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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.

12 of 389 comments (clear)

  1. Yay, humans! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The species and its imaginary friends are full of entertainment.

  2. Trying to wrap my head around this by rebelwarlock · · Score: 5, Informative

    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?

    1. Re:Trying to wrap my head around this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    2. Re:Trying to wrap my head around this by sosume · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

  3. Re:Typical muslims by janoc · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  4. Solution- DMCA Permit by Tyr07 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  5. Re:Typical muslims by Luckyo · · Score: 5, Informative

    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".

  6. So DMCA has helped terrorists by Roodvlees · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    --
    Thank you, Bradley Manning, Edward Snowden and so many others, for courageously defending humanity, my freedom and more!
  7. Re:I thought the DMCA is American Law by Charliemopps · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  8. the problem is elsewhere by v1 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    --
    I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
  9. Re: Typical muslims by sociocapitalist · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

    --
    blindly antisocialist = antisocial
  10. Re:I thought the DMCA is American Law by Charliemopps · · Score: 5, Informative

    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!