Warner Bros. Targets Kim Dotcom’s Mega With Bogus DMCA Requests

Ernesto
February 7, 2013
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Mega,
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In a bogus DMCA request Warner Bros. has asked Google to remove several links to Kim Dotcom’s cloud hosting service Mega. Not only did the movie studio send in the wrong URLs, they also failed to note that Mega download links aren’t indexed by Google to begin with. Adding to the controversy, Warner Bros does not appear to have sent Mega a direct takedown request for the infringing content in question.

mega Copyright holders are increasingly trying to take down allegedly infringing links by sending millions of DMCA takedown notices to Google and elsewhere each month.

Unfortunately, not all of their requests are accurate.

Sometimes these mishaps are amusing, such as when copyright holders try to take down their own legitimate content. In other cases errors can lead to thousands of websites being censored by mistake.

Today we discovered another bogus takedown request, one that may bring a smile to Kim Dotcom’s face.

Last week Warner Bros. sent a DMCA notice to Google asking the search engine to remove 964 URLs that allegedly link to infringing copies of the movie “Gangster Squad.” The notice in question also lists 16 links to Mega.co.nz, Dotcom’s new cloud hosting service.

Nothing out of the ordinary, as all file-hosting services store some copyrighted content on their servers. However, Warner Bros’ request is inaccurate on several fronts.

First and foremost, Mega has decided that Google can’t index their site. This means that even if links to pirated content are posted publicly elsewhere on the Internet, Google will not add these URLs to their search engine.

In other words, the URLs that Warner Bros. asked Google to remove were never indexed to begin with.

The second problem with the takedown requests is that the URLs are inaccurate, and don’t point to any copyrighted material. Apparently the automated web scraper used by Warner Bros. can’t handle the format of Mega links, replacing “#!” with “?escaped_fragment=”.

The same errors were later repeated in DMCA notices Warner Bros. sent for other movies, including Argo.

Mega fail

warner-mega

The files that Warner Bros. meant to take down are currently still available on Mega, suggesting that the movie studio didn’t issue a separate DMCA notice to the file-hosting service itself.

Interestingly, Warner Bros. is not the only rightsholder to make the same mistake. Several others have also sent takedown notices to Google for allegedly infringing content on Mega that was never indexed.

The above once again shows the dangers of automated DMCA notices that are sent without any type of verification. Right now rightsholders and the anti-piracy outfits they employ have absolutely no incentive to improve the accuracy of their takedown systems.

Even the most fundamental checks, such as whether Google actually indexes the links, are ignored. Perhaps it’s time for these continual erros to have some kind of penalty attached?

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Caspin

Needs to be legislation that fines these conglomerates for every mistaken DMCA request they send. That way they will have at least SOME incentive to get their facts straight.
- Christopher Kidwell
  
  Agreed. It should be 100 dollars for any business with under 50 workers (small business) up to 10K per for businesses that make over 100 million dollars a year.
  - anom
    
    if fines started at 1% of a company’s gross profits for the previous year and ramped upto a max of 30% you can be DAMN sure they’d stop trying to do things on the cheap ie automated software trawling and start actualy employing people to verify stuff before submitting DMCA requests, heet.com for example charge right holders for the submitted DMCA links and strangely generic 3rd parties acting for the copy write holders tend to send in few requests as a result, seems their quite happy to take money off people to do a job, but are unwilling to pay out money to ensure it’s done right, end of the day with DMCA requests, copy write etc it all boils down to money and as you know if it costs people money then you can be damn sure they’ll check to make sure it’s correct so it doesn’t cost them money.
    - highboi
      
      no one want to employ anyone due to having to pay them, might just outsource it like everything else is.
    - Scary_Devil_Monastery
      
      30%?
      
      Assume every invalid DMCA claim costs a pittance of a hundred dollars in fines, the entire MPAA would go under by now – unless they smartened their act by a lot.
- Stevey
  
  Agreed. And Kim Dotcom should be hit with the same legislation for using bogus DMCA requests against his own users.
  
  Seriously, why on earth would anyone want the site of that greedy hypocrite?
  - Christopher Kidwell
    
    Because, all things considered, it is the best filesharing site on the internet at the moment. Highest speeds, short wait times…. need I go on?
    - Gmail
      
      Zippyshare has no wait times, no file size limit, and unlimited downloads… Mega sure ain’t the best…
    - Christopher Kidwell
      
      zippyshare? Hmm……. last time I tried them, downloads kept on getting disconnected every 5 seconds if the download was larger than 100MB’s.
    - Gmail
      
      Unlike trying to upload files to Mega and they restart 50 times, on a 15kb image… yeah…
    - John J
      
      Uploading to MEGA works fine in my experience.
      
      However, I yet have to complete a single download successfully… It simply keeps displaying the “Starting download” screen. (I’ve tried it for a few weeks now, with both files uploaded by me and others.)
    - Christopher Kidwell
      
      Gmail, I’ve uploaded 200MB files to Mega and NEVER yet had to restart them, all 10 of them that I have done. I’ve also done about 100 4-5MB files, so I think you are spouting some bull here.
      
      If you aren’t and you are truly having that much of a problem, use Chrome. It works fine with Mega.
      
      The one person I saw on another forum saying the same thing you did, he was using Opera to try to get to Mega. It does not work well with Opera, for some reason.
    - Chris-Wrong
      
      Youre wrong. Ive continuously used ZS. Files from 0-50 MB doesn’t require captcha. The size limit is 200 MB, but you split a video up in 2 (200 + 150) parts and youre good to go. The speeds are amazing. A whopping 400 KB/s per every part I get…So I start 6 parts at the same time, giving me a total of 2.4 MB/s download. FYI, no download limits for free users either. Beat that.
    - Christopher Kidwell
      
      Chris, there is no ‘right or wrong’ there. It’s my personal experience that downloads get disconnected from Zippyshare when files are over 100MB’s. I don’t understand WHY that is, but it just happens for me.
    - Guest321
      
      Half the time I can’t even get the site to open and if by some stroke of luck the download starts, it stops after few seconds. Sites like billionuploads, putlocker, 180upload, sockshare are probably the best for free users right now as long as you don’t download too much per day,
    - jane
      
      Don’t mention them or other alternatives, Torrentfreak needs the controversy to continue to up their clicks each month
  - La Vida
    
    Tell me what’s more important?
    Hate to him or download things?
    
    If you have chosen the first,
    then, good luck with that life full of resentment.
    - Joy
      
      I hate him for the same reason that I hate the MPAA/RIAA. He believes that he is god and can take down anything he doesn’t like. If you love the MPAA and the RIAA and Kim Dotcom’s fat ass, then that’s your choice.
    - Christopher Kidwell
      
      No, Joy, he thinks that he can take down anything in violation or reported to be in violation of the ToS of Mega.
      
      Which he is right about.
    - Guest
      
      Why are we still brooding over the disabling of the first MEGA search engine? Kim reported that <50 files were taken down in request from THE REAL copyright advocates
    - Guest321
      
      Mega’s TOS is just a bunch of lawyer speak. If he really wants to enforce that shit about no copyright infringement then he is no better than the MAFIAA because he believes in the same principles as them.
    - Guest
      
      Kim always had some sort of stance towards copyright infringement. Megaupload was a top file host, we all loved it then. I do think he is not doing much about it, unless confronted with valid DMCA’s
    - Samuel
      
      At least he apologized for wrongfully removing authorized files. MAFIAA would not even apologize for their bogus DMCA requests such as against MEGA
    - Joy
      
      The files taken down were NOT in violation of the ToS of Mega at all. They were completely legal files that Kim took down because they were “infringing on his IP” i.e. MPAA/RIAA style.
    - Samuel
      
      Kim also apologized to the public for mistakenly removing files
    - La Vida
      
      Well, Joy, looks like you love to hate everybody,
      I shall say “good luck” then.
      
      I don’t like what MPAA and others are doing,
      I’m also not interested in their movies,
      but, after closing this page, I simply forgot
      they even exist.
    - http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1541716172 Ian Wardell
      
      If you didn’t notice he is trying to help us ” share” . However if faced with aa ligit order he has no choice…. that’s the risk. But you can just re upload. He won’t search for it, but if they find it that’s not his fault. Kind of like ” you can tell anything to a lawyer but if the other party finds out its on you.your Lawyer hhas to say he knew if asked directly with the fact they already know or claim that he can’t because your the client, which shows he knew but can’t legally say.
    - Liam JH
      
      What I noticed is Fatman Kim trying to be an advocate of privacy whilst selling your personal data to credit agencies.
      Hypocricy at its best.
  - Anon
    
    I strongly disagree. We don’t need to change any of the current laws.
    
    They are perfect the way they are, since copyright laws were only created to protect companies like Warner.
    
    Not you and me (and not the artists who made their fortune, of course).
    
    What we really need is to STOP, listen to this, for God sakes: STOP GIVING THEM MONEY!
    
    We need to boycott all companies that are working against us.
    
    So instead of complaining here, LET THEM DIE.
    
    Don’t
    vote anymore (don’t believe in any hierarchy), don’t buy newspapers
    (they are dying anyway), don’t pay to watch TV channels, don’t use ISPs
    that willingly give your data to the highest bidder, don’t buy DVDs,
    etc…
    
    And FOLLOW THE MONEY!
    
    If you want a list of companies to boycott, start here:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_organizations_with_official_stances_on_the_Stop_Online_Piracy_Act
    
    In short: stop saying the law needs to be changed.
    
    You are the one that needs to change. Stop giving these people power and money!
    - http://twitter.com/NakkiNyan NakkiNyan
      
      Time Warner is the only ISP in my area, you are asking me to go without any internet at all. Before you say use cellular, 1: it is slow and 2: I need a booster that uses my broadband just to get a signal.
      
      A simple change, of say, $50,000 – $250,000 per false DMCA would fix this quick. I have the 50k-250k for first time vs repeat offenders like Warner Brothers. $241,ooo,ooo in fines just for this round of false DMCA takedown requests alone would fix this crap fast.
    - highboi
      
      dcma is a federal law cant profit off of it unfortunately
    - Anon
      
      My ISP is the lesser of evils that we have here and I also don’t have a
      choice. But, at least, I recognize that. The point I was trying to make
      is that discussing how the laws should have change is a waste of time.
      The very concept of government, power, hierarchy, etc. is flawed.
      
      Copyright
      laws were not created to be fair. They were designed from the start to
      give power to companies like WARNER. We don’t need to change any law. We
      simply don’t need them to guide our lives (the same can be said about
      the government).
      
      If you do believe otherwise, that only proves
      that you don’t have any control of your own life and your faith in the
      POWERS THAT BE is killing you.
      
      We should stop feeding these
      parasites with anything they like. Stop giving them power and money.
      Stop saying YES and start saying NO as much as you can and when your conscience is saying you should do that. It’s that simple.
    - Hogspace
      
      Already did that. Not a dime. They lost $50 a month from me. How many others?
- FearMe
  
  Never going to happen because these fucking corporation bough the government. The good new is that what they are trying to achieve is impossible. This being say they are seriously hurting the society and the justice system and this is why we have to kill them all now!
  - Fr3d
    
    They’re just trying to bring down Kim’s business with any means necessary.
- Andrew me
  
  Yes they need to be fined for each incorrect takedown notice, it is just a waste of manpower and money for Google to be taking down links that probably are not infringing.
  Not only that though, they should be forced to pay per request if they have more than three false dmca requests.no more than three as then they are in a position that they will have to confirm manually what they are taking down is actually infringing content, and that will cost them money, a lot of money hopefully.
- Guest321
  
  I wonder what the pirate parties are doing. With such overwhelming evidence of DMCA abuse, this is a golden opportunity for them to try and pass a legislation that will enforce a heavy penalty on such wrong & illegal takedown requests.
- Wally
  
  Could you imagine the fines due to the *automated takedowns*?
  8-O It blows my mind!
- Hogspace
  
  If only they hadn’t already bought the governments.
  $100 per false takedown request is all we need.
- http://twitter.com/mijj mijj
  
  > “Needs to be legislation that fines these conglomerates for every mistaken DMCA request they send.”
  
  fines to an organization are just the cost of doing business. Responsible individuals need to be identified and penalized.
- asdasdasd
  
  Filing false/bogus DMCA claims is perjury. Perjury is a felony offense under United States Federal Law.
  
  When filling out a DMCA, at the very bottom on top of the signature line it says to the extent “The information provided is valid and truthful under penalty of perjury.”, in which case your signature says you agree that the claim is valid.
- http://twitter.com/AaronCaden1 Aaron Caden
  
  But my country, the USA, is so fucking perfect. Here, let us share some of our perfection with your little uncivilized country.!!!
  
  http://torrentfreak.com.qr.net/j6Jf/warner-bros-targets-kim-dotcoms-mega-with-bogus-dmca-requests-130207/
Caspin

Needs to be legislation that fines these conglomerates for every mistaken DMCA request they make. This would provide at least SOME incentive to get their facts straight.
- MadAsASnake
  
  When hve thes takedowns ever had much to do with facts?
Caspin

Why aren’t my comments showing up here?
- Caspin
  
  Whoops, just took a sec
  - beerwitheverything
    
    fourth dimension, commonly known as either deleted or freakension
DuckNation

Oh Warner Bros./DMCA how funny it is to see you fail over and over it beings me joy
Steve Hansen

When indexing dynamic content you do have to change the #! (hashbang) but it should be ?_escaped_fragment_=

Doesn’t really matter here since it isn’t indexed in the first place :p
- Violated0
  
  I can only wonder if Mega used #! on purpose just to screw with this infringement scanning software which could not handle it. Electronic warfare in other words.
  
  Well it is nice to follow those links just to see what mystery downloads you could get. Keep up the good work you rum loving pirates.
  - delafield44
    
    The # character is NOT supposed to be passed by the browser as part of any URL to a server. The # is ignored and everything after the # is intercepted by the browser and used as the decryption key (it is passed to the javascript by the browser, and I’m guessing the javascript also uses it to identify the file to the server). So, it is not something that the anti-piracy folks have really worried about before since this whole client-side decryption is new.
Anonymous Monkey

I wonder how these companies can stand with all the holes in their feet o_0
sick

Can we please stop calling it “Kim Dotcom’s Mega” and just call it “Mega” ?
- fat dot cnut
  
  how about “that fat germans mega”?
- Election
  
  Kim Dotcom’s Mega.
  - http://www.facebook.com/people/Daniel-Weisinger/548351406 Daniel Weisinger
    
    Mega Kim? Mega Dotcom? Kim “Mega” Dotcom?
    
    Just “Mega” isn’t as fun. Too bad the corporately owned US owns the .com TLD, he could of tried to get kim.com instead.
    - http://twitter.com/NakkiNyan NakkiNyan
      
      He does own kim.com, it is his personal site
http://profiles.google.com/pianogamer Knut Harald

So Warner are running their own indexer, and bothering others that aren’t indexing, with their irrelevant, yet perjury complaints…
dondilly

Well, legally thanks to the risk of perjury term in the standard dmca notice, a dmca takedown notice is no different to a sworn affidavid declaring yourself as the rightsholder or their legal agent.

What we need is content owners and/or google to start suing for damages for false malicious takedowns.

I was gobsmacked to read a media company lawyer claiming in court that error rates of 5 or even 10% were acceptable. Clearly they are not if it is your content taken down in error or pages from your site delisted. Big media should be on notice they use automated tools at their own risk. I know we’ve discussed this many times on TF, but there needs to be penalties for false takedowns.

Also it seems a counter productive using dmca to force google to delist items unless the originating site ignores notices. Sending these secondary delist notices to search engines are especially problematic in the case of false takedowns if you are the victim.

For example each time universal took down kim dotcom promo vids, it wasnt just the youtube entry being deleted. Search engine results pointing to the vid either directly or indirectly via news stories were all at risk of being delisted. KDC was in the process of suing universal over their actions and collateral damage but sadly halted the case to attend to bigger problems.
- Anom
  
  dondilly, do a google search and see how many actual cases you can find relating to successfuly suing for false/wrongful DMCA takedown requests, it’s depressingly small (I can recall 3 of the top of my head) inside the US jurisdiction companys can NOT unfort charge copy write holders or 3rd parties working on their behalf for wrongful DMCA requests, due to the way DMCA law is currently written, outside of the US however companies and sites ARE free to do so, which is what I’d recommend every non us company/site start doing so, you will soon find that rights holders dont find error rates of 5%-10% acceptable as it costs them money for every wrongful one, problem solved, and for a example of that look at h33t.com’s DMCA policy, duplicate and problem solved for non US companies/sites.
  - dondilly
    
    I agree, compensation cases over wrongful takedowns are pitifully low. As for rightsholders delegating responsibility for dmca enforcement to a 3rd party, that does not imply ANY derogation of the rightsholders liability for false takedowns. That 3rd party is responsible to the rightsholder, not the courts or the victim. This is how it should be. What they get away with is a different matter.
    The water gets muddy if it is a 3rd party that is signing off the dmca notices but even then they would have to show title to the material they are acting on. A victims best bet would be to go for the aledged rightsholder.
    
    Google is probably best placed to put a stop to unverified takedowns as they are getting snowed under with manual takedowns of links that are already dead. Check back on TF anxd you will see google receiving megaupload takedowns 6 to 8 months after the site was pulled.
    - bobmail
      
      The standard for proving a DMCA notice was intentionally sent with full knowledge of all of the facts stated not being in good faith is almost impossible.
      
      Basically, if they are the copyright holders, and the use they are pointing to is not specifically licensed, they have probably reached the level of good faith to pass the standard already. The only cases that are won generally show that the claimant was not the rights holder at all (and didn’t in good faith believe they were), or that the work in question was licensed, they were aware of it, and tried to get it taken down anyway.
      
      It is a really, really high standard to break.
      
      A for Megaupload takedowns, because Googlegbot is currently indexing broken links and having all sort of other issues, some links to megaupload do still exist, often on other sites. Those things do end up getting indexed by Google from time to time. When someone sends a DMCA to get rid of them they often send both the page the link was found on, as well as the page linked. That may mean listing megaupload links that have already been shut down.
      
      Understanding why something happens is the first step to realizing it’s not out of line.
    - Holololol
      
      lol these people can do no wrong in your eyes even when they clearly, obviously and blatantly do damage. “Whoop we are screwing up the internet and taking down legitimate content but all is forgiven because we meant well.”
      
      It will reach a point where it will become ridiculous and google will step in. We are starting to come up on it.
    - bobmail
      
      It’s not doing no wrong. First, they don’t “screw up the internet”, that’s a pure lie. Moreover, the law (the one that allows you to post copyright material freely and then just go “oops” and walk away when you get caught) is the same law that allows them to operate in good faith.
      
      Would you prefer no DMCA? You know, then YouTube would be liable for every video posted on their site, and even time you violate copyright (intentional or not) you would be on the receiving end not of a DMCA style notice, but rather a lawsuit. Would you prefer that?
      
      It works both ways – both sides get good faith, the ability to say “oops” and not be liable. Think about it!
    - ITakeAPotatoChipAndEatIt
      
      “No, what I am saying is that, if the copyright holder acts generally in
      good faith, and doesn’t specifically and knowingly target things that
      are legal, licensed, or does not belong to them, then they have passed
      the limit. It’s about good faith, not absolute certainty.”
      
      If they indeed acted in good faith; then we wouldn’t be seeing an article on here about every week, showing how they once again screwed up.
      
      This so called “Good Faith” was never even taken into question, all these DMCA requests are simply sent out blinding without recourse.
    - bobmail
      
      Actually, there will always be articles here about stuff. Every time there is any action to take things down, there is an article – even if the stuff is clearly pirated.
      
      “good faith” doesn’t mean “good for everyone” or “makes everyoen happy”. It’s a legal concept, one you might want to read up on. You are confusing “pissed off pirates” with a lack of good faith.
      
      The DMCA notices are sent out with the good faith belief that the links are infringing. That they were also sent to Google appears to be nothing more than in keeping with a standard automated processing system, which assumes that stuff is either indexed in Google or will be at some point.
      
      There is always recourse. But to have recourse, the pirates would have to actually identify themselves and make it possible for them to receive the DMCA notice to argue against it. Since most pirates are hiding and don’t want to be associated with anything that they do, things pretty much end there.
      
      It’s pretty clear that it’s the pirates who aren’t acting in good faith. They are just hoping not to get caught.
    - Scary_Devil_Monastery
      
      “You are confusing “pissed off pirates” with a lack of good faith.”
      
      When notices are passed out in the millions, out of which statistics say tens of thousand or a hundreds of thousands are invalid then we aren’t talking about “good faith” applying anymore.
      
      And there is ample precedence on how “good faith” is ruled not to be such if anyone knowingly spams out notices with the certainty that thousands of them will be invalid.
      
      Secondly, as usual the entire exercise doesn’t really affect “pirates”. That we are pissed off is because of the arrogance that anyone at all is able to send out automatic notices resulting in takedowns without the intervention of a judge or prosecutor.
      
      “First, they don’t “screw up the internet”, that’s a pure lie…”
      
      They screw up the very concept of “free speech” which is arguably worse. They reverse burden of proof which is worse. And that this takes place online means the internet gets screwed up as a side effect.
      
      Strange how what you consider “pure lies” actually match factual reality…
    - ITakeAPotatoChipAndEatIt
      
      Did you even read what I wrote, or are you deflecting again?
      
      I never said “good faith” had to be good for everyone,
      They wouldn’t need good faith if they actually checked the validity of the DMCA before they sent them out.
    - Ardvaark
      
      “Understanding why something happens is the first step to realizing it’s not out of line.
      
      Hilarious, because you clearly understood nothing of what happened.
      
      The issue was not indexing broken links because if you read the article those links still host files that are available. And it has nothing to do with google’s indexing because google didn’t index anything in the first place
      
      That’s why the system fails, because it grabs links regardless of content or context and even ends up reporting misinterpreted links and aren’t even indexed.
      
      Understanding why that happens, you, like anyone with who didn’t have a lobotomy should understand how fallible and untrustworthy the system is.
      
      “The standard for proving a DMCA notice was intentionally sent with full
      knowledge of all of the facts stated not being in good faith is almost
      impossible.”
      
      Good, you just mentioned the biggest flaw on the DMCA. It’s exploitable because the fail-proof mechanism fails.
      
      You can report whatever you want that your “good faith” won’t be questioned and if proven wrong, nothing will happen to you but the victim wrongly accused would have gone through all the hassle just to prove his innocence essentially turning the innocent until proven guilty right turned upside down.
      
      “Basically, if they are the copyright holders, and the use they are
      pointing to is not specifically licensed, they have probably reached the
      level of good faith to pass the standard already.”
      You’re absolutely ridiculous.
      You’re saying that if the copyright holder accuses someone of copyright infringement even without confirming anything, he’s already passed the standard.
      Congratulations.
      You’ve just admitted that the standards are too low and you can accuse anyone without need of evidence.
    - bobmail
      
      Umm, dude, I was talking in general, and not about this specific case. In this case, I can guess that part of their system autoamtically generates DMCA notices to Google and such, even if the links don’t exist in Google specifically (but might do in the future).
      
      My comment was directed only towards this quote: ” Check back on TF anxd you will see google receiving megaupload takedowns 6 to 8 months after the site was pulled”
      
      Please try to follow along. Nice rant, but fail.
    - Ardvaark
      
      “(but might do in the future).”
      It won’t.
      
      “system autoamtically generates DMCA”
      Again confirming the flaws of DMCA according to what I said above.
      
      Nice of you to focus on the misunderstanding part and totally ignoring the other half where the actual arguments are though. Typical of you
    - bobmail
      
      “Nice of you to focus on the misunderstanding part and totally ignoring the other half where the actual arguments are though. Typical of you”
      
      Since your rant started out with a failed assumption (taking something I said out of context and then bitching about it in that context), I really did tune out the rest of your bold font infested post. I assume that if you got the start wrong, the end would be equally faulty.
      
      However, Let’s address your points:
      
      “fail proof mechanism fails”
      
      Not really. The point is that the sheer volume of infractions, as well as the nature of the internet for the same single infringing file to get “echo-ed” through thousands of torrent listing sites all trying to scam some ad dollars means that the volume of DMCA notices that a rights holder must send on is overwhelming. It only takes a very small percentage of the population infringing to generate a large scale issue. That occasionally (and the Google numbers bear it out) a DMCA is completely invalid (ie, not a judgement call, not a fair use call) shouldn’t be a shock. You try to think of a better way. The law is written to take this into account, it considers good faith and not 100% accuracy.
      
      It should be noted that good faith applies the other way as well. It means that instead of a copyright lawsuit, the host (or the poster) can remove the work IN GOOD FAITH and not face a massive lawsuit.
      
      “essentially turning the innocent until proven guilty right turned upside down.”
      
      Not so. If you want to take the British judge the other day with his “Trespass” ruling to the limits, consider: If you are on my property without my permission, trespassing, I can ask you to leave (and ask law enforcement to make you leave) without having first to go to court and prove the case entirely, get a judgement, and then enforce it. I get you off the property, and if you don’t like it, you can take the legal measures you see fit. In most places in the US, I could shoot the trespasser without warning as well – and it would be perfectly legal.
      
      Innocent until proven guilty doesn’t mean a free ride until the courts get around to checking things out. Things just don’t work that way.
      
      “You’re saying that if the copyright holder accusessomeone of copyright infringement even without confirming anything, he’s already passed the standard.”
      
      No, what I am saying is that, if the copyright holder acts generally in good faith, and doesn’t specifically and knowingly target things that are legal, licensed, or does not belong to them, then they have passed the limit. It’s about good faith, not absolute certainty.
      
      So there, I answered your rant. You may want to take some time and learn about the legal system, and come to understand how “good faith” works in many parts of the legal system and legal actions on both sides of the law.
    - Ardvaark
      
      “I really did tune out the rest of your bold font infested post.
      So now using bold to highlight key points and ease the reading of a comment is a negative thing. You never stop with the ridiculous stuff do you? You’ll find that less than 3% bold on the comment is hardly “bold infested”.
      
      Oh well..
      
      “The point is that the sheer volume of infractions
      
      You’ll find that the sheer volume of something isn’t a justification for higher failure rates on anything.
      
      A mass production line won’t put out worse quality product because of that. A mass lawsuit won’t lower the law standards because of of the number of people involved and so the sheer volume of DMCA’s to be sent should not affect the accuracy of them either.
      
      Worse even:
      “That occasionally (and the Google numbers bear it out) a DMCA is completely invalid. I don’t think that “occasionally” is the world you’re looking for since the industry itself admits to 10 to 15% failure ratios, according to the number of DMCA’s to google (which is much much lower than the total number od DMCA’s) it’s a total of 1.500.000 mistakes! Read that out loud, one million and a half.
      
      And again we’ll have to consider the other side of the coin. With so many deterrents, content being (supposedly) harder to pirate and so many anti-piracy measures people still keep pirating and posting copyright material. This is a strong indicator that the majority of population doesn’t care and is indifferent to the law and copyright. This means that the law must be changed because the people certainly don’t see anything wrong with their acts.
      
      And, like it’s always been, people shape the laws not the other way around..
      
      “You try to think of a better way. The law is written to take this
      into account, it considers good faith and not 100% accuracy.
      
      A better way is to let go of non-profit copyright . You’ll find you’ll have a lot less issues to worry about. As for good faith, it implies that the complaint was made knowing exactly what it was about. When you use an automated system you aren’t applying good faith because you don’t know exactly what you’re complaining about as it doesn’t even check the content of a file.
      
      Also penalty of prejudice is never applied for wrong take downs which is the second biggest flaw of the DMCA.
      
      “It should be noted that good faith applies the other way as well. It
      means that instead of a copyright lawsuit, the host (or the poster) can
      remove the work IN GOOD FAITH and not face a massive lawsuit.
      
      Completely wrong, stop bending reality. Removing something or facing a lawsuit isn’t a matter of removing because of good faith, it’s called blackmail. And removing it because of that isn’t good faith, no matter how you call it, it’s fear.
      
      It goes essentially like this: “Our automated tool flagged your file for copyright infringement. We don’t really care what it is, since it’s flagged remove it or face the legal consequences.”
      
      The DMCA works one way, Copyright holder -> person. Always. That’s it’s design and that’s it’s flaw.
      
      ” In most places in the US, I could shoot the trespasser without warning as well”
      
      Another nice example of something that although it’s law, it’s a terribly bad idea leading to even accidental kills of people shooting their kids or neighbours and unfortunately it’s not even a rare event.
      
      Still regarding the property analogy it’s a good example but there’s a catch. You’re seeing with your own eyes that there’s a trespass. Such clarity doesn’t happen with automated tools that fire but don’t aim.
      
      If a 100% legit DMCA notice is sent and it’s used in a non-destructive way (meaning it doesn’t target competitors or works built upon the original) I’m ok with it. I don’t agree totally with it, since I support the current format DMCA/Copyright laws have but at least it’s not doing more harm than good.
      
      Still, volume doesn’t justify lower standards, ever. Can’t stress this enough.
      
      Innocent until proven guilty doesn’t mean a free ride until the courts
      get around to checking things out. Things just don’t work that way.
      
      Innocent until proven guilty means whatever the flagged content is should be kept available until there’s no doubt it is infringing. The current state of the law means the host has to go out of his way to prove innocence in order to get his content back. That’s guilty until proven innocent. No “free ride” is involved, just fair, due process.
      
      “No, what I am saying is that, if the copyright holder acts generally in
      good faith, and doesn’t specifically and knowingly target things that
      are legal, licensed, or does not belong to them, then they have passed
      the limit. It’s about good faith, not absolute certainty.”
      
      Nope, you’re indeed confirming what I said. Because trusting the judgement of an automated system that has a very high fail-ratio shows no intention of good faith. Being oblivious to the issue doesn’t warrant good faith either. So, being oblivious to the process and just sending the DMCA’s is indeed enough to meet the standards. That, as I said, is too low of a standard and is wrong
      
      You may want to take some time to understand how “good faith”
      I would say you might want to revise your concept of good faith.
      
      And again, none of the laws you mentioned is unknown to the general public, the issue with them is their clear mistakes and erroneous design.
    - dondilly
      
      @Ardvaark you got it. :-)
      Even if the link was valid, it would be the height of irresponsibility and arrogance (and thus bad faith) for a rightsholder to issue a takedown based purely on a filename or for that matter an analysys tool of the type used on youtube. It would for example be pure arrogance of say Paramount to assume a video titled ‘Star Trek’ was infringing and issue a takedown based on its filename alone. It could just as easily be someones home vid of a celeb charity walk in a national park somewhere. It has to be verified. Good faith would require ALL resonable steps have been taken to ensure no error.
    - dondilly
      
      I would argue that for someone to be acting in good faith, they have to be seen as acting responsibly and verify the links they are reporting as 1. Being a valid link and 2. The file at the other end of he link is infringing. To do otherwise is itself acting irresponsibly. If the link is dead, it shows that the complainant didnt check the file so cant show he was acting in good faith. If anything leaving the dead links in google serves the rights holder better than removing them as it buries valid live links, frustrating the user.
      There is nothing wrong in itself, rights holders scraping search results. The problem is they are using the resultant list unfiltered to generate takedown notices rather than as a list of potential infringement to be manually investigated and verified.
    - MadAsASnake
      
      To claim something is infringinging your copyrightand then to go on to say you had no idea at all because it was automated is not a good faith argument.
    - bobmail
      
      If the system generally, gets it right, let’s say out of 1000 DMCA notices, 997 of them are right… trusting that system is generally good faith. Mistakes do happen. Trust me when I say a heart surgeon would love to have that sort of success rate.
      
      For that matter, I am sure that a higher number of traffic tickets get tossed out of court, and IRS tax bills corrected than that. Yet they are all assumed to be working in good faith.
      
      What you are suggesting is that if any errors happen, no matter how many valid claims are filed, that you don’t think they operate in good faith. That’s laughable on it’s face.
    - Scary_Devil_Monastery
      
      “Trust me when I say a heart surgeon would love to have that sort of success rate.”
      
      Straw man. If the police “only” shot or arrested someone unrelated in 1% of cases, the relevant precinct would cease to exist tomorrow. Because that would mean thousands of innocent people were being harrassed or killed every month.
      
      That’s a more exact comparison. The DMCA request system generates vast amounts of invalid takedowns and this is what matters. A 99% – or even a 99,9% accuracy rate – simply doesn’t cut it.
      
      Especially since the actual end result is nil. Everything “taken down” can still easily be found.
      
      You should have learned this when even the concerted effort of the US government failed to drop wikileaks from the net.
    - Scary_Devil_Monastery
      
      “Understanding why something happens is the first step to realizing it’s not out of line.”
      
      In this case understanding DMCA takedowns is the first step towards realizing that it is indeed way out of line.
      
      Because the rightsholder has no need to prove ownership of anything whereas the defendant does need to disprove a claim that the material in question is infringing.
      
      Imagine how that would fly in ANY other aspect of law.
    - SoundnuoS
      
      It certainly flies with automated speeding tickets.
      
      If my car is photographed going over the speed limit, I’ll have to show it wasn’t me driving it.
Jesus

I just can’t understand why they don’t charge these companies for wasting their time. You would think in today’s “breath my air, give me a dollar” attitude. they’d be all over that.
- http://www.facebook.com/stephen.hall.5095 Stephen Hall
  
  Google must have it’s own bot for dealing with these. It surely wouldn’t be wasting human time on this crap.
  - Fantastic
    
    that is part of the problem its one stupid pot talking to another stupid bot that ends up being a big pain in the ass for actual people.
guess who

it is about time the dumb arses paid big pentalties for incacurate and bogus dmca’s, to do otherwise is to let them run riot with nothing to reign them in and stop them doing exactly what they want, just like the banks did which put the world into recesion. fuckheads.
Violated0

DMCA is now the monster that hides under your bed and grabs your leg if you stick it out. No one can say what happens next when all results get DMCA censored away.

Every week we can hear a new tale on what DMCA has done but let me ask the key question of where exactly are the politicians calling for much needed DMCA reform? After all they wont clean up their act unless they are forced to do so and is not protecting the Internet from damage, like rampant false censorship, an important important political goal?

So Google is now so much the DMCA’s number one bitch that they are now even asked to remove links that don’t exist. Google should publish how much resources it takes to process DMCA take-down requests and then send the bill to the US Government to pay complaining that this unwieldy law is very economically harmful and their DMCA support service will be terminated if unpaid.

Even if Google is not serious this would bring much attention to the cost of DMCA censorship and does not Google’s CEO much hate censorship?
- anom
  
  google wont remove the DMCA support service for a VERY important legal reason, doing so would remove their safe harbour provision under the DMCA making them liable for the infringments even though they wont have commited them themselves.
  - http://www.facebook.com/people/Daniel-Weisinger/548351406 Daniel Weisinger
    
    but isn’t it illegal to send false DMCA requests? I mean, it’s wasting Google’s (or whatever company) time… time = money. Companies do this to people all the time, so why can’t companies do it to companies? Even $200 per false takedown notice will quickly add up if they sent over 900 just for one film. The safe harbor needs to protect them and render any further DMCAs void until the company sending the false DMCA’s has completely paid their fines.
  - Violated0
    
    As I said Google does not have to be fully serious to do this, even if serious does help, when after the threat and attention they can say at any time they changed their mind.
    
    Also keep in mind that Google does not host any infringing media and DMCA law is not about links. Indeed in real Courtroom law they almost always say only the original person who put it online is responsible.
    
    Google supports DMCA take-down requests because it is in their interest to avoid lawsuits; Is it in their interest though to suffer so much DMCA censorship damage that millions of people start turning to other search engines?
    
    I do believe with an ever increasing scale up of DMCA take-down requests that Google will hit a breakage point. The questions then are… When this will happen? and… What plan will they do then?
    
    Some media protection DMCA take-down handling services these days claim that they can send out notices so fast that they can “hammer a service to death”
- Andrew Lee
  
  Damn that is a really good idea! The best part is Google can show actual damages and not some imaginary figure from a hat.
Loser

that is some bullshit. there SHOULD be a law about improper DMCA shit. I think DMCA is just a little over rated. Big limits should be on it.
Anon22

Surprised no one has attempted to create a web page that slows the scrapers down or tries various methods to cause a buffer overflow/underflow/other type of ownage with some weirdly formatted pages or links….
- JerkfaceMcGee
  
  Mega-Search has. This was only a one-off reCAPTCHA though.
- ITakeAPotatoChipAndEatIt
  
  I was actually thinking about that earlier, I’m surprised nobodies really tried to exploit their DMCA bot (that I’ve heard), would be a laugh.
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salvagesalvage

Meanwhile countless copies of Gangster Squad whiz around the Internet now and forever.

I guess suing windmills makes slightly more sense than tilting them.
Jeremy

There is a reason they send the bogus claims. Mega.co.nz is not ‘no-follow’, ie, it is indexed. Just the downloads/links to files are not indexed. This is strategic, as Kim Dotcom still wants people to find his service, and buy his product, he just doesnt want the downloads to be indexed. Now, what you may not know, is that Google has a new algorithm which lowers rank based on #no of DMCA requests. So strategically, these requests will affect Mega’s SEO. Go try it for yourself if you want. Google “mega”.
- Shogunreaper
  
  Mega is in the first slot for me
  - Jeremy Orchard
    
    Thats the point, they are #1 now but wont be for long if they keep getting DMCA notices. Havnt you noticed how a bunch of sites arn’t on google anymore?
JordanKratz

Google you need to charge for False DMCA Takedowns !
bobmail

Because Maga is not in the US, there is no requirement to send them a copyright takedown notice. DMCA does not work like that. You can send a DMCA notice to anyone in the chain who has the ability to stop or lessen the infringement, such as search engines or directories, hosting companies, and so on.

With Mega being in NZ, they are not directly subject to DMCA, so complaining they didn’t get one is misleading.
- ITakeAPotatoChipAndEatIt
  
  Up-voting your own comments again?
  You still failed to read the article.
  
  “You can send a DMCA notice to anyone in the chain who has the ability to stop or lessen the infringement, such as search engines or directories, hosting companies, and so on.”
  
  Google doesn’t index Mega and Won’t.
  - bobmail
    
    If I was a copyright holder, how would I know that as a certainty? Is there any way to know, with absolutely certainty, that Mega will never, ever be indexed?
    
    Didn’t think so.
    - http://geekhideout.net/ The G33K
      
      That’s a specious argument and you know it. There is no certainty in anything to do with law or anything else on this planet. Unless you are talking about the certainty of change and for people to make stupid arguments.
      
      And if you are a copyright holder I would direct you to a certain legal doctrine that deals with due diligence before you go off half cocked making statements or performing actions that could cause you undue harm.
    - ITakeAPotatoChipAndEatIt
      
      “Is there any way to know, with absolutely certainty, that Mega will never, ever be indexed?”
      
      It doesn’t matter if it will be in the future, the fact is that it currently isn’t, so there is no need for DMCAs to be sent to a site that has nothing to do with it.
- joexxx
  
  That is false. DMCA requests are can only be targeted at ISPs or actual infringing content hosts, not search engines. There is no clear case law regarding links being an infringing material, so search engines can’t be targeted with DMCA notices. Why google bends to these DMCA notices is beyond me.
  - http://geekhideout.net/ The G33K
    
    Google bends to this because of the fact that there is NO clear case law and they under legal advise are basically covering their arse. Under the current legal regime within the USA I cannot fault them for that. Also they are prioritising there battles to fight first, the DMCA issue is way down the list
    - ITakeAPotatoChipAndEatIt
      
      I wouldn’t doubt they(google) are collecting evidence for a DMCA abuse case, to be honest.
- http://geekhideout.net/ The G33K
  
  Actually Bob Mega does have a takedown system in place it’s just that the content owners in the USA don’t dare use it since they are legally liable for any false information unlike the ambiguous 512(f) in the DMCA.
  As per Mega’s copyright page “This notification is a serious legal document – please be careful to be
  accurate in your copyright infringement claims. You may wish to first
  consult with an attorney to determine whether the content you are
  reporting is in fact infringing and not protected by fair use, license,
  or other legal basis.”
  Good advise that is sadly missed in the US’s DMCA system since under NZ law they are more vicariously liable for misrepresentation, falsehoods, due diligence on good faith, etc. Automatic systems are NOT ‘good faith’
  - jimmy671
    
    +1 Good comment.agree entirely.
  - bobmail
    
    Yes, but under NZ law, Mega doesn’t get a free lunch on violating copyright, as the safe harbor provisions of DMCA generally don’t apply. A rights holder using a DMCA style document from the US is in fact extending a grace period to Mega that is not required under NZ law.
    
    So under NZ law, if the copyright violation notice is right, they can sue Fat Kim’s new Mega into the ground, directly. No DMCA to hide behind.
    - http://geekhideout.net/ The G33K
      
      Actually even that isn’t correct since they not only have to prove Mega has vicarious liability (extremely difficult) they also have to abide by the NZ court system and the ‘loser pays’ system. See in NZ, Aust and other civilised countries in the world (not the USA) the notion of tort reform has succeeded and when taking someone to court you need to be aware that if you lose you will pay for all court costs, legal expenses and any other damages that can be asked for and then suffer the problem of actually being able to be sued under interference and other trade laws.
      
      The MPAA via it’s puppet AFACT found this out the hard way when they lost to iiNet. Millions were claimed and had to be payed back by AFACT and I can guarantee that if MPAA et.al take MEGA to court the specter of iiNet will be raised and it’s a precedent ruling under NZ law as well.
      
      In other words TANSTAAFL works both ways now. This is called equity
TPB AFK

FUCK YOU MAFIAA
Indiagrt

how give fuck abt fat kim or MPAA assoles… i will download the content weather available in mega or a torrent
SpenkFooo

lol, those anti piracy idiots ure do have a LOT of spare time on their hands!

anon-ono.tk
Gmail

Oh poor Kimmie!
- Ardvaark
  
  You should understand this has 0 effect on mega.
  His content wasn’t affected.
  Links are wrong and, even corrected, weren’t indexed.
foff

Ha! Ha! Stupid mafiaa fucks keep attacking mega and leave all my useful cyberlockers alone. You guys are so so stupid!
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methamp

Checkmate.
bob

Gonna use DMCA to download a car.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1541716172 Ian Wardell

Free internet. I can give my friend a mp3 in person from a CD I should be able to do it online to.
- beerwitheverything
  
  you wouldn’t give your friend a car though, would you?
  - Scary_Devil_Monastery
    
    Dunno about the previous poster but if my friend could copy my car, using his own materials and effort – by simply clicking a button – then certainly.
Ephphatha

‘The second problem with the takedown requests is that the URLs are inaccurate, and don’t point to any copyrighted material. Apparently the automated web scraper used by Warner Bros. can’t handle the format of Mega links, replacing “#!” with “?escaped_fragment=”.’

Probably because Mega, along with Twitter and fuck knows how many other sites can’t be bothered with silly things like standards and RFCs.

Scroll down to “Unsafe:” http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1738.html
Guest

How the fuck is this not spam?
I mean, seriously, they are just a bunch of bots sending thousands and thousads of useless notices on their own that do nothing but annoy the hell out of everyone and cost money.
The US corportions are literally polluting the internet with this trash and doing so while breaking their own law and will full impunity.
This is what happens when one industry gets a “free pass” to do whatever the fuck it wants by its government.
- beerwitheverything
  
  after me now, spam spam spam spam spam
  spam spam spamspamspamspam
beerwitheverything

the army of people required to police the automated software for these take downs would solve the world unemployment/hunger and poverty problems overnight if the authorities decided on it. that’s not happening as we will see, instead they are relying on a really dumb computer expert that charges them a fortune and issues stupid requests and false information, and all because these high up dumbo’s still don’t get it. they should embrace the geeks out here in the real world to get a grip on things, but they never will, he says, sigh of relief, goes back to fitting that 16 tetra bybte drive for all the uploads

joke alert!!!!!!

paddy goes into the pub, oil ave tree pints of stout, he says,

and he goes off to his table and takes a sip from all three, finishing them he leaves

following week the same again, tree points of stout and again sits down and takes sips from each,

the barman, being curious asks him, why don’t you have them one after the other, you know, that way they wont be stale by the time you get to the last bit,

oh, paddy says, my two mates and me promised after they moved away, that i should come here once a week and have a drink for them

well,so i have all three and take a sip from each, that way i remember them as i drink.

so, this goes on until one week he comes in and orders only two

well, by now the locals have got to know him and the barman and them start talking and whispering, before finally the barman came over to him, he says, we been talking, and would all like to offer our condolences, you know, for your loss.

oh, well feck me, paddy says, oh no, they are both alright, no, it’s me, he said, oive given up drinking
temoi

anything that makes gayer brothers look bad is a good thing
anonymous

‘ thousands of websites being censored by mistake’

never by mistake, always on purpose because there are no steps to make false take downs punishable.

there will be no changes because the industries dont have to be accurate and the courts will always side with the one that is paying for a result (bribe to the judge!)
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Izkata

No one seems to have pointed it out yet, but “#!” is an AJAX request after page load. Converting it to “?_escaped_fragment” is the *standard* way to tell the server “Don’t use ajax, send everything as a static page”. So the scraper is running correctly.

More information here: https://developers.google.com/webmasters/ajax-crawling/docs/specification
David Russell

I guess this is the reason why the movie companies have not requested Copyright Infringement notices from New Zealand ISPs – because they have to pay $25 for each request. They don’t trust their own systems to be able to “generate” true take down requests if they have to pay for them !!!
Who

HEY MCFLY “MPAA” the DMCA has NO jurisdiction in that country.

what part of “NO jurisdiction” don’t you understand?

god I swear the MPAA must be using all them billions they keep making on MJ.
elroy

o noes not google. use ecosia
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http://www.postlinearity.com gregorylent

corporatocracies are anti-human
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