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Does torrentfreak have any legal recourse? If the notices keep saying the information is accurate under penalty of perjury, when clearly its not, it seems like

by kayson 3y ago

Does torrentfreak have any legal recourse? If the notices keep saying the information is accurate under penalty of perjury, when clearly its not, it seems like they should be able to do something...

cesarb 3y ago
> the notices keep saying the information is accurate under penalty of perjury, when clearly its not The part which is "accurate under penalty of perjury" is only that "the complaining party is authorized to act on behalf of the owner [...]"; it excludes the part which says "the information in the notification is accurate" from that. Yes, it means that they can lie as much as they want on the "you are violating my copyright" part as long as they are truthful when saying "this copyright is mine".
- ipaddr 3y ago
  Without getting the copyright is mine part how can they claim authorized or ownership?
  - andrewaylett 3y ago
    They're claiming a specific right is infringed, and although they are frequently completely incorrect about the infringement, they still need to be correct about the right they're claiming about. Chewbacca is a Wookie, and the claimant is authorised to submit infringement notifications. Neither fact is necessarily relevant to the target of the notification.
  - notatoad 3y ago
    there's two independent statements: - i am authorized by the owner of this piece of copyrighted work - this copyrighted work appears at this url. the first needs to be true under penalty of perjury. the second can be as false as you want with no repercussions.
    - Aerroon 3y ago
      But what is "this piece of copyrighted work"? If they're filing a DMCA claim then it indicates that (a part of) the video they're filing a claim against is "this copyrighted work".
      - notatoad 3y ago
        You don't file a dmca takedown against a video, you file against a URL. All you're claiming is that your copyrighted content is somewhere in that url. But even if you were filing against a video directly, it doesn't mean you're claiming ownership of the video. It could just be one song on the soundtrack, Or a still photo shown without authorization, Or one of the actor's tattoos (seriously) that is the subject of your claim.
- chris_wot 3y ago
  So, in that case, you could then file a bunch of fraudlent DMCA notices against them in return. If there is no remedy for this, then it's not like someone couldn't do this to them also?
  - JetSpiegel 3y ago
    The complainers are not publishers themselves, there's nothing to take down.
    - ballenf 3y ago
      They have computer systems on which they "publish" documents at least internally. DMCA applies even to non-pubic facing systems.
andrewaylett 3y ago
What's under penalty of perjury is the right to file a claim about the work allegedly infringed, rather than the accuracy of the reported content, which merely needs to be "a good faith belief". If you publish something you hold copyright on, and someone makes an unauthorised copy, I can't submit a DMCA claim against the copy without your authorisation. Even if the claim would be 100% valid were you to submit it, the courts may enforce that only you and your agents may actually make that submission. On the other hand, it's quite hard to prove that someone is acting in bad faith, rather than being earnest but entirely incompetent.
cf1241290841 3y ago
I think it goes further then legal recourse If you really think that a market environment should be able to fix this abuse of the legal system, finding a way through which torrentfreak would automatically profit from this should be a great goal to work towards. They make excellent bait for precedent cases to to fix a broken system.
JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> Does torrentfreak have any legal recourse? Penalty of perjury is criminal. We need a state AG to make an example out of someone. These notices are signed by a natural person, right?
- _heimdall 3y ago
  Earlier comments covered this, but legal recourse here is only feasible if the party filing the DMCA notice isn't actually authorized to represent the copyright holder. The validity of the copyright infringement claim is the purpose of the lawsuit, an QG can't go after you after the fact for having lost the case.

by kayson 3y ago

Does torrentfreak have any legal recourse? If the notices keep saying the information is accurate under penalty of perjury, when clearly its not, it seems like they should be able to do something...

cesarb 3y ago

> the notices keep saying the information is accurate under penalty of perjury, when clearly its not The part which is "accurate under penalty of perjury" is only that "the complaining party is authorized to act on behalf of the owner [...]"; it excludes the part which says "the information in the notification is accurate" from that. Yes, it means that they can lie as much as they want on the "you are violating my copyright" part as long as they are truthful when saying "this copyright is mine".

ipaddr 3y ago
Without getting the copyright is mine part how can they claim authorized or ownership?
- andrewaylett 3y ago
  They're claiming a specific right is infringed, and although they are frequently completely incorrect about the infringement, they still need to be correct about the right they're claiming about. Chewbacca is a Wookie, and the claimant is authorised to submit infringement notifications. Neither fact is necessarily relevant to the target of the notification.
- notatoad 3y ago
  there's two independent statements: - i am authorized by the owner of this piece of copyrighted work - this copyrighted work appears at this url. the first needs to be true under penalty of perjury. the second can be as false as you want with no repercussions.
  - Aerroon 3y ago
    But what is "this piece of copyrighted work"? If they're filing a DMCA claim then it indicates that (a part of) the video they're filing a claim against is "this copyrighted work".
    - notatoad 3y ago
      You don't file a dmca takedown against a video, you file against a URL. All you're claiming is that your copyrighted content is somewhere in that url. But even if you were filing against a video directly, it doesn't mean you're claiming ownership of the video. It could just be one song on the soundtrack, Or a still photo shown without authorization, Or one of the actor's tattoos (seriously) that is the subject of your claim.
chris_wot 3y ago
So, in that case, you could then file a bunch of fraudlent DMCA notices against them in return. If there is no remedy for this, then it's not like someone couldn't do this to them also?
- JetSpiegel 3y ago
  The complainers are not publishers themselves, there's nothing to take down.
  - ballenf 3y ago
    They have computer systems on which they "publish" documents at least internally. DMCA applies even to non-pubic facing systems.

andrewaylett 3y ago

What's under penalty of perjury is the right to file a claim about the work allegedly infringed, rather than the accuracy of the reported content, which merely needs to be "a good faith belief". If you publish something you hold copyright on, and someone makes an unauthorised copy, I can't submit a DMCA claim against the copy without your authorisation. Even if the claim would be 100% valid were you to submit it, the courts may enforce that only you and your agents may actually make that submission. On the other hand, it's quite hard to prove that someone is acting in bad faith, rather than being earnest but entirely incompetent.

cf1241290841 3y ago

I think it goes further then legal recourse If you really think that a market environment should be able to fix this abuse of the legal system, finding a way through which torrentfreak would automatically profit from this should be a great goal to work towards. They make excellent bait for precedent cases to to fix a broken system.

JumpCrisscross 3y ago

> Does torrentfreak have any legal recourse? Penalty of perjury is criminal. We need a state AG to make an example out of someone. These notices are signed by a natural person, right?

_heimdall 3y ago
Earlier comments covered this, but legal recourse here is only feasible if the party filing the DMCA notice isn't actually authorized to represent the copyright holder. The validity of the copyright infringement claim is the purpose of the lawsuit, an QG can't go after you after the fact for having lost the case.