MediaFire Restores Virus Researcher's Account But Not Individual Files

chicksdaddy writes "The cloud-based hosting firm MediaFire has reversed a decision to suspend the account of virus researcher Mila Parkour after Naked Security raised questions about copyright violation complaints made against her by the mysterious firm LeakID. In an email to Parkour on Friday, MediaFire's director of customer support, Daniel Goebel, said that the company was restoring Parkour's access to her MediaFire account and apologized for the interruption in service. MediaFire also said it was asking LeakID, the Paris-based firm that accused Parkour of sharing copyrighted material, to 'confirm the status of the counterclaim [Parkour] submitted.' However, the firm is still blocking access to files that LeakID alleged were violating the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), a strict copyright enforcement law in the U.S."

Comments

Guilty until proven innocent, as usual

[Taco Cowboy]

When you're being accused of violating one of the draconian MAFIAA laws, you are guilty as charged - until, of course, you are proven innocent

That researcher, although having the account restored, still being blocked of accessing any of the disputed materials

And the worst of all is, an American law, is dictating the behavior of the Internet, a worldwide structure.

Re:Guilty until proven innocent, as usual

[sjames]

The problem is that the DMCA is horribly unbalanced. Fail to honor a claim and you become a contributory infringer. Fail to honor a counterclaim and ... nothing. Make a patently false claim and ... nothing.

Re:Guilty until proven innocent, as usual

[Rogerborg]

those disputed files can be restored immediately if a counterclaim is made if you trust that the safe harbor protections afforded by the DMCA will stop some rabid copyright troll with a shyster lawyer from bringing a bullshit suit against you, costing you money up front to defend it even if it's clearly without merit.

FTFY. The attitude seems to be that it's safer/cheaper/sadistically funnier to keep penalising your own customers than to gamble on safe harbor.

Re:Guilty until proven innocent, as usual

[Savage-Rabbit]

I thought the DMCA was only supposed to be usable in the US against US firms?

Is it me or is this the second or third similiar takedown that slashdot has had up in the past month or two that was a DMCA claim being made by a foreign firm, possibly against a foreign individual or entity?

Don't fear the idiot across the pond. Fear the idiot next to you who borrows the other idiot's club :)

According to their wikipedia entry MediaFire is based in the US (Texas), AFAIK you don't have to be a US citizen to sue a US organization in a US court for breach of US laws (feel free to correct me if I am wrong). Especially if the MediaFire datacenter is in the USA. It's interesting to note that under the DMCA you seem to be guilty until proven innocent.

Re:Guilty until proven innocent, as usual

[mwvdlee]

I think he was talking about service providers like MediaFire here.
Service providers can be sued for ignoring the DMCA complaint, they cannot be sued for ignoring a counterclaim. They can't be sued in the resultant court case either, but they can expect to run into lots of expenses.
Therefore the cheapest and safest way to deal with DMCA for a service provider is to simply honor the DMCA complaint and do nothing else.

Somewhere in their cloud.

[Hazel Bergeron]

A virus researcher is, of course, sufficiently wise to have local copies of all files because relying on a "cloud" provider is as sound as relying on that kid down the road who promises to keep all your personal documents safe in his dad's filing cabinet for a handful of sweets.