have a huge come-to-Jesus moment about how IP addresses aren't sufficient to identify individuals.
im3w1l 6y ago
> one of the ‘RansomNova’ users that had been uploading clips via IP addresses in Pakistan logged into their YouTube account from a computer connected to the Internet via an IP address in Hungary Can someone parse this for me? Edit: A RansomNovaX-account was usually accessed from Pakistan ip. Then it was accessed from Hungarian ip. I kept trying to read it as "users that had been (uploading clips via IP addresses in Pakistan [while] logged into their YouTube account from a computer) connected to the Internet via an IP address in Hungary"
- vineyardmike 6y ago
  RansomNova is the pirate and "is in pakistan" Copyright owner is "in hungary", and uses a hungary IP address to file DMCA claim against video uploaded from RansomNova. RansomNova suddenly logs in (to their youtube account) from IP address used by copyright owner, at the same time. Therefore, RansomNova and CopyrightOwner are in same place at same time, using same IP address -> Somehow connected to each other -> Therefore bad faith DMCA claim.
  - edmundsauto 6y ago
    Key context: the content in question was obscure Hungarian-language content being uploaded from Pakistan. There were also a series of accounts (RansomNova11, RansomNova12, etc) doing this. The intent seemed that if Youtube thought they were a "good" agent, they would have access to the automated takedown tools that YT reserves for the big players.
  - pajko 6y ago
    Isn't it interesting that there appears to be somebody named "Ransom Nova" in Pakistan, studying computer science? https://www.linkedin.com/in/ransom-nova-73b214191/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/ransom-nova-73b214191/
ArtDev 6y ago
There are multiple good reasons to enable wifi guest network from home. It is nice thing to do; like in case someone gets in a car accident nearby and doesn't have cell coverage/service. I have mine throttled and they can't access the rest of home network. Having a guest network also means you are not liable if someone misuses it: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/08/open-wifi-and-copyright-liability-setting-record#:~:text=The%20truth%20is%20that%20no,with%20neighbors%20and%20passers%20by https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/08/open-wifi-and-copyrigh....
- skinnymuch 6y ago
  Will your ISP or whoever is suing really care? It’ll cost you too much to defend yourself, I’d think.
- sn_master 6y ago
  911 doesn't need cell coverage from your specific provider or even a SIM card to be in the phone. It'll use whatever cellular network is there. https://www.scienceabc.com/innovation/how-can-mobile-phones-make-emergency-calls-when-theres-no-network-coverage.html https://www.scienceabc.com/innovation/how-can-mobile-phones-... If that was your sole reason for having it enabled, you can turn it off now. Public places can easily claim its not them, but for a house I can imagine it can get tricky, specially if its long-term abuse by a neighbor. Case in point: https://www.registercitizen.com/news/article/Man-mistakenly-charged-with-child-porn-after-12077668.php https://www.registercitizen.com/news/article/Man-mistakenly-... The truth was found after all, but the loss of reputation and legal stress are not worth it, specially in your Good Samaritan scenario. As a side note, I like that almost all new cars will automatically call the police for you when they sense an accident, using built-in cellular systems.
  - kiwijamo 6y ago
    This is not the case in all countries. I am aware that telcos in New Zealand, for example, will not accept emergency calls from phones that don't have a SIM card. However they will accept emergency calls from any phone with a valid SIM card.
cwkoss 6y ago
When an agent acting on behalf of an IP holder uploads that IP anywhere it should be legally construed as granting an implicit license to use that IP within the context of that upload.
- gpm 6y ago
  My memory is a bit hazy, but I think that was the conclusion in the Prenda Law case (same thing as in the title, but with porn and torrents).
sn_master 6y ago
What does "accessing content ID" mean? The article says they did all that to gain that access, but doesn't mention what is it or what do they gain by it.
- ev1 6y ago
  CMIIW, by being trustworthy enough to get access to content ID you can automate takedowns at will or demonetise videos at will instead of via reviewed DMCAs.
  - sn_master 6y ago
    huh, now their YT username makes sense (RansomNova). the potential of extortion if they get that kind of power is incredible. Edit: Apparently its not the first time this has been abused https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190205/10064941534/youtubes-contentid-system-is-being-repurposed-blackmailers-due-to-failings.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190205/10064941534/youtu...
xg15 6y ago
Genuine question: How exactly do you get access to Content ID? Is there some kind of regular process or do you need to have a special partnership with Google?
- SOLAR_FIELDS 6y ago
  I don’t know how you would do it yourself as a layman, but the musicians in circles I follow use a vendor like HAAWK to manage their content ID related stuff.
williesleg 6y ago
I love hollywood
williesleg 6y ago
I love hollywood. They need more of my money.
aczerepinski 6y ago
Sort of off topic but this story is probably the only time we’ll see Maria on the front page of HN: I just want to point out that she’s a wonderful composer, and if you aren’t familiar you should check her out. (I wish she’d make it easier to do so though - if she’s going to work so hard to keep her music off digital platforms it would be nice if she’d release her albums on vinyl!)
visarga 6y ago
So maybe they and the seeders were both under the same DHCP? /s By the same logic nobody can be identified by IP alone.
piokoch 6y ago
Youtube is some kind of madman playground. I have created YT channel for my daughter's cello teacher, where I uploaded Dmitri Shostakovich "Prelude" played by them. A few moments later I've received information that this piece is "demonetized" (I wasn't even trying to monetize it) because part of this "song" is a copy of some other "song" owned by someone else. That other "song" was in no way related to the Prelude besides it was also played on two cellos. I've started some "dispute" process not because I am planning to earn money on this channel, but to somehow stop that idiocy that YT keeps pushing. If Google is using the same "AI" that was used to compare those movies for the purpose of matching ads with those who does not use ad block, I am really sorry for advertisers, who are paying money for this.
- Natanael_L 6y ago
  Their copyright bots have no understanding of what public domain is, all it understands is resemblance to copies of work that somebody else has uploaded and claimed copyright ownership of. Zero regards to the possibility of many people being able to legally create independent works that are derivatives of the same public domain work, without any one of them preventing others from creating new independent copies.
  - koheripbal 6y ago
    Paired with that is that they simply don't care about small time uploaders of personal works. The system is designed to let major uploaders fight via a complicated process that they are familiar with and have somewhat automated participation in - ie Disney vs WB, etc... The system isn't designed to allow John Smith to appeal successfully.
aneutron 6y ago
Fun fact: The artist in question has been dead since 2011. The wording of the article, more specifically when it says: > Grammy award-winning musician Maria Schneider and Virgin Islands-based Pirate Monitor Ltd teamed up in the summer to file a class-action lawsuit against YouTube. It somehow led me to believe that the artist was being ... not nice, shall we say. But it turns out it's just the company then. Huh.
- SuperGent 6y ago
  I think you may have confused the musician [0] with the actress [1] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Schneider_(musician) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Schneider_(musician) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Schneider_(actress) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Schneider_(actress)
  - aneutron 6y ago
    My mistake. I indeed did make that exact mistake. Thank you for correcting me.
endblacksea 6y ago
As long as underage. no porn or some illgeal. If study is so hard and still have not ao must penny on movies. I can help u out. Kenny-south-park. (Forget me not)
minusSeven 6y ago
I guess we sort of need a p2p content sharing platform that uses some kind of technology to make things like DMCA's impossible or irrelevant. We are at a point where laws are hindrance and nuisance.
- jeffe 6y ago
  IPFS?

552 points by parsecs 6y ago

I wonder if this means "double jepoardy" is in play: once youtube gets this easily-dismissed lawsuit cleared away, no one can sue youtube again about state of DMCA takedowns on the site.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
dragonwriter 6y ago
> I wonder if this means “double jepoardy” is in play: once youtube gets this easily-dismissed lawsuit cleared away, no one can sue youtube again about state of DMCA takedowns on the site. No, because: (1) “Double jeopardy” applies to criminal charges only. (2) “Double jeopardy” applies to charges for conduct that is part of the same transaction, not a similar pattern of conduct carried out at different times against different people, much less suits whose similarity is that they are merely in the same broad category (“has something to do with how DMCA takedown notices are handled”.) As a general rule, you can’t lose the right to file a civil suit because of a lawsuit you didn’t participate in. (Class action might seem to be an exception, but class members are viewed as participants unless they opt out, so its technically not.)
- jcranmer 6y ago
  While double jeopardy itself only applies to criminal cases, there is a principle in civil cases that you can't litigate the same issue twice. In practice, this is much narrower than double jeopardy's rule in criminal cases, and comes even less close to applying here than double jeopardy would [were it to apply to civil cases].
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
naniwaduni 6y ago
Double jeopardy does not mean that, after being acquitted of your first murder, you're immune to prosecution for a subsequent killing spree.
- anotherman554 6y ago
  Though there is a dumb movie called "double jeopardy" where the premise is that it works that way.
  - zeroimpl 6y ago
    They were not acquitted for the first murder, they served the full sentence. Then later subsequently threatened to murder the same individual whom they had supposedly already murdered.
    - not2b 6y ago
      It's still stupid: they could be prosecuted for murder, because if they were wrongly convicted for a murder that allegedly happened in 2003, a murder that happened in 2020 would be a different offense, even if it's the same alleged victim.
      - em-bee 6y ago
        they should be tried again, but the sentence should be reduced by time served.
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      Yeah, DJ still doesn’t work that way. That would be a distinct offense (now, it would be inconsistent, since the same person can only be killed once), but just as there have been, IIRC, a few instances where multiple different people were convicted of murdering the same person (like, directly, not some of them under vicarious liability rules that allow someone other than the proximate killer to be convicted of the offenses) in different trials despite the fact that it is logically inconsistent that all of those convictions could be accurate, it is quite possible to be (wrongfully) convicted of murdering someone and then convicted (rightfully) later if you then actually murder them thinking that having been previously convicted of doing that would give you a free pass. The same evidence used against you in your second trial might be useful in getting any lasting legal consequences of your first convinction expunged and negated as a wrongful conviction, but that’s likely to be of limited value if you are convicted of the second crime (though it might be useful to negate three-strikes or other repeat-offense enhancements.)
parliament32 6y ago
Can you imagine if you got a robbery charge dismissed once, you'd be able to rob as many people as you wanted for the rest of your life?
Justsignedup 6y ago
DJ is for criminal situations, and only for specific instances. For example: If I am accused of killing a man, and I am proven innocent, I cannot be accused of killing THAT SPECIFIC MAN again. If I was to go and kill a man, I cannot claim "but I was already exonarated for killing a man". Because it is not the same crime. DJ is all about being prosecuted for _the same instance of a crime_ more than once. Not that once I broke a law, I cannot break it again in the future. This can apply to civil cases if a judge dismisses the case with prejudice, which means that this specific case cannot be put to trial again. Sometimes a judge dismisses the case without prejudice which indicates that the judge felt there was a case, but not enough supporting evidence yet. If a case is not resolved, it goes up the chain of courts, eventually a court may reject the case, in which case a lower court's ruling takes hold. If a case is resolved I cannot go to trial for that same case again. Nor can I use the exact same evidence for a new case. Or rather... I can but it will get dismissed with prejudice. There is technically nothing stopping me from filing cases against you which were already resolved to harass you. But after like 2 times my lawyer's license will be revoked and possibly I will have a case against me for obvious harassment forcing me to cover any legal expenses. Overall courts really really don't like it when you act in bad faith, even if not criminally.
- naniwaduni 6y ago
  Emphasizing "that specific man" is misleading. The only reason double jeopardy is likely to apply in this particularly situation is that most people don't generally die twice. For any other crime, you can most certainly be accused of perpetrating it upon a specific person multiple times.
- fatnoah 6y ago
  >I cannot be accused of killing THAT SPECIFIC MAN again Nitpick: It's actually that you can't be accused of the SPECIFIC INSTANCE of killing that man. I only say this because there was a movie with a plot of a husband faking his death and the wife being convicted for it. The movie implies that the wife could find and kill the guy and not be tried because she'd already been convicted of killing him. While only one person was murdered, it was the two separate acts of killing the person that are the offenses, so double jeopardy would not apply.

justinlink 6y ago

Prenda Law used a similar tactic when they uploaded films to pirate bay and then sued anyone who downloaded them. You can bet if Schneider loses the case, she'll be left holding the bag as Virgin Islands-based Pirate Monitor Ltd disappears. Creative folks who hire these law firms that specialize in pirate hunters or "monitoring" companies need to realize they have incentives to pirate your content to keep your business. And when you sue people off information they provided you, it's your name on the lawsuit. Sure you can try to sue the companies after you lose, but good luck with that.

runlevel1 6y ago
It was even shadier than that. They were also producing content solely to upload to The Pirate Bay and sue whoever downloaded it. After years of running the scheme and raking in millions, they finally got caught when a defense attorney noticed some oddities while trying to identify who Prenda was representing. The Prenda attorneys continued to be evasive about the identity of the complainant in court. Pulling that thread eventually unveiled their shenanigans. The judge then referred the Prenda attorneys to the US Attorney for criminal indictment. Two of the attorneys behind Prenda were convicted and sentenced last year: One for 5 years, the other for 14. [1][2] [1]: https://www.justice.gov/usao-mn/pr/florida-attorney-sentenced-60-months-prison-multi-million-dollar-pornography-film https://www.justice.gov/usao-mn/pr/florida-attorney-sentence... [2]: https://www.startribune.com/judge-throws-the-book-at-minneapolis-lawyer-who-ran-a-porn-trolling-scheme/511302022/?refresh=true https://www.startribune.com/judge-throws-the-book-at-minneap...
- imglorp 6y ago
  > Two of the attorneys behind Prenda were convicted and sentenced Thank you. A little heart warming sanity.
- freeflight 6y ago
  > They were also producing content solely to upload to The Pirate Bay and sue whoever downloaded it. In 2013 Germany had a pretty high-profile case where a company bought up the rights to some movies on RedTube and then proceeded to send out C&D letters to anybody who streamed them [0]. The situation was extra nasty due to the nature of the content: Getting caught watching porn is already embarassing enough for a lot of people to simply pay up and not pursue any legal means. [0] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urmann-Abmahnaff%C3%A4re https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urmann-Abmahnaff%C3%A4re

mensetmanusman 6y ago

This reminds me of something hilarious happening on Twitch that I recently learned from younger relatives. There are normal people on the game ‘Among Us’ playing copyrighted music into their mic, so that if a celebrity Twitch streamer gets too close to this individual there is a chance their account would get banned due to the DMCA. They are using DMCA as an in-game defensive aurora. Ha

dragonwriter 6y ago
> There are normal people on the game ‘Among Us’ playing copyrighted music into their mic, so that if a celebrity Twitch streamer gets too close to this individual there is a chance their account would get banned due to the DMCA. You mean “due to copyright law”. The DMCA doesn’t do anything to encourage the ban, it just stops Twitch from being liable for copyright infringement the moment the copyrighted content is on the stream at all.
- toast0 6y ago
  It's not really copyright law either, it's just Twitch's policy. DMCA provides a safe harbor for Twitch as long as they take down content in a timely fashion when notitified; they can put it back if counter-notified, and they don't have an obligation of prior restraint. They just don't want to deal with the hassle involved with accounts that get a lot of DMCA notices, so if you do, they kick you off.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    Fair point. My point was just that copyright law outside of the DMCA is the legal impetus here; the DMCA, if anything, weakens the incentives to a ban policy, it doesn’t create them.
- devwastaken 6y ago
  DMCA is the copyright law in question.
  - 6y ago

AdmiralAsshat 6y ago

Will be interesting to see how this pans out. A similar ploy was committed by the infamous Prenda Law firm, resulting in their eventual imprisonment: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/07/prenda-law-porn-troll-saga-ends-with-prison-for-founder/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/07/prenda-law-porn-...

cduzz 6y ago

I spent some time at a university and got to field DMCA complaints. Typically they'd list the file getting shared and a timestamp (often without a timezone) and the university IP/port. They never included their own IP address... Of course, the traffic was behind a firewall. I had the logs but wasn't about to accuse / punish anyone when there were a bunch of potential students behind any given complaint, and without the other end of the connection I couldn't identify which one for certain. Funny thing is they refused to give their source IP because they didn't trust us to not leak it to whatever pirates to put on a blocklist. But of course, I had their source IP because I had the network traffic. Were I in kahoots I'd have just listed all 5 of the possible snitching peers to the badguys. Shady and incompetent then, same now I guess.

mulmen 6y ago
I worked in tech support at my university and also handled this type of request. Typically just triage to the network team because they didn't give students access to the network logs. We had strict requirements on not exposing student data. On the other hand we had to minimize the University's risk. This meant at least a nastygram to the offending student. I think there was some kind of three strike system where students may get booted off the campus network. The whole setup was pretty slick back then so if that happened they really wouldn't be able to do anything. Like they wouldn't even be able to get a wired connection in the library. Was a pretty neat place to work actually. Still have fond memories. Buy me a beer some time and ask me about working phones and email in ~2007 after news was published that Sarah Palin attended the Univeristy.
- dmix 6y ago
  Punishing students that aggressively over DMCA requests sounds like a terrible idea. They are so easy to abuse. It also seems like it would affect their academic ability because they pirated a few movies. Who cares.
  - mulmen 6y ago
    We investigated each accusation and the strikes were only applied if the student was actually violating the terms of use of the network. Like actually pirating stuff. I forget what it took to lose network access but it wasn't something you could do on accident. Every "strike" would have included a warning. I mean they let us run Counter Strike servers out of our dorm rooms. It was a pretty relaxed environment really.

toast0 6y ago

> According to the Google-owned platform, the same IP address used to upload 'pirate' movies to the platform also sent DMCA notices targeting the same batch of content. Could be CGNAT? (I mean, it probably isn't, but IPv4 exhaustion is real!)

FireBeyond 6y ago
I wonder what ISP has customers in both Pakistan and Hungary...
- toast0 6y ago
  An ISP that recently bought IPs formerly used in Pakistan and Hungary (or is in one country and bought the other block), and IP location data hasn't updated yet.
indymike 6y ago
More likely a VPN endpoint.
sn_master 6y ago
They can look into more logs and check fingerprinting elements (screen resolution, browser, OS, time zone etc) and they'll very likely all match up. Timezone alone actually should be sufficient to convince most doubters.
- ckocagil 6y ago
  They can tell just by the first byte of the IP address. CGNAT addresses start with 100.
  - pstrateman 6y ago
    uhm CGNAT can be any ipv4 address edit: i realized you're talking about the internal private ip addresses which youtube cannot see... so still confused
6y ago

msla 6y ago

Now they'll have a huge come-to-Jesus moment about how IP addresses aren't sufficient to identify individuals.

im3w1l 6y ago

> one of the ‘RansomNova’ users that had been uploading clips via IP addresses in Pakistan logged into their YouTube account from a computer connected to the Internet via an IP address in Hungary Can someone parse this for me? Edit: A RansomNovaX-account was usually accessed from Pakistan ip. Then it was accessed from Hungarian ip. I kept trying to read it as "users that had been (uploading clips via IP addresses in Pakistan [while] logged into their YouTube account from a computer) connected to the Internet via an IP address in Hungary"

vineyardmike 6y ago
RansomNova is the pirate and "is in pakistan" Copyright owner is "in hungary", and uses a hungary IP address to file DMCA claim against video uploaded from RansomNova. RansomNova suddenly logs in (to their youtube account) from IP address used by copyright owner, at the same time. Therefore, RansomNova and CopyrightOwner are in same place at same time, using same IP address -> Somehow connected to each other -> Therefore bad faith DMCA claim.
- edmundsauto 6y ago
  Key context: the content in question was obscure Hungarian-language content being uploaded from Pakistan. There were also a series of accounts (RansomNova11, RansomNova12, etc) doing this. The intent seemed that if Youtube thought they were a "good" agent, they would have access to the automated takedown tools that YT reserves for the big players.
- pajko 6y ago
  Isn't it interesting that there appears to be somebody named "Ransom Nova" in Pakistan, studying computer science? https://www.linkedin.com/in/ransom-nova-73b214191/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/ransom-nova-73b214191/

ArtDev 6y ago

There are multiple good reasons to enable wifi guest network from home. It is nice thing to do; like in case someone gets in a car accident nearby and doesn't have cell coverage/service. I have mine throttled and they can't access the rest of home network. Having a guest network also means you are not liable if someone misuses it: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/08/open-wifi-and-copyright-liability-setting-record#:~:text=The%20truth%20is%20that%20no,with%20neighbors%20and%20passers%20by https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/08/open-wifi-and-copyrigh....

skinnymuch 6y ago
Will your ISP or whoever is suing really care? It’ll cost you too much to defend yourself, I’d think.
sn_master 6y ago
911 doesn't need cell coverage from your specific provider or even a SIM card to be in the phone. It'll use whatever cellular network is there. https://www.scienceabc.com/innovation/how-can-mobile-phones-make-emergency-calls-when-theres-no-network-coverage.html https://www.scienceabc.com/innovation/how-can-mobile-phones-... If that was your sole reason for having it enabled, you can turn it off now. Public places can easily claim its not them, but for a house I can imagine it can get tricky, specially if its long-term abuse by a neighbor. Case in point: https://www.registercitizen.com/news/article/Man-mistakenly-charged-with-child-porn-after-12077668.php https://www.registercitizen.com/news/article/Man-mistakenly-... The truth was found after all, but the loss of reputation and legal stress are not worth it, specially in your Good Samaritan scenario. As a side note, I like that almost all new cars will automatically call the police for you when they sense an accident, using built-in cellular systems.
- kiwijamo 6y ago
  This is not the case in all countries. I am aware that telcos in New Zealand, for example, will not accept emergency calls from phones that don't have a SIM card. However they will accept emergency calls from any phone with a valid SIM card.

cwkoss 6y ago

When an agent acting on behalf of an IP holder uploads that IP anywhere it should be legally construed as granting an implicit license to use that IP within the context of that upload.

gpm 6y ago
My memory is a bit hazy, but I think that was the conclusion in the Prenda Law case (same thing as in the title, but with porn and torrents).

sn_master 6y ago

What does "accessing content ID" mean? The article says they did all that to gain that access, but doesn't mention what is it or what do they gain by it.

ev1 6y ago
CMIIW, by being trustworthy enough to get access to content ID you can automate takedowns at will or demonetise videos at will instead of via reviewed DMCAs.
- sn_master 6y ago
  huh, now their YT username makes sense (RansomNova). the potential of extortion if they get that kind of power is incredible. Edit: Apparently its not the first time this has been abused https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190205/10064941534/youtubes-contentid-system-is-being-repurposed-blackmailers-due-to-failings.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190205/10064941534/youtu...

xg15 6y ago

Genuine question: How exactly do you get access to Content ID? Is there some kind of regular process or do you need to have a special partnership with Google?

SOLAR_FIELDS 6y ago
I don’t know how you would do it yourself as a layman, but the musicians in circles I follow use a vendor like HAAWK to manage their content ID related stuff.

williesleg 6y ago

I love hollywood

williesleg 6y ago

I love hollywood. They need more of my money.

aczerepinski 6y ago

Sort of off topic but this story is probably the only time we’ll see Maria on the front page of HN: I just want to point out that she’s a wonderful composer, and if you aren’t familiar you should check her out. (I wish she’d make it easier to do so though - if she’s going to work so hard to keep her music off digital platforms it would be nice if she’d release her albums on vinyl!)

visarga 6y ago

So maybe they and the seeders were both under the same DHCP? /s By the same logic nobody can be identified by IP alone.

piokoch 6y ago

Youtube is some kind of madman playground. I have created YT channel for my daughter's cello teacher, where I uploaded Dmitri Shostakovich "Prelude" played by them. A few moments later I've received information that this piece is "demonetized" (I wasn't even trying to monetize it) because part of this "song" is a copy of some other "song" owned by someone else. That other "song" was in no way related to the Prelude besides it was also played on two cellos. I've started some "dispute" process not because I am planning to earn money on this channel, but to somehow stop that idiocy that YT keeps pushing. If Google is using the same "AI" that was used to compare those movies for the purpose of matching ads with those who does not use ad block, I am really sorry for advertisers, who are paying money for this.

Natanael_L 6y ago
Their copyright bots have no understanding of what public domain is, all it understands is resemblance to copies of work that somebody else has uploaded and claimed copyright ownership of. Zero regards to the possibility of many people being able to legally create independent works that are derivatives of the same public domain work, without any one of them preventing others from creating new independent copies.
- koheripbal 6y ago
  Paired with that is that they simply don't care about small time uploaders of personal works. The system is designed to let major uploaders fight via a complicated process that they are familiar with and have somewhat automated participation in - ie Disney vs WB, etc... The system isn't designed to allow John Smith to appeal successfully.

aneutron 6y ago

Fun fact: The artist in question has been dead since 2011. The wording of the article, more specifically when it says: > Grammy award-winning musician Maria Schneider and Virgin Islands-based Pirate Monitor Ltd teamed up in the summer to file a class-action lawsuit against YouTube. It somehow led me to believe that the artist was being ... not nice, shall we say. But it turns out it's just the company then. Huh.

SuperGent 6y ago
I think you may have confused the musician [0] with the actress [1] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Schneider_(musician) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Schneider_(musician) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Schneider_(actress) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Schneider_(actress)
- aneutron 6y ago
  My mistake. I indeed did make that exact mistake. Thank you for correcting me.

endblacksea 6y ago

As long as underage. no porn or some illgeal. If study is so hard and still have not ao must penny on movies. I can help u out. Kenny-south-park. (Forget me not)

minusSeven 6y ago

I guess we sort of need a p2p content sharing platform that uses some kind of technology to make things like DMCA's impossible or irrelevant. We are at a point where laws are hindrance and nuisance.

jeffe 6y ago
IPFS?