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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.
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You only need to download the .torrent file (not the full torrent) to see that it's just pointing to the official Ubuntu torrents.
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.
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.