Gentoo Package Accused of Violating DMCA

cshields2 writes "A recent post to the Gentoo mirrors mailing list passes along a DMCA violation claim that one of the mirror admins recieved. Supposively their bot saw the words "Pac" and "Man" in the filename INFMapPacks123FULL-MAN.zip and assumed it was an illegal copy of PAC-MAN. The file is actually for Unreal Tournament Infiltration. This is comical in one sense, but to be read by a hosting company who does not know any better can be frightening. Has anyone else ran into this with good (or even bad) outcomes?"

Comments

This is stupid

[mjmalone]

This is one of the major problems with the DMCA. By negating the need for a court order to be allowed to send these orders they have opened the door to thousands of frivolous and invalid claims. Companies that have made invalid claims such as this one should be punished. At least they should be held liable for any damages if an ISP removes contents that they claim are infringing. Are these letters totally automated? Didn't somebody actually try to download the file and see if it was indeed an unauthorized copy of pacman?

Also,

>Note: The information transmitted in this Notice is intended only for the >person or entity to which it is addressed and may contain confidential >and/or privileged material. Any review, reproduction, retransmission, >dissemination or other use of, or taking of any action in reliance upon, >this information by persons or entities other than the intended recipient >is prohibited.

What is this all about? They are trying to hide the fact that they are sending out these letters?

Re:This is stupid

[umrgregg]

The note is just to make sure that if the letter gets to the wrong recipient, that recipient cannot disseminate the information in the letter. It does not restrict the right of the intended recipient to do whatever they wish with the information in the letter.

Re:This is stupid

[YaRness]

>Note: The information transmitted in this Notice is intended only for the >person or entity to which it is addressed and may contain confidential >and/or privileged material. Any review, reproduction, retransmission, >dissemination or other use of, or taking of any action in reliance upon, >this information by persons or entities other than the intended recipient >is prohibited.

that's just standard CYA. a lot of lawyers and such include it at the end of every email.

Re:This is stupid

[Elwood P Dowd]

Note: The information transmitted in this Notice is intended only for the person or entity to which it is addressed and may contain confidential and/or privileged material. Any review, reproduction, retransmission, dissemination or other use of, or taking of any action in reliance upon, this information by persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited.

What is this all about? They are trying to hide the fact that they are sending out these letters?

That's all standard boilerplate that is included in most any legally confidential communications. My mom is a shrink, and every fax she sends contains that text. It doesn't restrict the actions of the intended recipient. My mom's clients can still show the fax to anyone they please. It's so that if my mom sends it to a client, and someone else picks it up out of the fax machine, they aren't supposed to give it to all their friends. It's weak juju to indemnify the sender of lapses in confidentiality.

If they wanted to stop the intended recipient from spreading the message around... they couldn't, but they'd be much more threatening.

Re:This is stupid

[Moofie]

Uh, what if the recipient wants to disseminate the information?

Re:This is stupid

[rifter]

Companies that have made invalid claims such as this one should be punished.

That's the real problem here. Part of the system of Checks and Balances here is that the company alleging infringement must do so under penalty of perjory, which implies a need for due diligence on their part. Since the Attorneys General in question seem to refuse to prosecute any of these entities for their numerous perjories under this law, they see no need for due diligence and employ the automated techniques which result in scenarios like this article. Until that changes there will be more of the same. I think we should move to recall any attorney general who refuses to prosecute one of these cases.

Re:This is stupid

[umrgregg]

Then they can. Read the restictions, it only restricts people who intercept the original transmission. It's not rocket science.

Re:This is stupid

[s20451]

I get a laugh out of these confidentiality addendums. The note is garbage, and is clearly only intended to scare. If by your incompetence, I suddenly find myself with incriminating information about you, what legal obligation do I have to keep that information confidential? I signed no agreement with you, and you have no other legal recourse.

At worst, the sender could claim copyright over the message text, so arguably I wouldn't be able to post the exact message to my web site. However, I could just as easily post a summary to my web site, or show it to a journalist / the police / my stock broker / my coworkers / whoever, and be perfectly within my rights.

Then again, IANAL. Can any L's out there contradict me?

Re:This is stupid

[Gortbusters.org]

Yeah! What do they think this is, some sort of end user license agreement?!

Re:This is stupid

[LehiNephi]

I have not read the DMCA, but it would seem that if the file actually is PacMan, it would violate regular copyright law, not so much the DMCA. Hosting a file that allegedly infringes on a copyright is not the same as circumventing a copy-protection mechanism.

Does anyone else sense that companies are using the acronym DMCA as a buzzword and for intimidation purposes, instead of using the proper term?

Besides, I think PacMan should have been in the public domain long since. I can't imagine that these companies are going to make more money off of people buying old versions of PacMan. Anyone with any decent experience could program his own. I even had a version on my calculator at one point.

Re:This is stupid

[why-is-it]

The note is just to make sure that if the letter gets to the wrong recipient, that recipient cannot disseminate the information in the letter.

I suppose that all depends on what country you live in. I have been seeing disclaimers like this on email quite a bit lately and I asked our legal department about them. They told me it depends on whether there is a pre-existing NDA between me (or the company I work for) and the sender (or the company they work for). If there is, then I must abide by the terms and conditions of that NDA. However, if there is no NDA in place and I receive information that I did not request or was not intended for me specifically, from a legal perspective I am free to do whatever I want with that information. I may be subject to ethical and moral restraints, but legally, I can act as I please.

So, if someone sends me confidential information by accident or their workstation is running the latest microsoft trojan and it sends me confidential information that was never intended for me, there is no legal requirement (here in Canada at least) for me to inform the sender about it or delete the message unless I choose to do so. I could also legally act on that information as well (e.g. buy/sell stocks based on the quarterly financial reports I received before they go public). Presumably, I could forward that information to other people and not be committing any crime, although I did not ask that question specifically, so take that part with a grain of salt.

The lawyers reminded me that it may not be ethical to do any of those things, but from a strictly legal perspective, I would have done nothing wrong.

Re:This is stupid

[named]

I seem to recall, from a post on yet another DMCA article here on slashdot, a lawyer (who was definitely not offering advice, naturally) saying that the "under penalty of perjury" part doesn't apply to the claim of copyright infringement. It applies, instead, to the assertion by the sender of the letter of said sender's right to represent the owner of the copyrighted material.

In fact, I believe that it was the interview with the IP lawyers from the DOJ...

So, you can't punish the company sending frivolous claims unless they don't have the right to be making silly claims about that particular material.

Re:This is stupid

[russotto]

Nope. Read the interview with the US Attorney a while back. The "under penalty of perjury" part of the DMCA notifications only applies to claiming to be the author or agent of the allegedly infringed work. It does not apply to whether or not the file in question actually contains the infringed work.

Re:This is stupid

[CatPieMan]

I personally want to know what they hell they put in that pac man game to make it 161 MB

>Infringement Detail:
>Infringing Work: Pac Man
>Filepath: /mount/3/gentoo/distfiles/
>Filename: INFMapPacks123FULL-MAN.zip
>First Found: 8 Aug 2003 09:38:44 EDT (GMT -0400)
>Last Found: 8 Aug 2003 10:42:12 EDT (GMT -0400)
>Filesize: 161,212k
>IP Address: 12.165.49.28
>IP Port: 21
>Network: FTP
>Protocol: FTP

This must be some new Uber pac man with cool 3-d graphics that require a Radeon 179002038487483 or an nVidia gForce 405 to run. I mean seriously, how much bloat can you put into pac man to make it 161,212k, the old Atari version could not have been more than 100k at most (I don't know the limit of an Atari from that time).

-CPM

Re:This is stupid

[arkanes]

Part of a DMCA letter is the avowing, under penalty of perjury, that you have good-faith reason to believe the infaction occured, and that you have legal authority to act on behalf of whoever holds the copyright on whatever you're complaning about.

It's for a court to decide, I guess, but personlly I feel that good-faith would require human supervision of a these systems.

On the other hand, maybe they do, and these are just ones that slip through. It's gotta be mind-numbing reviewing these things all day.

Re:This is stupid

[Misch]

Title 28, Section 1746 "Unsworn declarations under penalty of perjury".

The sentencing guidelines for the crime are covered in Title 18, section 1621, among other places. Penalty is a fine and/or imprisonment of up to 5 years.

Re:This is stupid

[CERDIP]

that the company alleging infringement must do so under penalty of perjory

According to the DOJ lawyers who recently responded in a Slashdot Interview, the "penalty of perjury" clause applies to their representation as being an agent of someone, and not to the validity of the claim or allegation.

Re:This is stupid

[optikSmoke]

Quite frankly, this argument is (no offense) mostly hot air -- Obviously, you could (by your logic) run around claiming everyone is hiding something illegal in something else. It may be difficult to prove it isn't there (indeed, even if you knew "the encoding" you could argue that a different encoding might possibly have been used), but it would be impossible to prove that is there. The classic example: I could tell you that there is a race of little green men living on the far side of the moon, but they always remain hidden so we can never see them and if you try to find them, the will run away in their perfectly invisible spaceships. You can't tell me they don't exist, but how can I prove they do?

Q. What evidence do you have?

A. Ummm.... none. But theoretically.......

Good-bye

Re:This is stupid

[xoff00]

Isn't this the SCO argument?

Re:This is stupid

[BdosError]

Really, this would come down to the line from their letter about:

ESA has a good faith belief that the Internet site found at {IPAddress} continues to infringe the rights of one or more ESA members

The only real thing you could complain about is what constitutes "good faith". How much effort is required on their part? Does a reg-exp matching bot count as good faith? Doesn't seem like it to me, but unless there were a number of hits, I suppose the courts would consider it too trivial to penalize.

Re:This is stupid

[1u3hr]

"please delete it without reading it"

A bit Zen -- "this statement is a lie"-like. How could you know you're not allowed to read it until you've read that you're not allowed to read it?

Re:This is stupid

[mausmalone]

It's so that if my mom sends it to a client, and someone else picks it up out of the fax machine, they aren't supposed to give it to all their friends. It's weak juju to indemnify the sender of lapses in confidentiality.

It's not actually all that weak. In the case of a Psychiatrist, there's a reasonable chance that the message will fall under the auspices of doctor-patient confidentiality, and that if someone purposefully breaks that confidentiality, then they can be prosecuted. The bottom is a notice to anyone who would intercept any such confidential communications.

This also comes along with a lot of lawyers' e-mails because there is a good chance they're communicating with a client and the firm wants to cover its ass. The lawyers themselves don't have the option to remove this text, it's automatically appended by their e-mail system. But, since it's automatic, it also gets sent to people they don't represent.

My little brother works at a phramacy and whenever he sends me e-mails they come with similar boilerplate (the views in this e-mail are not necesarily those of the pharmacy, etc...). He never puts that text on, it gets appended after he hits "send."

Kinda like a .sig:

Re:This is stupid

[finkployd]

At worst, the sender could claim copyright over the message text, so arguably I wouldn't be able to post the exact message to my web site.

Actually they don't even have to claim copyright.

"Copyright protection subsists from the time the work is created in fixed form. The copyright in the work of authorship immediately becomes the property of the author who created the work. Only the author or those deriving their rights through the author can rightfully claim copyright."

http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html#wccc

Finkployd

Re:This is stupid

[ChaosDiscord]

Presumably, I could forward that information to other people and not be committing any crime, although I did not ask that question specifically, so take that part with a grain of salt.

True, but. Be careful. Forwarding the information is fine, forwarding the actual correspondance probably isn't. The correspondance is (by default thanks to the Berne Convention) protected by copyright. So if you summarize the facts from the message and pass those facts on, you're fine. If you copy the message, you might be opening yourself up to copyright infringement.

Ethically, well, that's your business. Personally, I'd follow the directions (delete the message, maybe warn the sender of the accident if I was in a good mood), unless the message represented something dangerous or criminal (accidental release of medical information, insider trading, whatever). Then I'd pass the message on to the appropriate authorities.

Re:This is stupid

[ChaosDiscord]

On the other hand, maybe they do, and these are just ones that slip through. It's gotta be mind-numbing reviewing these things all day.

If you're sending out this sort of message, you damn well better be shooting for 100% accuracy! Every single false positive must be investigated to assure that it never happens again.

Well, it's a nice theory at least.

The point of a DMCA letter is to notify the ISP. The ISP, to remain safe from prosecution, must take down the file in question . Even if the person who posted the file claims that it is not infringing and files a counter-claim, the ISP cannot return the file for 10 days. This amounts to a non-judicially reviewed gag order for 10 days, a horrible infringement on the first amendment.

In the worst example, several web forums were posting leaking prices from the post-thanksgiving sale at Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart wrongfully claimed copyright protection on the information (you can copyright fliers, but not the actual prices, as the prices are just facts). The people running the web site objected, but thanks to the DMCA, the posts came down for the required 10 days, coinciding with the end of the post-thanksgiving day sale. At that point, Wal-Mart declined to push the claim (they knew it was bogus) and the posts went up. A free gag order, just when Wal-Mart needed it, without any pesky checks-and-balances to protect the public.

Re:This is stupid

[plague3106]

The correspondance is (by default thanks to the Berne Convention) protected by copyright.

Somehow i doubt that. If i write directions to a local bar for you, is that really something that gets copyrighted just because i wrote it? If i have a conversation with someone, do we exclusively own the copyright to that conversation? I doubt that either of those examples would be something that can be copyrighted, any more then a students notes from a class are copyrightable.

Re:This is stupid

[ChaosDiscord]

Somehow i doubt that. If i write directions to a local bar for you, is that really something that gets copyrighted just because i wrote it?

Actually, yes. My directions are copyright by me the moment they're transfixed in some media. Your writing them down theoretically counts.

That said, facts cannot be protected by copyright. The majority, if not the entirety of my directions will like be facts. So if you just write down "South on Maple Street, turn left onto Johnson (near the gas station), and go three blocks, bar's on the left", that's darn near pure fact. However, if you transcribe my entire directions including my idiomatic language and quirky side notes, well, you'd have something I could definately claim copyright to.

If i have a conversation with someone, do we exclusively own the copyright to that conversation?

So long as it was transfixed in some form (say, I tape recorded it), sure enough. Heck, many documentaries are filled with conversations of this sort; you'd be hard pressed to air such a thing without permission. (There is an important exception when you're reporting the conversation as news. You can't use copyright to stifle something idiotic you said to a reporter.)

I doubt that either of those examples would be something that can be copyrighted, any more then a students notes from a class are copyrightable.

This is actually the most obvious case. The facts that the teacher conveys cannot be protected by copyright. The specific way in which he conveys them is protected, assuming that it's transfixed (Say, through someone taking near-exact shorthand, or tape recording it). The specific notes a student takes (Assuming that it's largely their own rephrasing of the facts conveyed) are protected by copyright for the student. There is even a very real argument that the student's notes represent a derivative work of the teacher's class, thus redistribution or sale could be controlled by the teacher. Some examples are here and here. I don't actually agree with this point of view, but it's definately not a crystal clear case.

All of this is, believe it or not, for your protection. Your creations are protected, even if you didn't think to protect it in advance. The specific examples you give are a bit silly, but it's true. Maybe during a conversation on politics you give a brilliant rebuttable that convinces everyone that you are right. I'd be pretty ticked off if the journalist who happened to be recording an interview with someone else at the next table over noticed my brilliant speech in the background of their tape, transcribes it, and passes it off as his own work.

Good Faith?

[Anonymous Coward]

ESA has a good faith belief that the Internet site found at {IPAddress} continues to infringe the rights of one or more ESA members by offering for download one or more unauthorized copies

I think a good faith effort should involve a little more than lame pattern matching.

Re:Good faith?

[fo0bar]

When AT&T forwarded that threat to me, they included a legal contact at the company to speak to about any questions, etc (I removed this before I posted to the gentoo mirrors list, including just the stuff the ESA sent to AT&T). I called him up and got the general idea that companies like AT&T see hundreds of these per day, most of them invalid, and just forward them to their customers out of courtesy. They never seem to actually disconnect service because of an automated threat.

It seems the only people these days that take the DMCA seriously are organizations like the ESA.

Still, good point.

Re:Good faith?

[GreenCrackBaby]

It seems the only people these days that take the DMCA seriously are organizations like the ESA.

While I'm glad you can shrug this off with a laugh, you've hit the nail on the head with that quote above. The thing is, the ESA aren't the only ones taking the DMCA seriously. The RIAA will soon be issuing over 1000 lawsuites against music sharers -- thanks in whole to information obtained via the DMCA. The problem is, what if they used the same techniques to find violators?

Counter sue?

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't it possible to sue people who make false claims when issuing DMCA FUD letters?

Makes your wonder

[dBLiSS]

If companies are you throwing out Cease and Desist letters at random by their bots.. How often do they ever actully follow up on them, or do they just send the letter in the hopes of scaring people off.

Seriously?

[tevenson]

So if I've got a file called "HalfLifemappack.zip" on my server they are going to assume that I have an pirated version HL on my webspace/ISP?

What are the factors that decide if a file is really in violation of the DMCA? I can see lots of lameness coming from this type of system.

Re:Seriously?

[dBLiSS]

A big problem with the DMCA is that there is no punishment for companies that don't even bother to check to see if the file even violates the DMCA. They just send out cease and desist letters in the hopes to scare people and if the company is wrong, no big deal to them. There is definetly something wrong with this this setup. A scary letter from a big company to Joe Blow makes you feel pretty scared, no one wants to spend thousands in legal fees even if they know their right.

Re:Seriously?

[Pieroxy]

Just a small post to notify you of a misuse of the word "then" for the word "than".

From Dictionary.com, Than is used to compare or contrast things, as in "He is a lot smaller than his older brother." Then refers to time or consequence: "And the Canaanite was then in the land" (Gen. xii. 6.); "If all this be so, then man has a natural freedom" (Locke).

So if one thing follows or results from another, use then.

Than is also used before a pronoun, as in "Paul loves pizza more than me."

Have a nice day.

Re:Seriously?

[Suidae]

So, if you had a non infringing file up, and they sent you a C&D, would it be appropriate to send them back a very strongly worded letter telling them to go do nasty things to their lawyers and that you refuse to remove the file (making no mention that the contents of the file are not infringing)?

If you managed to piss them off enough to spend some more resources actually persuing the matter, you could have some fun consuming some of their resources without risking anything.

Re:Seriously?

[Noren]

Just a small post to notify you of a misuse of the word "me" for the word "I".

From english.purdue.edu,

2. In comparisons. Comparisons usually follow than or as:[snip]

He is taller than I (am tall).[snip]

NOT: He is taller than me.
(Would you say, "than me am tall"?)

The sentence, "Paul loves pizza more than me (do)." is incorrect, it should be:

"Paul loves pizza more than I (do)." The word "do" may be omitted.

Hope this helps. Have a nice day.

Note about note.

[umrgregg]

The note is just to make sure that if the letter gets to the wrong recipient, that recipient cannot disseminate the information in the letter. It does not restrict the right of the intended recipient to do whatever they wish with the information in the letter.

Oh, come on...

[Noryungi]

Simply replying to the letter/emaim they received, and providing a clear, simple-to-understand and short description of the file should be enough to clear any and all misunderstanding.

Don't turn anthills into mountains, people. I am sure even the dumber PHB can understand that this file has nothing to do with "Pac Man"... Ooops... There goes another DMCA violation!! ;-)

Re:Oh, come on...

[Doctor7]

Except that the letter goes to the ISP, so the owner of the file may never see it, let alone get a chance to reply before losing the account.

Re:Oh, come on...

[PurpleFloyd]

What happens when your ISP recieves the letter, though? They HAVE to shut your connection off, thus making it impossible to reply to the email. That's what makes the DMCA Evil with a capital E: you are punished (your connection is cut off) before you're given a chance to defend yourself.

Worse yet, it's not even the legal system that does the punishing, it's the company which thinks its copyright might have been infringed. Using bots to automatically send out cease-and-desist letters, with no human oversight, is legal under the DMCA. All that's required is that the copyright holder make a "good faith effort," something that has no real meaning other than they have to have done something - what exactly they have to do under the law has never been established. Scary, no?

Re:Oh, come on...

[Misch]

The owner has the right to see the complaint. In fact, it is required by law.

"Once notice is given to the service provider, or in circumstances where the service provider discovers the infringing material itself, it is required to expeditiously remove the material from its network. The safe harbor provisions do not require the service provider to notify the individual responsible for the allegedly infringing material before it has been removed, but they do require notification after the material is removed."

Re:Oh, come on...

[twifkak]

Heh, I envision a future where automated ESA/RIAA bots will send out e-mails to alleged infringers with "X-Copyright-Infringement" tags, and mailservers at the ISP will detect those tags and automatically close the account of recipients of such e-mails. :P

That's a big Pac Man

[TexTex]

161MB for Pac Man, eh? Must be all fancy and stuff...

Re:That's a big Pac Man

[KillerHamster]

Maybe it's based on the leaked Doom 3 alpha engine. I bet the ghosts look way cool.

Re:new trouble

[gamgee5273]

Technically, no. I've been over this before with the lawyers at the university I work for.

E-mail is the property of the sender and receiver, and both have the right to do with the text as they see fit. Thus, posting it is legit.

Anyone who says otherwise is merely trying to utilize scare tactics.

This is insane

[Anonymous Coward]

The bot is causing a false accusation.
You can't blame it on the program. If your bot is unreliable .. DO NOT USE IT. You cant go around automating an accusation lawsuit process if it doesnt even work properly.

21st century witch hunt is what this is.
At least in the 1600's they got the witches right. Somewhat.

Re:This is insane

[cybercuzco]

Most of the time, the accusations were made by women, or people looking to clear their "good name" by accusing others of "hexing" them into doing evil deeds.

H3x0rs?

excellent!

[lance_link]

i strongly support this kind of idiocy: there's no better way to discredit the DMCA than to let it do the work for you. in fact, developers should start naming their software after their favorite songs, movies, books -- the sky's the limit! any suggestions? :)

Re:excellent!

[gallen1234]

Isn't there an old military saying that goes: "Never interrupt your opponent while he's making a mistake." I think this is the situation in which we find ourselves.

RPM users beware

[DeathPenguin]

Does this mean that the Redhat Package Manager violates the DMCA? If so, I'm glad I use Portage :)

I kid because I love...

Re:RPM users beware

[I start fires]

Dear Gentoo User

We have a good faith beleif that your Portage file is infringing on copyright for our member Rage Against the Machine.
We ask that you immediately delete all copies of Portage or you will be assumed guilty without a trial and sentenced to a term of no less than 5 years in a federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison.

Have a nice day! :-) :-) :-)
RIAA

Re:RPM users beware

[DeathPenguin]

Dear Slashdot,

We believe that one or more of your users is violating Microsoft(C) copyright by using the word "start" in his name. This is obviously an IP infringement on the Microsoft(C) Windows(C) Start Menu(C). We ask that you remove the word "start(C)" from all user accounts, webpages, and files hosted on any domain owned by the Open Source Developers Network. Failure to comply will result in fines of up to $75,000 per infraction and possible jailtime and / or vaporization.

--Microsoft(C) DMCANazi(C) Deptartment(C)

Automated law?

[Control-Z]

You know, if they want to use computers to help search for copyrighted material, I guess that's fine. But a *person* should actually *look* at the material before they start sending violation notices. What's next, computer lawyers, computer judges? It's the end of the world, I tells ya.

This reminds me of the Simpsons. Homer's car has been impounded by the city of NYC (at the World Trade Center actually), and he's on a pay phone with an automated system:

Pleasant Female Voice: Thank you for calling the Parking Violations Bureau. To plead 'Not Guilty' press one now.
(Homer presses one)
Pleasant Female Voice: Thank You. Your call has been...
Gruff Male Voice: Rejected.
Pleasant Female Voice: You will be assessed the full fine, plus a small...
Gruff Male Voice: Large lateness penalty.
Pleasant Female Voice: Please wait by your vehicle between the hours of nine A.M. and five P.M. for Parking Officer Steve...
Gruff Male Voice: Grabowski.

Re:new trouble

[henrik]

It is not a signed contract so it is not valid in court. At least not in countries with a valid legal system.

Action Plan

[Doesn't_Comment_Code]

When spammers go really bad, a lot of us started generating fake email addresses so their bots would find them and get jammed up with crap.

I think its time the same thing happened with DMCA bots. If they are going to be snooping around everything, lets make A LOT of stuff for them to find! Imagine if all of us created web pages that appeared to hold copywrighted material, but don't. Even just a php or cgi page that generated links with *suspicious words* but nothing of interest. No actual person would use them, but the DMCA bots would see a jackpot. Then, when actual people followed up, they'd find absolutely nothing wrong. That would gum them up pretty badly.

So who wants to spearhead this?

Re:Action Plan

[pestilence4hr]

So who wants to spearhead this?

I nominate Al Gore. He's the one who invented this whole intrenat thingy anyways.

Re:Action Plan

[Doesn't_Comment_Code]

But their bots are searching past literal terms, otherwise they wouldn't have gotten Pac-Man out of INFMapPacks123FULL-MAN.zip. So even piecing together stuff that looks suspicous is enough.

Not to mention, actually printing or speaking a copywrighted term is ok depending on circumstances. I'll explain:
"My sister's boyfriend is terrible. See what a cold hearted snake he is by downloading this text file."

See what I mean? That's an 80's song, OR a common phrase. They can't prosecute on that.

"Yesterday's news had a story about a robber who got away from cops 7 times. He is such a smooth criminal that he was gone before the cops even..."

And the Bots' pattern matching is so lose, you wouldn't even have to write the actual title, just the filename Metallicalluminum would throw the red ight on these bots.

We can screw them over, because we're smarter, AND we USE that intelligence.

Computers automatically sending C&D letters?

[pclminion]

How can the human element be totally removed from this? There's a computer somewhere deciding whether or not it sees "infringing" material and sends out legal harrassment letters without any human intervention whatsoever? And people are not absolutely outraged by this?

What's next, automatic indictment by computer? "Sorry sir, the computer has ascertained that there is a 94% probability that you murdered your wife. The trial begins Wednesday."

Sounds like a script.

[MongooseCN]

It sounds like someone has a script checking filenames for certain words. How else would someone think that file contains Pac Man the game? What is the world coming to? Automated lawsuits?

Good Morning. Law Bot has found 2431 possible lawsuits today. Would you like to proceed with 2431 litigations? (Y/N)

Y

Thank you. Law Bot will now attempt to find an open relay to distribute litigations by email.

Good faith?

[GreenCrackBaby]

ESA has a good faith belief that the Internet site found at {IPAddress} continues to infringe the rights of one or more ESA members by offering for download one or more unauthorized copies of one or more game products protected by copyright

"Sanctions: A form of financial 'punishment' where a Judge can order a party or attorney to pay for not following Court orders or not acting in good faith in a Court proceeding."

While it's all fun and games to laugh at this, what if AT&T had cut off his connection? What if that connection was vital to business?

I don't know how you go and get sanctions levied at organizations like this, but the ESA clearly violated good faith in this circumstance.

Intellectual Property Garbage

[thoolihan]

This is a good reminder of why people should be supporting the EFF and FSF. This stuff is getting out of control. Copyright law was intended to prevent companies from taking advantage of one another. Not to prevent common and fair use, including sharing. And patent law was meant to encourage innovation, but it no longer does that. People invent stuff, and some company that owns the patents makes money. And people who want to use the idea but not charge for it should not be messed with.

Wake up...
-t

Similar situation at ibiblio with Junior

[pjones]

We, at ibiblio and UNC, just got a Cease
and Desist letter citing the DMCA because we have a couple of large files
with the word "Junior" in their names. Junior-2.2-CD1.iso and
Junior-2.2-CD1.iso are in a directory called /pub/linux/distributions/altlinux/ISO
which pretty much says that they are
Linux distributions in CD image to anyone vaguely clued.
But Vevendi (or
their funky infringement-seeking robot) thinks they might be the 1994
Arnold S bomb, Junior,
To respond to their completely bogus complaint, we have to grab the files
and install 'em and then report back. At our time and expense. I am not
full of love over this. It's their job to find a infringements -- not just
make a few guesses and then demand that we do the rest of the work for
them for free. Makes me wanna see a movie for free! (not Junior however).

Oh THATS a sophisticated Spider

[SatanicPuppy]

Ooooo, it checks FILE NAMES. And poorly too. That's a very simple text search if all it does is pattern match on that level...Like the profanity filters that will catch "Wish it" or "Cockpit". There is no WAY they are getting anything that even resembles useful information. If PAC and MAN are in the search criteria, I'm surprised they bothered to send out any letters at all.

First of all, that fricking PAC MAN is worthy of that kind of vigilant enforcement is mind boggling. And second that they're willing to poin the finger on so little evidence... I've played that infiltration mod for unreal. Even the most cursory check would show that it violated no copyrights and no IP laws, and, especially that it wasn't fricking PACMAN!

This kind of thing is good, because it shows very clearly the flaws and the flawed minds behind the DMCA.

Now, I'm off to put a bunch of files with misleading filenames up on my site.

Got me on this one

[Bazman]

I run a web site for substance hardness testing. We make kit that does standard dent and scratch tests for a variety of materials. One of our directories is called:

MetallicAlloysDentersAndManuals

Baz

PS no i dont really

Re:Got me on this one

[stwrtpj]

Dear Bazman:

The RIAA wishes to inform you that you are violating our copyrights. Our patented DMCAbots(tm) have seen through your thin attempt at obfuscation. You would like us to think you have fake copies of Metallic in this directory, but we know you were far more clever than this:

MetallicAlloysDentersAndManuals

We will now proceed to sue you on behalf of Madonna for amounts of money so vast, modern mathematics has no way to depict them.

Signed, the RIAA.

DMCA

[Catskul]

Can we get them with the DMCA since they are circumventing that guys SPAM protection?

Maybe we can go after all spammers that way.

The best way to beat the DMCA robots

[rabbar]

Similar to the way people have salted web pages with phony email addresses to poison robots that scrape web pages for email addresses an effective way to poison the DMCA robots is to salt your web site with nonsense files with names the robots will pick up. There is a procedure for contesting DMCA take down notices. http://www.personal.utulsa.edu/~benjamin-chapman/c le/dmca_summary.htm

Similar thing happened to me....

[jhughes]

My brother and I run a online game called TFOS Mux (www.tfosmux.org). It's based on a roleplaying game by R Talasorian Games and we have permission.

Our game is set in the fictional city of Pebble Beach, in an undetermined state. We state on our web site that it is not affiliated with the original Pebble Beach Golf Course (which we learned about five years after we'd started playing), but jokingly make a comment about a mini golf course for wayward visitors.

In January we received a C&D letter from the lawyers of Pebble Beach Company, stating that our online site was causing confusion in the marketplace and that we must immediatly change our name.

TFOS stands for Teenagers From Outer Space. It's a roleplaying game based in anime, where aliens come to Earth, go to high school and such.
-Aliens
-High School
-Anime
-Statement that we aren't the REAL Pebble Beach

Pebble Beach Company
-Golf
-Florida (or is it CA?)
-Real

These corporations/DMCABots are sending out C&Ds without even looking at what they're sending it out. Five seconds on our web page would have saved them and us a lot of trouble.

Fortunatly, my brother contacted the EFF, and a lawyer wrote to them....and we haven't heard from PBC since.

The bot claims privacy rights, and more!

[rdmiller3]

Did anyone else make it to the bottom of the included note, where the letter claimed that it is intended only for the recipient and prohibits copying and/or use by anyone else?

Those are privacy-related restrictions which can only be invoked between real people, not by crude filename-grepping scripts dumping output to automatically-selected e-mail addresses.

And where does whoever wrote that varbage get off, saying that no one other than the intended recipient is allowed to act upon the information? What law backs that up?

Re:Fighting back?

[Xerithane]

Why hasn't anyone tried to take them to court for wrongful prosecution, or whatever violation they're committing?


It could be construed as harassment. The ESA has deep pockets, and they could get out of it fairly well. I still think that filing small claims for $5K would get their attention if everybody started doing it. You can represent yourself, and say that it caused emotional damage as well as technical time to validate their claim. On top of wasted bandwidth and time, at your contracted rate, you can get a decent damage claim.

"They said this file was infringing, I had to verify no files were actually part of what they were saying. It was unreasonable to assume they made the claim based purely on a filename. I spent 60 hours verifying no intellectual property violations where there, and expect to be compensated."

It would be funny, anyway.

I run a hosting company

[zeromentat]

We get about 3-4 of these a day, roughly 1 per thousand accounts. It has gotten to the point were you have to review them, to live up to your end of the law. However out of the 90-120 I get per month usually 1 will have any merit at all and this is usually cleared up with all due haste when the webmaster is notified. The funniest one (or saddest depending on how you look at) was when someone tried to register techcomputerbay.com and was notified within 24 hours by ebay that this was copyright infringement because it had e and bay in the domain name. We of course notified the registrant, and told him that this was between him and ebay and we were going to stay out of the way unless ordered by a court to perform an action. Point being this is happening way more than most people realize, and it takes a lot of time to sort through the BS ones.

Re:I run a hosting company

[jodo]

So what happened?
I just ran a whois on techcomputerbay.com and got no response.
Poof!
Now for my rant...
How can a domain name have a copyright? It's an open question if it's even property of any kind. And generally speaking, titles are not copyrightable.
Ebay is a trademark. So using the DMCA, in this case, is clearly an abuse. The DMCA is for copyrights not trademarks.
Bad laws make good people lose respect for the law.

Re:I run a hosting company

[martyros]

That's interesting -- these letters basically are spam. It's exactly the same: each one says, "Well, if it doesn't apply, throw it out"; but just as with e-mail, you're transferring the cost to your recipient. Rather than this company paying a human being to review stuff before they send out the e-mail, they're off-loading the expensive processing to the ISPs who really don't have any choice but to pay a human to read and investigate every one.

Seriously, you should find some other ISPs and either do a class-action suit for the lost wages ($100/item consulting fees? At least one hour at the appropriate wage level...) or a lobby to pass a law punishing false C&D letters. If some random private individual gets a C&D, it's just funny; but you're talking some serious stuff going on here.

Re:new trouble

[PFAK]

I find this slightly amusing. What if I don't fall under the DMCA ruling, and someone that is under a DMCA-governed country emails me?

What should I do with the email, should I disregard it? What happens if the claims in the email are false, and in fact the file is just renamed to something that does not actually fall under a copyright.

Do the issuers of these notices even bother to check to see if the file is actually infringing on their copyright laws, or do they just send out random emails, hope to get a response and forget about it. More then likely these are just run by bots, and therefore they don't do much.

I had one of these "copyright enforcement" companys constantley hammer my IRC network, which in fact did not contain any warez, and in the end I had to Z: Line the a whole net range to stop the bots from coming on, registering a nickname, quitting and doing the process again. In the end the "copyright enforcement" bots registered about 11,000 nicknames on my IRC Network in total, wasting the resources of my network and causing me to do extra work.

Should I be able to email their ISP and complain about the abuse that's coming from their network, I do not live in the United States, so I do not believe I should have to put up with these bots that are constantley scanning networks looking for "illegal" content.

Now portage has everything!

[Blaze74]

emerge dmca

This might actually be a Good Thing

[dschuetz]

The more ridiculously-researched "good faith" letters like this go out, the better defense people will have when they simply throw them in the trash.

I don't recall the specifics about how the DMCA requires ISPs to investigate / respond to this kind of crap, but I think any sane judge would agree that it wasn't Congress' intent to force ISPs to spend all sorts of manpower (and, thus, $$) investigating every stupid letter that comes forth.

So bring it on! We need MORE lawyers sending out MORE useless crap so that ISPs can be justified in ignoring all of them, even the ones that actually are well-researched.

(or something like that)

Seems like a lack of due diligence

[HangingChad]

On the part of the company sending that letter out. The DMCA may allow them to do that, but I wonder if it shields them from liability for doing so improperly? Seems like you could sue them for defamation, all the pieces are there. They've accused you of being a software pirate, someone else has seen the accusation and you had to spend time (and money) answering the complaint. I'll admit my knowledge on defamation suits is lacking, maybe someone with more legal background could comment. The real meat is punitive damages and I'm not sure what a court would see in this. Reputations are fragile things and to have yours slandered by someone not exercising a reasonable and appropriate level of care (ie looking at the file name before sending the notice) seems pretty serious. I'd probably at least have my lawyer call them. That gets their attention.

Re:Seems like a lack of due diligence

[maroberts]

No, but each time one of these requests comes through, billing the sender $100 or so for your time and effort in investigating the claim may stop them.

Re:Damnit, pacman has become BIG all the sudden

[Hatta]

They must have over 3000 copies of pacman! Damn, are they in trouble.

Don't they have to claim ownership for a DMCA?

[AtariDatacenter]

I thought part of the DMCA process is that the company making the claim has to swear (not the right word... what is it?) that they are the proper owner of the item, and they have the full right to ask for it to be taken down.

At which point, the hosting provider can take it down with immunity.

But if the initial claim is bogus, doesn't that open the door to damages to the person making the false DMCA claim? Obviously, they're at least demonstrating negligence and reckless disregard if they're going on the output of a bot.

Fat PacMan

[in7ane]

>Filesize: 161,212k

That's got to be the first time I hear of a 160MB version of PacMan - does it include detailed 3D schematics of the arcade machine as well?

Seriously though, don't they have some filters on identifying infringing files? Like say the latest game is >100MB, an arcade ROM/old game quite a bit less. Otherwise I'd imagine they are getting far too many false positives (they seem to be searching for SEGMENTS of a name - how many files out there do you think include pac and man or sim and city?).

Re:Sue for time-wasted?

[Hatta]

Indeed, what they need to do is call their bluff. Ignore the letter, let them take you to court. Then laugh when they get their ass handed to them by the judge. If they terminate your internet connection under the DMCA, sue. It's about time this BS saw a judge. It can't be overruled until it's challenged.

Re:new trouble

[Nodatadj]

Of course not.
But those weren't "appropriate copymark markings" in that disclaimer

And hey, if the spelling in your book is as bad as that post, I don't think you've got anything to worry about really.

Lawsuit honeypot

[CausticWindow]

Somebody with a clueless ISP, host an ftp site sporting empty files with names like pacman.zip, archon.zip, loderunner.zip, etc.

When the ISP gets the DMCA notice and shuts you down, you sue the sender for disrupting your business. Of course you'll need some kind of front business on the same server.

Let's Have Some Fun!

[blunte]

I think we should make sure as many package names as possible contain words that will get picked up by their bot.

That would generate vast amounts of noise for them (and for us, yes), and it would really highlight the madness.

Re:Let's Have Some Fun!

[mickwd]

Yeah, because we all know Linux needs more PACkage MANagement ;)

Re:Let's Have Some Fun!

[quantum bit]

and it should have a "Reasonably Ostensible Manual" for documentation purposes. It can be distributed in a file called "PACkage-MANagement-ROM.zip"

Re:Let's Have Some Fun!

[Pharmboy]

Actually, I like the idea you are presenting, but its not enough. I won't put a list here, but we can figure out what names they are looking for based on just the pacman incident. what we need is to flood our own ftp servers with small text files with names that would imply a violation. In other words, create so much noise that their scanning becomes useless. I am sure someone here can add to this concept and come up with a better simple plan to impliment this. A list of potential infringing names, or better yet a link to it, would be a good start.

We dont need to pretend that they are not really "pacman" by hiding the name in another. Just calling them "pacman-rom", "matrix-divx" or "galaga-rom" is fine, or similar. its not illegal to name a file any damn name you want. Its your text file, call it what you want. Now someone go make us a list so that we can can create a text file and cp it to death (or ln -s it) :D

Openoffice Mirrors

[nurb432]

Sometime ago a story was posted about the same thing, searching FTP sites for files, and keyed off the word 'office'.. so the letters went a-flying..

Good thing it wasnt 'auto suits'.. Innocent people would have to pay to defend themselves for doing NOTHING... ( remember its civil court, its on your to prove innocence.. )

Morons.

Suggestion - DMCAbot honeypot

[cobyrne]

May I suggest that someone put together a DMCAbot honeypot with loads of .zip filenames which contain words that appear in many popular games and other copyrighted materials.

If you could go to a court with, say, 100 of these ridiculous claims from a particular firm of lawyers for files in your honeypot, then maybe the courts would listen and do something about these claims?

Re:Suggestion - DMCAbot honeypot

[Anonymous Coward]

use iso files of endlessly looped mp3's:
the RIAA sucks.
the DMCA sucks.
SCO sucks (I had to throw this in)
I would not let Hilary R. suck

Make sure all files are multi-part encrypted zipped iso files of at least 650 to 700 meg.
limit the download speed of these files to 2.8 kbps! ....

do not allow restarts on the file downloads!

name the files:
MetalLicka
Madumbass
decss
Unicwarez 11.0

Re:Suggestion - DMCAbot honeypot

[mopslik]

...intentionally misrepresenting yourself as something you're not in the digisphere...

People do that? Who'd have thought? Now if you'll excuse me, I have to get back to my chat with this hot, 18-year-old blonde and her two girlfriends...

Re:Suggestion - DMCAbot honeypot

[cornice]

I like this idea but it should be a distributed program that anyone can run. It should be designed to attract only the brain dead bots that result in this kind of unwarrented threat Companies that become notorious for sending brain dead threats can be identified and the software can focus file names more specifically on these violators.

Re:Suggestion - DMCAbot honeypot

[Simon Brooke]

May I suggest that someone put together a DMCAbot honeypot with loads of .zip filenames which contain words that appear in many popular games and other copyrighted materials.

This raises a question. Do these serial DMCA perjurers use search engines, or do they have their own web-crawlers? If they have their own web-crawlers, what user-agent strings do they report to the http daemon? It would be interesting to know whether (say) the ESA had been trawling through my sites.

Re:Suggestion - DMCAbot honeypot

[RetsamYthgimla]

Could you please elaborate on how the DMCA makes a DMCAbot honeypot illegal? I'm not trying to be a troll, I honestly want to know what other evil clauses are in the DMCA (either I haven't heard of this clause yet, or it's a new twist on the DMCA I hadn't heard yet).

Also, define "misrepresenting yourself". If I am a commercial (or non-commercial) site, and I have a bunch of files available for download that have legitimate purposes, but happen to be named in ways that would fool a braindead DMCAbot, how is that misrepresentation?

Re:Suggestion - DMCAbot honeypot

[red floyd]

It would be interesting to know whether (say) the ESA had been trawling through my sites.

Why are you worried abou the European Space Agency? Do you have bootleg blueprints of the Ariane 5?

Re:Suggestion - DMCAbot honeypot

[clarkcox3]

Simple. You have a file called "x" (title or name indicating some copryrighted work) but it really just contains "y" (some uncopyrighted content). Someone who sees a listing of your files assumes "x" means that the file contains "x" when it does not. By definition, this is *misrepresenting* what the file contains.

OK, on my hard drive, I have a file called "Unreal.zip". It contains a short story called "Unreal". If someone wants to accuse me of having an illegal copy of the game "Unreal", then they'd have to unzip the file and look at it's contents, otherwise, they have no evidence what so ever. They have no more evidence than if they found a teddy bear in my house, with a label that said gun, and accused me of trying to distribute guns to children.

Labels (which are all filenames are) given to my files have no more or less meaning than I ascribe to them, they are merely mnemonic devices intended to make them easy for me to find. If, for some reason, naming a file "Michael Jackson" helps me find it, then so be it, but there is no "misrepresenting" going on.

Bot V Bot?

[idlethought]

Set up a Spam-catcher that spots one of these claims, and bounces it back with the message:

You email has been rejected by an automated system, due to previous unjustified DMCA claims in the past all future claims are subject to a $150 an hour surcharge (minimum 10 hours) should there prove to be no infringement.
Please review your claim, and if you are still sufficently convinced that your claim is valid please resubmit your email with the text "I accept the terms and conditions for investigation of my DMCA claim"
Terms and conditions are subject to change without notice.

Would this be legal? It's certainly reasonable: the fee is only charged payable if there is no infringement. If the claimant is sufficiently convinced that they are being ripped off they should be happy to agree- they won't have to pay.

Send them a bill

[HermanAB]

for your investigation of their complaint. Then if they do not pay up, you sue for non-payment in small claims (Provincial) court.

The next step would be to create a honeypot of files with Linux howto guides for instance, but with names of well known movies in the archive names.

Profit...

Good Faith or Bad Faith?

[billstewart]

It looks to me like they're waving around the term "good faith" because it's the magic words from the DMCA, but sending out a letter with a human's signature on it when it's very clear that none of that human's neurons have fired during the writing process strikes me as (IANAL) much closer to bad faith than good faith, especially when they seem to have an established pattern of doing this.

It's an accusation to an ISP that the ISP's customer is committing a violation of a law and should be whacked, and under the DMCA it's much safer for the ISP to whack them first and apologize later if there's a mistake. There are various legal terms for doing this sort of thing - I'm not sure which of them are torts, which might become torts if the carrier acts on them, which might be crimes (they did say "under penalty of perjury"), and which are just insults.

In other news

[ianjk]

SCO files a infringement suit against gentoo claiming both 'Pac' and 'Man' are their intellectual property. All Unreal users must purchase a license or face prosecution under the DMCA. Licenses are availible at their website www.extortion.sco.com

Next you'll be saying that patent examiners...

[dpbsmith]

...should "actually *look* at the material before they" issue that patent. Good heavens, that would be like the Boston Strangler to the multibillion dollar sideways swinging industry.

Actually, we have....

[LittleGuy]

"Has anyone else ran into this with good (or even bad) outcomes?"

Here's one example from earlier this month:

RIAA's scare tactics bound to backfire

We already saw this happen earlier this year, when the RIAA was forced to apologize to a Pennsylvania State University professor for sending him and dozens of other people legal warning saying that they were violating federal copyright law. The RIAA's automated program apparently confused two separate pieces of information--a legal MP3 file and a directory named "usher"--and concluded there was an illegal copy of a song by the musician Usher.

Also, from the /. Interview withMichael O'Leary, Deputy Chief for Intellectual Property at the DoJ:

9) "... under penalty of perjury ..." - by OWJones
In copyright law, 17 USC Section 512(c)(3)(vi) states that all notifications of copyright violations sent to ISPs must contain

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.
(emphasis mine).
Do you know of any cases in which the sender of an invalid takedown notice -- such as the RIAA claiming Penn State University Emeritus Professor Peter Usher's lecture on radio-selected quasars was, in fact, an mp3 from the musician Usher -- has been successfully charged with perjury? Or do you allow copyright holders some "fudge factor" with the perjury aspect, since

1. It was an mp3.
2. It did have the name of an RIAA-represented artist in the title, and
3. It was at a university.
If copyright holders are allowed leeway, can we expect to see similarly loose definitions of perjury creep into the legal system? If the police are looking for a "Caucasian male, age 50-60, bald, 200-225 pounds," can I testify in a court of law that the 18 year-old caucasian male with a ponytail, weighing 140-150 pounds, is in fact the suspect since he is, after all, a caucasian male?
I realize that's more than one question and that they're slightly loaded, but I'd appreciate any comments on how seriously the DoJ takes the perjury clause of the takedown notices.

O'Leary:
Your question raises an important point. We feel strongly that everyone should comply with the requirements of all laws. Legal process under the DMCA or any other provision of law should be undertaken with the utmost care and good faith. Failure to do so undermines the credibility and effectiveness of our legal system.

Having said that, it appears your interpretation of the language in 512 (c)(3)(vi) is in error. The phrase "under penalty of perjury," applies to the representation that the complaining party is authorized to act on behalf of the copyright owner. It does not apply to the accuracy of the information about the alleged infringement. Quoting federal district Judge Bates in Verizon v. RIAA, The DMCA also requires a person seeking a subpoena to state, under penalty of perjury, that he is authorized to act on behalf of the copyright owner, 257 F. Supp.2d 244, at 262. In other words, the perjury clause may be violated if you seek a DMCA subpoena without the authorization of the copyright owner.

We are unaware of any prosecutions for violating this provision of the DMCA at this time.

Clarification

[powerlord]

Actually, from what I understand, the "under penalty of purjory" bit in the DMCA is that the lawyers submitting the notice are swearing that they are authorized by the Copyright holder to be doing it, NOT that they are swearing a given complaint is correct.

Personally I think the law should be changed to the later so we can prosecute these bone-heads as apropriate for using scripted code without real checks as to what they found.

Penn State Astronomy, the House of Usher

[mph]

Yes, things like this have happened before. A few weeks ago, it was widely reported that the RIAA complained to the Penn State astronomy department about what they thought were mp3's of young, black R&B star Usher.

In fact, they were mp3's of original a capella music about astronomy. On the same web page, there were references to Prof. Emeritus Peter Usher, an elderly, white, generally unhip astronomer whose recent contributions to the field include an analysis of the astronomical context of Hamlet .

The good folks of the department were kind enough to issue widely-distributed press releases mocking the RIAA, who later apologized for the error.

Oh well...

[te amo]

I guess I'll have to find a new name for my latest project: BritneySpearsAVIMP3WarezSuperMarioBrosWindowsXPEpi sodeIII. (It turns Caps Lock on when you sneeze)

Small World

[fo0bar]

I check Slashdot today and see my name in a linked article. (I am Ryan, the person who posted to the gentoo mirrors list.)

As I mentioned in the list post, yes, this is silly and amusing, but it still has to be treated seriously. I met with our company lawyer yesterday (who is pretty well-versed in the DMCA, and hence has slightly less than glowing praise about it). The basic response of course is to reply, explaining that they are in error and to consider the matter closed.

While I would like nothing better than to go after these people for gross abuse of the legal system, my company, like many other companies, cannot justify the costs associated with going to court over something like this. This is why you should donate to an organization like the EFF, and tell them you are concerned about the DMCA and its effects.

(Standard IANAL disclaimer for the following:) Also, check out this form if you are a mirror provider. It deals specifically with the DMCA, but does not necessarily provide protection against, but it may help. It is intended for transit providers/datacenters (which we are), but from reading its defintion of a "service provider", mirror sites MAY (again, IANAL) qualify in the same respect.

This is so silly...

[mbourgon]

everyone knows that the Pac Man rom is called puckman. http://www.mame.dk/gameinfo/puckman/

Oops...

Cease and Desist to the extreme

[Punk Walrus]

Many years ago at a well-known ISP, we had a pretty funny and cool guy who worked with us who had the e-mail godzilla@[our_ISPcompany_email.com]. He got a cease and desist order in 1998 from Toho Co., Ltd, stating Godzilla was a copyright of Toho Co., Ltd, and that if he did not give up his e-mail account name, Toho Co., Ltd would sue him and our company for international copyright infringment of Toho Co., Ltd. Then they wanted to take over the e-mail account for the upcoming Godzilla 2000 movie.

This letter was hysterical because apart from being in slightly broken English, it mentioned the name "Toho Co., Ltd" about every sentence, and was full of self-praise about how great and honorable Toho Co., Ltd was.

At first, he ignored it. Then the company came down on him because they got a letter from Toho Co., Ltd's lawyers. There was some debate, and the company decided that it wasn't worth their time to try and deal with this, so they dropped the issue.

The coworker *was* a Godzilla fan, so he wrote back to Toho Co., Ltd that "Godzilla" was not a trademark, but "Gojirra," the proper kanakata spelling was a trademark, and he did not have an account with that name, nor did he have the ability to open an account with that name unless they paid or company for the e-mail address.

They never replied. He had the letter posted on his door for a while, with a photoshop of Godzilla attacking our building. Then Godzilla 2000 ("Ferris Beuller vs. Godzilla") came out, and I think Toho Co., Ltd probably never wanted to deal with Americans again.

__________________________________________________ _
www.punkwalrus.com - As seen on "The Gong Show"

is to have links that work

[dstutz]

Proper link for above... http://www.personal.utulsa.edu/~benjamin-chapman/c le/dmca_summary.htm

Re:Computers automatically sending C&D letters

[Razor Blades are Not]

Lets assume you're not trolling,
When you run a red light, there is direct evidence that you have done so.
Even after that, you then have the opportunity to go to court and fight that evidence, either with mitigating circumstances (the truck barrelling down on you from behind that pushed you into the intersection) or conflicting evidence (your car was being driven by a different person, because it was stolen or simply because you lent it to your fiance).

So while the evidence is gathered by camera and processed by computer, the decision is still in the hands of a human.

In this case, the DMCA allows a company to order you to Cease and Desist, and moreover, require your ISP to shut you down, without a human review. The only humans involved are the victims (you) and the ISP, who probably won't make trouble for themselves by resisting the C&D.

The Computer is Your Friend!
Trust the Computer.

OpenOffice.org

[gral]

We had the same thing happen to us. One of our mirrors recieved a nasty gram about the OpenOffice file that was on their system. A little bit of digging found that their script was assuming ANYTHING with OFFICE in the name was a pirate copy of MS Office. It was rather entertaining.

Got a few of these, told them to go to hell.

[jarboy]

I am an admin at Speakeasy, Inc. We got a few of these since they found 'packman' on our rpmfind mirror (speakeasy.rpmfind.net)

It was most enjoyable to write them a rude reply. All those things that you usually afraid to say, I just let it fly. Morons!

Re:Got a few of these, told them to go to hell.

[vegetablespork]

As a Speakeasy customer, please allow me to tell you that you are the wind beneath my wings.

CHARGE FOR COSTS!!!

[swordgeek]

Come on folks, a few people have mentioned it already.

EVERY time that someone gets a completely frivolous complaint like this, they should:

1) research it (proving it's stupidity)
2) Bill for it, at consultant rates. Say $250/hr, 2hr minimum. Make sure you send a formal invoice, (explanation of services done, rates, etc.) and include a payment due date.
3) If they don't pay by that date, then either (a) call a collection agency, or (b) sue.

Doing a little bit of extra work now will hurt them enough to make them stop.

Funny funny.

[Upright Joe]

I wish I would get one of these. I think everybody should pick their favorite arcade game, zip up some random binary data, name the zip file after their favorite game, then put it up on their website with a hidden link such as a 1 pixel transparent gif or such.

Re:Why would anyone take this seriously?

[Misch]

Yes, but then you would be $cientology.

Easily enough dealt with...Litigation is Spam!

[jordandeamattson]

This one is easily enough dealt with by a slight amendment to the DCMA.

What we have to due, is to introduce a requirement that any "violation notices" be based on a reasonable belief that IP is being infringed and then make the complaining party responsible for any legal expenses on the part of the accused party for an unreasonable violation notice.

It would be a bit like the British, loser pays system, that forces a party realy consider the strength of their case prior to bringing it or defending it at all costs. It helps prevent the kind of "litigation extorition" that we see all the times in the states.

A great example of "litigation extorition" happened to me and my wife shortly after we got married. We decided to install a gas stove (you need that for good Chinese cooking) and needed a gas line to do so. To install the gas line we needed access to the easement inside our neighbors yard (zero lot line). We requested it in writing heard nothing. Assuming that silence implies consent - an old Common Law Legal concept - we went forward with accessing the easement. The day of the installation in the evening a police officer shows up on our doorstep, after getting my wife's version of events he stated, "there is nothing here!" A week later we got a letter from an attorney from our neighbor asking for $1,000 or the name of our insurance company to "resolve this matter".

Well, my wife is a supervising paralegal and I am someone who has read a lot of law. We knew a shake down when we say it. So, we put together a little package (12 exhibits in total) informing them that we were willing to drop this matter at this point, but if they pursued it further that we would be counter-suing. We also dropped a line on the State Bar Association Office of Professional Conduct about this attorney. A few days later we got a note that the attorney in question was no longer representing this client and to forward any and all communications to our neighbor (a breach of Legal ethics, which we sent onto the Office of Professional Conduct).

The bottom line, needless litigation is like Spam: if we increase the cost just a little, it will dramatically reduce it. The problem is that in the US Legal system is doesn't (if you are in the right financial situation) cost you anything but your time and energy to force people to spend money responding to you. If we make people pay some of the cost of litigation.

My Response

[spiritraveller]

I had some free time, so I wrote Mr. Hunter a letter regarding this matter.

The subject I used was "Re: Notice of Claimed Infringement"

I designed it to look like a legitimate response to one of these notices. If they receive enough of these protest letters, Mr. Hunter and others at ESA will get a taste of their own medicine

The text follows:

Dear Mr. Hunter,

I have read your notice of claimed infringement.

In your letter, you state "ESA hereby requests AT&T Worldnet Service to immediately remove or disable access to the Infringing Material at the URL address identified above."

The negligence of others is a foreseeable consequence in tort law. Should AT&T have granted your request, you might have been liable for any damages caused by that immediate removal of what you claim to be infringing material.

The file named "INFMapPacks123FULL-MAN.zip" obviously has nothing to do with Pac Man.

You would do well to review the threatening letters that you send out, rather than cavalierly trampling on the rights of others.

Regards,
INSERT-NAME-HERE
concerned citizen

Re:Fighting back?

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't sue for emotional damage in small claims, only for financial distress.

A Match by a BOT does NOT QUALIFY as "Good Faith".

[linuxtelephony]

If a human reviewed the file and genuinely thought it was infringing, THEN it would be good-faith. An automated tool that is allowed to generate a list that someone uses to mail "infringement" letters WITHOUT EVER REVIEWING THE FILES IN QUESTION qualifies as IRRESPONSIBLE, and harrassing. Are there provisions in the DMCA to sue for such irresponsible accusations? At the very least, submit an invoice for the cost of dealing with a BAD-FAITH accusation.

Someone should contact the ESA and tell them actions taken like this only serve to make people LESS likely to believe or even care about accusations of infringement since no effort appears to be made for accuracy.

Slow Down DMCAbot!

[isa-kuruption]

Everyone who runs a box on a cable modem or on a network should consider getting the LaBrea tarpit. For those who don't know, this software is used to slow down worm activity, however it can be used to hang DMCAbot as well.

Have this listen to port 21 on your networks and watch DMCAbot hang indefinately (your mileage may very).

Also, just to cause lots of fun, try doing the following: dd if=/dev/urandom bs=1024 count=142 | gzip -c > (MSOffice|PacMan|Zelda|Matrix|.gz) and let DMCAbot spam ISPs with worthless crap until they add an SMTP deny rule.

Anyway, just some ideas. :)

Re:Slow Down DMCAbot!

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, if enough people generate PacMan.gz with /dev/urandom, do you think at some point we will actually end up with a proper gzip file of PacMan?

This suggests...

[hak hak]

... a more systematic approach.

What if there were more open-source packages that seemingly contain commercial material, so that they give up trying to keep track of these DMCA violations? Same principle as with an Emacs package (I believe it's called spooky) that inserts words like terrorist', 'bomb', and 'secret' in e-mail headers to 'slashdot' a reported NSA server checking all e-mails for illegal activities.

Sue the Bastiges

[gbulmash]

Forget criminal prosecution. Sue them.

IANAL (although I did score 163 on the LSAT's and turned down a partial scholarship to law school), but this appears to me to be a case of Defamation, Tortious Interference, and Abuse of Process.

Note they claim a good faith belief. Based on what? It's based on insufficient investigation to found a "good faith belief", and is therefore negligent. Their reckless act has caused you, among other ills: personal distress, time lost in correcting the matter, and harm to your reputation.

You should definitely consult a lawyer about your rights to sue this law firm for their reckless and defamatory acts against you!

- Greg

Re:Sue the Bastiges

[gbulmash]

< YANAL >

And this is why I suggested he consult a lawyer. My mention of my "credentials" (so to speak) was just a way of pointing out that I'm forming my opinion from an interest in the law (as opposed to watching "Judging Amy" religiously).

It doesn't make it a "legal opinion", but it may be a bit more educated than some others.

As for him letting it go (respond that it's not Pac Man and then otherwise ignore it). That is the easiest way to deal with this occurrence. The easiest way to deal with spam used to be to delete it.

Do you see the flow of spam decreasing?

So long as everyone lets these lawyers play it fast and loose, without fear of consequences, why should they ever exert the effort to ensure their claims have even a semblance of merit? They can just scattershot the net, being right 1 in 50 times, because just like spam, the expense of dealing with their 49 false claims falls upon the recipients.

These kinds of DMCA letters are getting more frequent, rather than less. So are the subpoenas. If you want to gradually get more and more of these, based on flimsier and flimsier evidence, go ahead and take the path of least resistance.

Otherwise, I believe that every time they're wrong, and they've brought their accusations to a third party (i.e. your ISP), they should be sued for defamation and any other charge you can throw in.

The best way to combat spam is to make it expensive for the spammers to send it.

- Greg

Re:and that's why Palladium/TCPA is evil

[tdgoodman]

I thought that Palladiam/TCPA included the ability to restrict copying of material by anyone other than the creator of the data. If so, then the only way to copy the data would be through some analog hole. A simple cut and past would not work.

Sounds like Palladium/TCPA would make it very difficult to copy and distribute restricted emails. Did I miss something?

not perjury

[7-Vodka]

For those who missread, they attested under punishment of perjury that they represented said game publishers, not that the information in the entire letter was correct.

You can't prove a negative...

[TWX]

"...it would be pretty hard to prove it wasn't there."

and that's the problem with the DMCA and other laws like this. With a complex situation or structure you can't prove a negative. This is one of the fundamentals of science, in terms of hyoptheses becoming theories. If there is no way to test a hypothesis in such a way as to get a confirmed pass/fail test, then it's not a very good theory.

As for the 'encoding', read "Radio Free Ablemuth" by Philip K. Dick. It specifically addressed this kind of freakishness with coded messages. Or go see "A Beautiful Mind". Another example of why it's not feasible to go around accusing someone who can't prove a negative result. I feel that it should be criminal to accuse someone without having a verifiable positive first showing that they've actually done something wrong. Yeah, this puts the burden of proof on the accuser. Isn't that what the constitution says, with "Innocent until proven guilty"?

Not to give the media conglomerates any more work or anything...

hey, i sent that letter

[Heisenbug]

Well, OK, not really. But that was my assumption when I saw the article -- that some anti-DMCA hacker was trying to draw attention to the silliness of it all. I mean, Pac Man? Come on ...

So I've seen suggestions on this board that we make honeypots to draw the bots into a world of false positives. Let's do them one better -- let's make our own bots to send cease and desist letters at random, and really discredit the whole concept. Send a letter for every file that contains the word 'Men' or 'Day' or 'Part 2'. Lots of copyrighted material with names like that ...

'Noise' as a method of civil disobedience

[TWX]

Something to remember about systems is that they have limitations. Something can only store or process so much information at any given point. If people determine the functional bounds of the system, they know how to break it or render it less useful.

Case in point: the idea of a national database on everyone alive

If one, hypothetically, saw the creation of a national database on people, it wouldn't be hard to 'fake' information on a decent scale that is patently false information. It would require some creativity, but it could probably be done in a way that isn't even illegal. It's called fiction. Create stories with names in them, create stories with numbers in them. Make up numbers. We all know that social security numbers are XXX-XX-XXXX format, so it wouldn't be hard to say that "Ol' Jim Houston" has 234-11-5532 for a social security number. So, the national database spidering software might pick up that number and note that the true owner of that number has an alias of "Ol' Jim Houston". Write a story about this character where he uses his 'number', so it comes up. Movies do it all of the time, if you've ever seen "FX", they used SSNs in determining information about bad guys. Create "likes" pages. Say someone likes guns, or rabbits, or construction, or water parks, or anything. Email it around. If there's something out there that we don't like, it'll collect the information. Email "bad" words around without context, in such a way that they trip Carnivore or similar systems but do such in a way to make it obvious that they're complete and utter bullshit.

Make the system have so much information to process, categorize, and store that it either has to ignore information entirely or that it fails in the middle of doing its job. Or, make it so that if it manages to process everything that it gets that it stores so much bad information that the 'record' for any given individual is useless. I'd love to see it store that I go dowhill skiing every Northern Hemisphere summer down in Australia, or that I frequent BDSM clubs, or that I helped design the rocket car "The Spirit of America", just so that there is no credibility to any of the information at all in the system, since nothing can be easily verified as being correct. This breaks the system at a use level.

If a million geeks decide to do this, the ability for any given system to work is very low. I'm sure that people will complain that we're endangering national security, but remember, terrorists that we've seen, Timothy McVeigh, the DC area snipers, the Abortion Clinic bombers, and the WTC/Pentagon attackers, didn't do what they did in a way that was detectable through the methods that they want to start using. They did it with a rental truck and farming fertilizer, or boxcutters, or a rifle and a sheetmetal-modified car. Does any of this revolve around computers? ANY of it?

Re:'Noise' as a method of civil disobedience

[WNight]

Data poisoning. It's a good way of making data useless. If you can't count on it 5% of the time, it's not good for basing important decisions off of.

I remember some people were doing this when CueCat was threatening to sue people for repurposing their barcode scanners. The idea was that CueCat would build a database of users and things that they scanned, then sell the data. The poisoners wrote perl scripts to submit thousands of fake scans, using ISBN numbers (or whatever is on a barcode) spidered from Amazon, from fake user IDs. Then let potential customers know that the data was worthless. (Seemed like good payback for threatening lawsuits against people decoding their rot13 encryption.)

Good Faith?

[RichardX]

IANALawyer, but it seems to me the whole "good faith" thing is pivotal to these cases..

Now.. this is not the first time that an obviously erroneous letter of this type has been sent out. There was the whole OpenOffice/MsOffice cockup for a start.

My point is the senders of these letters (the ESA) are obviously aware that their system fires off erroneous letters from time to time.. therefore how can they claim to know IN GOOD FAITH that any given letter sent out by their system is accurate and valid?

Perhaps I could see them claiming good faith if the percentage of bad letters was really, really small, though even that is a moot point (given that you can only have good faith if you believe in the reliability of the system), but it seems this system is getting almost as many misses as hits. Does this give us any way to contest the good faith claim, and then use that to open the door to counterclaims, etc?

Re:Fighting back?

[Xerithane]

You can't sue for emotional damage in small claims, only for financial distress.

You can for Tort, which covers that though. I would just assume most people here think Torts are something you put in a toaster with frosted sprinkles and strawberry filling, though.

My infringed files....

[scovetta]

I always name my files with the prefix 'NotPirated_' so everyone knows. It's the file-system equivalent of setting the Evil bit off. So now I just have
NotPirated_MetallicaEnterSandman.mp3
NotPir ated_SpaceQuestV.zip

I suggest you all do the same.

Can those emails be submitted as spam?

[dacarr]

No, really, think of it. They send you a letter saying that you must remove the file or settle, and it's not a legitimate claim. Can you have their provider remove them from the 'net for sending you an unsolicited threat of suit?

Idiots out there

[Stonent1]

I was forced by the forum admin to change the name of the link to my website Stonent's Dell Laptop Hack and FAQ on the DellTalk forums. A user complained that hacking is illegal and the forum admin said I needed to change the name in the link. Apparently the user had never even visited my website as it has info on how to upgrade Dell laptops.

Dualling Notices

[NibbleAbit]

Just create a script that auto-replies to bot created messages.

This is an automated reply to you automated violation message. You will get a real response from a real person when you have a real person verify the claim and send a real note.

Re:Dualling Notices

[MntlChaos]

great. now we not only have spam flying around, but bots talking to eachother "I want to speak to a real person." "You can speak to a real person if you are a real person" "Hey! I told you! you better let me speak to a real person" " You can speak to a real person if you are a real person" ad infinutum

Huh?

[milesbparty]

Supposively their bot saw the words "Pac" and "Man" in the filename

What does Supposively mean?

Our lovely Junior letter

[pjones]

Re: Unauthorized Use of Universal Motion Pictures
Notice ID: 926003
9 Aug 2003 22:53:51 GMT

Dear Sir or Madam:

Universal City Studios Productions LLLP and its affiliated companies
(collectively, "Universal") are the exclusive owners of copyrights in
many motion pictures, including the motion pictures listed below.

It has come to our attention that University of North Carolina is the
service provider for the IP address listed below, from which
unauthorized copying and distribution (downloading, uploading, file
serving, file "swapping" or other similar activities) of Universal^?s
motion picture(s) listed below is taking place. We believe that the
Internet access of the user engaging in this infringement is provided by
University of North Carolina or a downstream service provider who
purchases this connectivity from University of North Carolina.

This unauthorized copying and distribution constitutes copyright
infringement under Section 106 of the U.S. Copyright Act . Depending
upon the type of service University of North Carolina is providing to
this IP address, it may have legal and/or equitable liability if it does
not expeditiously remove or disable access to the motion picture(s)
listed below, or if it fails to implement a policy that provides for
termination of subscribers who are repeat infringers (see, 17 U.S.C. ?512).

Despite the above, Universal believes that the entire Internet community
benefits when these matters are resolved cooperatively. We urge you to
take immediate action to stop this infringing activity and inform us of
the results of your actions. We appreciate your efforts toward this
common goal.

The undersigned has a good faith belief that use of the motion pictures
in the manner described herein is not authorized by Universal, its agent
or the law. The information contained in this notification is accurate.
Under penalty of perjury, the undersigned is authorized to act on
behalf of Universal with respect to this matter.

Please be advised that this letter is not and is not intended to be a
complete statement of the facts or law as they may pertain to this
matter or of Universal^?s positions, rights or remedies, legal or
equitable, all of which are specifically reserved.

Very truly yours,

Aaron Markham
Manager of Internet Anti-Piracy,
Worldwide Anti-Piracy Operations
VIVENDI UNIVERSAL ENTERTAINMENT.
100 Universal City Plaza
Universal City, CA 91608
tel. (818) 777-3111
fax (818) 866-6339
antipiracy@unistudios.com

MORE: Our lovely Junior letter

[pjones]

Left out the delightful techie part. Sorry. You need this too (PJ).

*pgp public key is available on the key server at ldap://keyserver.pgp.com
** For any correspondence regarding this case, please send your emails
to antipiracy1@unistudios.com and refer to Notice ID: 926003. If you
need immediate assistance or if you have general questions please email
antipiracy@unistudios.com.

Title: Junior
Infringement Source: FTP
Initial Infringement Timestamp: 5 Aug 2003 00:50:05 GMT
Recent Infringment Timestamp: 5 Aug 2003 00:50:05 GMT
Infringer Username: None
Infringing Filename: Junior-2.2-CD2.iso
Infringing Filesize: 608600064
Infringers IP Address: 152.2.210.81
Infringers DNS Name: metalab.unc.edu
Infringing URL:
ftp://152.2.210.81:21/pub/linux/distribution s/altl inux/ISO/Junior-2.2-CD2.iso

Title: Junior
Infringement Source: FTP
Initial Infringement Timestamp: 5 Aug 2003 00:50:05 GMT
Recent Infringment Timestamp: 5 Aug 2003 00:50:05 GMT
Infringer Username: None
Infringing Filename: Junior-2.2-CD1.iso
Infringing Filesize: 732135424
Infringers IP Address: 152.2.210.81
Infringers DNS Name: metalab.unc.edu
Infringing URL:
ftp://152.2.210.81:21/pub/linux/distribution s/altl inux/ISO/Junior-2.2-CD1.iso

Ban anonymous ftp password 'guest@nowhere.com'

[fo0bar]

I've had a couple people email me, asking what IPs these connects came from so people could firewall off ESA. From what I've seen, each scan is from a different network, most likely random dialup ISPs (though somehow that could be a violation of the ISPs' AUPs).

However, for FTP traffic, I noticed a pattern: all used an anonymous FTP password of guest@nowhere.com. Almost all (relevant) google hits for that address were people talking about these automated mails, so it looks like this is what you should look out for. Also, I can't seem to find a legit FTP client that sends that password, so false positives shouldn't be a problem.

If you run vsftpd, you can put this in your vsftpd.conf:

deny_email_enable=YES
banned_email_file=/etc/vs ftpd.banned_emails

and putting guest@nowhere.com in vsftpd.banned_emails.

Re:Fighting back?

[jswitte]

You can't sue for emotional damage in small claims, only for financial distress.

Care to site some caselaw on this? I'm not a lawyer, but a came up with asummary of an PDF Iowa case filed in U.S. Bankrupct Court in the Southern District of Iowa.

In this case, the Plantiff (Peggy Tucker) had brought a small claims action against two Defendants because of an allegation made that she has fraudulently rented videotapes using one Defendant's name. The Plantiff was interrogated by police and later cleared of the allegations of fraud. However, she alleged that the allegations constituted intertional influction of emotional distress under Iowa law (paragraph 7).

In the judgement, the court found that:

9. The court found the report made to the police was made with reckless disregard for the probability that the aftermath of making the report would cause emotional distress.

10. The court found the emotional distress sustained by the Plaintiff appeared to have been a "desired by-product" of Defendant George Bauswell's conduct.

11. The court awarded the Plaintiff $177.00 for uninsured medical expenses incurred as a result of the Defendant's conduct. The court also assessed $500.00 in exemplary damages against Mr. Bauswell [one of the Defendants] for subjecting his exspouse to a criminal investigation "knowing that there [was] no basis in fact for such action."
Note: Added Bold emphasis mine.

As I am neither a lawyer nor a law student, I don't have the energy to wade through the rest of the court summary. But at the end, it does state that the judgement in favor of the Plaintiff was made persuant to 11 U.S.C. section 523(a)6. This indicates that the judgement was made not under Iowa law, but under U.S. Federal law. As such, perhaps a similar argument could be made against ESA, although the Federal definition of "emtional distress" may be different from those of Iowa.

As a larger comment on the Slashdot community as a whole: as I said, I am not a law student (actually a computer science student), but I took about 2 minutes of my time to look up a piece of relavent caselaw, and then another 20 minutes of my time to wade through it (this is why I'm not a law student..) I did not simply type some one-off, unfounded comment which, while intended in humor, is an indication a type of general apathy apparently seemingly prevalent among a portion of the Slashdot readership (or commentator-ship, at least).

In an earlier post in this "discussion" (although it isn't really a discussion, because it does nothing to encourage the persuasion of personal opinions or the formation of plans of action), "Rifter" states that "Since the Attorneys General [..] refuse to prosecute any of these entities for their numerous perjories [..] [the entities] see no need for due diligence [..] [resulting] in scenarios like this"

This comment was rated a 5, but since "Rifter" does not show his email publicly, there is no way that like-minds can talk to him about what he said. Given his comment (which is true), an obvious course of action is for each of the apparently hundreds of people who have taken the time to comment on this article (including myself) to organize and write letters - even form letters - to various Attorneys General urging them to vigourously investigate and prosecute allegations of purjury in cases such as this. Yet I saw no suggestions of such nature made (perhaps I missed it though..)

I find it very hard to believe that this C&D letter is an isolated incident - after all, who would particularly have an axe to grind with Gentoo? Furthermore, there have bee

Please patent this bot

[artwells]

Wouldn't it be great if you had a patent on the process of trolling the internet for possibly infringing filenames?

You could create a honeypot of warezy names, create a boilerplate Cease and Desist email and wait for the fun to start.

Ah, if only I had thought of that earlier...

I'm quite surprised

[phorm]

That the have Pacman on their hitlist, if only due to the fact that it is extemely old and many many clones have since been made (whether legit or not nonwithstanding).

I've just been thinking, that if they've decided to include 20-year-old+ video games in their hitlists, how many screwed up keywords will they have in there. I mean, 20+ years of movie/game/etc title keywords is a whole lot of stuff that could be incorrectly tagged as a false positive.

Hell, are there any common words not used in the last X years of cheesy movie/game titles?

That's the wrong way to go

[fizbin]

What you need is something you can point to a judge and say, "see? Clearly any reasonable human being wouldn't think this was infringing."

That's the case in the example cited at the top of the article. It's not the case in what you're proposing.

You don't want to be able to point to the lawyers and say "see, they're technically wrong." You need to be able to point to them and say "see, they're completely nuts and out of control." Remember, the law is run by humans, and most humans have a relatively short attention span. Don't appear to be taunting the lawyers who send you threat letters. Make their actions obviously unreasonable.

Do this first, and get legal precedent established to the effect the lawyers having to take some due diligence to determine which things really are infringing, and on whose copyrights. Then, push the edge a little bit. I do think that if you keep pushing slowly you can eventually get to the point where automated lawyergrams in response to the files you describe would cause trouble for the lawyers. However, the time is not yet right for taunting honeypots.

Fortunately, the lawyers use some really stupid bots, so all we may need at this point is some sort of central clearing house to coordinate all these blatantly false DMCA actions. Either that, or get a Congressional representative to introduce a provision that allows for a small claims court action to recover, say, $500 for each false claim. (For the defamation suffered) But in that event, the claim will have to be such that no reasonable and awake person could have made it; your taunting filenames still wouldn't work.

The EFF could then publish guides on filing such claims. This results in a legal DDOS on firms with stupid bots.

The result? Fewer lawyerbots, or significantly smarter ones, or both.