Questionable "Best Effort" Copyright Enforcement

pmdubs writes "Princeton University Professor Michael Freedman, creator of CoralCDN, discusses how he received around 100 pre-settlement letters in one month from various copyright agencies after invalid BitTorrent tracker requests were issued through CoralCDN's proxies. Interestingly, the participating agencies made no effort whatsoever to verify that the Coral nodes were actually running BitTorrent, which they weren't! He questions just how much effort agencies take to reduce false positives when it comes to DMCA notices. Considering the credence that network operators give to such notices (they'll often cut your service upon receipt), it would seem that the answer is 'not enough.'"

Comments

Lopsided incentives

[horatio]

The incentives for sending the takedown notice are multiple, and there are no consequences when you're wrong. At least, none that anyone pursues.

Hate me for the comparison, but this is exactly what happened to Gov. Palin during and after the 2008 presidential race. A handful of people filed baseless ethics complaints based on an Alaska law she helped pass to bring sunlight to government corruption. They filed complaints, and filed more of them. Sometimes for really stupid stuff (read the book). I mean, why not? There are no consequences and no costs (other than your own time) for doing so, even if you're just making shit up. The result was that the Alaska state government was virtually brought to a halt by the paperwork. Yes, "good" whatever. That isn't the point.

The point is that if filing DMCA take-down notices, ethics complaints, or lawsuits without merit or basis have no consequences then our legal system is a joke. If you're an asshole, trying to use the legal system to bully someone either negligently or maliciously, then you should face your own medicine. If you file a patently ridiculous lawsuit and lose, you pay damages. No more of this BS of tying up individuals and businesses for years in legal wrangling until the "defendant" cries uncle. This also includes the extortion "settlement" letters by RIAA, MPAA, and the BSA. If you don't make your case, you pay. If you've filed a claim you know to be false, then you pay double. Simple.