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MediaFire Restores Virus Researcher's Account But Not Individual Files

Posted by Unknown on from the bad-robot dept.

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."

11 of 72 comments (clear)

  1. Guilty until proven innocent, as usual by Taco+Cowboy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    --
    Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
    1. Re:Guilty until proven innocent, as usual by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I thought, the way DMCA was supposed to work is:
      1. Claim filed.
      2. Content taken down.
      3. Counterclaim filed.
      4. Content restored until a court order is received to take it down permanently.

      Why does it so often seem to end at step 3?

    2. Re:Guilty until proven innocent, as usual by sjames · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    3. Re:Guilty until proven innocent, as usual by Rogerborg · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

      --
      If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
    4. Re:Guilty until proven innocent, as usual by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Horribly unbalanced laws are easy. You americans can force attention by abusing this law in a planned denial of service attack.

      Set up a group that issues takedowns against the sites of:
      * Your political parties
      * Your politicians
      * Governmental sites
      * Major content providers and their retailers

      The politicians will not enjoy this, not in the middle of an election campaign. And the content providers might notice some lost sales when their advertising is taken down for bogus infringement.

      Then the system will change. Ideally the dmca goes, more realistically there will be punishment for frivolous takedowns. But that is enough, one can then punish trigger-happy dmca abusers in the future.

      And if the punishments are too mild at first - set up a company for another round of targeted takedowns. When the punishments come, this company goes bankrupt and no one really gets punished. Repeat until the law improves sufficiently.

    5. Re:Guilty until proven innocent, as usual by BlueStrat · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Horribly unbalanced laws are easy. You americans can force attention by abusing this law in a planned denial of service attack.

      Set up a group that issues takedowns against the sites of:
      * Your political parties
      * Your politicians
      * Governmental sites
      * Major content providers and their retailers

      The politicians will not enjoy this, not in the middle of an election campaign. And the content providers might notice some lost sales when their advertising is taken down for bogus infringement.

      Then the system will change. Ideally the dmca goes, more realistically there will be punishment for frivolous takedowns. But that is enough, one can then punish trigger-happy dmca abusers in the future.

      And if the punishments are too mild at first - set up a company for another round of targeted takedowns. When the punishments come, this company goes bankrupt and no one really gets punished. Repeat until the law improves sufficiently.

      This will only work for a short time until they catch on. Then they can simply use the provisions in the USA-PATRIOT Act, the various Executive Orders, and the revised NDAA to treat those responsible as "illegal/enemy combatants" and have them secretly killed or abducted and imprisoned indefinitely.

      "In Soviet..."

      ummm :-/

      Ah, screw it!

      It's gotten so bad those jokes are more tragedy than comedy anymore.

      Strat

      --
      Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
    6. Re:Guilty until proven innocent, as usual by Savage-Rabbit · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

      --
      Only to idiots, are orders laws.
      -- Henning von Tresckow
    7. Re:Guilty until proven innocent, as usual by Qzukk · · Score: 4, Funny

      Please understand, LeakID is working on figuring it out, but every time they try and open the PDF to see if it's actually infringing or not, it erases their entire computer.

      --
      If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
  2. Somewhere in their cloud. by Hazel+Bergeron · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  3. Simple solution by Calydor · · Score: 5, Interesting

    There really is only two ways this case should EVER be allowed to go:

    1) LeakID admits they don't actually have any kind of ownership over the malware. LeakID gets sued for knowingly sending false C&D notices under DMCA (or equivalent, not a lawyer).

    2) LeakID claims to have ownership of the malware. LeakID gets sued to oblivion for creation and distribution of malware.

    --
    -=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
  4. No surprise; Daniel's a dick. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I've had to deal with this guy before when Mediafire took out my entire account instead of the single file that was reported. Even with the company who filed the DMCA notice getting involved, he still wouldn't reinstate the files. Don't bother complaining to Mediafire about him either, because he's the one that gets your complaints. And his reaction to them is to close your support ticket and suspend your account.

    "Daniel G", as he shows up on the support site, is a power tripping dick.