9 ms·

Reckless DMCA Deindexing Pushes NASA's Artemis Towards Black Hole

177 points by CoBE10 3y ago

Buttons840 3y ago
> DMCA takedown notices sent by a company calling itself DMCA Piracy Prevention Inc. claim to protect the rights of an OnlyFans/Instagram model working under the name ‘Artemis’.
- mcpackieh 3y ago
  We need to have severe penalties for negligent DMCA takedowns, not just willfully malicious ones. Including disbarment and possibly imprisonment for any lawyers involved. Taking down pages about NASA rocketry because they shared a name with a social media model was probably an accident, but it's an inexcusable accident that never should have happened. These kind of accidents wouldn't happen so often if the people issuing takedowns were forced to have skin in the game.
  - ZoomerCretin 3y ago
    This is a very nice-sounding fantasy. Too many people profit from the status quo to do such a thing. Lawyers and judges would not dare issue a ruling or enact any law harming their and their friends' profession.
    - Terr_ 3y ago
      Also, the penalty against falsely claiming you represent a copyright holder can/will be weaponized against anyone trying to bring attention to abuse by issuing the "missing" DMCA takedown requests in a logically consistent manner. In other words, it ends up making it easy for issuers to selectively bully small weak targets while carefully avoiding anyone who could fight back legally. The fact that one thing was removed/kept doesn't create precedent for another fundamentally identical thing posted by someone else.
    - rockskon 3y ago
      Cynicism like this is poison for changing the political system. Not only have you ceded all ground to the copyright industry - you also discourage others from trying to make a difference. The public isn't as powerless to enact change as you make them out to be.
      - voakbasda 3y ago
        Yes the public is powerless. Nothing short of revolution will change the status quo. Until then, not a god damn thing will ever make a meaningful change away from the direction things are heading. The people have lost control of the government.
        rockskon 3y ago
        LARPing will not change things, no. People here, if organized, could absolutely change things especially considering the resources at the financial disposal of those here. No, I don't mean issues like what you see endlessly litigated on the news. There's countless other issues that barely get any attention in the news such as - Copyright! Not to abolish it - that will never happen, but changes are absolutely possible.
    - safety1st 3y ago
      I mean the lawyers behind Prenda Law were disbarred and sent to jail for their outrageous copyright trolling in large part because they abused the justice system. Judges don't like it when you do that. They can and do bust lawyers and law firms all the time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prenda_Law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prenda_Law I think the main issue here is, if you're a victim of DMCA fraud it's hard to get a case in front of a judge because of the way the law is written. But that doesn't mean it will never happen, and if it does I absolutely feel like a judge might set a precedent which curtails the practice, because judges by nature tend to take a dim view of abuse of process.
  - DonHopkins 3y ago
    [flagged]
userbinator 3y ago
Unfortunately, DMCA abuse rarely has consequences for those behind it. I think with this sort of carelessness, it's only a matter of time before they mess with the wrong people and incur some real-life consequences. As much as I'm against doxxing in general, there are certainly those who will take that route of revenge.
Animats 3y ago
This would be a really good case to push the Department of Justice to investigate. There are criminal penalties for false claim of copyright infringement, but only the Attorney General can initiate a case. For knocking NASA PR out of search, that just might be possible. Complain to NASA's PR people. NASA still has some political clout. Enough to take on some Instagrammer.
- superkuh 3y ago
  It'd be especially good for setting case law precedence since it isn't a multi-national megacorp with an army of lawyers. It's just a shady small company hired by a person. The case could probably get a fair hearing.
  - ZoomerCretin 3y ago
    How would it change anything? You still need to challenge the false DMCA in court, and prove it is false. Bad actors will continue targeting people too poor to fight back.
- giantrobot 3y ago
  It's rich that someone on Instagram picked the name of a Greek goddess and is able, through the insanity of the DMCA, squat on that name.
  - ljm 3y ago
    It’s almost as if US legal systems actively facilitate cultural appropriation, particularly with DMCA generally being applied by brute force. Using US copyright law to protect an influencer’s appropriation of a 3000 year old name to market their narcissism is exactly a case of that. Not as if it’s a unique name either. Artëm is common for men in Russia and Ukraine.
    - akira2501 3y ago
      It facilitates the violation of human rights. It created a system that does more to harm speech than it does to protect it's proliferation. The large corporations who profit the most from this "law" are the least in need of it's protections and it's bizarre that they're entitled to raise the specter of FBI investigated criminal penalties for what should be a civil matter. The cultural appropriation, to the extent that it does occur, is simply profitable within this framework. It's more like cultural maceration, the guts are thrown away, and the brightly colored chitin is all that remains.
neilv 3y ago
Web site that profits from widespread copyright violation-- decries the flawed legal mechanisms that widespread copyright violation enabled. DMCA has serious problems in practice, and needs correcting. But the piracy community should not be the ones criticizing every time a merchant ship has a gunpowder accident from the cannons they're required to carry because of the pirates.
- hug 3y ago
  TorrentFreak is a news site, not a site that enables torrenting per se. That said, your analogy is also flawed: this is not a gunpowder accident, it’s one merchant turning the cannons on the other, and the complaining party is the only one that has been anti-cannon the entire time. Copyright reform advocates are and always were saying that the protection laws were doing more harm than good.
  - neilv 3y ago
    TorrentFreak is not a disinterested journalism site. Their sponsor ads are clearly targeted at pirates.
    - ipaddr 3y ago
      Can you name a non disinterested journalism site?
- icehawk 3y ago
  That doesn't follow, online copyright infringement didn't require anyone to write the DMCA in its current form.
  - neilv 3y ago
    Piracy empowered crappy corporations and politicians to do DMCA.
    - kmeisthax 3y ago
666throwaway666 3y ago
A lot of these DMCA agents for hire come from the porn industry. Our company has been attacked by Eric Green [1] with baseless defective DMCA notices (including notices to the ISP), to which we have not responded. Our legal counsel (a renown copyright lawyer) advised not respond, because the notices were defective (baseless). He pointed out however, that his cowboy background comes from the porn industry, that he expanded into other areas. The problem is that the copyright law doesn't provide for an adequate punishment for unscrupulous DMCA notices. 1. https://www.reddit.com/r/Etsy/s/cQfDsf4nE2 https://www.reddit.com/r/Etsy/s/cQfDsf4nE2 https://www.reddit.com/r/Etsy/s/HEhayRGlG9 https://www.reddit.com/r/Etsy/s/HEhayRGlG9 https://support.google.com/websearch/thread/28023794/someone-is-sending-fake-copyright-strikes-to-my-site?hl=en https://support.google.com/websearch/thread/28023794/someone...
RcouF1uZ4gsC 3y ago
For the lawyers on HN, would you able to bring a lawsuit for defamation and tortuous interference? Falsely accusing someone of bad behavior in an attempt to affect a business relationship seems like it would have some possible civil remedies?
kristianp 3y ago
Is there a tool that creates those visual previews of urls like the one in the article? Looks useful.

177 points by CoBE10 3y ago

> DMCA takedown notices sent by a company calling itself DMCA Piracy Prevention Inc. claim to protect the rights of an OnlyFans/Instagram model working under the name ‘Artemis’.

mcpackieh 3y ago
We need to have severe penalties for negligent DMCA takedowns, not just willfully malicious ones. Including disbarment and possibly imprisonment for any lawyers involved. Taking down pages about NASA rocketry because they shared a name with a social media model was probably an accident, but it's an inexcusable accident that never should have happened. These kind of accidents wouldn't happen so often if the people issuing takedowns were forced to have skin in the game.
- ZoomerCretin 3y ago
  This is a very nice-sounding fantasy. Too many people profit from the status quo to do such a thing. Lawyers and judges would not dare issue a ruling or enact any law harming their and their friends' profession.
  - Terr_ 3y ago
    Also, the penalty against falsely claiming you represent a copyright holder can/will be weaponized against anyone trying to bring attention to abuse by issuing the "missing" DMCA takedown requests in a logically consistent manner. In other words, it ends up making it easy for issuers to selectively bully small weak targets while carefully avoiding anyone who could fight back legally. The fact that one thing was removed/kept doesn't create precedent for another fundamentally identical thing posted by someone else.
  - rockskon 3y ago
    Cynicism like this is poison for changing the political system. Not only have you ceded all ground to the copyright industry - you also discourage others from trying to make a difference. The public isn't as powerless to enact change as you make them out to be.
    - voakbasda 3y ago
      Yes the public is powerless. Nothing short of revolution will change the status quo. Until then, not a god damn thing will ever make a meaningful change away from the direction things are heading. The people have lost control of the government.
      - rockskon 3y ago
        LARPing will not change things, no. People here, if organized, could absolutely change things especially considering the resources at the financial disposal of those here. No, I don't mean issues like what you see endlessly litigated on the news. There's countless other issues that barely get any attention in the news such as - Copyright! Not to abolish it - that will never happen, but changes are absolutely possible.
  - safety1st 3y ago
    I mean the lawyers behind Prenda Law were disbarred and sent to jail for their outrageous copyright trolling in large part because they abused the justice system. Judges don't like it when you do that. They can and do bust lawyers and law firms all the time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prenda_Law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prenda_Law I think the main issue here is, if you're a victim of DMCA fraud it's hard to get a case in front of a judge because of the way the law is written. But that doesn't mean it will never happen, and if it does I absolutely feel like a judge might set a precedent which curtails the practice, because judges by nature tend to take a dim view of abuse of process.
- DonHopkins 3y ago
  [flagged]

userbinator 3y ago

Unfortunately, DMCA abuse rarely has consequences for those behind it. I think with this sort of carelessness, it's only a matter of time before they mess with the wrong people and incur some real-life consequences. As much as I'm against doxxing in general, there are certainly those who will take that route of revenge.

Animats 3y ago

This would be a really good case to push the Department of Justice to investigate. There are criminal penalties for false claim of copyright infringement, but only the Attorney General can initiate a case. For knocking NASA PR out of search, that just might be possible. Complain to NASA's PR people. NASA still has some political clout. Enough to take on some Instagrammer.

superkuh 3y ago
It'd be especially good for setting case law precedence since it isn't a multi-national megacorp with an army of lawyers. It's just a shady small company hired by a person. The case could probably get a fair hearing.
- ZoomerCretin 3y ago
  How would it change anything? You still need to challenge the false DMCA in court, and prove it is false. Bad actors will continue targeting people too poor to fight back.
giantrobot 3y ago
It's rich that someone on Instagram picked the name of a Greek goddess and is able, through the insanity of the DMCA, squat on that name.
- ljm 3y ago
  It’s almost as if US legal systems actively facilitate cultural appropriation, particularly with DMCA generally being applied by brute force. Using US copyright law to protect an influencer’s appropriation of a 3000 year old name to market their narcissism is exactly a case of that. Not as if it’s a unique name either. Artëm is common for men in Russia and Ukraine.
  - akira2501 3y ago
    It facilitates the violation of human rights. It created a system that does more to harm speech than it does to protect it's proliferation. The large corporations who profit the most from this "law" are the least in need of it's protections and it's bizarre that they're entitled to raise the specter of FBI investigated criminal penalties for what should be a civil matter. The cultural appropriation, to the extent that it does occur, is simply profitable within this framework. It's more like cultural maceration, the guts are thrown away, and the brightly colored chitin is all that remains.

neilv 3y ago

Web site that profits from widespread copyright violation-- decries the flawed legal mechanisms that widespread copyright violation enabled. DMCA has serious problems in practice, and needs correcting. But the piracy community should not be the ones criticizing every time a merchant ship has a gunpowder accident from the cannons they're required to carry because of the pirates.

hug 3y ago
TorrentFreak is a news site, not a site that enables torrenting per se. That said, your analogy is also flawed: this is not a gunpowder accident, it’s one merchant turning the cannons on the other, and the complaining party is the only one that has been anti-cannon the entire time. Copyright reform advocates are and always were saying that the protection laws were doing more harm than good.
- neilv 3y ago
  TorrentFreak is not a disinterested journalism site. Their sponsor ads are clearly targeted at pirates.
  - ipaddr 3y ago
    Can you name a non disinterested journalism site?
icehawk 3y ago
That doesn't follow, online copyright infringement didn't require anyone to write the DMCA in its current form.
- neilv 3y ago
  Piracy empowered crappy corporations and politicians to do DMCA.
  - kmeisthax 3y ago

666throwaway666 3y ago

A lot of these DMCA agents for hire come from the porn industry. Our company has been attacked by Eric Green [1] with baseless defective DMCA notices (including notices to the ISP), to which we have not responded. Our legal counsel (a renown copyright lawyer) advised not respond, because the notices were defective (baseless). He pointed out however, that his cowboy background comes from the porn industry, that he expanded into other areas. The problem is that the copyright law doesn't provide for an adequate punishment for unscrupulous DMCA notices. 1. https://www.reddit.com/r/Etsy/s/cQfDsf4nE2 https://www.reddit.com/r/Etsy/s/cQfDsf4nE2 https://www.reddit.com/r/Etsy/s/HEhayRGlG9 https://www.reddit.com/r/Etsy/s/HEhayRGlG9 https://support.google.com/websearch/thread/28023794/someone-is-sending-fake-copyright-strikes-to-my-site?hl=en https://support.google.com/websearch/thread/28023794/someone...

RcouF1uZ4gsC 3y ago

For the lawyers on HN, would you able to bring a lawsuit for defamation and tortuous interference? Falsely accusing someone of bad behavior in an attempt to affect a business relationship seems like it would have some possible civil remedies?

kristianp 3y ago

Is there a tool that creates those visual previews of urls like the one in the article? Looks useful.