So did you fire that employee or discipline him? Will you be changing anything about your policy of just throwing stacks of URLs at Google to be permanently banned? You're not going to change any of your policies that potentially restrict other's free speech, because this was just a "goof"?

Sorry, PerfectPitch, you're NOT forgiven. It doesn't seem like you take this very seriously!

@delphi_ote:

The matter is being taken *very* seriously.

Dick Butkus will be giving the employees a motivational speech on the issue.

@delphi_ote: Oh come on, they used the term "shock and horror." HORROR!

/I agree, but at least bonus points for finding a synonym for "taking it seriously."

I dunno.. I kind of get the feeling that this was done on purpose and they are feeling the burn for it now so they're trying to say it was an "accident".

I can't quite put my finger on it, but.. yeah.

@delphi_ote: Is Perfect Pitch a governnment-run program? Is Google government run? No? Then there is no infringement of freedom of speech. Private companies can do whatever they want, your 1st amendment rights only apply to government.

PP apologized, and corrected their original mistake. Move on already.

"Shock and horror"? Is that the new "Taking it seriously"?

@winshape: Oh, come on dude. This was a transparent attempt by a douche-bag to stiffle information that he doesn't want people having access to. Whether or not there's any such thing as free speech on the internet has no bearing on that.

Ouch. Perfectpitch should have had a lawyer in on that conversation. He might be in serious trouble over his lack of knowledge on the true use of DMCA. If I were the blogger, I'd go gunning after him for abusing the law, defamation, libel, the list goes on. If done properly, he might wind up putting PP out of the biz.

@winshape: No, but they were using a law to do it. They didn't ask Google to "pretty please, take down the link to that site." They used to DMCA to do it.

This is exactly why Google and Amazon should not "honor" copy rights holders requests. It should not be up to Google or Amazon to be police and to take action against rogue violators. Google is a listing engine and Amazon is a book seller. Google should index the internet for any content it finds. Amazon should be able to sell any book made available to them. If the copyright holder has a problem, they should direct their wrath towards the real perpetrator and not the search engine and book seller. This would end this copyright enforcement Barbara Streisand.

"While we try to check every URL to make sure it either contains torrents, or is a torrent file sharing site" - Interesting. So you could link to a hello kitty .gif but name it perfect pitch and get your site taken down. By their own admission they are NOT actually checking to see if it is their content being distributed.

We recognize this was a careless error, and there is really no excuse for this.

No, this isn't a careless error, it is a felony.

People need to read what they are sending out before signing it. Using the DMCA under false pretenses is a felony.

"To our shock and horror..".

More likely: "To our complete indifference" right up until the guy actually managed to gain some traction with his complaints.

Having actually looked at their course content, they are lucky people pirate it, no one sane would pay for it in my humble opinion.

@FatLynn: I thought "Shock and horror" was more appropriate for a plane crash, war zone, or brutally murdered family.

"Great surprise" might have been a better choice.

So is this Consumerist article now going to be de-indexed from Google because it mentions "Burge+Pitch+Torrent" at least twice (including this comment)?

@SarcasticDwarf:

Considering the penalties for a false accusation, checking it twice should be the very minimum you're doing.

I think it's high time more people were prosecuted for perjury. Hit them up with some million dollar fines and people will start using these laws only when necessary, like they should be used.

@winshape:

So it's okay to deny freedom of speech as long as it isn't the government doing it? You'd have no problem (apart from the assault and arson and related charges) with someone running about with duct tape sticking it over the mouths of religious harkers on the street and them burning flyers, especially if that someone managed to do this to every single one in the entire city in the course of a day?

Seriously, this isn't any different. Government suppression of speech is usually the worst simply because they have the power to make it happen on such a grand scale. Corporate suppression of speech can be just as bad if, at just the press of a button, they can shut down hundreds of people. That's worse than what most governments can do. And that is what happened here.

The picture of the guy wearing headphones on the bottom of his order page is stolen from xmradio.com.

How Ironic.

@vastrightwing: Really? Amazon should be able to sell any book whether it's a legal copy or not? Under that logic, why not extend it to every store? Why make Amazon special?

For example, let car dealers sell stolen cars. If the title holder has a problem, they should direct their wrath to the real perpetrator and not the car seller, to quote yourself.

@shepd: And you know this for a fact? That your version of events is the actual series of events? Which means you must work for PerfectPitch and been involved in the Google memo creation...otherwise you're tossing around your opinions as fact.

So, it MAY have been an error. It MAY have been a felony.

@Julia789: Yeah, i thought the same when i read that line... really...you felt horror? REALLY?!?!?! My guess is someone's taking the thesaurus use a little too far...

@delphi_ote: The employee was just trying to do what he was told. Firing someone is completely out of proportion to what happened. It was a simple screwup, it's fixed now, so move on unless it happens again.

blah blah blah....

Who's going to nutt-up and do time in jail for abusing the DMCA take down provisions? Congrats to PerfectPitch for making it to my boycott for life list, you've joined the ranks of Sony who included rootkits on music CD's, and a too long to list assortment of others that abuse the DMCA take-down provisions.

@rickn99:

DMCAing someone without specific knowledge they are, in fact, pirating your stuff is perjury. I'm relatively certain perjury across US states would be a felony, but if you can prove me wrong, go ahead.

Here's a sample DMCA form (In fact, very certainly the one that PerfectPitch used, considering we're talking about Google), and here's a quote:

Include the following statement: "I swear, under penalty of perjury, that the information in the notification is accurate and that I am the copyright owner or am authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed."

If that statement is missing, Google will ignore your DMCA request. The fact that Google didn't ignore it is proof it was there. The fact that Google requires it shows that the DMCA itself requires it, because Google doesn't want to make DMCAing easy.

Q.E.D.

@rickn99: Um...I think you're overthinking it a bit. Vastrightwing didn't say let lawlessness abound--just that Google should not be in the arbiter or "policeman" role in enforcing DMCA. That's what courts, judges, and juries are for.

AFAIK linking to warez (as the blog was doing) is as bad as hosting warez. Linking to warez is against the TOS And AUP of most web hosting companies.

If you believe that a DMCA against you is not valid then the correct action is to file a formal counter-DMCA notice. If the complainant does not file a court action within 10 days of the counter-notice then the host must re-activate the disputed content.

[www.google.com]

@Duke_Newcombe sees what you did there...:
"just that Google should not be in the arbiter or "policeman" role in enforcing DMCA. That's what courts, judges, and juries are for."

Google is not the arbiter. DMCA provides a "safe harbor" for hosts and content providers against liability for copyright infringement by their customers. Google is required to take down content if they receive a valid DMCA notice. They are also required to re-instate the content if the complainant does not file a court action within 10 days of receiving a counter-DMCA notice from the defendant.

So funny how Perfect Pitch exercises no real care when using powerful laws to remove someone else's speech and chalk it up to a goof.....Opps sorry (just violated your First Amendment Rights)! If they actually respected the law and appreciated its true purpose, they would have used the utmost care to scrutinize each link submitted. I hope they get sued and fined for their actions as there is no excuse for their laziness. It scares me to hear how people can just email google a list of stuff they don't like and its gets removed with virtually no recourse and a huge burden on the victim to prove it wrong. Let the person attempting the limit your rights do all the proving and legwork as they are the one wielding the power and it should never go unchallenged.

@IfThenElvis: Google is required to take down content if they receive a valid DMCA notice.

So, someone has to determine that the DMCA notice is valid. And exactly who does that? Google--therefore, they are an arbiter.

@winshape: I think you are confused. By using the legal system (the DMCA) this person was able to force a company to remove material. Had google taken down the content on its own then you would be correct in you line of thinking, but it was forced to do so due to the law. Before asking someone for an apology please get reality straight.

What, no credit for pointing this out earlier?

@Jocko_OC: What First Amendment rights?

He asked Google not to list a URL when someone searched for their product, and it was because of a legitimate reason - piracy.

It's not like he asked that the blog be taken down.

@shepd: I'm with you until "the fact that google rquires it..." because that doesn't prove anything. Google could require you to hop on one foot and say the abcs backwards and it wouldn't be required by the DMCA.

I mean, I agree with your point, that he did have to include that for Google to act, but that doesn't therefore mean that it's in the DMCA. I wonder how well that under perjury thing stands up in court?

@MooseOfReason: Well, this is a form of censorship, surely. Now, violation of first amendment rights, I don't know about that...