dmca

Paramount Pictures asked Google to de-list this utorrent.com forum thread because it idiotically thought it was infringing on the copyright for the movie Clueless.

Paramount Pictures Copyright Bot Falsely Accuses Forum Commenters Of Piracy

By 10.1.15

UPDATE 10/2: Jeremy Zweig, Vice President, Corporate Communications and Corporate Affairs for Viacom provided Consumerist with the following statement:

“Online piracy remains a concern and we undertake a variety of methods to mitigate its impact.  During a short time on September 22, a vendor that assists with our content protection efforts mistakenly identified a small number of URLs as infringing, and sent copyright notices in error. These notices represented about 0.01% of the total notices they sent on our behalf that particular day, the remainder of which were correct and accurate.

No action was actually taken on these erroneous notices, and no links were removed, but we’re disappointed by the error and apologize for any inconvenience this caused. We put a lot of time, care and effort into ensuring this complicated process works correctly, and nobody is more bothered than us when it doesn’t. The issue has since been remedied, and necessary steps have already been taken to ensure this does not happen again.”

 

ORIGINAL TEXT:

Even though the Digital Millennium Copyright Act makes it illegal for a copyright holder to knowingly file a bogus copyright claim against someone else, that hasn’t stopped some of the biggest stakeholders in the entertainment industry from carelessly registering takedown complaints with Google for content that in no way infringes on anyone’s copyright.

[More]

Appeals Court Makes Important Ruling In “Dancing Baby” Copyright Case

Appeals Court Makes Important Ruling In “Dancing Baby” Copyright Case

By 9.14.15

By now, you’ve probably heard about the “Dancing Baby” lawsuit, involving a botched attempt by Universal Music to have YouTube remove a video 29-second video of a playful toddler because a Prince song can be heard in the background. Today a federal appeals court sided on one important issue with that kid’s mother, who is suing Universal, claiming the music giant overstepped the law by not considering that the background music falls under the umbrella of an acceptable fair use. [More]

Just like he didn't invent the concept of a lovable, sporadically violent manchild, Adam Sandler is not the first to use the term "Pixels" to describe a video.

UPDATED: Columbia Pictures Firm Demands Takedown Of Videos With Word “Pixels” In Title

By 8.10.15

Believe it or not, the term “pixels,” was not created solely for use as the title of an underwhelming Adam Sandler movie. But don’t tell that to the copyright enforcement firm hired by Columbia Pictures who stupidly — and perhaps illegally — demanded the removal of several videos only because they dared to use “pixels” in the title. [More]

Yes, Your Plagiarized Twitter Joke Can Be Deleted On Copyright Grounds

Yes, Your Plagiarized Twitter Joke Can Be Deleted On Copyright Grounds

By 7.27.15

Sometimes reading through Twitter feeds can be like hanging out with that guy in the office who is constantly cracking other folks’ jokes and acting as if he’d dreamt them up on the spot. The big difference is that the office hack won’t have his wisecracks muted for violating the writer’s copyright. [More]

Universal either has the stupidest copyright bot on the planet or it genuinely doesn't want people going to the one website on Earth everyone goes to for basic information about movies.

Universal Studios Copyright Bot Stupidly Asks Google To Delist IMDb Page For “Furious 7”

By 7.22.15

Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, it’s against the law to knowingly misrepresent a copyright infringement claim, and yet copyright holders and the automated bots they use to spit out these takedown and delist demands continue to make sweeping, obviously inaccurate claims without penalty. The latest example comes to us courtesy of Comcast-owned Universal Studios. [More]

Cox Customers Convince Court To Remove Them From Piracy Lawsuit

Cox Customers Convince Court To Remove Them From Piracy Lawsuit

By 7.7.15

We recently told you about a number of Cox broadband subscribers who were caught up in a piracy lawsuit filed against the cable company by music publishing giant BMG Rights Management. These customers said their personal information should not be involved in this legal dispute because they had nothing to do with the alleged content theft. Last week, the judge in the case sided with some Cox subscribers while saying that others hadn’t done enough to separate themselves from the dispute. [More]

8 Years Later, Universal Music Still Defending Takedown Of “Dancing Baby” YouTube Video

8 Years Later, Universal Music Still Defending Takedown Of “Dancing Baby” YouTube Video

By 7.6.15

Back in February 2007, a mother of a young boy posted a short, grainy video of her baby “dancing” around the kitchen while a Prince song plays, barely audibly, in the background. In the eight years since, the video has received nearly 1.3 million views on YouTube — not because it’s a particularly interesting clip, but due to its role in a copyright lawsuit that won’t go away. [More]

Innocent Cox Customers Fighting To Prevent Personal Info From Being Turned Over In Piracy Lawsuit

Innocent Cox Customers Fighting To Prevent Personal Info From Being Turned Over In Piracy Lawsuit

By 6.16.15

Imagine you get a letter from your Internet service provider giving you some odd news: You’re not being accused of piracy, but there’s a court order demanding that the ISP hand over your information to a copyright holder who thinks you might be a pirate. That’s the case for several Cox customers who have been caught up in a lawsuit between the cable company and a mammoth music publisher. [More]

(Matt McGee)

John Deere Wants To Be Able To File Copyright Claims Against The Way You Use Your Tractor

By 4.22.15

In the modern, digital economy, there are a whole lot of things you buy but still technically don’t own. Nearly all entertainment, for example: digital books, video games, music, and so on. Other software, too. But as basically everything continues to become some kind of computer in a specialized body, plenty of other goods are starting to be subject to licensing, copyright law, and non-ownership problems, too. Like tractors. [More]

Jason Cook

How The Gaming Industry Uses Copyright To Prevent You From Playing Abandoned Games

By 4.9.15

It seems like every few months we hear about another video game that the publisher has decided it’s no longer worthwhile to support. Once upon a time, that merely meant no more patches or new content. But now that more frequently means that much, if not all, of that game is now unplayable because gamers will no longer be able to access the servers needed to play or authenticate the title. And it’s all perfectly legal thanks to the infamous Digital Millennium Copyright Act. [More]

C'mon, we all know it was Eugene who uploaded the spoiler clips to Vimeo.

AMC Goes To Court To Identify Who Is Posting Spoiler Clips Of ‘Walking Dead’

By 4.3.15

While most of us never see a TV show until it airs, there are all manner of people out there — from network people to entertainment reporters to advertisers — who often get to see episodes ahead of time, and some of these folks (or maybe their idiot kids or roommates) are then sharing these videos online with spoiler-hungry fan communities. For the producers of hit AMC show The Walking Dead, it’s not enough to just take these spoiler videos down as they pop up, they want to know where the clips are coming from. [More]

The "Social Media Addendum" for this Orlando-area apartment complex not only fines tenants $10,000 for negative online reviews, but transfers the copyright of anything you write or any images you publish about the property or its management.

Apartment Complex Claims Copyright On All Tenants’ Reviews & Photos Of Property

By 3.10.15

When you move into an apartment building you may face all sorts of rules about noise, public areas, trash collection, and paint colors, but one Florida management company tried to go the extra mile by including a “social media addendum” telling tenants that not only will they be hit with a $10,000 fine for griping about their living situation on any social media platform, but that the apartment owners automatically hold the copyright for anything tenants write about — and any photos they take of — the place. [More]

(catheroo)

Dentist Who Claimed Copyright Over Patient’s Yelp Review Must Pay $4,766 In Damages

By 3.3.15

Way back in 2011, we told you about a dental patient who said his dentist had gone too far with a “privacy agreement” that preempted patients from publicly complaining about the doctor and claimed copyright on patients’ reviews. After nearly four years of legal wrangling, the dentist has finally been ordered to pay the patient nearly $5,000 in damages, though he may never get it. [More]

For the record, this is what Craig Brittain looked like in 2013 when he sat down to speak with KCAL-TV about his site.

Revenge Porn Site Operator Tells Google To Remove His Personal Info. Seriously.

By 2.25.15

For several years, Craig Brittain operated a so-called “revenge porn” website that not only allowed users to publicly post revealing photos and personal information about people (mostly women) without their permission, but actively encouraged it. The site has since been shut down and Brittain recently settled with the Federal Trade Commission over allegations of fraud. But now the man who made money off the sharing of strangers’ images doesn’t want the world to know what he looks like. [More]

The Google Transparency Report shows the sheer volume of DMCA requests made by Total Wipes in just the last few months.

Ridiculous Copyright Claim Seeks Takedown Of Skype, Java, Whatsapp, Dropbox & 91 Others

By 2.23.15

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act allows content companies to ask Google and others to remove sites from search results because they contain material that infringes on their copyright. But one music company has been on a tear recently, sending DMCA notices claiming that everything from news stories about file-sharing to the generic “downloads” pages of some of the Internet’s biggest sites are violating its copyright. [More]

(Kate Sherrill)

Lawmakers Try Again To Make It Easier To Resell High-Tech Goods

By 2.11.15

Why did it take an act of Congress to make it so we could legally unlock our cellphones and take them to other carriers? Because while you might own your smartphone, you don’t actually own the software that runs it — you merely license it. There are already manufacturers that use essential, proprietary software to prevent device “owners” from freely reselling certain products, and these restrictions are only going to spread as consumers use more web-connected goods. In response, some members of Congress have introduced legislation aimed at stripping these copyright-based barriers to resale. [More]

4chan has introduced a formal takedown request policy in line with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. [via TorrentFreak]

4chan Introduces DMCA Takedown Policy After Posting Of Nude Celeb Pics

By 9.3.14

While most Internet-savvy people are at least casually familiar with 4chan — the online forum where a lot of the Web’s most popular content gets its start — the site has been pushed into the spotlight in recent days because of users who posted stolen nude and personal photos of several female celebrities. After years of relying on its self-erasing format that automatically removes old content, 4chan has now instituted a formal policy for people to request removal of copyrighted content. [More]

The lawyer's DMCA takedown letter included these screengrabs that he alleges infringe on his copyright.

Copyright Troll Lawyer Doesn’t Seem To Understand Copyright Law

By 8.27.14

If someone publishes copyrighted content online without permission, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act provides a process for requesting that content’s removal. But a lawyer who apparently doesn’t like being the subject of negative articles — and who either doesn’t understand the DMCA or is hoping that others don’t — is trying to use the law to have critical comments removed from websites. [More]

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