Terrorists Used False DMCA Claims To Get Personal Data of Anti-Islamic Youtuber

An anonymous reader writes German newspaper FAZ reports (google translated version) that, after facing false DMCA claims by "FirstCrist, Copyright" and threatened by YouTube with takedown, a youtuber running the German version of Islam-critic Al Hayat TV had to disclose their identity in order to get the channel back online. Later, the channel staff got a mail containing a death threat by "FirstCrist, Copyright", containing: "thank you for your personal data. [...] take care your house gets police protection!" Employee names are now on Al Qaeda black lists.

Comments

Yay, humans!

[Anonymous Coward]

The species and its imaginary friends are full of entertainment.

Lol!

[3.5 stripes]

There must be some massive cognitive dissonance going on in media circles at the moment..

Re:Lol!

[drinkypoo]

There must be some massive cognitive dissonance going on in media circles at the moment..

That's assuming that these laws weren't intended to be bad from the beginning. Never assume and all that, sure, but just look at 'em.

Re:Lol!

[gstoddart]

That's assuming that these laws weren't intended to be bad from the beginning.

They were intended to have a low burden of proof, and little penalty for claimants in order to facilitate copyright holders protecting their profits.

By design, us little people are expected to obediently comply so that our corporate copyright overlords can protect their interests.

In this case, " bad " is in the eye of the beholder ... so all of us who watched this crap happen to the world, thought it was bad at the time, because it was so badly written.

The copyright cartel and politicians who did this on their behalf (and got generous bribes/'contributions') ... they were having none about how their badly written laws were one-sided, unfair, and required far too little proof. To them, they were 'good' laws, because they entrenched protection for corporate profits.

Lawmakers no longer care about if a law is 'good' or 'bad', or even some of the bad consequences which can be envisioned. All they care about is keeping their corporate overlords happy.

So, in that regard ... mission accomplished!

Shitty laws, passed by incompetent people, written by industry lobbyists, and then foisted on the rest of the world by the US government in order to protect the interests of multi-national corporations, to the detriment of everyone else on the planet.

Thanks, America ... this really is your fault.

I really hope that this is a wake up call about just how terrible some of these laws actually are. Because most of them are so one sided as to be laughable (if it wasn't so draconian).

Re:Lol!

[gstoddart]

Well, there's the whole US threatening trade retaliations to countries which didn't.

Yes, those other countries passed the laws.

But, yes, the US government applied pressure on those governments to more or less force them to pass into law things which had been written by industry representatives.

So, yes, I do blame US foreign policy, and the fact that your government is so beholden to the copyright cartel that you more or less shoved this crap down the throat of the rest of the world.

America has hitched their cart to IP, and has been trying to ensure the world does the same. The badly written, one-sided laws which favor corporations, and don't require proof or accountability ... that was pretty much the US.

Trying to wrap my head around this

[rebelwarlock]

So someone submits a false DMCA, and Youtube accepted this without requiring any proof. They then forced the youtuber to provide proof that it wasn't a copyright violation. They then provided said youtuber's personal information to the person submitting a false DMCA.

What in the actual fuck?

Re:Trying to wrap my head around this

[Anonymous Coward]

Youtube and other service providers have to accept it whenever they don't have proof if they want to be safe. I am pretty sure youtube actually did everything they were required to do by law here and nothing more. Which just tells you how fucking awful the DMCA is.

Re:Trying to wrap my head around this

[Anonymous Coward]

This is exactly what happens. It's not just baddies, corporations do it thousands of times a day. Until DMCA takedown requests are required to submit proof of ownership and have escalating penalties for false/fraudulent claims, this situation will only get worse.

People also lose their accounts. Google won't even tell the people why their Youtube channels have been deleted. You'll get a vague "broke terms", but the reality is people hiding in their corporations do it daily.

And before any of you wankers say "it's a free service, who gives a shit", please GFYS.

Re:Trying to wrap my head around this

[sosume]

I'd say YouTube faces a hefty compensation, a fine and a criminal investigation. For disclosing personal information, possibly leading to attempted murder, and breaching privacy laws. But. Somehow they cannot trace the accounts posting videos of atrocities.

Re:Trying to wrap my head around this

[Attila Dimedici]

That is actually how the DMCA is written to work.

Re:Trying to wrap my head around this

[AmiMoJo]

Indeed, EU privacy laws make this kind of disclosure a very serious matter. At best they should be looking at a massive fine, at worst they could have their permission to store personal data revoked and be forced to delete all personal data held about Europeans.

Re:Typical muslims

[Wootery]

I'm sure you get this all the time, but really: there's no call for the generalisation.

Re:Typical muslims

[janoc]

Thank you for demonstrating your blatant racism and ignorance.

You do realize that there is 1.6 billion of people that are muslims in the world, spread out over the most of the globe? Your comment is like saying that we should ban all Christians from having human rights, because they are Bible thumping bigots opposing gays and abortions.

Please, do educate yourself before you open your mouth next time.

Solution- DMCA Permit

[Tyr07]

The solution is to require anyone that wishes to submit DMCA requests has to have a DMCA license number and be registered with the country that the company resides in for the lawful take down.

That way youtube can confirm that the email address and license number match the organization that is requesting the DMCA.
To confirm the validity of the email, a random string is sent back and needs to be replied, or a link sent to the email that they have to click on to complete the DMCA.

Make it cost prohibitive to get a license so that only proper organizations can do this. If people monkey around, they get their license revoked and have to re-apply and risk being banned from receiving a license.

Problem solved, DMCA requests become more sane.

Re:Solution- DMCA Permit

[l0n3s0m3phr34k]

that makes way too much sense, therefor will never be allowed in either the US or the EU.

I thought the DMCA is American Law

[TrollstonButterbeans]

How does American Law apply to Europeans and people in Germany --- or do US companies carry the American flag with them when they provide services in Europe and such?

Re:I thought the DMCA is American Law

[Charliemopps]

How does American Law apply to Europeans and people in Germany --- or do US companies carry the American flag with them when they provide services in Europe and such?

By treaty.

Re:I thought the DMCA is American Law

[Charliemopps]

Google is your friend:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W...

The DMCA is the US's implementation of the WIPO treaty. WIPO is the treaty that all signing parties agreed to, the DMCA is the law that enforces it in the US. Each signing party would have their own law to enforce the treaty. You'd have to look at individual laws in the member-states of the EU to know which particular law enforces the treaty there.

And now you know... and knowing is half the battle!

Remember what this tells us about the terrorists

[Bruce66423]

They are so frightened of the truth, or the freedom to spread information, that they have to scare people into not doing it.

Re:Typical muslims

[Luckyo]

Okay. Anti-Balaka Chrstian militias in CAR.

Those guys make IS look tame. French peacekeepers were talking about Christian mob going door to door and taking entire families apart with machetes until there were effectively almost no muslims left in the country. They either fled or were killed. They even forced Chad's peacekeepers of muslim faith to flee alongside other muslims.

Hilariously, Anti-Balaka means "no sword" or "no machete".

So DMCA has helped terrorists

[Roodvlees]

I wonder if there will be push back against the DMCA system now that it helped terrorists. Like there has been push back against encryption.

Re: Typical muslims

[Transfinite]

need I go on?

Yes please do, because if you want a numbers game I think you know that by far Islam is massively guilty here, So I'll be waiting.

The crusades were a reaction to the atrocities that Islam was engaged with CENTURIES, not decades but centuries in the Mediterranean & middle east, just like we are seeing now with ISIS. You know murder, torture, slaving all the sorts of things that are considered in-human. Come on the battle of Tours was in 732 [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B... ]. We were trying to wipe them out and for good reason.

The problem is that the issue IS with Islam, it is the problem, because you see Mohamed is meant to be the perfect man?! Really? How can a rapist, murdering, pedophile possibly be perfect? All muslims are taught to be like him. For example some of the great examples muslims follow Mohamed forces a 17 yr old Jewish girl called Safiyyah to marry him and rapes her on the same day her husband and family are killed in the battle of Khaibar (Sahih Al-Bukhari, Volume 5, Book 59, Number 522, Volume 1, Book 8, Number 367).

You know everything that is being done by these muslim terrorist (Al-nasura, ISIS, Boko haram, etc.....) All of it comes from the Quran, every bit of it. Try and do that with the new testament.

Political? Islam is a political system you fool!

So the issue fundamentally IS ISLAM, is Mohamed, his teachings and more importantly his behaviour. OK here's a snip for you to think about:

http://www.raymondibrahim.com/...

A Muslim state must [first] attack a Christian state—sorry, I mean any non-Muslim state—and they [the women, the future sex-slaves] must be captives of the raid. Is this forbidden? Not at all; according to Islam, sex slaves are not at all forbidden. Quite the contrary, the rules regulating sex-slaves differ from those for free women [i.e., Muslim women]: the latter’s body must be covered entirely, except for her face and hands, whereas the sex-slave is kept naked from the bellybutton on up—she is different from the free woman; the free woman has to be married properly to her husband, but the sex-slave—he just buys her and that’s that.

Oh did you notice the freudian slip she made as well?

the problem is elsewhere

[v1]

Google isn't the problem here, they did exactly what was expected of them. The law itself ("safe harbor") isn't really a problem either. The problem is that there's no meaningfull check and balance. It's a very one-sided thing. The law wasn't written by all parties invoved, it was written singlehadedly with one side's interests in mind.

If someone cries "rape!" and gets a man arrested, and then we find out that it was just a girl scorned that didn't like her BF had cheated on her, SHE is now up for legal charges "filing a false statement" as well as a target for a civil suit.

No such balance exists with DMCA. Anyone can file a DMCA claim, and the recipient is legally obligated to take action. They're not [i]required[/i] to take action, but if they don't, they accept legal responsibility if the DMCA filing was lawful. So it's not really "optional" for them, even though it may appear so.

Then, if the filing turns out to be iffy, inaccurate, or even deliberaly misleading, there are NO penalties or liabilities of any kind for the person that filed the fraudulent DMCA notice.

This has several effects, and only some of them are really noticed. First, the victim has no recourse. They have no legal basis to sue the filer. No law has been broken, so law enforcement has no teeth either. But it doesn't stop there. The victim's only possible relief is a civil suit against the middleman tha received the notice. (google in this case) They have a pretty good defense since they can argue (as above) that although not legally obligated, they actually WERE obligated, indirectly. Also, google has no recourse against the filer. If they have to stage a legal defense against the victim, it's on their nickel, they can't recover any of the costs from the filer because google acted "voluntarily".

The only way out of this for google is to do research before acting on the notice. This causes all sorts of problems because not promptly taking the material down forfeits their protection, and there will be a cost to this, which is unrecoverable, regardless of the outcome.

Provisions for accountability need to be added to the law. Not so much to protect the victim, but to protect the intermediary, so they can act in the victim's best interst instead of as the filer's whipping dog. Do that, and it would (A) reduce the number of false claims, (B) make people think more carefully about filing a claim, (C) give the intermediaries some teeth to go after fraudulent filings. Once that's in place, the back end of the process will only be activated when there's a much better change it's necessary and appropriate.

Looking to change the back end of this process just isn't productive. The changes need to be made in the middle.

Re: Typical muslims

[sociocapitalist]

No, but this isn't really an isolated incident now is it? This shit happens all the time, and it's always Muslims.
http://www.thereligionofpeace....

It's a problem, and a big one. Can we please stop pretending otherwise?

It is not always Muslims.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B...

Etc.

Re: Typical muslims

[CauseBy]

I'm not really convinced by that argument:

"Hey remember that one time that one guy killed some people and said that it was for Jesus? Yeah, that means Christians are as bad as Muslims, who in the meantime have committed tens of thousands of separate suicide attacks."

Today in the world, most terrorism comes from the Muslim community. Nobody gets to claim that that factual statement implies that all Muslims are terrorists, because that's not what the statement says. Anyone who makes that false claim concedes all credibility.

A majority of worldwide Muslims support death as a punishment for apostasy. If you think death-for-apostasy is bad, and if you think majority support within a group for a certain policy makes it fair to discuss that policy in terms of that group, then it is fair to say that "Muslims support death for apostates".

Compare that to the statement "Republicans support restrictions on abortion". Is that a true statement? I consider it to be true even though not every last Republican supports restrictions on abortion. When discussing groups, we don't have to account for every last member of the group. If we did, it would be impossible to discuss groups.

The Muslim community has problems -- moral problems. The community generally supports some incredibly horrible things. It is wonderful that some Muslims are not horrible, especially many or most of those who now live in Western countries, as well as a minority of those living in Islamic countries. I hope that that minority grows into the majority someday, but today they are still a minority, and it is fair to discuss Muslims as a group and policies supported by the majority of Muslims.

Muslims as a group support death for apostasy.
Muslims as a group are opposed to rights for women.
Muslims as a group are opposed to rights for homosexuals.
Muslims as a group support blasphemy laws.

Some Muslims don't support those things; most do.