Hollywood Studios Use DMCA To Censor Pirate Bay Documentary

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Hollywood Studios Use DMCA To Censor Pirate Bay Documentary

Posted by timothy on Tuesday May 21, 2013 @03:33AM from the we-don't-like-your-bits dept.

First time accepted submitter Aaron B Lingwood writes "As reported by TorrentFreak, Viacom, Paramount, Fox and Lionsgate have all asked Google to take down links pointing to the Pirate Bay documentary 'TPB-AFK.' The film, created by Simon Klose, is available for no cost and has already been watched by millions of people. The public response to this free release model has been overwhelmingly positive, but it's now meeting resistance from Hollywood, TPB's arch rival. Pirate Party Australia opines 'Hollywood is using takedown notices to censor Pirate Bay doco, is it incompetence or malice? Always hard to tell.' Whichever the answer, the system is definitely broken."

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Its a Shame by Anonymous Coward · 2013-05-21 03:40 · Score: 5, Insightful

That the studios won't get sued for it.
1. Re:Its a Shame by Penguinisto · 2013-05-21 04:14 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  That the studios won't get sued for it.
  It's an even bigger shame that they won't get arrested for perjury, which is exactly what filing a known false DMCA takedown notice is supposed to result in.
  
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  Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
2. Re:Its a Shame by HungryHobo · 2013-05-21 05:00 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  nope, it's worse than that.
  
  Scumsucker and Weasel LLC ("Scumsucker") swears under penalty of perjury that Sleazebag Studios, Inc. ("Sleazebag") has authorized Scumsucker to act as its agent for copyright infringement notification. Scumsucker's search of the protocol listed below has detected infringements of Sleazebag's copyright interests on your IP addresses as detailed in the attached report.
  Scumsucker has reasonable good faith belief that use for the material in the manner complained of in the attached report is not authorized by Sleazebag, its agents, or the law. The information provided herein is accurate to the best of our knowledge. Therefore, this letter is an official notification under provisions of section 512(a) of the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act to effect removal of the detected infringement listed in the attached report. The attached documentation specifies the exact location of the infringement. The Notice ID identifies the copyrighted works by file identification number.
  We hereby request that you immediately remove or block access to the infringing material, as specified in the copyright laws, and insure the user refrains from using or sharing with others Sleazebag's materials in the future.
  Please send us a prompt response indicating the actions you have taken to resolve this matter. Please reference the Notice ID number above in your response.
  Notice how the only thing that is sworn to is that Scumsucker is the agent of Sleazebag.
  They do not have to swear that they own the copyright. They can believe it on the basis that the magic 8 ball told them so and are not committing perjury.
  On the other hand a counter notice legally requires you to swear a lot of things under penalty of perjury, far more than the initial notice.
  the law is an ass.
3. Re:Its a Shame by suutar · 2013-05-21 05:03 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  It doesn't happen because it requires proving bad intent, which (barring finding an email that says "hey, file a DMCA request. It doesn't really qualify but it'll slow them down.") is nigh impossible to distinguish from (even unlikely levels of) natural stupidity and ignorance.
Why? by HalAtWork · 2013-05-21 03:41 · Score: 5, Insightful

Do they have any rights to any copyrighted content that has been misappropriated for use in this film? The article does not clarify how the DMCA is being used and what "Hollywood" is claiming as a violation.

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Twinstiq, game news
1. Re:Why? by Bob9113 · 2013-05-21 04:00 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  >> Fox, with help from six-strikes monitoring company Dtecnet, asked Google to remove a link
  > They're essentially using false claims to issue DMCA take downs.
  No they are not. They are not invoking the DMCA. They are asking their friend Google to suppress the information without filing a formal DMCA complaint, and Google is choosing to comply of their own free will. Google does not require the majors to file formal DMCA complaints, which is why there is no penalty for them under law, and why it is so hard to get false accusations cleared.
  This is not the law being abused, this is Google siding with their fellow oligarchs in Hollywood, against the public interest.
  
  --
  Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
2. Re:Why? by gstoddart · 2013-05-21 04:01 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Sorry no penalty is available for them by law
  There's supposed to be a penalty of perjury, but to date they mostly file anything they like and nobody has held them to account.
  The problem is the whole thing is skewed in their favor, and everyone else can either blindly comply even when it's bullshit, or spend a lot of their own money fighting it.
  Someone needs to start applying meaningful, and significant penalties when they do this falsely. Otherwise they can just keep taking down anything they want to with no consequences.
  
  --
  Lost at C:>. Found at C.
3. Re:Why? by SuricouRaven · 2013-05-21 04:59 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Because they have better lawyers and political allies than you.
4. Re:Why? by Yebyen · 2013-05-21 16:44 · Score: 1, Insightful
  
  A little shorter, and based on what you stated, which is entirely valid...
  You can make it easy and cost-effective to file a counter-claim, or you can make it likely that counter-claims contain valid information. The hollywood letterhead is easily authenticated, there are only a handful of major studios, if you contact them they will surely confirm, they did indeed send a DMCA notice, and you are obligated to follow up these claims.
  But even if only a fraction of users file counter-claims, some (most?) will be invalid, some will even be filed as return-address Barack Obama 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, and there will be penalties for the first company to honor one of these or similar invalid counter-claims by failing to validate the contact information and other details correctly. You can alternatively choose to ignore the counter-claims at no cost, there will be no penalty for honoring a false take-down notice and ignoring the counter-claim on content that is hosted for free (indeed a negative cost, if you are hosting media and you're obligated to delete it, you've just freed up some space), and by removing that step from your compliance, the cost of authenticating the contact information and associated details drops to zero. Plus you've insulated your users from any further harassment regarding the content/notice at hand. Most of these companies are not in the habit of obtaining contact details and validating them.
  Nor do they want to be, they just want to be in compliance with the (draconian) DMCA law. It's likely to push independent producers to use paid hosting, where there is at least an incentive and a clear path to validate counter-claims (otherwise, lose my business), or simply incite more people to use BitTorrent, where your posting cannot easily be removed by any party.
  
  --
  Restating the obvious since nineteen aught five.
Not surprising ... by gstoddart · 2013-05-21 03:44 · Score: 4, Insightful

Since the DMCA allows these guys to basically do anything and later claim it was a mistake, I'm not surprised to see these guys abusing it.
I'd really like to see some harsh penalties applied against false DMCA claims -- like paying the falsely accused the same statutory fines they got put into law.
When they trot out the DMCA against stuff they don't own, it should be treated as perjury. Right now, it's "oh, silly us, did we do that?"

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Lost at C:>. Found at C.