4 ms·

Yep. Part of DMCA safe harbor is that you have to pull it down for a couple weeks, regardless of frivolity.

by Sanddancer 11y ago

ikeboy 11y ago
Google rejects many DMCA requests, does that mean they aren't covered under safe harbor?
- sp332 11y ago
  I think they only reject badly-formed ones or cases where an automated system clearly mis-identified content. https://torrentfreak.com/google-further-highlights-wrongful-dmca-takedowns-130320/ https://torrentfreak.com/google-further-highlights-wrongful-... So they could be sued, but since they would obviously win in court, no one bothers suing over these.
- masklinn 11y ago
  For the DMCA they rejected and if the request is found to be valid, yes, they become potential party to the legal action. I'm guessing they reject obviously spurious and incomplete/ill-formed ones.
- wnevets 11y ago
  it means the people who made the request can sue google.
- duskwuff 11y ago
  Google is in the unusual situation of receiving a lot of blatantly invalid DMCA takedowns. Like, a movie studio (or a company under contract to them) will do a Google search for something broad, like "download game of thrones", and issue a mass takedown for every single link that shows up, often without even looking at the links. So a lot of perfectly legal content (e.g, a news article that says "Game Of Thrones is one of the most commonly downloaded TV shows") gets swept up, and Google is being good enough to spot those and reject them. (Sometimes the DMCA agents screw up even worse. For instance, there's evidence that some of them forget important keywords sometimes, and end up issuing a takedown on all the top links for searches like "download".)
  - Zikes 11y ago
    The ridiculous thing is that there are no consequences for the groups sending out those invalid DMCA requests. Every other week I read about how someone uses DMCA to censor a YouTube video or article that's critical of them, but apart from the loss of face with the public they don't see any of the legal or financial penalties that are supposed to result from invalid DMCAs.
    - duskwuff 11y ago
      Part of the problem there is that the DMCA (and arguably the legal system in general) doesn't deal well with pseudonymity. Contesting a DMCA takedown requires that you send your real name and contact information to the service provider and to the sender of the DMCA. This ends up making the DMCA a dangerous harassment tool; targeted individuals end up with an unpalatable choice between allowing their harassers to force any content of theirs to be taken offline (which will often cause their accounts to be suspended on sites like YouTube!), or giving their harassers their personal information. But more generally -- yes, it's a huge problem that the DMCA has few consequences for "spray and pray" takedowns. While there are some provisions in the law for damages against knowingly issuing an invalid takedown, it's incredibly hard to prove (I'm not sure if it's ever happened!), and in any case, it doesn't apply if the takedown was simply sent in error. Even if you make that error repeatedly, and don't do anything to prevent it.
    - ascagnel_ 11y ago
      A takedown notice is sent under penalty of perjury (which makes it different than a C&D notice). The issue is that it's up to the party that receives the takedown to petition the court for the perjury cause, and that's almost never worth it.
- gcb0 11y ago
  safe harbor means: if you do that, even if you are guilty, you are exempt. if you are innocent, you don't need safe harbor because well, you're innocent! but just like every criminal case in the usa where law representation is far from fair and free, its often better to accept the guilty while being innocent just to avoid the legal costs. that's why dmca stinks. it forces your hand even more to just assume guilty for the low cost of censoring someone else in favor of someone that can pay a legal battle.

Yep. Part of DMCA safe harbor is that you have to pull it down for a couple weeks, regardless of frivolity.

ikeboy 11y ago

Google rejects many DMCA requests, does that mean they aren't covered under safe harbor?

sp332 11y ago
I think they only reject badly-formed ones or cases where an automated system clearly mis-identified content. https://torrentfreak.com/google-further-highlights-wrongful-dmca-takedowns-130320/ https://torrentfreak.com/google-further-highlights-wrongful-... So they could be sued, but since they would obviously win in court, no one bothers suing over these.
masklinn 11y ago
For the DMCA they rejected and if the request is found to be valid, yes, they become potential party to the legal action. I'm guessing they reject obviously spurious and incomplete/ill-formed ones.
wnevets 11y ago
it means the people who made the request can sue google.
duskwuff 11y ago
Google is in the unusual situation of receiving a lot of blatantly invalid DMCA takedowns. Like, a movie studio (or a company under contract to them) will do a Google search for something broad, like "download game of thrones", and issue a mass takedown for every single link that shows up, often without even looking at the links. So a lot of perfectly legal content (e.g, a news article that says "Game Of Thrones is one of the most commonly downloaded TV shows") gets swept up, and Google is being good enough to spot those and reject them. (Sometimes the DMCA agents screw up even worse. For instance, there's evidence that some of them forget important keywords sometimes, and end up issuing a takedown on all the top links for searches like "download".)
- Zikes 11y ago
  The ridiculous thing is that there are no consequences for the groups sending out those invalid DMCA requests. Every other week I read about how someone uses DMCA to censor a YouTube video or article that's critical of them, but apart from the loss of face with the public they don't see any of the legal or financial penalties that are supposed to result from invalid DMCAs.
  - duskwuff 11y ago
    Part of the problem there is that the DMCA (and arguably the legal system in general) doesn't deal well with pseudonymity. Contesting a DMCA takedown requires that you send your real name and contact information to the service provider and to the sender of the DMCA. This ends up making the DMCA a dangerous harassment tool; targeted individuals end up with an unpalatable choice between allowing their harassers to force any content of theirs to be taken offline (which will often cause their accounts to be suspended on sites like YouTube!), or giving their harassers their personal information. But more generally -- yes, it's a huge problem that the DMCA has few consequences for "spray and pray" takedowns. While there are some provisions in the law for damages against knowingly issuing an invalid takedown, it's incredibly hard to prove (I'm not sure if it's ever happened!), and in any case, it doesn't apply if the takedown was simply sent in error. Even if you make that error repeatedly, and don't do anything to prevent it.
  - ascagnel_ 11y ago
    A takedown notice is sent under penalty of perjury (which makes it different than a C&D notice). The issue is that it's up to the party that receives the takedown to petition the court for the perjury cause, and that's almost never worth it.
gcb0 11y ago
safe harbor means: if you do that, even if you are guilty, you are exempt. if you are innocent, you don't need safe harbor because well, you're innocent! but just like every criminal case in the usa where law representation is far from fair and free, its often better to accept the guilty while being innocent just to avoid the legal costs. that's why dmca stinks. it forces your hand even more to just assume guilty for the low cost of censoring someone else in favor of someone that can pay a legal battle.