Google sues people who “weaponized” DMCA to remove rivals’ search results

Comments

• MotoAsh@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Wait, Google cares about DMCA abuse!? Someone tell them about YouTube.

  source

  • Evilcoleslaw@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Most of the YouTube issues aren’t DMCA claims but their own Content ID horseshit where there’s automated matching, zero policing of catalogs and associated rights, and seemingly zero recourse for misrepresentations.

    I’m friends with a YouTuber (with just under 1M subs) who has licensed music for his intro/outro. Other people have taken that music and created remixes, then uploaded those remixes to rights management companies with access to the Content ID system. They then flag the original work automatically, which allows them to divert monetization from the YouTuber. It doesn’t go into escrow pending dispute resolution. The claiming company just gets to steal the money and keep it no matter what the ultimate result is. On top of that the initial appeal/dispute process is decided by the claiming party instead of someone neutral like YouTube themselves. It’s usually a huge hassle to resolve. My friend has lost thousands of dollars through this.

    source

    • Makeitstop@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      The automatic diverting of money to the copyright troll is the part that gets me. That really ought to open YouTube up for liability just as much if not more so than hosting copyright violating material. Copyright trolls should be facing fraud charges and systems that reward them should be under intense legal scrutiny.

      Sadly, that’s not how it works and even if there was enough interest to organize and lobby for a positive change, there’d still be zero chance of congress anything useful in the foreseeable future.

      source
  • AnonTwo@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    The trick is to make it so their product isn't reliable enough to use. Then they care.

    source

    • ElectroNeutrino@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Unless it’s themselves making it less reliable to push more ads.

      source
    • blackbrook@mander.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      But they are doing that themselves already. I think they care because handling takedowns creates work for them and because they may be taking down search results that generate them ad revenue.

      source
  • CharlesMangione@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    It started to affect someone’s bottom line.

    source
• ThePantser@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Can they stop the shit dmca takedowns on YouTube too?

  source

  • RojoSanIchiban@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Google:

    source
  • Makeitstop@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    While they could, that is also a different situation. YouTube copyright claims are generally done through YouTube’s own system, not through the actual DMCA process. That system is designed first and foremost to prevent YouTube from getting sued. It’s rigged in favor of the people claiming copyright because those are the ones doing the suing. Any attempt to fix it increases the chances of a lawsuit.

    These trolls messing with Google are making actual DMCA claims, which is a formal legal process and opens the claimant up to potential liability. False claims are perjury. And by affecting Google search results on a large enough scale, they are hurting Google’s business. Those sites getting taken down abelong to current or potenti customers.

    source
  • MossyFeathers@pawb.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Nah, they don’t lose any money that way. They only potentially lose money when stuff gets taken down; when false DMCAs are submitted on YouTube videos, the videos usually stay up, the money just gets sent to a scammer instead of the YouTuber.

    source
• drahardja@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  DMCA is such a shitty law. But companies like Google choose the safe route and believe every DMCA claim without first using humans to investigate them (because that will cost more money), and this is the result.

  I pity the independent creators and makers who get fake DMCA takedowns all the time while Google does nothing to protect them.

  If Google really wants to save themselves from this kind of trouble, maybe spend some lobbying money to get DMCA repealed.

  source
• NeoNachtwaechter@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Google makes it too easy to create fraudulent DMCA claims. Now they want to keep up their own laziness, and therefore they even go to court.

  We are living in crazy times…

  source
• Kerrigor@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  The DMCA is one of the worst things to happen to the internet. But go figure, old people with zero understanding created the law.

  source
• IphtashuFitz@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  DMCA == guilty until proven innocent

  And good luck proving your innocence to the automated systems that Google uses to respond to DMCA requests…

  source
• Treczoks@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  If the only would do so on YouTube.

  source
• ZhaoYadang@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  You can’t weaponize a law that was always intended to be a weapon.

  source
• Piecemakers3Dprints@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  NGL, this bullshit is rampant in the 3D printing space, with fake accounts declaring infringement on IP they don’t own (much less do the claims even mention anything remotely relevant to the allegedly infringed IP), and it frankly comes down to a deep-seated flaw in cost-cutting automation processes. Specifically, if the monitoring systems in place weren’t 99.99% trigger-happy bots and 0.01% exploited human labor, maybe this wouldn’t be a fucking issue… But, that would take Google, et al, deciding that profit wasn’t THE reason for existing. 🖕🏽

  source
• trackindakraken@lemmy.whynotdrs.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Is this irony, or just coincidence?

  source

  • Morphit@feddit.uk ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Caught in a landslide, no escape from reality

    source
• autotldr@lemmings.world [bot] ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  This is the best summary I could come up with:

  ---

  Google yesterday sued a group of people accused of weaponizing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to get competitors’ websites removed from search results.

  “To date, Defendants’ scheme has forced Google to investigate and respond to fraudulent takedown requests targeting more than 117,000 third-party website URLs, as well as takedown requests targeting more than half a million additional third-party URLs that are likely fraudulent based on preliminary investigation,” the lawsuit said.

  But the lawsuit helps show how easy it is for fraudsters to game Google’s system for responding to DMCA notices.

  The defendants provided fake names in their takedown requests and “falsely purported to represent large companies (e.g., Amazon, Twitter, NBC News), sports teams (e.g., Philadelphia Eagles, Los Angeles Lakers, San Diego Padres), prominent individuals (e.g., Elon Musk, Taylor Swift, LeVar Burton, Kanye West), and famous bands (e.g., Blink 182),” the Google lawsuit said.

  For example, “Defendants falsely claimed to represent Elon Musk, alleging infringement of a t-shirt with a logo with the text ‘Pharmacy Technician,’” the lawsuit said.

  “Defendants signed and submitted their thousands of fraudulent takedown requests containing false information under penalty of perjury,” Google said.

  ---

  The original article contains 642 words, the summary contains 188 words. Saved 71%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

  source
• CurlyMoustache@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  DMCA do stand for Don’t Make the Cearch engine Angry

  source
• modifier@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Well that’s rich.

  source