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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) Runn
by 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 agoThis 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 agoThis could easily be fixed by having a consequence to fake DMCA reports. A fine or something. Something messed up that Youtube does is when someone files a copyright claim they get to take the money from your video. I have had times when I was sent a copyright strike for videos I have made and when I check my video is usually much older than the music that I am being accused of stealing. I always win these disputes for obvious reasons but Youtube has never offered to make things right. Basically the accused is guilty until proven innocent which is not how it should be.
- schappim 3y agoSomehow this issue always seems to arise when forming agreements with large platforms.
- Kamq 3y agoWait, is youtube still doing that? I thought they moved to putting the money in escrow until the dispute was settled, which cut down on the majority of the false claims?
- archerx 3y agoIt’s been a couple years since my last attempted strike but it’s good to hear that they are trying solutions. Maybe that’s why I haven’t gotten one in a while.
- SkyPuncher 3y agoPart of the problem is many of these companies have a faux DCMA process. Rather than use the “official” DCMA process, they build a reporting mechanism in front of it. People can abuse it without facing federal repercussions.
- DangitBobby 3y agoIsn't a fake DMCA report "lying for profit" AKA fraud? And it's done on a computer making wire fraud, a federal crime. AFAIK this is already against the law and can be prosecuted, no need to add a new law for fines.
- ClarityJones 3y agoTo blindly listen to anonymous reports on the internet is not good faith. Shopify has a duty to handle these in good faith and it’s infinitely foreseeable that this bad faith conduct could result in serious damage to their customers (as you explain).
- circuit10 3y ago> asking to verify a phone number or upload an ID I’m pretty sure they’re not legally allowed to add extra requirements like this. If they were, sites could make it almost impossible to take things down by adding a lot of requirements
- jmholla 3y agoAs I learned from this comment [0], that kind of is a requirement. Section 512 requires a notice contain: > Information reasonably sufficient to permit the service provider to contact the complaining party, such as an address, telephone number and email address I think another poster hit the nail on the head, when they said (and I'm paraphrasing), these aren't real DMCA takedowns. They're a different system these hosters bend to that acts outside of it. By being more liberal in what gets shut down, they comply with DMCA which is much more onerous on what is required to shut things down. In fact, if this was really the DMCA process, people would have legal standing to go after the accusers via Section 512. Further, I'm also pretty sure you don't have to take things down right away. You do have time to investigate the alleged violation and decide whether you are in the right. Basically, all these players are hiding behind systems they put in place so they wouldn't come close to DMCA issues or have to pay anyone to investigate notices. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37986095 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37986095
- thomastjeffery 3y agoHas anyone managed to prove that an email address is not "reasonably sufficient to permit the service provider to contact the complaining party"? I doubt it. I expect that Shopify doubts it, too.
- mvdtnz 3y agoThe law itself is explicit, no one needs to prove what the word "and" means. > such as an address, telephone number and email address
- 3y ago
- erkt 3y agoThese companies need to be dismantled. Every small shop this happens to should focus on documentation and suing for damages. This is negligence.
- callalex 3y agoThat does sound unbearable. May I ask what market segment you operate in? Do you make your own products or are you rebranding some kind of generics?