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Google sues two men who weaponized DMCA notices to crush competition
- bryanrasmussen 3y agoI believe this is what everyone has been suggesting someone do about fake DMCA for a while so, although it pains me to say it, thank you Google!
- hnbad 3y agoFalse DMCA claims are technically considered perjury I think. The problem is that most so-called DMCA claims are actually not using the DMCA mechanism at all: filing a bogus copyright claim on YouTube for example doesn't have to involve the DMCA at any point.
- sumtechguy 3y agoI have heard that perjury thing before. However, what is the actual consequence of doing that? Also in this particular type of thing? Is it a 'liar liar pants on fire' designation, or some sort of fine, or time in jail? What do the actual statutes say, and what is the case law here?
- lazide 3y agoIn California, perjury is a felony punishable by 2,3, or 4 years in jail. [https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=PEN§ionNum=126 https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySectio....] Theoretically. [https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displayText.xhtml?lawCode=PEN&division=&title=7.&part=1.&chapter=5.&article= https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displayText.x...] It’s also explicitly listed as a deportable offense for Green Card holders.
- beeboobaa 3y agoLet me know when Sony has been put in jail for 2 years. So far they've been getting away with bogus DMCA notices for years.
- wredue 3y agoSony lawyers represent Sony so don’t fall under the perjury rule.
- Sohcahtoa82 3y agoYou, like many others, are misunderstanding the "perjury" part of the DMCA. It's only perjury if you're don't have legal authority to act on behalf of the company issuing the DMCA takedown. In other words, Sony falsely claiming to have ownership over something is not perjury. Some random person claiming to be working for Sony when they don't and claiming ownership and sending a DMCA takedown is.
- lazide 3y agoNear as I can tell, almost no one wants to prosecute Perjury. Partially because lawyers are so good at weaseling out of it, but secretly I think it’s because lawyers are afraid of what would happen if it was consistently applied. For Family court in particular, I imagine it could turn 1/4 of the state into felons. The only cases I’m aware of were very high profile, ‘successful’ (as in folks believed it, and took action based on it) lies under oath with severe and high profile damages, that later evidence clearly showed was done in bad faith. And by severe and high profile damages, I don’t mean something as simple as a single (non famous) person being dead when they didn’t have to be, unless it’s a huge scandal anyway. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/1142605 https://www.jstor.org/stable/1142605]
- qingcharles 3y agoPerjury cases are very, very rarely prosecuted even in cases where the violation is blatant (from my experience). Occasionally the system works, though. I remember one suspect I knew defending himself against what he said were totally bogus domestic violence charges. The woman came and testified against him and he lost. A week after the trial, and before his sentencing, his lawyer came and told him the government had just disclosed that they had discovered the complainant had three separate perjury convictions in three other states for being caught lying in domestic violence testimony.
- tanaros 3y ago> False DMCA claims are technically considered perjury I think. The problem is that most so-called DMCA claims are actually not using the DMCA mechanism at all […] The other issue is that, if I recall correctly, the perjury penalty is not about whether the claim is accurate. It’s about whether you actually represent the rights holder of the content you claim is being infringed. That is, if I make a DMCA claim that says this video infringes on Frozen, it’s perjury only if I’m not the rights holder (or representative thereof) for Frozen.
- Suppafly 3y agoWhenever you see some small content creator complaining about people stealing their videos and such, they never actually file a DMCA to get relief, they just use youtube's bogus form and then complain when nothing happens.
- jasode 3y ago>I believe _this_ is what everyone has been suggesting someone do about fake DMCA for a while so, The problem is the "_this_" in this thread's example is a full-blown lawsuit by Google. Yes, this is a change from just blindingly obeying DMCA notices but filing lawsuits is not scalable to apply to all the other frivolous and illegitimate takedown requests. These 2 men just did it in high enough volume to attract the attention of Google's lawyers. An example of all the other illegitimate DMCA takedowns "flying under the radar"... A few years ago, I was selling some Total Training DVD tutorials of Adobe products on ebay like these: https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=total+training+adobe+creative https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=total+training+adobe+cr... Ebay then mysteriously cancelled my listing after a few days. Why? Because Ebay has a VeRO (Verified Rights Owners) program and Total Training sent a DMCA takedown request to remove my legitimate listing. I then sent a harsh email with my invoice to Total Training that proved I bought the DVDs directly from them so they are not counterfeit pirate copies and warned them not to interfere when I re-listed it. They didn't takedown my listing so I was finally able to sell it. Total Training wasn't really trying to stop piracy; their real intention was to prevent lower-priced used DVDs from competing with the sales of their new DVDs by intimidating sellers on ebay. That's the type of small-scale DMCA abuse that happens constantly on Ebay, Youtube, Google search results page, etc. Abuse the DMCA to their advantage but not enough to attract lawsuits.
- anonzzzies 3y agoNice and finally. People have been saying this for a long time already. Shame Google doesn't the same with people crushing the competition by adwords/adsense and SEO abuse.
- SoftTalker 3y agoGoogle started to care when it started costing them money.
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- bitshiftfaced 3y agoWhat was their angle? Did they try to funnel people to their own pirating site or something?
- hnbad 3y agoBased on TFA it reads like they used them for SEO by filing illegitimate notices against higher-ranking competitors.
- anonzzzies 3y agoThis happens a lot. It's all pretty rotten.
- tommica 3y agoGreat job!
- boomboomsubban 3y ago>Elon Musk, Taylor Swift, LeVar Burton, and Kanye West. LeVar Burton? That's a bizarre inclusion on that list. Some Google lawyer is probably a Trekkie.
- Eisenstein 3y agoThey were using DMCA to shut down competitors websites, and they were in the business of selling printed T-shirts, so anyone with a face or brand that would be printed on a shirt could be used as the claimant on the DMCA notice.
- boomboomsubban 3y agoThe four listed in the complaint were mentioned as examples of who they imitated. They could have stopped at three examples, the sports teams had three examples while the bands had one. The inclusion of Burton was almost certainly because the lawyer is a fan.
- seanhunter 3y agoMaybe the lawyer thinks the likely judge is a fan. That would be a ninja move.
- waterhouse 3y agoIs the likely judge Otis Wright? https://www.abajournal.com/news/article/judge_boldly_uses_star_trek_references_in_opinion_blasting_lawyers_who_sued https://www.abajournal.com/news/article/judge_boldly_uses_st...
- Eisenstein 3y agoHow do they plan on enforcing US law in Vietnam? Since the defendants live in Vietnam won't they have to either extradite them to the USA or place a judgement against them which will never be paid, as long as they don't have any assets in the states? I have wondered for a while how this works, so anyone who knows specifics is welcome to respond.
- Kye 3y agoMight be relevant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_parties_to_international_copyright_agreements https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_parties_to_internation... https://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/notifications/wct/treaty_wct_102.html https://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/notifications/wct/treaty_wc...
- slashdev 3y agoMaybe through their credit card payment provider? I’m guessing that’s the weak point, but I don’t know how that would work exactly.
- papercrane 3y agoIt depends on how the Vietnam legal system works, but in theory you can enforce a civil judgment across borders. After winning a judgment, Google would have to go to court in Vietnam and ask for the judgment be enforced. The court would look at wether proper notice was given, the jurisdiction was proper and that the underlying conduct was something you could sue for. They may also look at the award to determine it isn't excessive. If they're satisfied the court can then issue an order to enforce it. This all depends heavily on how the Vietnam legal system works, which I have no idea. Obviously every country has their own quirks and processes.
- ViSpace 3y agoConsidering the gov's antique about copyright there, and the state of US-VN relations, Google will get what they want.
- freitzkriesler2 3y agoDidn't Google used to have a service where they would publish dmca take down notices? Chilling effects or something like that?
- darrenf 3y agoGoogle contribute to Chilling Effects, which got renamed to Lumen https://www.lumendatabase.org/ https://www.lumendatabase.org/ [edited to remove “used to”]
- ajsnigrutin 3y ago> Holding Defendants Accountable > Those who knowingly make false statements in a DMCA notice can be held liable for damages, costs, and attorneys’ fees. In this matter the defendants’ conduct is said to have caused Google to suffer economic harm due to lost advertising revenue, damage to business relations, and the allocation of significant resources to investigate their wrongdoing. Does this apply only to "two vietnamese men" or also companies like sony, nintendo etc., when they happen to forget about the fair uses clauses?
- chii 3y ago> when they happen to forget about the fair uses clauses? oh those are just innocent omissions and no malice nor intent is implied!
- ajsnigrutin 3y agoI mean.. who could expect highly paid copyright lawyers in their massive legal teams to know such obscure rules such as fair use :)
- gjsman-1000 3y agoThey know about it; but I think they know: A. Are you going to fight it? B. Fair use, from a legal perspective, is much narrower than people think and narrower than the wording suggests. A reaction video is not considered sufficient commentary or criticism, for example. Making even a single word change to a cover song, even if you paid the compulsory license fee, is not fair use. Etc. C. Especially in video games, everyone loves quoting Sega v Accolade or Sony v Bleem as proof emulation is perfectly legal. There’s just one problem: Both of those cases were decided before the mother-of-all-DRM laws, the DMCA, was passed. They are both likely irrelevant cases now. This happens elsewhere too - quoting old cases as proof of legality without other modern developments.
- wang_li 3y ago>Especially in video games, everyone loves quoting Sega v Accolade or Sony v Bleem as proof emulation is perfectly legal. There's no need to prove emulation is legal. There's a need to prove it's illegal. There's a long history of making compatible things. Everything from toner cartridges to PC compatibles to auto parts. And especially in the context of copyright law, explain the possibility of a copyright violation in a piece of software written to emulate a hardware platform when there is no ROM or firmware distributed by the authors? Now how most people choose to run emulators is copyright violation from horizon to horizon, but I don't see how that has anything to do with people making emualtion products.
- pulse7 3y ago"GOOGLE LLC, Plaintiff, v. NGUYEN VAN DUC, PHAM VAN THIEN, and DOES 1-20, Defendants." What are those "Does 1-20"? Are they 20 no-name individuals?
- iudqnolq 3y agoFor boring reasons sometimes people tack on placeholders in case more defendants are identified later.
- TheCleric 3y agoPre-allocating memory so you can use it later instead of doing it in the render (justice) loop and slowing that down. Good call.
- boomboomsubban 3y ago"John/Jane Doe" is a common placeholder name, it's twenty people they couldn't identify.
- fusslo 3y agoAh! I read it as "DOES" as in 'do', not "more than one DOE" Thanks for clearing that up
- sowbug 3y agoRoe is less common, but not unusual. Most memorably, "Roe" in Roe v. Wade was a pseudonym for the plaintiff who was called "Jane Roe" to protect her privacy. I don't know the mechanism, but I assume the judge in such cases has the real identity of a pseudonymous plaintiff to make sure a real party has brought the case.
- T3RMINATED 3y ago[dead]
- Dwedit 3y agoThis is one of the few cases where the "perjury rule" actually matters. The "perjury rule" says that it is considered perjury to falsely claim that your are authorized by the rights holder to make the DMCA takedown request. Contrary to popular belief, the perjury rule does not say that it's perjury to falsely identify something as the copyrighted work.
- abtinf 3y agoThat’s an interesting distinction. And, I would think, a much broader rule. It is inclusive of the “popular belief”: if you falsely identify a work as copyrighted, but it’s not, then you are misrepresenting your authorization because there is no way for you to have obtained it.
- gmiller123456 3y agoSadly, that's not how it works. The claimant just has to have authorization on behalf of the work they are claiming is being infringed upon. Essentially making this part of the law useless. IMHO, it was just added to make the layman think there is some protection or responsibility on behalf of the people making the claim.
- nashashmi 3y agoNot sure why the sad unfortunate face here. If you know of a work that is copyrighted and you find this work on a website that is not given the license to the copyright, and you are not the copyright holder but instead the copyright holder is your cousin, you should not have the authority to issue a DMCA takedown noticem, even if you may be aware of who your cousin gave the license to. Instead, only your cousin should have this authority and the people your cousin assigns.
- notatoad 3y agoi think the scenario prompting the sadface is that the law doesn't prevent your cousin from picking any random URL on the internet and claiming that his copyright (which he does legitimately own the rights to) is being infringed on that page. even if he knows perfectly well that it's not his content on the page. what the parent comments seem to be saying is: not perjury: "i own this content (true) and it's available at this unauthorized url (false) and i want it taken down" perjury: "i own this content (false) and it's available at this unauthorized url (true) and i want it taken down" but both statements have the same effect of getting the url taken down.
- hunters_laptop 3y ago[dead]
- RecycledEle 3y agoGreat, now do Kay Bailey Hutchison who took down my political web sites by filing fony DMCA notices with DirectNic.
- justinclift 3y agoWhy would Google have anything to do with this? If you pointed out their bogus YouTube copyright strikes problem, that'd be relevant. But DirectNic doesn't seem like it has anything to do with Google. (?)
- Suppafly 3y agoDid you file the counter notices that force them to put the content back up?
- indymike 3y agoOften the damage from fraudulent takedowns is relative to timing. For example (and this is just an example): Let's say I put up an expose of bad behavior by a politician two days before an election. Something awful that will get coverage in the media and social media, too. The campaign fake DMCAs it, the content is gone, and the election is won before the content is re-posted after the reply is processed. There are situations where the notice/counter notice does not work and causes almost irreparable harm.
- Suppafly 3y agoSure, although if you know for a fact that your content is true, nothing is stopping you from reposting it multiple times/places for those two days. Regardless, I suspect the previous poster didn't follow the DMCA process and instead just wanted to complain. It's trivial to send a response and have your content rehosted, but most people don't bother.
- indymike 3y agoThere is no time requirement or requirement in general for the host to restore your content.
- RecycledEle 3y agoGreat, now do the Dallas and DeSoto, TX police departments who took down my videos of police brutality and violent home invasions with phony take-down notices to YouTube in addition to destroying my computers and cameras and stealing computer discs with video of their misconduct from the US Mail with the help of (then DeSoto post master Linda H. Norwood.
- rc_mob 3y agoHave you written about this story anywhere? I feel like multiple subreddits would be very interested in this story.
- galangalalgol 3y agoYeah, that went federal. Very interesting.
- kolanos 3y agoNot to mention prominent channels on YouTube that cover police matters like this. [0] [0]: https://www.youtube.com/@LackLusterMedia https://www.youtube.com/@LackLusterMedia
- csomar 3y agoI think we have this reoccurring on a frequent basis that it is now part and parcel of living in the US.
- smoldesu 3y agoYou probably want to host that sort of content yourself. If your only backup is on Google's server, you have to prepare for a reality where they get rid of it.
- binarymax 3y agoSounds like they did, and it was destroyed/stolen?
- manicennui 3y agoOnly companies like Google are allowed to use the weapon that is DMCA.
- nhubbard 3y agoWow, this is probably the most brazen misuse of the DMCA process I've seen in a while. Actively advertising on YouTube how merchants can file fake DMCA claims with Google to improve their business is insane.
- jrockway 3y agoThis is kind of a tragedy of the commons situation that works for everyone. Because DMCA abuse is so rampant, it encourages lawmakers to come up with another system.
- kevingadd 3y agoPart of why this works is that Google refuses to provide you information on claimants if you want to sue them, presumably because it's more work for their customer service staff to respond to requests like that
- dragonwriter 3y agoSo, file a vs. John Doe lawsuit and then subpoena Google for the idebtifying information they have. That's what copyright owners do, in reverse, when providers don't give customer information (which they generally don't.)
- qingcharles 3y agoExactly. The court will have to allow you some discovery to find the defendants.
- tlogan 3y agothe defendants can be found in Vietnam from where they proudly advertise their ‘SEO’ scheme to others, including via YouTube. Nothing to see here: the business of sending of fake DMCA notices is booming and I do not know how this lawsuit will change a bit. They will just open a new company and continue doing this.
- infamouscow 3y agoPeople forget this goes both ways. Legal systems completely break down across international borders except for the most esteemed international criminals. The number of hoops someone has to jump through to launch international investigations is incredibly expensive, both in time and money. It's also a lot of luck and playing hyper-political games like throwing a party for an ambassador. Ask how I know :) In short, one could hire locals to dish out vigilante justice with virtual impunity.
- withinboredom 3y ago> Ask how I know Oh, I know. There was a guy working remotely in a country that doesn't extradite and embezzled millions. They invited him (and the rest of the company) to a "company party" in the US just to arrest him while giving everyone else in the company free booze for a week.
- Coreleen 3y agoI very rarely feel like I take the side of Google, but in this case, feel like this is a win for everyone and not just the big guy
- phpisthebest 3y agoDont give them too much credit, Notice they did not go after any of the big media companies that are just as abusive. They picked a small time organization to target, they would not want to upset advertisers, hell I bet they got the blessing of the big media companies to even go after these guys.. If they really wanted side with creators they would push back against their RIAA and MPAA abusers, but of-course they will not
- NPC82 3y agoMy understanding is if Google wins it would still set a legal precedent, which would help future lawsuits with this sort of thing. Of course not many criminals make a YouTube video on how they execute their own crimes... that would certainly help.
- viknesh 3y agoI think a meta point that is interesting here is that nobody could be more motivated to lobby for DMCA changes than large platforms like Google. Wrongfully targeted victims take out their anger on the platform, who thus far wrings their hands and says "sorry, it's the law, file a counterclaim if you want." If it's enough of a problem for the platform (and not the victims), they can just pay off their congresspeople to write a law allowing DMCA abuse detection systems.
- mqus 3y agoonly in this case it mostly google which makes matters worse. They don't or badly check DMCA claims, don't monitor or publish the filers that are most frequently counterfiled against and to top it off: mostly use their own contentid system anyway which heavily favors ip holders.
- rsingel 3y agoAlso the DMCA doesn't require Google to takedown sites based on obviously fraudulent DMCA notices. It's just that Google would lose its liability shield if the claim turned out to be real.
- notatoad 3y agoi thought that was the main flaw with the DMCA - it actually does require you to obey all properly formatted and submitted DMCA notices, regardless of how obviously fraudulent they are, until a court decides they're not fraudulent.
- dragonwriter 3y agoDMCA doesn't require you to do anything, because it only shields you against liability you would otherwise have to the filer (or the owner whose agent they are), and if the notice is obviously not from thr owner or agent, or obviously incorrect about the content being infringing (or even existing), then there is no source of liability. Yes, it's cheaper not to check, but its not required by the DMCA.
- tomohawk 3y agoWhy is 'Men' featured in the title? It's like the title goes out of the way to call attention to gender here. It's distracting and adds nothing.
- jfax 3y agoI agree, it's a bit disorienting.
- elzbardico 3y agoBecause they are men. And yes, it adds context, as it makes easier for you to picture concrete people with your imagination. Having a gender is part of the concrete reality of the human species, so having this information provides a clue of concreteness.
- ecommerceguy 3y agoBe nice if Amazon did this on the merch platform.
- arbuge 3y agoHow exactly does a lawsuit filed in California reach two defendants located in Vietnam? Wouldn't suing them in Vietnam be appropriate here?
- prmoustache 3y agoWhy are they suing them in California and not in Vietnam?
- notimetorelax 3y agoProbably because this is where ToS set the jurisdiction.
- prmoustache 3y agoSo presumably the defendants will just shrugs their shoulders and not even appear to the court.
- andylynch 3y agoThe complaint is claiming that this group should be held liable under the section of the DMVA relating to misrepresentation. California since that’s where Google principal place of venue is and also that given in the TOS allegedly breached.
- chris_wot 3y agoYou know, I'd feel a lot safer if Google would fix the mountain of malware in their Chrome app store.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- arlattimore 3y ago> Our lawsuit targets bad actors who set up dozens of Google accounts and used them to submit thousands of bogus copyright claims against their competitors. These fraudulent claims resulted in removal of over 100,000 businesses’ websites, costing them millions of dollars and thousands of hours in lost employee time. So Google needs to remove the sites first, likely to be legally compliant themselves, hurt the businesses in question, then sue to be able to re-instate the websites that they knew shouldn't have been taken down in the first place?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- Zigurd 3y agoIt would be fair to say google should put more work into vetting DMCA takedowns, but DMCA is a bad law, and it is enforced badly. A long term coordinated effort at fraudulent takedowns should be criminal in several ways: The false report should be criminal. It should be a sworn statement. There should be a statutory penalty against the reporting party. Reporting parties should be bonded on a sliding scale. The criminality should not be able to hide behind the corporate veil.
- gunapologist99 3y agoGoogle is suing, and it's not even the harmed party. Obligatory IANAL disclaimer applies, but surely a strong first-party case could be made for, at least, tortious interference?
- dragonwriter 3y ago> Google is suing, and it's not even the harmed party. Google is a harmed party; the false reporterts have engaged in the crime of theft (of services/labor) by false pretenses against Google. (Its true that that crime was merely instrumental to their goal of harming other businesses, but its a real crime and a real harm to Google.)
- blacksmith_tb 3y ago
- PedroBatista 3y agoDoes that include YouTube too? If that's the case Google will be suing half the lawyers in the US, many very powerful. Either way, decades later looks like they want to put an end to it, when figured out they are spending millions with this BS, not because it was wrong in the first place and was ruining people's business and lives.
- reaperman 3y agoNo, its a select few relatively non-powerful entities. They will not be taking on the RIAA or MPAA, for example.
- ykonstant 3y ago(those fake DMCA takedown submitters that do not have enough money to fight back)
- qingcharles 3y agoLiterally none of them are going to fight this. In a case like this you're going to be found bogus enough to have to pay Google's legal fees on top of your own. You'll be half a million in the hole before you blink. 99% of them either won't accept service on the Complaint or will fail to attend court. Google will win by default judgment on most of the Complaints.
- dgudkov 3y agoCan't stop but think that somehow public justice has been delegated to Google.
- qingcharles 3y agoAnyone have the case nos./captions (+ court) for the DMCA suits? Would like to read the Complaints and see who the defendants are.
- qingcharles 3y agoAnyone have the case nos./captions (+ court) for the DMCA suits? Would like to read the Complaints and see who the defendants are.
- thomastjeffery 3y ago> Two men who allegedly used 65 Google accounts to bombard Google with fraudulent DMCA takedown notices Here, the problem has revealed itself: Google is the weapon here, not just DMCA. How does your own medicine taste, Alphabet?
- doublerabbit 3y ago> How does your own medicine taste, Alphabet? Tastes like money and lawsuit. Cherry flavour.
- thomastjeffery 3y agoOne of these days we will start treating fraud as seriously as we do copyright.