7 ms·

This removes a variety of projects from Google search results, including ones from Mozilla (specifically, Rust), Facebook, Yahoo, Netflix, openSUSE, as well as

by dbaupp 12y ago

This removes a variety of projects from Google search results, including ones from Mozilla (specifically, Rust), Facebook, Yahoo, Netflix, openSUSE, as well as github documentation, e.g. - https://github.com/yahoo/pure - https://github.com/rust-lang/cargo - https://github.com/openSUSE/wicked - https://github.com/Netflix/Lipstick - https://github.com/facebook/rebound - https://help.github.com/articles/dealing-with-non-fast-forward-errors/ (NB. the sender, wickedpictures.com, is NSFW.)

sambo_long 12y ago
I wonder if a bunch of these companies might get together and sue the sender of take down for defamation, loss of business, something.
- eli 12y ago
  Knowingly filing a false takedown is a crime, but it's pretty hard to prove. This isn't really defamation.
  - Karunamon 12y ago
    Legal question - If you send a bad DMCA and can't be proven to have sent it in bad faith (so the penalties under that law don't apply), could you still be sued for negligence, loss of business, etc etc? I.e. you didn't break the federal law, but you still damaged me.
    - eli 12y ago
      I don't see why not
    - ubernostrum 12y ago
      (I am not a lawyer, but did read coverage of the SCO lawsuit extensively) Falsely claiming to hold copyright in a work to which you do not hold copyright may open the possibility for slander of title (which was one of the claims in the SCO lawsuit). I would be interested to see some sufficiently-deep-pocketed entity try to use that to turn an automated-DMCA-complaint house into a smoking hole in the ground, pour encourager les autres.
      - dpifke 12y ago
        Slander of Title (as seen in the SCO case) is generally codified in state law (e.g. Nevada; see http://www.trucounsel.com/index.php/slander-of-title http://www.trucounsel.com/index.php/slander-of-title). Arguably there may be other causes of action, but for a lone a DMCA takedown notice sans any accompanying threats, I believe Federal law would preempt and you're stuck try to meet the bar of intentional malice or negligence. (IAANAL, but I listen to a lot of Jay-Z songs so I know a little bit.)
        otterley 12y ago
        IAAL (this is not legal advice), and I think you're correct about Federal preemption.
  - Natsu 12y ago
    It's supposed to be perjury if they pretend to represent a work they do not, in fact, own. So if I falsely claim that I own Harry Potter and go file DMCA notices, I should get busted. But if I claim that something I actually do own the copyright on is infringed by something that clearly isn't infringing... well, there's nothing in the DMCA penalizing that. In theory there might be some other claim against a person filing bogus DMCA notices, but given that people have been spamming half-bogus notices like this for years now, I'm not really holding my breath. I guess there have been a few that got in a little trouble, but not much. If they get in trouble it's usually for something bigger.
    - freehunter 12y ago
      >But if I claim that something I actually do own the copyright on is infringed by something that clearly isn't infringing... well, there's nothing in the DMCA penalizing that. Well that's not true. As posted by dangrossman above, the DMCA stipulates penalties if you misrepresent that the material is infringing. You will be liable for damages, including lawyer's fees.
      - Aeoxic 12y ago
        "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 infringed." The wording actually results in "under penalty of purjury" to modify the succeeding part of the sentence, not the preceding part. As a result, the penalties only apply if you act on behalf of another party without authorization. Penalties would apply for mislabelling content as copyright infringing as well as acting without authorization if the requirement was this along the lines of "a statement, under penalty of perjury, that the information in the notification is accurate and that the complaining party is authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed."
        Natsu 12y ago
        I think he's talking about the knowing misrepresentation clause that I forgot about, actually (which is not the same as signing off on it under penalty of perjury). As noted by one of the comments above, this provision is completely toothless. To quote DannyBee: "Nobody has successfully gotten anyone fined/real damages for this provision yet. Partially because it requires knowing misrepresentation, not just negligent or even grossly negligent misrepresentation." So you have to prove that they actually KNEW that Github was not a porno movie owned by them, not just that they were (hypothetically) filing legal papers while intoxicated or without actually reading them. How you're supposed to prove they actually know anything at all in the face of the sheer stupidity demonstrated by this notice is an open question. I think a real lawyer would need to answer that, but I found something that makes it seem like the standard could be met if they made the statements with a complete disregard for the truth thereof - http://legal.practitioner.com/regulation/standards_9_3_1.htm http://legal.practitioner.com/regulation/standards_9_3_1.htm But it makes it seem like they could argue that they were simply careless and avoid it, so I don't honestly know.
Natsu 12y ago
Actually, this was sent by "Takedown Piracy LLC" working on behalf of Wickedpictures. They file DMCA notices by the truckload according to the results I get in Chilling Effect's search, so you can safely assume they're a DMCA notice spammer. Unfortunately, it does not list the individual lawyer who signed off on this complaint, or I would be tempted to draft a letter to their local bar association pointing out how careless they are, as no reasonable person could mistake Github's documentation for a porno movie.
- akusete 12y ago
  Rule 34.
  - frandroid 12y ago
    Oh, commit to me!
    - JonnieCache 12y ago
      That doesnt sound very sexy. Surely we should all be forking each other.
  - RyanMcGreal 12y ago
    A different kind of pull request.
- userbinator 12y ago
  Wicked might be paying them to do it, and if they're charging "per infringing URL removed", it makes a lot of sense that they're trying to get as many removed as possible. Wicked might also be a victim in this case.
  - Natsu 12y ago
    I thought this kind of service was usually paid per work "protected," but I have no knowledge of this specific arrangement.
gee_totes 12y ago
I wonder how these pages got picked up. If Wickedpictures is doing some type of Natural Language processing to identify these pages as their content, it would be interesting to analyze the content of these pages and reverse-engineer Wickedpictrue's system. Then of course, you could package that reverse-engineering work as a service that will insert red-herring comments in source code to set off the automated DMCA takedowns, creating a free semi-private repository on github.
- MichaelGG 12y ago
  Or if someone you don't like has user-generated content, you go try to get DMCA'd keywords onto their page and watch them drop off search results.
userbinator 12y ago
It looks like everything with "wicked", "pushover", "knockout", "lipstick", and other keywords are being targeted. Clearly the work of an automated process and not a human. One of the more amusing URLs that caught my attention is a link to a torrent search site with the query being a single, very generic keyword: "girl". Presumably the results of that search include content they want to remove, so it also got hit.
- chii 12y ago
  there really should be a penalty for issuing illegitimate dmca takedowns (beyond some reasonably number - so you don't get scared to do it).
  - dangrossman 12y ago
    17 U.S. Code § 512(f) Misrepresentations.— Any person who knowingly materially misrepresents under this section— (1) that material or activity is infringing, or (2) that material or activity was removed or disabled by mistake or misidentification, shall be liable for any damages, including costs and attorneys’ fees, incurred by the alleged infringer, by any copyright owner or copyright owner’s authorized licensee, or by a service provider, who is injured by such misrepresentation, as the result of the service provider relying upon such misrepresentation in removing or disabling access to the material or activity claimed to be infringing, or in replacing the removed material or ceasing to disable access to it. There probably exist civil law remedies outside the DMCA's protections as well. Tortious interference, slander of title, something that might stick given the specific circumstances and how good your lawyers are. IANAL.
    - DannyBee 12y ago
      Nobody has successfully gotten anyone fined/real damages for this provision yet. Partially because it requires knowing misrepresentation, not just negligent or even grossly negligent misrepresentation.
      - 12y ago
lambda 12y ago
Has anyone (Mozilla, Yahoo, SUSE, Netflix, Facebook, Github) filed a counter-notice yet? That's the next step in the DMCA dance; if you file a counter notice, and the accuser does not then file a lawsuit, Google can put back the content.
btown 12y ago
Confirmed: https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&es_th=1&ie=UTF-8#q=https://github.com/rust-lang/cargo&pws=0 https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&e...

by dbaupp 12y ago

sambo_long 12y ago

I wonder if a bunch of these companies might get together and sue the sender of take down for defamation, loss of business, something.

eli 12y ago
Knowingly filing a false takedown is a crime, but it's pretty hard to prove. This isn't really defamation.
- Karunamon 12y ago
  Legal question - If you send a bad DMCA and can't be proven to have sent it in bad faith (so the penalties under that law don't apply), could you still be sued for negligence, loss of business, etc etc? I.e. you didn't break the federal law, but you still damaged me.
  - eli 12y ago
    I don't see why not
  - ubernostrum 12y ago
    (I am not a lawyer, but did read coverage of the SCO lawsuit extensively) Falsely claiming to hold copyright in a work to which you do not hold copyright may open the possibility for slander of title (which was one of the claims in the SCO lawsuit). I would be interested to see some sufficiently-deep-pocketed entity try to use that to turn an automated-DMCA-complaint house into a smoking hole in the ground, pour encourager les autres.
    - dpifke 12y ago
      Slander of Title (as seen in the SCO case) is generally codified in state law (e.g. Nevada; see http://www.trucounsel.com/index.php/slander-of-title http://www.trucounsel.com/index.php/slander-of-title). Arguably there may be other causes of action, but for a lone a DMCA takedown notice sans any accompanying threats, I believe Federal law would preempt and you're stuck try to meet the bar of intentional malice or negligence. (IAANAL, but I listen to a lot of Jay-Z songs so I know a little bit.)
      - otterley 12y ago
        IAAL (this is not legal advice), and I think you're correct about Federal preemption.
- Natsu 12y ago
  It's supposed to be perjury if they pretend to represent a work they do not, in fact, own. So if I falsely claim that I own Harry Potter and go file DMCA notices, I should get busted. But if I claim that something I actually do own the copyright on is infringed by something that clearly isn't infringing... well, there's nothing in the DMCA penalizing that. In theory there might be some other claim against a person filing bogus DMCA notices, but given that people have been spamming half-bogus notices like this for years now, I'm not really holding my breath. I guess there have been a few that got in a little trouble, but not much. If they get in trouble it's usually for something bigger.
  - freehunter 12y ago
    >But if I claim that something I actually do own the copyright on is infringed by something that clearly isn't infringing... well, there's nothing in the DMCA penalizing that. Well that's not true. As posted by dangrossman above, the DMCA stipulates penalties if you misrepresent that the material is infringing. You will be liable for damages, including lawyer's fees.
    - Aeoxic 12y ago
      "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 infringed." The wording actually results in "under penalty of purjury" to modify the succeeding part of the sentence, not the preceding part. As a result, the penalties only apply if you act on behalf of another party without authorization. Penalties would apply for mislabelling content as copyright infringing as well as acting without authorization if the requirement was this along the lines of "a statement, under penalty of perjury, that the information in the notification is accurate and that the complaining party is authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed."
      - Natsu 12y ago
        I think he's talking about the knowing misrepresentation clause that I forgot about, actually (which is not the same as signing off on it under penalty of perjury). As noted by one of the comments above, this provision is completely toothless. To quote DannyBee: "Nobody has successfully gotten anyone fined/real damages for this provision yet. Partially because it requires knowing misrepresentation, not just negligent or even grossly negligent misrepresentation." So you have to prove that they actually KNEW that Github was not a porno movie owned by them, not just that they were (hypothetically) filing legal papers while intoxicated or without actually reading them. How you're supposed to prove they actually know anything at all in the face of the sheer stupidity demonstrated by this notice is an open question. I think a real lawyer would need to answer that, but I found something that makes it seem like the standard could be met if they made the statements with a complete disregard for the truth thereof - http://legal.practitioner.com/regulation/standards_9_3_1.htm http://legal.practitioner.com/regulation/standards_9_3_1.htm But it makes it seem like they could argue that they were simply careless and avoid it, so I don't honestly know.

Natsu 12y ago

Actually, this was sent by "Takedown Piracy LLC" working on behalf of Wickedpictures. They file DMCA notices by the truckload according to the results I get in Chilling Effect's search, so you can safely assume they're a DMCA notice spammer. Unfortunately, it does not list the individual lawyer who signed off on this complaint, or I would be tempted to draft a letter to their local bar association pointing out how careless they are, as no reasonable person could mistake Github's documentation for a porno movie.

akusete 12y ago
Rule 34.
- frandroid 12y ago
  Oh, commit to me!
  - JonnieCache 12y ago
    That doesnt sound very sexy. Surely we should all be forking each other.
- RyanMcGreal 12y ago
  A different kind of pull request.
userbinator 12y ago
Wicked might be paying them to do it, and if they're charging "per infringing URL removed", it makes a lot of sense that they're trying to get as many removed as possible. Wicked might also be a victim in this case.
- Natsu 12y ago
  I thought this kind of service was usually paid per work "protected," but I have no knowledge of this specific arrangement.

gee_totes 12y ago

I wonder how these pages got picked up. If Wickedpictures is doing some type of Natural Language processing to identify these pages as their content, it would be interesting to analyze the content of these pages and reverse-engineer Wickedpictrue's system. Then of course, you could package that reverse-engineering work as a service that will insert red-herring comments in source code to set off the automated DMCA takedowns, creating a free semi-private repository on github.

MichaelGG 12y ago
Or if someone you don't like has user-generated content, you go try to get DMCA'd keywords onto their page and watch them drop off search results.

userbinator 12y ago

It looks like everything with "wicked", "pushover", "knockout", "lipstick", and other keywords are being targeted. Clearly the work of an automated process and not a human. One of the more amusing URLs that caught my attention is a link to a torrent search site with the query being a single, very generic keyword: "girl". Presumably the results of that search include content they want to remove, so it also got hit.

chii 12y ago
there really should be a penalty for issuing illegitimate dmca takedowns (beyond some reasonably number - so you don't get scared to do it).
- dangrossman 12y ago
  17 U.S. Code § 512(f) Misrepresentations.— Any person who knowingly materially misrepresents under this section— (1) that material or activity is infringing, or (2) that material or activity was removed or disabled by mistake or misidentification, shall be liable for any damages, including costs and attorneys’ fees, incurred by the alleged infringer, by any copyright owner or copyright owner’s authorized licensee, or by a service provider, who is injured by such misrepresentation, as the result of the service provider relying upon such misrepresentation in removing or disabling access to the material or activity claimed to be infringing, or in replacing the removed material or ceasing to disable access to it. There probably exist civil law remedies outside the DMCA's protections as well. Tortious interference, slander of title, something that might stick given the specific circumstances and how good your lawyers are. IANAL.
  - DannyBee 12y ago
    Nobody has successfully gotten anyone fined/real damages for this provision yet. Partially because it requires knowing misrepresentation, not just negligent or even grossly negligent misrepresentation.
    - 12y ago

lambda 12y ago

Has anyone (Mozilla, Yahoo, SUSE, Netflix, Facebook, Github) filed a counter-notice yet? That's the next step in the DMCA dance; if you file a counter notice, and the accuser does not then file a lawsuit, Google can put back the content.

btown 12y ago

Confirmed: https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&es_th=1&ie=UTF-8#q=https://github.com/rust-lang/cargo&pws=0 https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&e...