Porn Companies Are Going After GitHub

rossgneumann writes Porn production companies are currently engaged in a scorched earth copyright infringement campaign against torrenting sites with URLs containing specific keywords and Github is getting caught in the crossfire. Several Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) complaints filed to Google by companies representing various porn companies in the last month alone have resulted in dozens of legitimate Github URLs being removed from the search engine's results, TorrentFreak first reported."

Comments

any repercussions?

[Trepidity]

In theory submitting a false DMCA request is illegal. And there are theoretically plausible civil suits as well, if someone submits a false or reckless DMCA request that damages your business. But has anyone in history actually suffered any repercussions from submitting false DMCA requests? It seems people submit false ones all the time, and not only borderline mistakes but things ranging from reckless disregard for the truth to outright maliciously false requests (e.g. for SEO purposes). Yet I have never heard of anyone being prosecuted or sued for it.

Re:any repercussions?

[LordLucless]

It's because the only punishments for false takedown requests in the DMCA is for misrepresenting yourself as the owner of the alleged infringing material. There is no punishment for making a take down request against materials that do not infringe. It's one of the stupider bits of the law.

Re:any repercussions?

[duck_rifted]

Wait a minute. The Github projects being taken down contain source code that is definitely somebody's intellectual property in each case. And by filing fraudulent DMCA takedown requests, these porn sites are misrepresenting themselves as the owners of that intellectual property. Even in the case of open source projects with, say, Creative Commons licenses, these sites are not granted sole rights to the work in question.

If what you say is true, then the people submitting these requests certainly can face liability. I don't know how you arrive at the conclusion that because it's Github or because it's porn sites, somehow nobody owns all that code.

Re:any repercussions?

[AmiMoJo]

Can non-US citizens submit DMCA take-downs? Does Google even check? I suddenly feel like writing a script...

Re:Mass perjury

[Greyfox]

So then someone with an axe to grind and a bit of perl programming know-how could pretty much remove a porn studio from the internet using the same DMCA scorched-earth tactic that these studios are, getting links to all their pages removed from all the major search engines?

Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

GitHub went after "gamergaters". Let someone go after them.

Counter-DMCA them

[mwvdlee]

Based on the similarity in names, these porn movies are quite obviously infringing on the copyright of these open source projects.
How about sending DMCA requests to get these porn movies banned from Google?
Two can play this game!

(as a side note; cue bad joke replies in 3.. 2.. 1..)

Knockout.js letter of response

[debrain]

github.com/knockout/knockout was one of the repos listed, and here is the letter they sent (which seems to be a reasonable template):

To: marketing@takedownpiracy.com
Date: Wed, Jan 7, 2015 at 9:33 AM EST

Dear Sirs,

It has recently come to my attention that your firm has filed a DMCA notice to Google identifying copyright infringement for works to which I am personally associated. I apologize if this email is not directed to the correct address, but it was the only address apparent to contact your company and I would be grateful if you could forward this message appropriately or direct me accordingly.

The notice that has come to my attention includes the details from the web-site as follows:

https://www.chillingeffects.or...

This site identifies Takedown Piracy LLC as an agent of Wicked Pictures sending a DMCA notice to Google. The notice apparently references the following works, which works appear to have since been removed from the results of searches via the Google search engine:

https://github.com/SteveSander...
https://github.com/rniemeyer/k...
https://github.com/rniemeyer/k...
https://github.com/Knockout-Co...
https://github.com/knockout/kn...
https://github.com/knockout

These works are entirely software and are in no way associated with Wicked Pictures, nor do they contain any adult material whatsoever (which I understand to be the preponderance of copyright held by Wicked Pictures).

Through the above-referenced DMCA notice your firm has stated that I have committed or endorsed copyright infringement, as well as associated me with republishing unlicensed works of the adult industry.

[As a software developer], I am sure you can appreciate that the above implication and association could cause serious harm to my reputation.

I trust you will not mind issuing an appropriate revocation of appropriate portions of the DMCA notices to Google and any other recipient that may have received a notice referencing the above content, as well as similarly revoking and white-listing from any future notices any work referred to with a URL containing the following:

github.com/knockout
github.com/SteveSanderson
github.com/mbest
github.com/rniemeyer
github.com/brianmhunt

âAgain, these repositories contain entirely software and are clearly not the intended target of your operationâ, which you can readily confirm by navigating to them in a web browser.

âMany thanks for your co-operation on this matter, and I would be grateful for your âconfirmation that the DMCA notices have been appropriately revoked. If by February 7th, 2015 it is apparent that the DMCA notices have not been revoked, I will be obliged to pursue appropriate legal action, and will hold your firm responsible for all associated legal costs.

âKind regards,

Brianâ