mistaken identity

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]

Woman’s Car Mistakenly Booted 4 Times Because Someone Else Has Identical Vanity Plate

Woman’s Car Mistakenly Booted 4 Times Because Someone Else Has Identical Vanity Plate

By 5.6.15

A driver in New York City has repeatedly gone out to her car and found she couldn’t drive it because once again her vehicle had been booted due to hundreds of dollars in unpaid parking fines. Problem is, this driver says she’s never been ticketed and that she’s being punished for the bad behavior of someone else who had the same vanity license plate number. [More]

Redbox Might Be Able To Stop Misdirected Receipts

Redbox Might Be Able To Stop Misdirected Receipts

By 4.17.12

Being an early adopter of something has its privileges and its disadvantages. Chris joined Gmail early enough that he gets to have an address that consists of his first two initials and his very common last name. That’s pretty neat for him, but has led to a really annoying case of mistaken identity. He keeps getting someone else’s Redbox receipts. A person who has a similar name, but lives in a different state and rents from Redbox an awful lot. The good news? Redbox has a solution for this. Kinda. [More]

Congratulations, You May Have Your Own SSN Pen Pal In Micronesia

Congratulations, You May Have Your Own SSN Pen Pal In Micronesia

By cwalters 8.17.09

If you get a call from a debt collector for a loan you never took out, and your Social Security number starts with a zero, try this excuse: “[My SSN] ended up linked to a Micronesian man who defaulted on a disaster loan from the U.S. Small Business Administration.”