13 ms·

Shopify files lawsuit over DMCA abuse

340 points by gslin 3y ago

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
asgerhb 3y ago
Good of a platform to stand up for their users against DMCA abuse. Obviously Shopify relies on credibility if they are to handle the business transactions of their customers, so it is a smart move. Though it may be costly for them. Wish certain other platforms would do the same, if not for every bogus claim, then at least to set a precedent.
- oniony 3y ago
  Let's not be too generous here. From the article it appears that: • An account with unverified credentials was allowed to make a substantial number of DCMA takedown requests without any kinds of checks or limits • Shopify had DMCA automation that either assumed guilt for each accusation or applied woefully inadequate heuristics in apllying them • The accused have access to appeal process that leaves them suspended and thus unable to operate their businesses in the Shopify market for two weeks • Shopify took legal action, not to protect their customers, but because reputational loss from the uproar their handling of this situation caused From my perspective, there are two parties at fault here: • The user that made this false takedown requests • Shopify for: • not doing due-dilgience on the user making them, • for automating the process with poorly tested and/or inadequate algorithms/heuristics, • for not promptly following up on appeals, leaving businesses unable to trade for an unreasonably long period of time If Shopify wish to aggressively automate to save costs (increase their own profits), then they should have a large enough team to handle appeals promptly, i.e. within 24 hours.
  - master-lincoln 3y ago
    agree, it's unfathomable to me how an unauthenticated user can just make shops go offline with a false claim. This should send a strong signal to shopify users to change to a provider that cares about all users, not just the aggregate numbers.
    - bryanrasmussen 3y ago
      Is shopify membership free? If not, you definitely can't require companies pay you to be able to make DMCA takedown notices. Oops, went and looked - it's not free. So that's why. Obviously a bug in the system there needs to be another tier for companies to make DMCA takedowns somehow, I bet someone there is working on that now. Bet it's not easy though. on edit: what I don't understand though, do other companies pay for shopify just to make takedown notices? Their pricing model and the wording of the article implies they do - that's weird. If I was a lawyer doing shopify takedown notices for my clients I'd get pissed.
    - mcherm 3y ago
      > it's unfathomable to me how an unauthenticated user can just make shops go offline with a false claim That behavior is strongly incentivized by US law (the DMCA), which holds Shopify liable for any copyright infringement by the shops on its site unless it performs takedowns in exactly this fashion. To be sure, the law does require the person or entity filing the complaint to attest "under penalty of perjury" that the accusation of copyright infringement is true. But I am not aware of any cases ever where someone was prosecuted for filing false DMCA claims. If this Shopify lawsuit were to hold the person submitting false claims liable for Shopify's expenses in handling the false claims, that might set a useful president.
      - SSLy 3y ago
        Is there no governmental IdP they could connect to for matching the DMCA's with real entities?
        Uvix 3y ago
        No, there is not.
      - M2Ys4U 3y ago
        >To be sure, the law does require the person or entity filing the complaint to attest "under penalty of perjury" that the accusation of copyright infringement is true. It doesn't. It requires them to attest under penalty of perjury that they are authorised to act on behalf the copyright holder, but not to the accuracy of the take-down claim.
  - yladiz 3y ago
    Isn't the onus on the provider (Shopify) to quickly respond to DMCA requests lest they are legally liable for the content on the platform? Let's say they completely manually responded to DMCA requests, for example, what is the amount of time they're allowed to take before responding - 24 hours, 7 days, 30 days?
    - oniony 3y ago
      I'm not suggesting they manually respond to DMCA requests. I'm saying that should they wish to automate the process, they should have a large enough team to handle the appeals from such an automated process promptly. A business being taken offline for two weeks without notice or recourse is unacceptable in my opinion. How many small businesses have the reserves to weather that? And even if they did, the stress of it happening again a week later, or the week after that?
      - paulgb 3y ago
        The DMCA requires that the material be restored “no less than ten days”[1] after receiving the counter-notice, to allow the person who filed the original takedown to file a suit to keep it down if they are serious. The penalty for the platform is that they lose their safe harbor; if a takedown has merit and they restore it before 10 days they could be sued too. I do wish platforms would go to bat for their users when a takedown was obviously fraudulent and restore the content immediately, but getting it wrong would be expensive. [1] https://www.aclu.org/documents/text-digital-millennium-copyright-act-dmca https://www.aclu.org/documents/text-digital-millennium-copyr...
  - ryanjshaw 3y ago
    Alternatively, the same law that created the takedown process should be amended to handle the requestor authentication process. It doesn't make sense that every company needs to duplicate these efforts.
  - tjoff 3y ago
    So Shopify does the same as youtube? Except youtube has not taken legal action on behalf of their users.
    - madeofpalk 3y ago
      See also, the time someone pretended to represent Bungie to get a bunch of videos taken down https://torrentfreak.com/bungie-files-lawsuit-to-punish-senders-of-fake-destiny-dmca-notices-220328/ https://torrentfreak.com/bungie-files-lawsuit-to-punish-send... https://torrentfreak.com/bungie-vs-fake-dmca-notices-google-refuses-to-hand-over-user-data-220407/ https://torrentfreak.com/bungie-vs-fake-dmca-notices-google-... https://torrentfreak.com/digital-trails-how-bungie-identified-a-mass-sender-of-fake-dmca-notices-220624/ https://torrentfreak.com/digital-trails-how-bungie-identifie... https://torrentfreak.com/bungies-7-7m-lawsuit-vs-dmca-fraudster-set-for-jury-trial-in-2024-230101/ https://torrentfreak.com/bungies-7-7m-lawsuit-vs-dmca-frauds...
  - friendzis 3y ago
    The DMCA takedown process is broken as it misaligns incentives. It should be a challenge-response based, with statistics counted: Rights holder claims IP violation -> content uploader challenges the claim -> IP owner challenges the counter-challenge -> governmental agency steps in -> elevated number of unfavorable judgements result in legal action. The current process places very little disincentive to place bogus claims, because very few content uploaders gain enough from content distribution to challenge the claim in a court of law and put possible perjury to the test, especially in non-obvious situations. The modified process still places incentives to file claims out of judicial system, however it places disincentive on submitting bogus claims. Claims can still be submitted by automated systems, but presence of counter-claim incentivizes detection quality as drop in automated detection quality is automatically balanced by increased manual review cost, which is in turn balanced by risk of losing access to the quick process itself. Such system still incentivizes finding mutual agreement out of judicial system while protecting those willing to challenge on both ends.
blueflow 3y ago
I wish some people from non-western countries would step up and file more fraudulent DMCA notices. Preferably from Russia or China, where they are out of reach for a western court. The current DMCA system needs to learn some defenses against misuse.
- vasco 3y ago
  They have defenses. I invite you to go and try to send a DMCA takedown request for any of the videos on this channel https://youtube.com/@therecordingindustryassoci7122 https://youtube.com/@therecordingindustryassoci7122 and tell me if your request gets denied or if the video actually goes down for a few hours. Reverse the roles and you get an insta-takedown.
  - madeofpalk 3y ago
    I would imagine the music industry largely doesn't file DMCA notices on YouTube. YouTube has an additional layer on top (Content ID), through agreements with music, tv, and movie industry, to automatically flag supposedly offending material so it can be 'acted on' without anyone needing to file a DMCA notice (or Youtube get sued even more).
    - jadbox 3y ago
      That's an incorrect assumption. There's large volumes of music content that slips through content-id regularly that is then manually flagged (sometimes years after uploading). However the quantity is overall less for music than it is for protected video content takedowns.
- paulgb 3y ago
  The current system is incredibly one-sided. I had a company remove a video that was saying negative things about it with a fraudulent takedown. It eventually went back up, but they were able to keep it offline for 10+ days and I had no recourse. I wish the free speech caucus realized how it can be weaponized to suppress speech. Sometimes I wish someone would DMCA a bunch of congressional campaign ads, because if pols realized how one-sided and ripe for abuse the system is they might actually fix it.
jwsteigerwalt 3y ago
How about narrowing their intake of DMCA notices to certified mail? That ~$5 tax would go a log way to eliminate fraud.
- jeromegv 3y ago
  Shopify is ecommerce. A competitor that wants to bring another website down can gain millions of dollars. So $5 is irrelevant here.
  - acomjean 3y ago
    Sending certified would require the sender to be Ided and not be anonymous. It would also probably be mail fraud to submit a bogus claim. Though there is a balance here that needs to be found. I still find it a little wierd that those takedowns are sent to shops. What copyright are the shops violating?
    - MerelyMortal 3y ago
      > Sending certified would require the sender to be Ided and not be anonymous. I sent a certified letter a few weeks ago and was not required to show ID.
    - hiatus 3y ago
      > Sending certified would require the sender to be Ided and not be anonymous. Sending certified mail in the United States absolutely does not require showing any identification at all. You can even do it all online.
      - pixl97 3y ago
        I'd be very wary of committing a potential fraudulent action over certified mail itself. Doing so will allow an entirely different police force to investigate you, and one that may be much more willing to investigate if the victim brings a claim you're committing fraudulent actions via the postal service.
- deleted 3y ago
bubblethink 3y ago
>Through discovery, Shopify hopes to identify the John Doe and hold them responsible for the recent wave of DMCA abuse. This sounds quite bizzare. Is this a DMCA feature or just Shopify's sloppiness ? How did they act upon DMCA notices without even knowing the identity of the claimant ?
- chatmasta 3y ago
  Claimants don't need to provide any sort of identity documents. This is a common path of harassment on YouTube for example - make a fake email and submit a DMCA against someone's channel.
  - LelouBil 3y ago
    That seems horrible
    - bombcar 3y ago
      It’s even worse. If you have an anonymous YouTube channel, I could file a false DCMA claim against you, unauthenticated, and if you want to counter it you have to dox yourself to me (or hire legal counsel to act as your agent and be doxed instead).
  - phpisthebest 3y ago
    That is not part of the law, and infact the legal requirement to submit a DMCA take down is to affirm under penalty of perjury that you own the copyright or are authorized to act on behalf of the owner paragraph 3A(vi) requires: A statement that the information in the notification is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, that the complaining party is authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly in-fringed. This would then necessitate some kind of identity confirmation, the fact these companies for their own expedient and costs have implemented an easily abused system because "scale" and over reliance on automated systems
    - jmholla 3y ago
account42 3y ago
> Shopify says that it’s not feasible for the company to investigate the validity of all takedown notices in detail. As such, these false claims resulted in actual removals and the affected stores also received strikes on their accounts. Strikes are not part of the DMCA but something Shopify has chosen to add themselves. The DMCA does not require any account termination at all. Perhaps they should focus on fixing that first in order to protect innocent merchants.
- jkaplowitz 3y ago
  Untrue. Service providers that wish to benefit from the DMCA liability safe harbor must indeed have policies in place to terminate repeat infringers, and must reasonably implement those policies (so not just written policies they ignore). Source: 17 USC 512(i)(1)(A) https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/512 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/512 Of course, these policies are not required by the law to count fake infringement claims toward the evaluation of whether a user is a repeat infringer, even though many do. So Shopify could add a “was this legit?” element to their repeat infringer policy in order to mostly or entirely negate the impact of fake claims, possibly with human review before termination. That’s more work than most companies at their scale want to put into making sure their strike system is equitable.
  - tehwebguy 3y ago
    Maybe we need a provision of labels Shopify a repeat offender and as a result disallows their automated DMCA processing? YouTube too!
  - account42 3y ago
    Interesting. Notice that 17 USC 512(i)(1)(A) calls for termination of repeat infringers but the rest of the law is careful to talk about alleged infringers. How is a service provider supposed to determine which of the alleged infringements were actually infringements?
    - jkaplowitz 3y ago
Lentor 3y ago
The problem with Shopify is that literally anyone can open a fake account and submit a DMCA to take down any competitor. Check how basic their form is >> https://help.shopify.com/en/legal/dmca#/form https://help.shopify.com/en/legal/dmca#/form We've been harassed by the same scammer that placed 7 fake DMCA over the past 2 weeks and Shopify automatically removes you content with zero check. That dude just mentioned the product pages he wanted and used totally irrelevant links as a source for what he claims was the original content even a .xyz domain. Shopify support does absolutely nothing even if you send them 20 emails. Hundreds of legit businesses are affected by this loophole exploited by scammers. See https://twitter.com/hashtag/FixShopifyDMCA?src=hashtag_click https://twitter.com/hashtag/FixShopifyDMCA?src=hashtag_click
- jakewins 3y ago
  What does the scammer get out of it, is it a way to “take over” someone else’s order flow by being the sole supplier of some good?
  - jermaustin1 3y ago
    Not a scammer, per se, but a competitor. Easier to compete when the other products have all been taken down.
  - c0wb0yc0d3r 3y ago
    That is the benefit I see. The scammer is eliminating the competition.
  - Lentor 3y ago
    take down competition
  - threeseed 3y ago
    There are many people who make their livelihood by drop-shipping products from China. Since the products are identical the only way of succeeding is being the store that the customer sees first. Some invest heavily into SEO/Paid Ads. Others try and harm competition like the DCMA requests and leaving negative reviews. But one thing I've seen first hand is that the competition is brutal. Everyone just steals website content, images, marketing material etc from the competitors. Whatever they can do to get ahead.
Lentor 3y ago
We've been affected by these fake DMCA for one months now and there is ZERO support from Shopify. (thanks to the OP for shedding light on this situation) Running a business through Shopify has become very risky these days. We are now working on transferring our online stores to Woocommerce where it is far more difficult to get your content removed with bogus DMCA. Picture the situation to understand the Nightmare: 1) You are driving paid traffic to a product page with good ROAS because your ads are optimized after months. 2) Then the competitor submits a fake DMCA 3) Your page is content is removed automatically by Shopify (no check on their end) 4) Your optimized ads are now directing customers to an empty page 5) Then you risk having your ads accounts flagged You might think you could just redirect the url to a duplicate? That would be a great solution indeed. BUT 6) The competitor is monitoring your product page and immediately submits another fake DMCA 7) You redirect again 8) Then another fake DMCA Now WAIT for the cherry on the Cake. 9) After 4 or 5 fake DMCA, you Shopify account admin is locked 10) You may even get suspended automatically by shopify 11) Then you can no longer fulfill your orders from customers 12) Then your customers start making chargebacks 13) Then the payments processors on which you've built a reputation over the years can suspend you 14) Shopify (zero)support asks you to reply to the DMCA with a counter notice and WAIT for the Trust & Safety Team to get back to you 15) Then you receive an auto reply from them telling you that the other party has been informed and that you may repost your content in 2 weeks unless the scammer has filed a court action. 16) Then after 2 weeks, you repost your content 17) Then the same or the next day, the same scammer (watching you like a hawk) issues another fake DMCA for the same product page through the same fake account. ISN'T IT BEAUTIFUL? ** Shopify could literrally STOP 80% of these false DMCA by just adding a field on their rudimentory form: asking to verify a phone number or upload an ID but NO, that seems to be a task too Challenging for a billion dollar company like Shopify
- schappim 3y ago
  This is not good enough. I wonder if they'll backflip on "Shopify is replacing customer service with AI chatbots"[1]. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/stocks/comments/153z5r7/shopify_is_replacing_customer_service_with_ai/ https://www.reddit.com/r/stocks/comments/153z5r7/shopify_is_...
- archerx 3y ago
jrochkind1 3y ago
I absolutely applaud Shoppify for filing this suit, it's great, doesn't happen enough. But a question: > The strikes will be removed if the merchant files a successful counternotice, but those can take up to two weeks to process. Is there any legal reason acting on the counternotice can't be as quick and automatic as acting on the initial DMCA claim? It seems like this is something Shoppify could do to help, that is completely under their control. Why should processing the counternotice take two weeks? Or is this a legal issue in the DMCA process, that a lag is required here?
- RevEng 3y ago
  It is supposed to be instant. It's a notice and notice system. One party claims infringement, hosting takes it down. Other party counters that it's legit, hosting puts it back up. With both parties having given legal statements, the claimant can proceed to sue the defendant. But it never works out this way because this system wasn't intended to protect individuals, but rather large media groups. Record labels and movie studios didn't want their stuff easily copied. Hosting companies don't fear the wrath of an individual, but they do fear a multi billion dollar corporation. So they respond instantly and automatically to takedown notices, but are hesitant to put back anything based on a counter notice, lest the claimant - likely a large corporation or their agent - decides to take them to court for continuing to make it available. Etsy takes this one step further and straight up doesn't implement the DMCA. Instead, they take copyright infringement notices and make that an automatic take down and strike. There is no counter notice option at all. As the defendant, you are told to contact the claimant and convince them to reverse the claim. Which of course they will never do no matter how good of a case you can make for it. In the mean time, your store gets shut down and any money still in your account is frozen. Ask Etsy what to do and you'll get one automatic reply followed by radio silence forever. I lost two years of work building up my first store and had to start another from the ground up.
  - jrochkind1 3y ago
    So sounds like Shoppify should make the counternotice take effect instanteously. Elsewhere in this thread people are posting that they are leaving shoppify because fake DMCA takedowns are such a problem. So this is clearly self-interested on Shoppify's part. The lawsuit against the John Doe is a good thing, but it's more just an announcement of intent, they haven't even found the guy yet! Making the counternotices instantaneous, as the notices are, would remove a huge chunk of the harm here to shoppify's customers, no? > but are hesitant to put back anything based on a counter notice, lest the claimant - likely a large corporation or their agent - decides to take them to court for continuing to make it available. This is weird, as they scrupulously followed the DCMA, and should be immune from such suits, right? Of course, anyone can sue for anything, but if they put it back up only after a counter-notice, a judge should throw out a suit pretty quick, no? The whole point of the DMCA is that hosts are not liable if they have adhered to it, and putting something back up after a proper counternotice is adhering to it. This is the way, Shoppify.
tlogan 3y ago
DMCA abuse is rampant all over the net. The main problem is that companies like Shopify have implemented these DMCA processes very sloppily, and as the recession continues, there are fewer resources available for making improvements and fixing it. The recession also provides more incentive for bad actors to misuse DMCA as a way to gain an advantage over their competition. So it is a vicious circle all over the net.
mcv 3y ago
It seems to me that DMCA abuse is far more harmful than the copyright infringement it intends to fight. At the very least, DMCA takedown notices should only be accepted from verified, existing people, and not from anonymous accounts. And then those verified people need to be held accountable for any abuse.
- SAI_Peregrinus 3y ago
  The DMCA requires that you assert you own the copyright on some work (under penalty of perjury), and also that some other work infringes on that (no penalty at all). Adding liability in the case that the work is found not to be infringing, including substantial punitive damages paid to the accused (covering their time, emotional distress of being targeted by a lawsuit, attorney fees, and some amount extra) and the hosting provider (for wasting their time), would be a good reform.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    The DMCA arguably did not envision mass, often false, takedown requests. The problem with substantial punitive damages however is that you will have people who do legit requests that are determined to be false per haps by algorithms. (Or that are in some gray area.) >damages paid to the accused (covering their time, emotional distress of being targeted by a lawsuit, attorney fees, and some amount extra) Now you're talking fining people thousands of dollars even though they may have been in the right.
    - SAI_Peregrinus 3y ago
      No, I'm talking about fining people thousands of dollars after being found guilty of falsely accusing others of infringement.
  - bityard 3y ago
    Okay, yes, but essentially all abusive takedown requests are filed under a false name altogether, or by scummy law firms adept at hiding the people who actually run them. So, if you are the victim of a fake takedown request, either you are not going to find them because they don't exist, or if they do exist, they are beyond your reach. There is no means to enforce this penalty unless your opponent decides to by the rules. (Spoiler: they won't.)
exshop 3y ago
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gravitronic 3y ago
Sad no major platform implemented step two of the DMCA process as it was written in law (as far as I remember): The subject of the DMCA takedown can appeal and then the original filer has a time period where they can escalate to a court case or drop it.
throwaway85858 3y ago
Talking about shopify has anyone seen a worse careers page than this? https://www.shopify.com/careers/disciplines/engineering https://www.shopify.com/careers/disciplines/engineering
liminal 3y ago
Shouldn't the person/org filing the take down notice be required to prove they own the copyright they allege is being infringed?
flokie 3y ago
requiring a telephone contact (SMS verification or code from robocall) would provide enough sufficiency in scaring the perps to probably solve 90%+ of these.
sandworm101 3y ago
Be very careful. The DMCA is bad but at least the internet actually functions. We can all hate on it and propose ideas to improve it but most proposed changes (actual proposed law rather than forum posts) in the last few decades have been truly horrific. Most wanted to expand the DMCA's approach to other areas such as DNS. COICA, PROTECT IP, E-PARACITE, SOPA ... these evil ideas are just waiting to fill the void should anyone reopen the DMCA. And they will probably add language to make all online open for "inspection" by copyright holders, yet another attempt to outlaw proper encryption.
RecycledEle 3y ago
1. Shopify just admitted gross negligence in issuing 52 strikes. If it were Shopify's tail on the line, they would build automated tools to do things like compare all images posted on their site to those found online - there are search engines to do this. Then they would consider those results when looking into a DMCA notice. 2. Good for Shopify for suing these fraudsters. I wish we had been successful in going after fraudster and US Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison who shut down everyone who ran against her with phony DMCA notices.
altairprime 3y ago
Interesting that Shopify clearly documents the cost when moderation isn’t externalized to either ML/AI or underpaid contractors: > Shopify launched an investigation and the company ultimately restored all items and removed all strikes, but that came at significant cost. “Those efforts cost Shopify tens of thousands of dollars in personnel time and resources. “Dozens” is legalese for [x>12; x<151], so Shopify is suggesting a cost of moderation per single DMCA of “tens of thousands” / “a hundred or so” = “tens of tens or so”, which is “hundreds of dollars per request” in plain language. So, if Shopify is placing the cost of actually considering a DMCA notice — as opposed to just machine-processing it like any other bigcorp — then that explains a lot about modern bigcorp account closures. They would rather lose your business to a false positive, than risk owing a process that costs $X00 per “please reconsider, here is my evidence” request from a customer. This also makes it possible to estimate the potential cost in “risk of exposure” SEC filing terms for any proposed law that compels providers to 1) explain algorithmic decisions, 2) process appeals with human beings.
mvdtnz 3y ago
> Shopify says that it’s not feasible for the company to investigate the validity of all takedown notices in detail. As such, these false claims resulted in actual removals and the affected stores also received strikes on their accounts. Excuse my language but that is 100% bullshit. If it's not feasible for you to investigate these claims before kicking your own customers out then it's not feasible for your business to exist. Investigating these claims before acting on them should be considered a cost of doing business.
- bdw5204 3y ago
  The fault here lies with the US government for passing an easily abused law like the DMCA where there are woefully insufficient consequences for fraudulent takedown requests and where fighting fraudulent takedowns requires you to dox yourself to the individual committing DMCA fraud. I can't blame businesses for not having sufficient staff to investigate takedown fraud when any business that did would probably be uncompetitive given how easy it is to send fraudulent takedowns and how much time and money it costs to investigate them. Most customers would almost certainly rather accept the risk of being the victim of a fraudulent DMCA takedown than pay extra to avoid it, in part because most people probably don't understand how easy it is to abuse the DMCA.
- jnsie 3y ago
  I agree in principal but I think it depends on the process to submit DMCA takedown requests. If it's trivially easy to abuse this system then I don't think it's fair for the burden to fall on the company (note: in general I'm pro-consumer, not pro-corporation).
- skeaker 3y ago
  This is a very easy position to take when you are not familiar with the scale of the task at hand. You have 10,000 reports come in every day. How do you get through them? One person won't do, so you will need a team. Who will you hire? Are they educated in copyright law? Hiring people with that sort of education for something as rote as content moderation will be difficult and take a long time (and probably cost a lot), so good luck. Are they interns and people with no related education hired for low wages? Great, now you have a team, but it seems that reports are being mishandled and copyrighted content is getting through. Legal liability is on the line and a PR disaster is brewing. We need to reign in these minimum wage moderators. Where do we go from here? Moderator-moderators who validate the validation from the moderators? Now we're back to where we started. And who will validate them? Etc, etc...
nerdo 3y ago
John Doe, Sacha Go, Sacha Ghosh. Is 'John Doe' wrongspeak now? I haven't heard this usage.
- rideontime 3y ago
  > Starting on October 5, an unknown person created the account “Sacha Go” which was subsequently used to file dozens of DMCA takedown requests.
thrownaway561 3y ago
Honestly the whole DCMA takedown is worthless. They should just require a legal form of identification like a driver license, a credit card that matches the drive and a phone number. Problem solved. Any violations result in a federal fine of 100K. You would see this stuff stop real quick. There is no reason for the anonymity of a takedown.
freedomben 3y ago
I'm glad they're taking some action, but how about using some of that big business money and lawyers to try to get the law changed? Why haven't some of the big companies gotten together to lobby for fixing the law so it can't be abused so easily? I get that the rights holders are much, much more powerful and have many, many more lobbyists, but with enough funding we could do public-facing ad campaigns and start trying to raise awareness for the general public.
anon373839 3y ago
The DMCA is very broken. It needs to be amended to disincentivize frivolous claims, and to require that claims be processed manually by trained staff. Automation should not be permitted in this area. If that means some internet giants need to scale down to be able to service their accounts properly, that wouldn’t be a bad outcome.
BarbaraStencel 3y ago
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340 points by gslin 3y ago

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

Good of a platform to stand up for their users against DMCA abuse. Obviously Shopify relies on credibility if they are to handle the business transactions of their customers, so it is a smart move. Though it may be costly for them. Wish certain other platforms would do the same, if not for every bogus claim, then at least to set a precedent.

oniony 3y ago
Let's not be too generous here. From the article it appears that: • An account with unverified credentials was allowed to make a substantial number of DCMA takedown requests without any kinds of checks or limits • Shopify had DMCA automation that either assumed guilt for each accusation or applied woefully inadequate heuristics in apllying them • The accused have access to appeal process that leaves them suspended and thus unable to operate their businesses in the Shopify market for two weeks • Shopify took legal action, not to protect their customers, but because reputational loss from the uproar their handling of this situation caused From my perspective, there are two parties at fault here: • The user that made this false takedown requests • Shopify for: • not doing due-dilgience on the user making them, • for automating the process with poorly tested and/or inadequate algorithms/heuristics, • for not promptly following up on appeals, leaving businesses unable to trade for an unreasonably long period of time If Shopify wish to aggressively automate to save costs (increase their own profits), then they should have a large enough team to handle appeals promptly, i.e. within 24 hours.
- master-lincoln 3y ago
  agree, it's unfathomable to me how an unauthenticated user can just make shops go offline with a false claim. This should send a strong signal to shopify users to change to a provider that cares about all users, not just the aggregate numbers.
  - bryanrasmussen 3y ago
    Is shopify membership free? If not, you definitely can't require companies pay you to be able to make DMCA takedown notices. Oops, went and looked - it's not free. So that's why. Obviously a bug in the system there needs to be another tier for companies to make DMCA takedowns somehow, I bet someone there is working on that now. Bet it's not easy though. on edit: what I don't understand though, do other companies pay for shopify just to make takedown notices? Their pricing model and the wording of the article implies they do - that's weird. If I was a lawyer doing shopify takedown notices for my clients I'd get pissed.
  - mcherm 3y ago
    > it's unfathomable to me how an unauthenticated user can just make shops go offline with a false claim That behavior is strongly incentivized by US law (the DMCA), which holds Shopify liable for any copyright infringement by the shops on its site unless it performs takedowns in exactly this fashion. To be sure, the law does require the person or entity filing the complaint to attest "under penalty of perjury" that the accusation of copyright infringement is true. But I am not aware of any cases ever where someone was prosecuted for filing false DMCA claims. If this Shopify lawsuit were to hold the person submitting false claims liable for Shopify's expenses in handling the false claims, that might set a useful president.
    - SSLy 3y ago
      Is there no governmental IdP they could connect to for matching the DMCA's with real entities?
      - Uvix 3y ago
        No, there is not.
    - M2Ys4U 3y ago
      >To be sure, the law does require the person or entity filing the complaint to attest "under penalty of perjury" that the accusation of copyright infringement is true. It doesn't. It requires them to attest under penalty of perjury that they are authorised to act on behalf the copyright holder, but not to the accuracy of the take-down claim.
- yladiz 3y ago
  Isn't the onus on the provider (Shopify) to quickly respond to DMCA requests lest they are legally liable for the content on the platform? Let's say they completely manually responded to DMCA requests, for example, what is the amount of time they're allowed to take before responding - 24 hours, 7 days, 30 days?
  - oniony 3y ago
    I'm not suggesting they manually respond to DMCA requests. I'm saying that should they wish to automate the process, they should have a large enough team to handle the appeals from such an automated process promptly. A business being taken offline for two weeks without notice or recourse is unacceptable in my opinion. How many small businesses have the reserves to weather that? And even if they did, the stress of it happening again a week later, or the week after that?
    - paulgb 3y ago
      The DMCA requires that the material be restored “no less than ten days”[1] after receiving the counter-notice, to allow the person who filed the original takedown to file a suit to keep it down if they are serious. The penalty for the platform is that they lose their safe harbor; if a takedown has merit and they restore it before 10 days they could be sued too. I do wish platforms would go to bat for their users when a takedown was obviously fraudulent and restore the content immediately, but getting it wrong would be expensive. [1] https://www.aclu.org/documents/text-digital-millennium-copyright-act-dmca https://www.aclu.org/documents/text-digital-millennium-copyr...
- ryanjshaw 3y ago
  Alternatively, the same law that created the takedown process should be amended to handle the requestor authentication process. It doesn't make sense that every company needs to duplicate these efforts.
- tjoff 3y ago
  So Shopify does the same as youtube? Except youtube has not taken legal action on behalf of their users.
  - madeofpalk 3y ago
    See also, the time someone pretended to represent Bungie to get a bunch of videos taken down https://torrentfreak.com/bungie-files-lawsuit-to-punish-senders-of-fake-destiny-dmca-notices-220328/ https://torrentfreak.com/bungie-files-lawsuit-to-punish-send... https://torrentfreak.com/bungie-vs-fake-dmca-notices-google-refuses-to-hand-over-user-data-220407/ https://torrentfreak.com/bungie-vs-fake-dmca-notices-google-... https://torrentfreak.com/digital-trails-how-bungie-identified-a-mass-sender-of-fake-dmca-notices-220624/ https://torrentfreak.com/digital-trails-how-bungie-identifie... https://torrentfreak.com/bungies-7-7m-lawsuit-vs-dmca-fraudster-set-for-jury-trial-in-2024-230101/ https://torrentfreak.com/bungies-7-7m-lawsuit-vs-dmca-frauds...
- friendzis 3y ago
  The DMCA takedown process is broken as it misaligns incentives. It should be a challenge-response based, with statistics counted: Rights holder claims IP violation -> content uploader challenges the claim -> IP owner challenges the counter-challenge -> governmental agency steps in -> elevated number of unfavorable judgements result in legal action. The current process places very little disincentive to place bogus claims, because very few content uploaders gain enough from content distribution to challenge the claim in a court of law and put possible perjury to the test, especially in non-obvious situations. The modified process still places incentives to file claims out of judicial system, however it places disincentive on submitting bogus claims. Claims can still be submitted by automated systems, but presence of counter-claim incentivizes detection quality as drop in automated detection quality is automatically balanced by increased manual review cost, which is in turn balanced by risk of losing access to the quick process itself. Such system still incentivizes finding mutual agreement out of judicial system while protecting those willing to challenge on both ends.

blueflow 3y ago

I wish some people from non-western countries would step up and file more fraudulent DMCA notices. Preferably from Russia or China, where they are out of reach for a western court. The current DMCA system needs to learn some defenses against misuse.

vasco 3y ago
They have defenses. I invite you to go and try to send a DMCA takedown request for any of the videos on this channel https://youtube.com/@therecordingindustryassoci7122 https://youtube.com/@therecordingindustryassoci7122 and tell me if your request gets denied or if the video actually goes down for a few hours. Reverse the roles and you get an insta-takedown.
- madeofpalk 3y ago
  I would imagine the music industry largely doesn't file DMCA notices on YouTube. YouTube has an additional layer on top (Content ID), through agreements with music, tv, and movie industry, to automatically flag supposedly offending material so it can be 'acted on' without anyone needing to file a DMCA notice (or Youtube get sued even more).
  - jadbox 3y ago
    That's an incorrect assumption. There's large volumes of music content that slips through content-id regularly that is then manually flagged (sometimes years after uploading). However the quantity is overall less for music than it is for protected video content takedowns.
paulgb 3y ago
The current system is incredibly one-sided. I had a company remove a video that was saying negative things about it with a fraudulent takedown. It eventually went back up, but they were able to keep it offline for 10+ days and I had no recourse. I wish the free speech caucus realized how it can be weaponized to suppress speech. Sometimes I wish someone would DMCA a bunch of congressional campaign ads, because if pols realized how one-sided and ripe for abuse the system is they might actually fix it.

jwsteigerwalt 3y ago

How about narrowing their intake of DMCA notices to certified mail? That ~$5 tax would go a log way to eliminate fraud.

jeromegv 3y ago
Shopify is ecommerce. A competitor that wants to bring another website down can gain millions of dollars. So $5 is irrelevant here.
- acomjean 3y ago
  Sending certified would require the sender to be Ided and not be anonymous. It would also probably be mail fraud to submit a bogus claim. Though there is a balance here that needs to be found. I still find it a little wierd that those takedowns are sent to shops. What copyright are the shops violating?
  - MerelyMortal 3y ago
    > Sending certified would require the sender to be Ided and not be anonymous. I sent a certified letter a few weeks ago and was not required to show ID.
  - hiatus 3y ago
    > Sending certified would require the sender to be Ided and not be anonymous. Sending certified mail in the United States absolutely does not require showing any identification at all. You can even do it all online.
    - pixl97 3y ago
      I'd be very wary of committing a potential fraudulent action over certified mail itself. Doing so will allow an entirely different police force to investigate you, and one that may be much more willing to investigate if the victim brings a claim you're committing fraudulent actions via the postal service.
deleted 3y ago

bubblethink 3y ago

>Through discovery, Shopify hopes to identify the John Doe and hold them responsible for the recent wave of DMCA abuse. This sounds quite bizzare. Is this a DMCA feature or just Shopify's sloppiness ? How did they act upon DMCA notices without even knowing the identity of the claimant ?

chatmasta 3y ago
Claimants don't need to provide any sort of identity documents. This is a common path of harassment on YouTube for example - make a fake email and submit a DMCA against someone's channel.
- LelouBil 3y ago
  That seems horrible
  - bombcar 3y ago
    It’s even worse. If you have an anonymous YouTube channel, I could file a false DCMA claim against you, unauthenticated, and if you want to counter it you have to dox yourself to me (or hire legal counsel to act as your agent and be doxed instead).
- phpisthebest 3y ago
  That is not part of the law, and infact the legal requirement to submit a DMCA take down is to affirm under penalty of perjury that you own the copyright or are authorized to act on behalf of the owner paragraph 3A(vi) requires: A statement that the information in the notification is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, that the complaining party is authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly in-fringed. This would then necessitate some kind of identity confirmation, the fact these companies for their own expedient and costs have implemented an easily abused system because "scale" and over reliance on automated systems
  - jmholla 3y ago

account42 3y ago

> Shopify says that it’s not feasible for the company to investigate the validity of all takedown notices in detail. As such, these false claims resulted in actual removals and the affected stores also received strikes on their accounts. Strikes are not part of the DMCA but something Shopify has chosen to add themselves. The DMCA does not require any account termination at all. Perhaps they should focus on fixing that first in order to protect innocent merchants.

jkaplowitz 3y ago
Untrue. Service providers that wish to benefit from the DMCA liability safe harbor must indeed have policies in place to terminate repeat infringers, and must reasonably implement those policies (so not just written policies they ignore). Source: 17 USC 512(i)(1)(A) https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/512 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/512 Of course, these policies are not required by the law to count fake infringement claims toward the evaluation of whether a user is a repeat infringer, even though many do. So Shopify could add a “was this legit?” element to their repeat infringer policy in order to mostly or entirely negate the impact of fake claims, possibly with human review before termination. That’s more work than most companies at their scale want to put into making sure their strike system is equitable.
- tehwebguy 3y ago
  Maybe we need a provision of labels Shopify a repeat offender and as a result disallows their automated DMCA processing? YouTube too!
- account42 3y ago
  Interesting. Notice that 17 USC 512(i)(1)(A) calls for termination of repeat infringers but the rest of the law is careful to talk about alleged infringers. How is a service provider supposed to determine which of the alleged infringements were actually infringements?
  - jkaplowitz 3y ago

Lentor 3y ago

The problem with Shopify is that literally anyone can open a fake account and submit a DMCA to take down any competitor. Check how basic their form is >> https://help.shopify.com/en/legal/dmca#/form https://help.shopify.com/en/legal/dmca#/form We've been harassed by the same scammer that placed 7 fake DMCA over the past 2 weeks and Shopify automatically removes you content with zero check. That dude just mentioned the product pages he wanted and used totally irrelevant links as a source for what he claims was the original content even a .xyz domain. Shopify support does absolutely nothing even if you send them 20 emails. Hundreds of legit businesses are affected by this loophole exploited by scammers. See https://twitter.com/hashtag/FixShopifyDMCA?src=hashtag_click https://twitter.com/hashtag/FixShopifyDMCA?src=hashtag_click

jakewins 3y ago
What does the scammer get out of it, is it a way to “take over” someone else’s order flow by being the sole supplier of some good?
- jermaustin1 3y ago
  Not a scammer, per se, but a competitor. Easier to compete when the other products have all been taken down.
- c0wb0yc0d3r 3y ago
  That is the benefit I see. The scammer is eliminating the competition.
- Lentor 3y ago
  take down competition
- threeseed 3y ago
  There are many people who make their livelihood by drop-shipping products from China. Since the products are identical the only way of succeeding is being the store that the customer sees first. Some invest heavily into SEO/Paid Ads. Others try and harm competition like the DCMA requests and leaving negative reviews. But one thing I've seen first hand is that the competition is brutal. Everyone just steals website content, images, marketing material etc from the competitors. Whatever they can do to get ahead.

Lentor 3y ago

We've been affected by these fake DMCA for one months now and there is ZERO support from Shopify. (thanks to the OP for shedding light on this situation) Running a business through Shopify has become very risky these days. We are now working on transferring our online stores to Woocommerce where it is far more difficult to get your content removed with bogus DMCA. Picture the situation to understand the Nightmare: 1) You are driving paid traffic to a product page with good ROAS because your ads are optimized after months. 2) Then the competitor submits a fake DMCA 3) Your page is content is removed automatically by Shopify (no check on their end) 4) Your optimized ads are now directing customers to an empty page 5) Then you risk having your ads accounts flagged You might think you could just redirect the url to a duplicate? That would be a great solution indeed. BUT 6) The competitor is monitoring your product page and immediately submits another fake DMCA 7) You redirect again 8) Then another fake DMCA Now WAIT for the cherry on the Cake. 9) After 4 or 5 fake DMCA, you Shopify account admin is locked 10) You may even get suspended automatically by shopify 11) Then you can no longer fulfill your orders from customers 12) Then your customers start making chargebacks 13) Then the payments processors on which you've built a reputation over the years can suspend you 14) Shopify (zero)support asks you to reply to the DMCA with a counter notice and WAIT for the Trust & Safety Team to get back to you 15) Then you receive an auto reply from them telling you that the other party has been informed and that you may repost your content in 2 weeks unless the scammer has filed a court action. 16) Then after 2 weeks, you repost your content 17) Then the same or the next day, the same scammer (watching you like a hawk) issues another fake DMCA for the same product page through the same fake account. ISN'T IT BEAUTIFUL? ** Shopify could literrally STOP 80% of these false DMCA by just adding a field on their rudimentory form: asking to verify a phone number or upload an ID but NO, that seems to be a task too Challenging for a billion dollar company like Shopify

schappim 3y ago
This is not good enough. I wonder if they'll backflip on "Shopify is replacing customer service with AI chatbots"[1]. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/stocks/comments/153z5r7/shopify_is_replacing_customer_service_with_ai/ https://www.reddit.com/r/stocks/comments/153z5r7/shopify_is_...
archerx 3y ago

jrochkind1 3y ago

I absolutely applaud Shoppify for filing this suit, it's great, doesn't happen enough. But a question: > The strikes will be removed if the merchant files a successful counternotice, but those can take up to two weeks to process. Is there any legal reason acting on the counternotice can't be as quick and automatic as acting on the initial DMCA claim? It seems like this is something Shoppify could do to help, that is completely under their control. Why should processing the counternotice take two weeks? Or is this a legal issue in the DMCA process, that a lag is required here?

RevEng 3y ago
It is supposed to be instant. It's a notice and notice system. One party claims infringement, hosting takes it down. Other party counters that it's legit, hosting puts it back up. With both parties having given legal statements, the claimant can proceed to sue the defendant. But it never works out this way because this system wasn't intended to protect individuals, but rather large media groups. Record labels and movie studios didn't want their stuff easily copied. Hosting companies don't fear the wrath of an individual, but they do fear a multi billion dollar corporation. So they respond instantly and automatically to takedown notices, but are hesitant to put back anything based on a counter notice, lest the claimant - likely a large corporation or their agent - decides to take them to court for continuing to make it available. Etsy takes this one step further and straight up doesn't implement the DMCA. Instead, they take copyright infringement notices and make that an automatic take down and strike. There is no counter notice option at all. As the defendant, you are told to contact the claimant and convince them to reverse the claim. Which of course they will never do no matter how good of a case you can make for it. In the mean time, your store gets shut down and any money still in your account is frozen. Ask Etsy what to do and you'll get one automatic reply followed by radio silence forever. I lost two years of work building up my first store and had to start another from the ground up.
- jrochkind1 3y ago
  So sounds like Shoppify should make the counternotice take effect instanteously. Elsewhere in this thread people are posting that they are leaving shoppify because fake DMCA takedowns are such a problem. So this is clearly self-interested on Shoppify's part. The lawsuit against the John Doe is a good thing, but it's more just an announcement of intent, they haven't even found the guy yet! Making the counternotices instantaneous, as the notices are, would remove a huge chunk of the harm here to shoppify's customers, no? > but are hesitant to put back anything based on a counter notice, lest the claimant - likely a large corporation or their agent - decides to take them to court for continuing to make it available. This is weird, as they scrupulously followed the DCMA, and should be immune from such suits, right? Of course, anyone can sue for anything, but if they put it back up only after a counter-notice, a judge should throw out a suit pretty quick, no? The whole point of the DMCA is that hosts are not liable if they have adhered to it, and putting something back up after a proper counternotice is adhering to it. This is the way, Shoppify.

tlogan 3y ago

DMCA abuse is rampant all over the net. The main problem is that companies like Shopify have implemented these DMCA processes very sloppily, and as the recession continues, there are fewer resources available for making improvements and fixing it. The recession also provides more incentive for bad actors to misuse DMCA as a way to gain an advantage over their competition. So it is a vicious circle all over the net.

mcv 3y ago

It seems to me that DMCA abuse is far more harmful than the copyright infringement it intends to fight. At the very least, DMCA takedown notices should only be accepted from verified, existing people, and not from anonymous accounts. And then those verified people need to be held accountable for any abuse.

SAI_Peregrinus 3y ago
The DMCA requires that you assert you own the copyright on some work (under penalty of perjury), and also that some other work infringes on that (no penalty at all). Adding liability in the case that the work is found not to be infringing, including substantial punitive damages paid to the accused (covering their time, emotional distress of being targeted by a lawsuit, attorney fees, and some amount extra) and the hosting provider (for wasting their time), would be a good reform.
- ghaff 3y ago
  The DMCA arguably did not envision mass, often false, takedown requests. The problem with substantial punitive damages however is that you will have people who do legit requests that are determined to be false per haps by algorithms. (Or that are in some gray area.) >damages paid to the accused (covering their time, emotional distress of being targeted by a lawsuit, attorney fees, and some amount extra) Now you're talking fining people thousands of dollars even though they may have been in the right.
  - SAI_Peregrinus 3y ago
    No, I'm talking about fining people thousands of dollars after being found guilty of falsely accusing others of infringement.
- bityard 3y ago
  Okay, yes, but essentially all abusive takedown requests are filed under a false name altogether, or by scummy law firms adept at hiding the people who actually run them. So, if you are the victim of a fake takedown request, either you are not going to find them because they don't exist, or if they do exist, they are beyond your reach. There is no means to enforce this penalty unless your opponent decides to by the rules. (Spoiler: they won't.)

exshop 3y ago

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gravitronic 3y ago

Sad no major platform implemented step two of the DMCA process as it was written in law (as far as I remember): The subject of the DMCA takedown can appeal and then the original filer has a time period where they can escalate to a court case or drop it.

throwaway85858 3y ago

Talking about shopify has anyone seen a worse careers page than this? https://www.shopify.com/careers/disciplines/engineering https://www.shopify.com/careers/disciplines/engineering

liminal 3y ago

Shouldn't the person/org filing the take down notice be required to prove they own the copyright they allege is being infringed?

flokie 3y ago

requiring a telephone contact (SMS verification or code from robocall) would provide enough sufficiency in scaring the perps to probably solve 90%+ of these.

sandworm101 3y ago

Be very careful. The DMCA is bad but at least the internet actually functions. We can all hate on it and propose ideas to improve it but most proposed changes (actual proposed law rather than forum posts) in the last few decades have been truly horrific. Most wanted to expand the DMCA's approach to other areas such as DNS. COICA, PROTECT IP, E-PARACITE, SOPA ... these evil ideas are just waiting to fill the void should anyone reopen the DMCA. And they will probably add language to make all online open for "inspection" by copyright holders, yet another attempt to outlaw proper encryption.

RecycledEle 3y ago

1. Shopify just admitted gross negligence in issuing 52 strikes. If it were Shopify's tail on the line, they would build automated tools to do things like compare all images posted on their site to those found online - there are search engines to do this. Then they would consider those results when looking into a DMCA notice. 2. Good for Shopify for suing these fraudsters. I wish we had been successful in going after fraudster and US Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison who shut down everyone who ran against her with phony DMCA notices.

altairprime 3y ago

Interesting that Shopify clearly documents the cost when moderation isn’t externalized to either ML/AI or underpaid contractors: > Shopify launched an investigation and the company ultimately restored all items and removed all strikes, but that came at significant cost. “Those efforts cost Shopify tens of thousands of dollars in personnel time and resources. “Dozens” is legalese for [x>12; x<151], so Shopify is suggesting a cost of moderation per single DMCA of “tens of thousands” / “a hundred or so” = “tens of tens or so”, which is “hundreds of dollars per request” in plain language. So, if Shopify is placing the cost of actually considering a DMCA notice — as opposed to just machine-processing it like any other bigcorp — then that explains a lot about modern bigcorp account closures. They would rather lose your business to a false positive, than risk owing a process that costs $X00 per “please reconsider, here is my evidence” request from a customer. This also makes it possible to estimate the potential cost in “risk of exposure” SEC filing terms for any proposed law that compels providers to 1) explain algorithmic decisions, 2) process appeals with human beings.

mvdtnz 3y ago

> Shopify says that it’s not feasible for the company to investigate the validity of all takedown notices in detail. As such, these false claims resulted in actual removals and the affected stores also received strikes on their accounts. Excuse my language but that is 100% bullshit. If it's not feasible for you to investigate these claims before kicking your own customers out then it's not feasible for your business to exist. Investigating these claims before acting on them should be considered a cost of doing business.

bdw5204 3y ago
The fault here lies with the US government for passing an easily abused law like the DMCA where there are woefully insufficient consequences for fraudulent takedown requests and where fighting fraudulent takedowns requires you to dox yourself to the individual committing DMCA fraud. I can't blame businesses for not having sufficient staff to investigate takedown fraud when any business that did would probably be uncompetitive given how easy it is to send fraudulent takedowns and how much time and money it costs to investigate them. Most customers would almost certainly rather accept the risk of being the victim of a fraudulent DMCA takedown than pay extra to avoid it, in part because most people probably don't understand how easy it is to abuse the DMCA.
jnsie 3y ago
I agree in principal but I think it depends on the process to submit DMCA takedown requests. If it's trivially easy to abuse this system then I don't think it's fair for the burden to fall on the company (note: in general I'm pro-consumer, not pro-corporation).
skeaker 3y ago
This is a very easy position to take when you are not familiar with the scale of the task at hand. You have 10,000 reports come in every day. How do you get through them? One person won't do, so you will need a team. Who will you hire? Are they educated in copyright law? Hiring people with that sort of education for something as rote as content moderation will be difficult and take a long time (and probably cost a lot), so good luck. Are they interns and people with no related education hired for low wages? Great, now you have a team, but it seems that reports are being mishandled and copyrighted content is getting through. Legal liability is on the line and a PR disaster is brewing. We need to reign in these minimum wage moderators. Where do we go from here? Moderator-moderators who validate the validation from the moderators? Now we're back to where we started. And who will validate them? Etc, etc...

nerdo 3y ago

John Doe, Sacha Go, Sacha Ghosh. Is 'John Doe' wrongspeak now? I haven't heard this usage.

rideontime 3y ago
> Starting on October 5, an unknown person created the account “Sacha Go” which was subsequently used to file dozens of DMCA takedown requests.

thrownaway561 3y ago

Honestly the whole DCMA takedown is worthless. They should just require a legal form of identification like a driver license, a credit card that matches the drive and a phone number. Problem solved. Any violations result in a federal fine of 100K. You would see this stuff stop real quick. There is no reason for the anonymity of a takedown.

freedomben 3y ago

I'm glad they're taking some action, but how about using some of that big business money and lawyers to try to get the law changed? Why haven't some of the big companies gotten together to lobby for fixing the law so it can't be abused so easily? I get that the rights holders are much, much more powerful and have many, many more lobbyists, but with enough funding we could do public-facing ad campaigns and start trying to raise awareness for the general public.

anon373839 3y ago

The DMCA is very broken. It needs to be amended to disincentivize frivolous claims, and to require that claims be processed manually by trained staff. Automation should not be permitted in this area. If that means some internet giants need to scale down to be able to service their accounts properly, that wouldn’t be a bad outcome.

BarbaraStencel 3y ago

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