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Ubuntu Torrent Removed From Google Due To DMCA Complaint (omgubuntu.co.uk)
Reader LichtSpektren shares a report from OMG Ubuntu: Cited in a DMCA takedown request filed against Google on behalf of Paramount Pictures is an innocuous link to a 32-bit alternate install image Ubuntu 12.04.2 LTS. The takedown request seeks to remove links to a number of torrent URLS that are alleged to infringe on Paramount movie Transformers: Age of Extinction. Ubuntu clearly doesn't. All it takes is a quick glance at the URL in question to see that. It's very much a stock ISO of an old Ubuntu release. And yet Google has complied with the request and scrubbed the link to the page in question from its search index.
DMCA!
Really?
fear the free software that gives you options
And so it begins.
No sig today...
Is anybody surprised that, this time, Google did not exercise discretion and retain the link as they did with Warner Brother's request to take down their own web site?
Is YaCy worth using yet?
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
The ISO has more plot and character development than Transformers.
No similarity what so ever.
Perhaps a $10,000 fine for each falsely submitted DMCA claim. Innocent until proven infringing. Shit like this just makes me buy less and pirate more, haven't bought a DVD in years.
That paramount thinks people are pirating Age of Extinction or that they confused Ubuntu and Age of Extinction.
Knowledge = Power
P= W/t
t=Money
Money = Work/Knowledge so the less you know the more you make
That there were some penalties to people/corporations who DMCA stuff that they clearly don't own.
I like you, Stuart. You're not like everyone else, here, at Slashdot.
Linux ISO torrents are full of piracy (hope that cheque from Darl clears soon)
I can see it now... the DMCA will secure the Internet, because soon enough all of the hacking tools will get DMCA take down notices because they infringe on AMC's Mr. Robot. Kali Linux is surely to be next on the list. :)
All it takes is a quick glance at the URL in question to see that. It's very much a stock ISO of an old Ubuntu release. And yet Google has complied with the request and scrubbed the link to the page in question from its search index.
I'm surprised that the submitter apparently believes Google's takedown tool has a person behind it.
With Google, all this stuff is automated. And, as with most things Google, you're going to have a heck of a time finding a place to report this obvious problem.
#DeleteChrome
All it takes is a quick glance at the URL in question to see that.
To see what? That's it's not labeled as being infringing on something? Can Gawker publish http://gawker.com/definitely.n... and point a 'quick glance at the URL' to claim they didn't distribute it (leaving aside the question of, if they did, was it tortious).
Of course, I'm reasonably confident that the torrent in question was not actually infringing. But to conclude that, you'd have to take a quick glance at the content or compare the hash against one you know is Ubuntu or ....
Many believe its time for retaliations against Google.
A little bit of accuracy isn’t too much to ask.
A little bit (read: large) of a fine isn't too much to ask. It doesn't mean much if we just ask for accuracy.
As usual, the rules of the game are always rigged in favor of power. You go ahead and try to get Google to delist something of Paramount's. Won't ever happen, ever. But if Paramount fired off a roboletter to Google complaining that the US Constitution violated a Paramount copyright, Google would remove the link to the Library of Congress.
Yesterday Google took down all the copies of fsn from the entire Internet on behalf of Universal Pictures. The reason was because this was something to do with an UNIX system and everybody should know this.
It will be funny as hell if they automatically complied to a DMCA takedown request against Gmail or Google :v
false positives from auto bot take downs? This is why ISP don't want a strikes system and it makes an criminal case hard with reasonable doubt issues.
But they flagged donaldjtrump.com that will not come down by some auto bot system / if it did it would be a very big black eye for google.
They've shown that they don't just blindly respond to DMCA requests, that somebody is vetting them first and deciding whether or not to take down the supposedly infringing material. In the linked case, Google decided not to honor the request to remove Warner Brothers websites from their search engine, as it was obviously erroneous. Yet they do not provide the same service globally, as evidenced by the request to take down a Ubuntu torrent despite this request being farcical.
I can see this issue being used by both sides of the DMCA argument to show that Google is not handling these requests correctly. The fact that they aren't handling all DMCA requests the same leaves them open to a possible lawsuit.
How about Google penalize Paramount and other copyright holders for false positive like this? Each time there is a significant demonstrated false positive that even the tiniest due diligence would have prevented, suspend their ability to automatically take down sites for X days or rate them limit significantly, increase the penalty each time.
Just wondering, but I don't think a DMCA request provides immunity from fraud nor libel laws.
http://legal-dictionary.thefre...
libel
1) n. to publish in print (including pictures), writing or broadcast through radio, television or film, an untruth about another which will do harm to that person or his/her reputation, by tending to bring the target into ridicule, hatred, scorn or contempt of others. Libel is the written or broadcast form of defamation, distinguished from slander which is oral defamation. It is a tort (civil wrong) making the person or entity (like a newspaper, magazine or political organization) open to a lawsuit for damages by the person who can prove the statement about him/her was a lie. Publication need only be to one person, but it must be a statement which claims to be fact, and is not clearly identified as an opinion. While it is sometimes said that the person making the libelous statement must have been intentional and malicious, actually it need only be obvious that the statement would do harm and is untrue.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
FYI, Congress wrote the DMCA, not Google. Google is following the law.
Congress failed to include sufficient provision for reckless DMCA notices. A significant penalty for recklessly sending incorrect notices is very much needed. Since it's a law, Congress has to do that, not Google.
On the other hand, Congress DID solicit and make use of public input when writing DMCA, modifying the proposal based on public input. At the time, nobody foresaw that people would send Google would get three MILLION notices per DAY. Perhaps we should have predicted that it would become fully automated, so incorrect notices would be a significant problem.
Also, nobody has done a good job of informing webmasters and others about counter-notices. Under DMCA, if Warner Brothers sends a notice, the recipient has to take it down, BUT you can then send a COUNTER-notice saying "this isn't infringing" and they have to put it back up. Basically sending back "no, it's not infringing" cancels out the original complaint, but few people seem to know about that.
404 not found. Dude, your link is broken.
It would be a shame if someone was to program thousands of DCMA bots that reported everything you have on the Internet as infringing.
US law has a well-developed system for identifying different levels of "be careful". They are different types of negligence. For example, if you drop your watch in my house and I find it, how careful I have to be taking care of it is different than if you put in a safe deposit box in the bank, where you are paying them to protect it.
One legal standard that could be applied would be "reckless". You could have a penalty for recklessly sending a DMCA notice, which means doing so with little regard for whether it is accurate or not.
You could additonally have a greater penalty for sending an inaccurate notice knowingly or maliciously.
Yes, there was a link to a web page with the word "Ubuntu" in the name of the URL, but what does that mean?
It means someone posted a link to Age of Ultron on a page that they sneakily called "Ubuntu 12.04".
I'm guessing the title of the page is not-so-clever misdirection.
I'm not a fan of the DMCA, but this article doesn't mean a darn thing wrong has happened.
Help! Help! I'm being repressed!
It's time to create our own... with blackjack... and hookers!
This is why i don't have the slightest problem with dowloading and sharing.
Mind you: if i like something then i go buy it. But that's not always possible because of artificial scarcity.
So yeah, fuck them.
Also, US law has something called "strict liability".
In strict liability situations, the actor is liable, period. That's regardless of negligence, fault, or intent. Using explosives and keeping dangerous animals are common examples that make the reasoning for sterict liability fairly clear. If you're using TNT, or you have tigers, you are -automatically- liable for any damage caused; it doesn't matter how careful you were being. Speeding is a more common, though perhaps less clear. If you are going faster than the speed limit, you owe the ticket. The state doesn't have to prove that you knew what the speed limit was, you knew how fast you were going, or that the intentionally drove faster than the limit. If you did in fact drive faster than the speed limit, it's case closed.
So you could have the following schedule of penalties:
Knowingly sending a materially inaccurate DMCA notice - $10,000 penalty.
Recklessly sending a materially inaccurate DMCA notice - $5,000 penalty.
Sending a materially inaccurate DMCA notice - $1,000 penalty.
If you send a bad notice, you owe at least $1,000.
This makes sense, especially seen as an attempt to prevent the movie from becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Transformers: Age of Extinction is about the final days of the desktop OS "transformation", with Microsoft Windows permanently losing the desktop war to Linux.
The last Windows users move to the moon and are banished from Earth, effectively becoming "extinct" from Earth's perspective.
So, in order to ensure this doesn't happen, they associate Linux distros with the movie, utilizing the DMCA as a preventative tool.
Wasn't a very good, or convincing movie though.
BlameBillCosby.com
Since Ubuntu is covered by the GPL then removal of links to source and by extension compiled images for comparison is a violation of Ubuntu's GPL, thus Copyright infringement, thus The Ubuntu foundation needs to be sending a DMCA copyright infringement notice to Paramount to take down anything they have or use that could mistake their own rights of other protected under GPL.
https://duckduckgo.com/
Say company P or its representative sends numerous clearly false notices of claimed infringement to search engine G, and P has a website. Does the DMCA require G to keep P's website ranked highly in G's index?
If not, Google could just demote Paramount in search.
The legal term you're looking for is slander of title, which came up in SCO v. Novell.
Use the DMCA claim filed by Paramount as Paramount's "THEFT" of Ubuntu's 32bit Linux, sue for billions, add to RICO charges.
They can't have it both ways.
You can't change the law without changing the politicians who write them. That's not going to happen this year.
You're assuming it ever changes. The Clintons signed this stinker into law with bipartisan support. Whichever party wins the white house, the end result is the same. This year is just particularly distasteful.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
I'm not a lawyer and this isn't legal advice. I used to work in the security and abuse department of a major hosting company. Let me shed just a little light on the DMCA for those of you who don't know. Consult a lawyer for more details or about any particular case.
The DMCA requires that the recipient of the notice at a safe harbor host notify the party responsible for making the content available on the host. Then that party has a certain amount of time to file a counter notice saying the takedown request is erroneous and why.
Faking the takedown is punishable. Faking the counter-notice is punishable. Either party may make some mistake in that process, though.
The party that has no say is the safe harbor host. If you get a takedown notice and get no counter-notice you must take down the content permanently to keep your safe harbor rights. Most hosts take things down proactively and will restore them after counter-notice has been filed. This absolves them of legal liability from either side under the DMCA.
Google's doing what I understand the law says they must. Paramount / Viacom may have made an error or may have some hatred toward Linux, Ubuntu, Canonical, Shuttleworth, the FSF, or what have you. Google's doing what they are obligated to do in order to keep themselves out of the middle of any litigation over it.
Are you new to this country?
These are the same lumps that tried to take down Sony's sites, but Google chuckled and decided not to comply. Now they take down a Ubuntu release and Google hits the kill button.
Where is that good natured restraint now, or does it only apply to beings with 9 or more digits of networth?!?!!?
When Google was requested by Universal Pictures' agent to nix their own IMDB site due to DMCA infringement, they did not comply. However, when a few days later when Paramount's agent clearly makes a bogus DMCA claim that an Ubuntu torrent infringes on their Transformers movie, the link gets taken down. Clearly, there's a double standard.
https://search.slashdot.org/st...
No Win no fee. False and malicious allegations and that would be against Paramount pictures.
No win no fee, also known as a conditional fee arrangement, is an agreement you make with your solicitor so that you can claim compensation without worrying about upfront legal fees. If your compensation claim is unsuccessful, the no win no fee agreement states you won’t have to pay your solicitor any money. Obviously in the U.S. that would be lawyer, and that is where the original idea come from.
If Paramount's servers, in any way, use Linux, they just committed a GPL violation and are open to be sued. And I think they should be sued hard.
Furthermore, as part of any settlement Paramount must agree to issue a DMCA takedown notice to Google requesting that the link to Android be removed, since it's related to a Transformers movie.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
All it takes is a quick glance at the URL in question to see that. It's very much a stock ISO of an old Ubuntu release.
Eh... no.
The URL could have been: hxxp://sketchy-torrent-site.tld/wiki/FOIA-Hillary%20Clinton%20Does%20Trump.real-legit.torrent.html and have pointed to a torrent that was really a copy of some Transformers movie or whatever. URLs are only meaningful to humans and can be deceptive or -- pinky to lip -- more than meets the eye.
So, I don't see anything really extra chilling about this. It's not an official mirror that got dinged here, people. Sheeh; OP is dumb and this is not newsworthy.
Price, Quality, Time. Pick none. What, you thought you had a choice?
They Steal everyone's legit content and make Billions of $$ of it, and remove legal content, making it impossible to find.
Google will be replaced though :) and I can't wait.
Hold on, why did Google take down this but none of the stuff Warner Bros. asked them to take down when this is clearly far less infringing?!
WTF Google??
KIND OF WORK:Unspecified
DESCRIPTION Without a Paddle (Original Movie)
ORIGINAL URLS:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt03...
ALLEGEDLY INFRINGING URLS:
http://bittorrent.am/download-...
Yeah, I'm SURE that "Rebel Without a Cock" is the same movie as "Without a Paddle".
Considering I use DuckDuckGo, I guess I don't care much. But, how about finding every reference to Paramount Pictures in Google and filing a take-down notice against it for DMCA, using the reason that it was something that you saw in a theater somewhere.
Maybe Ubuntu can sue them for Slander of Title.
> No. If you send a counter notice, Google has to ask Warner Brothers "are you sure this specific link is infringing?", and if WB says "Yes" then the link stays down and you have to take it to a judge.
I'll copy-paste the actual text of the law for you so you can read it for yourself. The complainant (Warner Brothers) has to "take it to a judge". Here's the exact text of the statute:
replaces the removed material and ceases disabling access to it not less than 10, nor more than 14, business days following receipt of the counter notice, unless its designated agent first receives notice from the person who submitted the notification under subsection (c)(1)(C) that such person has filed an action seeking a court order
https://www.law.cornell.edu/us...
The real question here is...
Who the hell would even torrent that movie?
Absolutely awful.
> Google is hosting _links_ not the infringing material. It is not clear
It wasn't clear until DMCA. DMCA has a section titled "Information Location Tools" it's specically for search engines and indexes.
There is also a section for web hosting companies, who store the material, and a separate section for ISPs, who don't. It even explicitly talks about caching by ISPs. Other than missing appropriate penalties for recklessly sending inaccurate notices, the DMCA is pretty darn well written, specifying in detail a required procedure that is appropriate for each type of service provider and is designed to be fair to both sides. That's because many of us who were active when it was written carefully reviewed each draft and suggested changes to the bill before it was passed. The one thing that went wrong is that we thought normal civil suits, along with counter-notices, would be sufficient to keep reckless notices under control. That's been a problem, but other than that it does have the sections needed for search engines, for ISPs, for web hosts, etc and leaves little ambiguity. Rather than leaving the details up to regulators or courts to figure out later, we made sure the required procedures were clearly spelled out in the law before it was passed.
> Sorry, you are right.
You don't often see THAT on Slashdot. Normally we fight to the death to defend whatever we first thought, no matter how clear it is that we're wrong. :)
Actually to my memory that's the second time anybody on Slashdot has been adult enough to simply acknowledge a correction, and the other time it was me in need of correction. I read a summary as implying that a probe was several light-seconds from earth when in fact it was several light-minutes away.
Can we not somehow organize DMCA take down notices against Paramount Pictures, and other abusers?
Actually most of the text, as finally passed into law, was written in 1997 largely by a bunch of people who mostly worked for themselves, a couple guys who did web hosting, a photographer or two, some "bloggers" (the word blogger didn't exist yet), etc. Most web sites at the time were run by one or two people, and most hosting companies were 1-6 people. There were a total of maybe 10 spiders crawling the web, none of them hunting for copyright violations. Anyway there was a pretty good cross section of people involved with the web commenting on the DMCA drafts. A few hundred of us submitted thousands of changes to the original draft, so I'd say that at more half of the text is now stuff we submitted.
Have a read of the law. The relevant portion, the bit people normally mean when they say "DMCA" is only a few pages:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/us...
You'll notice it clearly lays out a specific procedure for web hosting companies, a similar procedure tailored for ISPs, and another similar procedure for search engines and directories. Notice the counter-notice part - they have to put the content back up if the respondent says "no, it's not infringing". Notice that the complainant is required to specify exactly which URLs they are talking about and other details - they aren't allowed to just say "that site has some of my pictures on it". You've probably already noticed what it does NOT included - appropriate penalties for recklessly sending a notice.
It was written in 1997, Google didn't yet exist as a company. At the time, it appeared that directories like Yahoo and DMOZ would beat spider-based search engines, though Altavista, HotBot, and Excite were obviously too big to just disappear. We didn't predict the 100% fully-automated complaints. We figured that in the rare case someone sent a completely crap complaint, the recipient would take five minutes to send a counter-notice, then maybe sue the guy who sent the complaint. Obviously it's time for an update, it's become quite obvious that a penalty is needed for recklessly sending automated notices. We didn't know that in 1997, there were no automated notices.
That '32-bit alternate install image Ubuntu 12.04.2 LTS' could have easily been used with a compatible device or emulator to download, decode, and display a pirated copy of "Transformers: Age of Extinction", and but for the takedown, almost certainly would! Paramount is obviously just protecting their interests here.
Surely the perjury clause can be used this time since they have nothing to do with the copyright holders.
Until you start piling bodies like cord wood.
Unless you are willing to kill to make it stop, you are doing less than nothing.
Unless you put your life on the line for anything at all zero results for decades is all you get.
Stuff a 44 in the mouth of one of these pricks and pull the trigger repeatedly, The next guy gets the mother fucking message and not one second sooner.
I once accepted a correction for claiming to invent the term 'cargo cult science.' I'd actually read it previously, but the memory of reading it had faded so I thought it was my own idea.
Strange bedfellows, indeed!
Maybe I skimmed the article (and what it linked to) too fast and missed it, but I didn't catch how this particular thing happened.
Surely it wasn't a hash collision, was it?
There's no time like the present. Well, the past used to be.
The hosting company doesn't have to put anything back up. This section of the DMCA is instructions on how to avoid legal liability, not a mandatory procedure.
If Google receives a takedown notice, Google doesn't have to take down anything. However, if Google doesn't and the content is found to be infringing, Google is legally liable for infringing the copyright. If Google receives a counterclaim, Google doesn't have to put anything back up. However, if Google doesn't and Google has some sort of legal obligation to host the material, Google is legally liable for not meeting that obligation.
In most cases, Google doesn't want to be liable for copyright infringement, but doesn't have any legal obligation to host the content in the first place, so can safely ignore the counterclaim.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes