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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
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.
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 ....
Besides which, if memory serves, the DMCA requires that the host take down the content, and it's up to whoever posted the content to dispute it. But I am not a lawyer, so take with a grain of salt.
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.
If it is automated, why is it that Google flags a DMCA complaint on WB vs WB earlier this month? Why does Google not automatically take it down?
Because Google does all of this to serve the Studios. They have a whitelist of stuff that they just ignore takedown requests for, to prevent DMCA abuse by ordinary people from hurting the sstudios. Abuse the other direction is just fine, of course.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
https://xkcd.com/1656/
You only need to download the .torrent file (not the full torrent) to see that it's just pointing to the official Ubuntu torrents.
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.
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.
But to go back to what someone else said in another thread, when Warner Brothers is asked if they're sure, and they answer yes, it becomes admissible evidence of a higher level of culpability. Knowing no other facts, a bad takedown could conceivably be the result of conduct that doesn't even rise to the level of negligence--maybe someone got bad info somehow, maybe someone copied all the torrents linked from a page that contains a dozen Transformers torrents, and inexplicably, one for Ubuntu. I can see a jury of reasonable men accepting that with the sheer volume of piracy WB has to deal with, its agents can still make mistakes even when exercising reasonable care.
The counter notice changes that. It's like the difference between an author making a typo even after a round or two of self-editing, and an author getting an marked up draft from his editor with a big red circle around the typo in question, and still not fixing the typo. The counter notice is a big favor to WB, it's a warning to pay extra attention to a specific issue, and WB, by responding Yes, is either saying "We looked again, and this Ubuntu torrent actually contains a terrible movie," or they're saying, "GTFO google, we don't actually care to check our work." At this point, it would be hard for WB to argue that its agents weren't extremely reckless, if not acting intentionally.
Sending the counter-takedown may not get immediate results, but it will yield a treasure trove of useful evidence for anyone with the standing to sue or to trigger relevant enforcement actions under the DMCA or related laws.
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.