Anti-Piracy Firm Sends Out Wave of Takedown Notices For Using the Word 'Pixels'
An anonymous reader writes: Columbia Pictures recently released a movie called Pixels to widespread ambivalence. As part of the movie industry's standard intellectual property defense strategy, it hired anti-piracy firm Entura International to try to police infringing downloads. The firm went at the task with vigor, hitting Vimeo with DMCA takedown notices for anything with the word "Pixels" in it. As you might expect, this disrupted a number of independent filmmakers and organizations who did nothing wrong, and in most cases picked a name for their video long before the new movie came out. Even worse, it's incumbent upon the owners of the targeted videos to prove that their content does not infringe upon Columbia's. Even if they get it restored, simply being targeted counts against them in Vimeo's eyes. And of course, Entura is unwilling to help.
When are we collectively going to stand up and say that the real pirates are the ones who steal our culture from us piece by piece? People who then have the audacity to push out drivel like 'pixels' and call it culture?
Silence is a state of mime.
Have a significant penalty for an invalid complaint.