WebProNews

Tag: DMCA

  • Security Firm Corellium Wins Copyright Battle Against Apple

    Security Firm Corellium Wins Copyright Battle Against Apple

    A federal judge has sided with Corellium in the case Apple brought against it, ruling the company’s software met the burden of “fair use.”

    Corellium was founded in 2017 by husband and wife Amanda Gorton and Chris Wade. The company’s product allows security researchers to run “virtual” iPhones, eliminating the need to buy iPhones in order to look for bugs and security flaws in iOS.

    According to The Washington Post, Apple initially tried to purchase Corellium, before switching gears and suing the company when the acquisition talks stalled. Apple claimed the company’s software broke its copyrights and violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) by circumventing Apple’s security measures.

    While the DMCA claim has not yet been thrown out, Judge Rodney Smith sided with Corellium on the copyright issue, finding the company’s software qualified as fair use. In particular, Judge Smith called Apple out for its “puzzling, if not disingenuous” claims that Corellium posed a risk. Apple has said the company’s products could open the way for attacks on actual iPhones if it fell into the wrong hands, and even went so far as to say that Corellium was selling its software indiscriminately.

    Judge Smith found the Corellium had a sufficient vetting process in place to negate those concerns. What’s more, rather than circumventing Apple’s security measures to make a competing product, Corellium’s work benefits all of Apple’s iOS customers.

    Apple works hard to cultivate an image of maintaining the moral high ground, often putting morality above basic profit. In this case, however, Apple got it wrong and Judge Smith’s ruling is a clear win for security researchers and Apple’s own customers.

  • Unlocking Your Cellphone Is Now Legal – Again

    Today, President Obama will sign a bill into law that The White House calls “a win for American consumers, a win for wireless competition, and an example of democracy at its best.” It’s the Unlocking Consumer Choice and Wireless Competition Act, and it will allow consumers to unlock their cellphones to work on other carriers.

    “The most important part of this joint effort is that it will have a real impact. As long as their phone is compatible and they have complied with their contracts, consumers will now be able to enjoy the freedom of taking their mobile service — and a phone they already own — to the carrier that best fits their needs. At a time when partisan gridlock all too often threatens progress on everyday issues that matter to consumers, working together we listened to your voices, and the American people benefited as a result,” says the White House.

    In other words – this kind of legislative smooth sailing is rare. Cherish it, folks.

    Here’s a little background on the whole cellphone unlocking saga:

    In January of last year, unlocking new cellphones became illegal via a decision from the Library of Congress. In short, they reversed their decision to exempt cellphone unlocking from the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (by opting not to renew the exemption). It’s still legal to unlock phones purchased before January 26th, 2013, but doing so on any device purchased after that cutoff mean you could run afoul of the DMCA.

    Quickly after, a petition on the White House’s We The People site garnered 114,000 signatures. It demanded a simple task of the administration: Make Unlocking Cellphones Legal.

    The White House responded – emphatically.

    “The White House agrees with the 114,000+ of you who believe that consumers should be able to unlock their cell phones without risking criminal or other penalties,” said Senior Advisor for Internet, Innovation, & Privacy David Edelman. “In fact, we believe the same principle should also apply to tablets, which are increasingly similar to smart phones. And if you have paid for your mobile device, and aren’t bound by a service agreement or other obligation, you should be able to use it on another network. It’s common sense, crucial for protecting consumer choice, and important for ensuring we continue to have the vibrant, competitive wireless market that delivers innovative products and solid service to meet consumers’ needs.”

    All that was left to make it happen was for Congress to act. Senator Patrick Leahy authored the Unlocking Consumer Choice and Wireless Competition Act, and it got a companion bill in the House. The House measure was passed in February and the Senate Judiciary Committee approved Leahy’s bill earlier this month. Last week, the full Senate unanimously passed the bill, sending it over to the House. They also passed it unanimously.

    It went to Obama’s desk, and he’s signing it today. Congratulations, it’s no longer a crime to do what you want with something you own.

    Unfortunately, the new law only restores the exemption to the DMCA that allows consumers to unlock their cellphones and change wireless providers when their contracts expire. It doesn’t address the bigger problem – the DMCA itself. The exemption will be up for renewal again in a few years.

    Image via White House, Flickr

  • Cellphone Unlocking Bill Passes House, Heads to Obama’s Desk

    The House has unanimously passed legislation, unanimously passed last week in the Senate, that will once again make it legal for consumers to unlock their cellphones.

    “With today’s House passage of the bipartisan Unlocking Consumer Choice and Wireless Competition Act, this important legislation is headed to the President for his signature. This law will protect consumer choice by allowing flexibility when it comes to choosing a wireless carrier.This is something that Americans have been asking for and I am pleased that we were able to work together to ensure the swift passage of legislation restoring the exemption that allowed consumers to unlock their cell phones,” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) said in a statement.

    Some background on why we’re having to pass new laws allowing cellphone unlocking:

    In January of last year, unlocking new cellphones became illegal via a decision from the Library of Congress. In short, they reversed their decision to exempt cellphone unlocking from the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (by opting not to renew the exemption). It’s still legal to unlock phones purchased before January 26th, 2013, but doing so on any device purchased after that cutoff mean you could run afoul of the DMCA.

    Quickly after, a petition on the White House’s We The People site garnered 114,000 signatures. It demanded a simple task of the administration: Make Unlocking Cellphones Legal.

    The White House responded – emphatically.

    “The White House agrees with the 114,000+ of you who believe that consumers should be able to unlock their cell phones without risking criminal or other penalties,” said Senior Advisor for Internet, Innovation, & Privacy David Edelman. “In fact, we believe the same principle should also apply to tablets, which are increasingly similar to smart phones. And if you have paid for your mobile device, and aren’t bound by a service agreement or other obligation, you should be able to use it on another network. It’s common sense, crucial for protecting consumer choice, and important for ensuring we continue to have the vibrant, competitive wireless market that delivers innovative products and solid service to meet consumers’ needs.”

    All that was left to make it happen was for Congress to act. Senator Patrick Leahy authored the Unlocking Consumer Choice and Wireless Competition Act, and it got a companion bill in the House. The House measure was passed in February and the Senate Judiciary Committee approved Leahy’s bill earlier this month. Last week, the full Senate unanimously passed the bill, sending it over to the House.

    And now it heads to President Obama’s desk. Taking its unanimous bipartisan support and the previous statements made by The White House on the matter, the bill’s signing is a virtual certainty.

    “I thank the House for moving so quickly on the bill we passed in the Senate last week and for working in a bipartisan way to support consumers. The bipartisan Unlocking Consumer Choice and Wireless Competition Act puts consumers first, promotes competition in the wireless phone marketplace, and encourages continued use of existing devices,” said Sen. Patrick Leahy. “Once the President signs this bill into law, consumers will be able to more easily use their existing cell phones on the wireless carrier of their choice.”

    Unfortunately, the new law only restores the exemption to the DMCA that allows consumers to unlock their cellphones and change wireless providers when their contracts expire. It doesn’t address the bigger problem – the DMCA itself.

  • Cellphone Unlocking Bill Passes Senate, Heads to House

    Late Tuesday, the Senate passed the Unlocking Consumer Choice and Wireless Competition Act with a unanimous vote. The bill, introduced by Democratic Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy, reverses a Library of Congress decision regarding DMCA exemptions and would once again make unlocking your cellphone legal.

    “I applaud the Senate for so quickly passing the bipartisan Unlocking Consumer Choice and Wireless Competition Act, which puts consumers first and promotes competition in the wireless phone marketplace,” Leahy said. “With the Senate’s swift action last night, just days after the Judiciary Committee approved the measure, I hope the House will soon take up and pass our bill so that consumers will be able to use their existing cell phones on the wireless carrier of their choice.”

    The bill also asks the Library of Congress to take a look at tablets and other wireless devices to determine if they should also get an exemption from the DMCA.

    A little background on the whole cellphone unlocking issue:

    In January of last year, unlocking new cellphones became illegal via a decision from the Library of Congress. In short, they reversed their decision to exempt cellphone unlocking from the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (by opting not to renew the exemption). It’s still legal to unlock phones purchased before January 26th, 2013, but doing so on any device purchased after that cutoff mean you could run afoul of the DMCA.

    Quickly after, a petition on the White House’s We The People site garnered 114,000 signatures. It demanded a simple task of the administration: Make Unlocking Cellphones Legal.

    The White House responded – emphatically.

    “The White House agrees with the 114,000+ of you who believe that consumers should be able to unlock their cell phones without risking criminal or other penalties,” said Senior Advisor for Internet, Innovation, & Privacy David Edelman. “In fact, we believe the same principle should also apply to tablets, which are increasingly similar to smart phones. And if you have paid for your mobile device, and aren’t bound by a service agreement or other obligation, you should be able to use it on another network. It’s common sense, crucial for protecting consumer choice, and important for ensuring we continue to have the vibrant, competitive wireless market that delivers innovative products and solid service to meet consumers’ needs.”

    All that was left to make it happen was for Congress to act. Senator Patrick Leahy authored the Unlocking Consumer Choice and Wireless Competition Act, and it got a companion bill in the House. The House measure was passed in February and the Senate Judiciary Committee approved Leahy’s bill last week.

    With the unanimous decision from the Senate, the bill will travel to the House with a lot of momentum.

    Image via Thinkstock

  • World Cup Highlight Twitter Bot Suspended After FIFA Takedown Request

    And here’s the corner from the DMCA…it’s a line drive…right at FIFA, who’s on a run – FIFA with the header…GOOOOAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLL!!!

    In other words, FIFA has successfully petitioned Twitter to suspend the increasingly popular @ReplayLastGoal account, a single-purpose Twitter bot that automatically tweeted the video replay and animated GIF of the latest #Worldcup goal. You know, so the world could easily see the most important action from the world’s game’s biggest stage.

    Account creator Xavier Damman tweeted out the bad news earlier:

    Though it’s not 100 percent confirmed that FIFA is responsible for the takedown, FIFA is responsible for the takedown. Damman received a notice from Twitter 11 days ago warning him that they had received a copyright takedown notice, pursuant to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

    Of course, the complaint came from the Federation Internationale De Football Association.

    “On behalf of FIFA as owner of the exclusive rights to the copyrighted material at issue in this notice, we hereby state that we have a good faith belief that use/display of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.”

    In other words, FART.

    ReplayLastGoal and Damman argued fair use, noting that there are “plenty of Vines and GIF out there,” a fact which is abundantly clear by looking at Twitter.

    But FIFA persisted, and Twitter finally suspended the account.

    So, you can’t watch World Cup goals generated by this particular Twitter bot. you can watch World Cup goals in about a gajillion other GIFs and videos being posted from a gajillion other Twitter accounts.

    You can also watch John Oliver’s discussion of FIFA right now.

    via Re/code
    Image via Last Week with John Oliver, YouTube screenshot

  • Cellphone Unlocking Bill Passes Senate Committee

    A Senate bill to reverse a Library of Congress decision and make unlocking your cellphone legal again has passed the Judiciary Committee.

    In January of last year, unlocking new cellphones became illegal via a decision from the Library of Congress. In short, they reversed their decision to exempt cellphone unlocking from the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (by opting not to renew the exemption). It’s still legal to unlock phones purchased before January 26th, 2013, but doing so on any device purchased after that cutoff mean you could run afoul of the DMCA.

    Quickly after, a petition on the White House’s We The People site garnered 114,000 signatures. It demanded a simple task of the administration: Make Unlocking Cellphones Legal.

    The White House responded – emphatically.

    “The White House agrees with the 114,000+ of you who believe that consumers should be able to unlock their cell phones without risking criminal or other penalties,” said Senior Advisor for Internet, Innovation, & Privacy David Edelman. “In fact, we believe the same principle should also apply to tablets, which are increasingly similar to smart phones. And if you have paid for your mobile device, and aren’t bound by a service agreement or other obligation, you should be able to use it on another network. It’s common sense, crucial for protecting consumer choice, and important for ensuring we continue to have the vibrant, competitive wireless market that delivers innovative products and solid service to meet consumers’ needs.”

    All that was left to make it happen was for Congress to act. Senator Patrick Leahy authored the Unlocking Consumer Choice and Wireless Competition Act, and it got a companion bill in the House. The House measure was passed in February and now the Senate Judiciary Committee has approved Leahy’s bill.

    “Consumers should be able to use their existing cell phones when they move their service to a new wireless provider. I have worked for months with Ranking Member Grassley, Chairman Goodlatte and House members, consumer advocates and wireless providers to ensure we enact common sense legislation that puts consumers first by allowing them to ‘unlock’ their cell phones,” Leahy said. “With today’s strong bipartisan vote in the Judiciary Committee, I hope the full Senate can soon take up this important legislation that supports consumer rights.”

    The act also urges the Library of Congress to take another look at tablets and other wireless devices to determine if they should also get an exemption from the DMCA. It also “ensures that consumers who lack the technological savvy to unlock their phones themselves can authorize others to do the unlocking for them.”

    The bill technically only restores the exemption to the DMCA that allows consumers to unlock their cellphones and change wireless providers when their contracts expire. It’s not a permanent solution to a bigger problem – the DMCA itself.

  • Google Rejects DMCA Request, Keeps The Pirate Bay Homepage

    Google Rejects DMCA Request, Keeps The Pirate Bay Homepage

    In case you are new to the anti-piracy crusade, one of the biggest players on the side copyright keepers is the British Phonograph Industry, or, the BPI. While they may not be as well known as the RIAA, at least in the United States, they are every bit as prolific when it comes to DMCA takedown requests to Google. With that in mind, it’s pretty safe to say the BPI is offended by the existence of a site like The Pirate Bay; so much so, in fact, they have no problem when it comes to asking Google to remove TPB’s homepage from their search engine index.

    As pointed out by Torrent Freak, to Google’s credit, they do not remove pages unless the site in question contains, or is linking to infringing content. This means while The Pirate Bay’s search results pages may not show up in the Google index, the site’s homepage meets these standards, and should not be excluded. In the case of the BPI’s filing, there were 171 requests for the removal of the following address: thepiratebay.sx.

    Google responded with a “No Action Taken,” which comes with the following explanation:

    Number of URLs specified in this copyright removal request that we did not remove because we did not find the specified copyright infringement; we already reviewed the URLs in a previous request; or the URLs were malformed or otherwise led to an error.

    It should be noted that the BPI’s request included 2055 URLs removed, which is important if any institutions attempt to accuse Google of advocating piracy in future legislation discussions; although, it’s pretty clear these same institutions won’t be happy unless Google openly manipulates their search results.

    Just ask the RIAA:

    Despite having received the notices of vast claimed infringements specified above, the sites in question continue to appear in the top 10 search ranking results for searches for an mp3 or download of popular tracks or popular artists.

    Maybe these competing sites should learn some basic SEO instead of relying on Google to knock the offending sites out of the high rankings.

    [Lead image via Google Trends]

  • UFC Takedown Notices Include Lots of Porn

    UFC Takedown Notices Include Lots of Porn

    Make no mistake about it: UFC President Dana White absolutely hates it when people stream UFC fights on the Internet. So much so, in fact, he has been incredibly outspoken about making such an act a felony. With that in mind, it stands to reason the UFC has no hesitation about issuing DMCA takedown notices to Google on a regular basis. These requests, however, seem to use an incredibly wide net–in other words, bots–to find sites worthy of being taken down.

    The results of these bot-based searches are, as pointed out by Torrent Freak, takedown requests for sites that may not actually be infringing on the UFC’s content; that is, unless the UFC (or its parent company Zuffa) dabbles in the pornography industry. While some of the infringing sites were, in fact, streaming UFC fights, others included in the DMCA report were offering material of a much more adult nature, something the following screenshot reveals quite well:

    UFC DMCA Takedown
    Click to enlarge

    Of those ten sites, only one was offering content owned by the UFC. The others? Probably not so much, again, unless the UFC/Zuffa is investing in porn on the side. While this may not seem like a big deal, because, hey, content infringement is content infringement and while the UFC may not own the all of the copyrighted material in its request, it is acting like a good citizen by reporting the misdeeds of others. That, however, gets away from the meaning behind DMCA complaints, which were intended to focus on the copyrighted content owned by the entity issuing the complaint, which was not the case regarding the UFC.

    Furthering this point is the following header from the complaint in question:

    This is submitted for my client Zuffa LLC
    These links are facilitating piracy of my client’s work
    The work can be seen by visiting their site www.ufc.com
    The item this is relating to is Ufc content

    Unless I’m mistaken, I’m pretty sure you can’t see Rocco’s Psycho Teens 4 at UFC.com, unless there’s some kind of hidden web portal common users don’t know about. As the Torrent Freak article points out, this is fantastic example of how using bots to populate DMCA takedown requests can lead to unfortunate and ineffective situations like these:

    Instead of pinpointing specific pages carrying UFC torrents for example, the crawlers will target any other pages (even those created dynamically by search engines) that link to them, meaning that the generated DMCA notices deindex hundreds of other items that have nothing to do with the specific rightsholder. This, while often leaving the actual torrent page intact.

    Killing the page, but not the torrent, is a meaningless gesture if ending piracy is the intended goal. With that in mind, should Google even acknowledge complaints that are so wildly inaccurate?

  • HBO Asks Google To Remove VLC Player Link In DMCA Filing

    In what appears to be a case of either mistaken identity or guilt by association, in one of their recent DMCA filings, HBO included a takedown request link pointing to the VLC media player. For those who are not aware, a DMCA filing, at least regarding search engines, asks for the providing engine to remove links that point to sites offering and/or supporting the distribution of copyrighted content. Google gets over a million of them a month.

    In this case, HBO was going after sites that were pointing to torrents for Game of Thrones and Veep, among others.

    During the process of listing the URLs it would like to see removed from Google’s search index, HBO included a link that points to the aforementioned VLC Player. The link in question was featured on TorrentPortal.com, a site that tracks bit torrent files around the web, much like the name suggests. The site was in HBO’s targets for the following links:

    http://www.torrentportal.com/details/6093717/Twenty+Feet+from+Stardom+(2013)+BRRip+XviD.torrent

    http://www.torrentportal.com/details/6091931/The.Evil.Dead.HD.EXTENDED.%5B1080p%5D.torrent

    http://www.torrentportal.com/details/6093721/VLC-Media-Player-2.0.7-Final-(32-64-bit)-Official.html

    Whatever your position is on file sharing, from HBO’s perspective, it’s easy to see why the first two links were included. They are pointing to torrents that promise infringing content. The third, however, is a innocuous link that points to a legitimate utility that millions of people use. You might also notice that the first two links, while going to infringing torrents, the copyrighted content in question–The Evil Dead and Twenty Feet From Stardom–does not “belong” to HBO. These movies were not titles included in HBO’s DMCA dragnet, but yet, they are part of the takedown request list.

    Is this a case of HBO overstepping their boundaries, or are they simply taking the “It takes a village” approach to ridding the Internet of illegal file-sharing? Furthermore, do takedown requests for legitimate content somehow invalidate the rest of the DMCA filing? Of course, this is just part of a bigger discussion, that is, should it even be illegal to link to infringing content? As Torrent Freak points out, this behavior is par for the course with HBO and its filings:

    Over the past months HBO and many other copyright holders have built up a dubious track record when it comes to DMCA takedown notices. In addition to many “bogus” claims the company also tried to have its own website removed from Google.

    The above mistakes may be relatively harmless to the site owners, but they show once again how much can go wrong with these automated DMCA notices. This is particularly troublesome since Google is down-ranking sites based on the number of DMCA notices it receives for them.

    Is this a case of the “boy who cried wolf” or is HBO just being thorough?

  • FCC Chairman Nominee Supports Cell Phone Unlocking

    FCC Chairman Nominee Supports Cell Phone Unlocking

    Tom Wheeler, the man President Obama has nominated to be the next FCC chairman, has something in common with a lot of Americans. He believes that they have the right to unlock their cell phones after a two-year contract is fulfilled.

    During a nomination hearing with the Senate Commerce Committee earlier this week, Wheeler said he fully supports the ability of Americans to unlock their smartphones:

    “I am a strong supporter of intellectual property rights. At the same point in time, I believe that when I as a consumer or you as a consumer, or anyone have fulfilled our commitment and we’ve paid off our contract, that we ought to have the right to use that device and move it across carriers as we see fit. I look forward to working on this issue and resolving this issue to give consumers flexibility.”

    In the above statement, Wheeler is referring to how the legality of cell phone unlocking is decided by the Librarian of Congress as per the rules set by the DMCA. The law states that the Librarian of Congress shall name exemptions to the anti-circumvention clause. The original intent was to keep consumers from cracking DRM in the name of piracy, but it has been used to prevent consumers from doing as they wish with purchased hardware.

    Many proponents of cell phone unlocking have called for an amended DMCA, but some industry players obviously wouldn’t want that. As for Wheeler, he seems to be keeping all options on the table. Here’s what he said in a statement to Ars Technica:

    “I don’t know whether it [should be] a permanent exemption [to the DMCA], whether it is a rewrite of the Copyright Act, or what the appropriate solution is, but I do believe there needs to be a solution and consumers should have the right to unlock their phones after they’ve lived up to their side of the agreement.”

    Wheeler may not be sure on how to progress yet, but a few lawmakers in Congress have tossed up a few ideas. The first proposal, which is from Sen. Patrick Leahy, calls for cell phone unlocking to be added to the Librarian of Congress’ exemption list. It doesn’t actually fix any problems though. The fact that it doesn’t fix anything may be why the wireless industry is 100 percent behind it. They can be seen as pro-consumer in the short term, but still have the authority to enforce locked cell phones if the Librarian of Congress chooses to remove it from the exemption list in 2016.

    The second, and far more preferable, is Rep. Zoe Lofgren’s Unlocking Technology Act of 2013. The proposed law would “permanently guarantee consumers can unlock their cell phones, tablets, and other mobile communications devices in order to switch carriers.” The bill goes even further by legalizing the sharing of tools necessary to unlock mobile devices.

    Unfortunately, it seems that most of the support in Washington is in favor of Leahy’s band aid for a bullet wound solution. Wheeler will undoubtedly support it as well considering his close ties to the wireless industry.

    [Image: The Cable Center]

  • Wireless Carriers Back Worthless Cellphone Unlocking Bill

    Wireless Carriers Back Worthless Cellphone Unlocking Bill

    Should you be able to unlock your cellphone? Wireless carriers used to not think so, but now the industry’s lobbying group seems to be fine with it as long as the bill is worthless.

    The Hill reports that the wireless industry group CTIA has indicated that it will support a cellphone unlocking bill during a House Judiciary Committee hearing on the matter. Now, the group isn’t supporting broad unlocking rules, but rather the very limited, and kind of worthless H.R. 1123, or the Unlocking Consumer Choice and Wireless Competition Act.

    If you’re just joining us. H.R. 1123 is a House bill introduced by Rep. Bod Goodlatte. The bill would reverse the Librarian of Congress’ decision earlier this year to put cellphone unlocking back on the list of practices that violate the DMCA. Previously, it was exempt under the copyright law thus allowing customers to unlock their devices.

    At the time, the reasoning for putting it back on the list was because the Librarian thought that wireless carriers were doing a good enough job of letting customers unlock their phones. Leaving it up to the carriers, however, leads to some being able to unlock their devices and some can’t. Even those that can have to sometimes jump through a lot of hurdles just to move a phone to a different carrier.

    So, why do wireless carriers like Goodlatte’s legislation when they make it as hard as possible for customers to move phones? They like it because it does absolutely nothing to change the status quo. As the CTIA puts it, the bill provides “a reasonable balance that protects consumers and carriers alike.”

    Unfortunately, Goodlatte’s bill does nothing to protect consumers. It just alleviates their suffering under the DMCA for three years. It does nothing to fix the actual problem.

    In a perfect world, Congress and wireless carriers would be listening to FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai. In an op-ed for The New York Times, he argues that cellphone unlocking should be removed from the DMCA altogether.

    To restore a free market that benefits consumers, we should amend the 1998 act to allow consumers to take their mobile devices from one carrier to another without fear of criminal prosecution or civil fines. We should also make clear that those who help consumers unlock their phones and tablets won’t be prosecuted either. And we should reiterate that contracts remain valid and enforceable. These fixes should be permanent, so that consumers, developers and wireless carriers don’t have to worry about the law shifting on a whim.

    The entire op-ed is well worth reading, but the above is the central argument. Let people do whatever the hell they want with their phone after the contract is up. Cellphone unlocking should not be a crime, and it shouldn’t have even been a copyright issue in the first place. As Pai says – “No one seriously believes that unlocking a cellphone to switch carriers is equivalent to piracy.”

    Unfortunately, the carriers do, and they will fight to keep cellphone unlocking under the DMCA. Goodlatte’s bill does just that while pretending to care about consumer choice. Here’s hoping that the House heeds Pai’s words instead of the carriers’ during today’s hearing.

  • House To Hold Hearing On Worthless Cellphone Unlocking Bill Next Week

    Pretty much everybody in Washington agrees with the common man – you should be able to unlock your cellphone without fear of repercussion. Where we tend to disagree is how to go about doing this. Unfortunately, the House has decided to hold a hearing on a cellphone unlocking bill that does absolutely nothing to fix the problem.

    The Hill reports that subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property and the Internet will hold a hearing next Thursday to discuss Rep. Bob Goodlatte’s Unlocking Consumer Choice and Wireless Competition Act. The bill would repeal a decision by the Librarian of Congress last year that made unlocking cellphones a violation of the DMCA.

    It sounds pretty good, right? Unfortunately, Goodlatte’s bill, and its companion bill in the Senate, only puts a bandaid on a bullet wound. The bill in its current state doesn’t address the DMCA or its anti-circumvention protections that currently make unlocking your cellphone a punishable offense. Instead, the bill will make unlocking cellphones legal for only three years until the Librarian of Congress makes another decision as to the legality of cellphone unlocking.

    As I’ve previously discussed, the cellphone unlocking debate is just one tiny part of a larger debate on the DMCA. It’s an outdated bill that was meant to protect intellectual property in the digital age, but instead stands in the way of progress. Rep. Zoe Lofgren’s bill – the Unlocking Technology Act of 2013 – does a much better job of addressing this issue by permanently legalizing cellphone unlocking and other technology circumventions that don’t explicitly violate copyright.

    Unfortunately, Congress has a proven track record of pushing for bills that only delay the problem instead of addressing it head on. Depending on how next week’s hearing goes, we may get another three years of legalized unlocking before the Librarian of Congress deems it illegal yet again. Maybe then Congress will actually act on meaningful reform, but I doubt it.

  • You Can Now See All The Erroneous DMCA Takedown Requests Google Gets

    Google does a lot of work for copyright holders in the US. Under the DMCA, Google has to delete infringing links from its search results. It used to be not such a bad job, but now the search giant is receiving over 12 million requests per month. All of those requests can’t be legitimate, right? A new tool from Google proves that to be the case.

    TorrentFreak reports that Google has quietly rolled out a new feature in its transparency reports that details how many false DMCA takedown requests it receives from copyright holders. Google details these false requests in a newly updated FAQ:

    From time to time, we may receive inaccurate or unjustified copyright removal requests for search results that clearly do not link to infringing content. An independent, third-party analysis of how frequently improper and abusive removal requests are submitted was conducted in 2006.

    Google then lists a number of examples of where copyright holders submitted false DMCA takedown requests. Here’s some of the better ones:

    A U.S. reporting organization working on behalf of a major movie studio requested removal of a movie review on a major newspaper website twice.

    An individual in the U.S. requested the removal of search results that link to court proceedings referencing her first and last name on the ground that her name was copyrightable.

    A driving school in the U.K. requested the removal of a competitor’s homepage from Search, on the grounds that the competitor had copied an alphabetized list of cities and regions where instruction was offered.

    None of these scenarios fell under DMCA regulations, and therefore Google did not remove them. These are just examples, but Google still receives erroneous DMCA takedown requests. Our own Web site, WebProNews.com, was subject to two false takedown requests at the hands of AMC over our coverage of The Walking Dead season 3 premier. Of course, the link was non-infringing as it linked to AMC’s own stream of the premier.

    DMCA takedown requests

    The takedown request levied at our site, and others, was most likely fueled by AMC looking for links that mentioned “The Walking Dead” and “free.” There’s no thought put into the suggestion that there may be legitimate free sources to watch these episodes. Strangely enough, none of the links were removed despite some links offering illegitimate copies of The Walking Dead.

    This latest offering from Google serves to make the DMCA takedown process more transparent, but it probably won’t have any effect on the amount of takedown requests sent by rightsholders. Current laws don’t enforce repercussions for those who send false takedown requests so there’s no reason for rightsholders to use caution. If laws ever do change, it’s almost guaranteed that the amount of takedown requests would drop to the few hundred thousand a month it was at in 2011.

  • Twitter Now Shows You When It’s Yanked a Tweet for DMCA

    Twitter has just made a significant change in their privacy policy that they say will increase transparency across the site. Now, instead of removing tweets flagged with a DMCA copyright notice, they are simply “withholding” them.

    Twitter will normally respond to DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) requests that involve the “use of a copyrighted image as an profile photo, header photo, or background, allegations concerning the unauthorized use of a copyrighted image uploaded through our photo hosting service, or Tweets containing links to allegedly infringing materials.”

    Once a takedown request has been filed, Twitter notifies the user and gives them the ability to file a counter-notice to dispute the copyright claim. None of this has changed. What has changed is how the rest of Twitter will see these particular tweets:

    “In an effort to be as transparent as possible regarding the removal or restriction of access to user-posted content, we clearly mark withheld Tweets and media to indicate to viewers when content has been withheld (examples below). We also send a copy of each DMCA notification and counter-notice that we process to Chilling Effects, where they are posted to a public-facing website (with your personal information removed),” says Twitter in its Help Center.

    That is a pretty big shift from how Twitter used to handle removed tweets. In the past, these tweets would just vanish without a trace. Now, even though the content of the tweet will be removed, users will at least be able to see that there was in fact a tweet there at some point and it fell victim to a copyright claim.

    Here’s how a tweet (with an infringing link) will look when withdrawn:

    And here’s the look for withdrawn tweets featuring media:

    Earlier this year, Twitter reported 4,410 DMCA takedown requests for 2011.

  • YouTube Upgrades Its Content ID System

    YouTube’s Content ID system has drawn the ire from plenty of Internet users. Important moments in history have been ruined thanks to the trigger happy ID matching program that seems to serve content curators over users. This year alone has seen two embarrassing instances of the Content ID system being abused – the Mars Rover landing and the Democratic National Convention. YouTube hopefully has a few fixes so stuff like this doesn’t happen again.

    YouTube says that a lot of the problems with the Content ID system comes from the fact that the system has over 500,000 hours of reference files to pull from. A video that even remotely matches the content that copyright owners have uploaded will be taken down with extreme prejudice. That’s a problem, and YouTube has introduced a new appeals process to make things easier.

    Those who have their videos blocked on copyright grounds will now be able to appeal the decision. The new appeals process takes the fight directly to the content owner with two options – rescind the claim or file an actual DMCA takedown request. YouTube’s Content ID system was abused so much in the past because there was no actual DMCA requests involved. Requiring trolls to actually file a request should help cut down on illegitimate takedowns.

    YouTube is also introducing a manual review process for claims. Those 500,000 hours of reference material can sometimes unintentionally cause a video to be blocked. The YouTube team has improved the algorithm used in this process, but they will also manually review videos that have been flagged. The video in question won’t be taken offline until it’s been manually reviewed.

    Finally, YouTube has improved the matching technology that sits at the center of the Content ID system. Better algorithms are one part of the solution, but they will continue to build out their reference library to make sure that videos uploaded to YouTube aren’t affected by bogus claims.

    It will be interesting to see if the Content ID system actually improves over the coming weeks. YouTube has to build back trust with a public that doesn’t necessarily trust its system or those who seemingly abuse it. In the meantime, here’s hoping a bogus claim from CNN or Fox News doesn’t take down the first presidential debate streaming live on YouTube tonight.

  • Removal Requests Actually Down, Following Google Algorithm Change

    On August 10, Google announced that it would be updating its algorithm the following week to include a new ranking signal for the number of “valid copyright removal notices” it receives for a given site.

    Do you think Google’s addition of this signal is a good thing for search results? Let us know in the comments.

    “Sites with high numbers of removal notices may appear lower in our results,” said Google SVP, Engineering, Amit Singhal, at the time. “This ranking change should help users find legitimate, quality sources of content more easily—whether it’s a song previewed on NPR’s music website, a TV show on Hulu or new music streamed from Spotify.”

    One might have expected the removal request floodgates to have been opened upon this news, but that does not appear to be the case. In fact, interestingly, it has been kind of the opposite, according to Google’s Transparency Report.

    Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Roundtable points out that from August 13 to August 20, the number of URLs requested to be removed from Google search per week, actually decreased, going from 1,496,220 to 1,427369. It’s only a slight decrease, but the fact that it decreased at all, following this news, is noteworthy.

    URLs requested to be removed

    When Google first announced the algorithm change, it immediately sparked a great deal of criticism from bloggers and webmasters and concern from consumer groups. “In particular, we worry about the false positives problem,” the EFF said at the time. “For example, we’ve seen the government wrongly target sites that actually have a right to post the allegedly infringing material in question or otherwise legally display content. In short, without details on how Google’s process works, we have no reason to believe they won’t make similar, over-inclusive mistakes, dropping lawful, relevant speech lower in its search results without recourse for the speakers.”

    Public Knowledge has spoken out about the change as well. Senior staff attorney John Bergmayer previously said in a statement, “Sites may not know about, or have the ability to easily challenge, notices sent to Google. And Google has set up a system that may be abused by bad faith actors who want to suppress their rivals and competitors. Sites that host a lot of content, or are very popular, may receive a disproportionate number of notices (which are mere accusations of infringement) without being disproportionately infringing. And user-generated content sites could be harmed by this change, even though the DMCA was structured to protect them.”

    “Google needs to make sure this change does not harm Internet users or the Internet ecosystem,” he added.

    Interestingly enough, Public Knowledge actually receives contributions from Google, as indicated in new court document Google provided in the Oracle case. “Google has contributed to Public Knowledge for years before the complaint in the case at bar was filed,” wrote Google attorney Robert Van Nest.

    Regarding inaccurate and intentionally abusive copyright removal requests, Google says, “From time to time, we may receive inaccurate or unjustified copyright removal requests for search results that clearly do not link to infringing content. An independent, third-party analysis of how frequently improper and abusive removal requests are submitted was conducted in 2006.”

    That was six years ago, and does little to set webmasters’ minds at ease. On an FAQ page, Google lists a number of examples of requests that were submitted that were “clearly invalid,” and notes that it did not comply with any of them.

    In case you’re wondering how many of the requests Google does comply with, the company says on the same page, “We removed 97% of search results specified in requests that we received between July and December 2011.”

    “We remove search results that link to infringing content in Search when it is brought to our attention, and we do it quickly,” Google adds. “As of May 2012, our average processing time across all removal requests submitted via our web form for Search is approximately 10 hours. However, many different factors can influence the processing time for a particular removal request, including the method of delivery, language, and completeness of the information submitted.”

    As far as webmasters being informed of the issue by Google, the company says, “When feasible and legal to do so, we try our best to notify users to give them an opportunity to submit a counter-notice in response to copyright removal requests. For Search, it is extremely difficult to provide meaningful notice to webmasters whose pages have been identified in copyright removal requests, because we do not necessarily know their identities or have an effective means of contacting them. If users have registered with our Webmaster Tools as web site owners, we will notify them there. We also share a copy of qualifying copyright removal requests with the public site Chilling Effects, where a webmaster may inspect it as well.”

    For the past month, Google says 5,680,830 URLs have been requested to be removed from 31,677 domains by 1,833 and 1,372 reporting organizations. The top copyright owners in the past month have been Froytal Services, RIAA member companies, Microsoft, NBCUniversal and BPI. The top specified domains have been filestube.com, torrenthound.com, isohunt.com, downloads.nl and filesonicsearch.com.

    You can see all copyright removal requests here. You can see a big list of 133,502 specified domains here. A list of 9,660 reporting organizations is available here. The list of over ten thousand copyright owners is here.

    All data reflects copyright removal notices received for search since 2011, with some omissions, which include requests for products other than Google Search (like YouTube and Blogger), and requests submitted by means other than Google’s web form (such as fax or written letters).

    It’s important to note that while Google is now using the number of removal requests a site receives as a ranking factor, it is still only one of over two hundred factors. But the negative SEO ramifications of the signal still have people worried. Negative SEO was a growing concern before this signal was even announced, particularly as it’s related to bad links and the Penguin update. Now there is concern that competitors can submit notices, and influence Google. Whether this can be done successfully or not really remains to be seen. Google seems to be giving the impression that it cannot, as Google only complies with “valid” requests, but when was the last time Google executed an algorithm update flawlessly?

    Google even recently reworded its help page for the question “Can competitors harm ranking?”. It used to say, “There’s almost nothing a competitor can do to harm your ranking or have your site removed from our index.” It was changed to say, “Google works hard to prevent other webmasters from being able to harm your ranking or have your site removed from our index.”

    But, as the image above shows, it doesn’t appear that Google’s announcement has led to too a substantial increase in attempted abuse so far. That doesn’t mean it’s not possible to abuse it, and that people aren’t trying to abuse it. People were probably already trying to abuse it. While the number may be down since the announcement, the greater trend is clearly that of substantial growth in the number of requests. It will be surprising if the trend does not ultimately continue upward. We’re still waiting on the latest numbers to come out.

    Are you worried about URL removal requests as a ranking signal? Share your thoughts in the comments.

  • Torrent Sites Think Google Is Censoring Them

    Google caused a lot of discussion last week when they announced that they were introducing a new ranking signal into their search algorithm. The new signal directly targets sites that receive a lot of DMCA takedown notices and downgrades them in search results. It’s assumed that the move will have an effect on the visibility of sites like The Pirate Bay.

    What’s funny is that people can still find content from torrent sites as long as they search for relevant terms. It’s true that typing in “The Avengers download” no longer returns links to The Pirate Bay or other torrent sites. Typing in “The Avengers torrent” brings them all back to the front page.

    The Pirate Bay addressed Google lowering their search rankings in a blog post. They say that a “very low amount” of their traffic actually comes from Google and that’s only a good thing. They see themselves as a search engine and Google’s move was a way to get rid of the competition. They expect people to search for content directly on The Pirate Bay when nothing shows up on Google.

    They do, however, have one concern about Google’s new policy:

    The thing we don’t like with this is that a corrupt industry is deciding what another industry has to do. They’re dictating terms. It’s really ironic: an industry that makes funny movies about dictators, where the dictator is essentially calling the USA a dictatorship, is trying to dictate terms where they have no place to do so….

    isoHunt’s Gary Fung takes it a bit further and says that Google’s new ranking signal is an antitrust violation. He points out that YouTube is not on Google’s list of DMCA takedown notices. Google will say that’s because they have their own internal reporting system within YouTube, but isoHunt says it’s all protecting Google’s own interests in search. He reiterates the idea from The Pirate Bay that isoHunt is a search engine that’s competing with Google.

    Fung is also concerned over the use of “valid” DMCA takedown notices. He says that Google processes a DMCA takedown notice as valid if it hasn’t been countered. isoHunt receives too many DMCA takedown notices a day for them to counter and so they get counted as signals for Google to downgrade their ranking.

    The harm here according to Fung is that a lot of legitimate content on isoHunt gets flagged with DMCA notices by overzealous copyright trolls. The mountains of legitimate content on torrent sites will be removed from Google search results. He equates it to censorship. In response, he says that “we need a protest against Google censorship and antitrust.”

    Google has definitely ruffled some feathers with their newest search ranking signal, but it was to be expected sooner or later. The company must now ensure that legitimate content is not downgraded. They must also make search fair for everybody including themselves. Making YouTube and other Google services immune to their own algorithm may raise some antitrust flags in the future.

    [h/t: TorrentFreak]

  • Should Linking To Copyrighted Material Be Illegal?

    Despite how you feel on the matter, online piracy is illegal. Various courts throughout the country have said again and again that uploading pirated works on the Internet for others to download is illegal. The copyright lobby hasn’t really done much about it in recent years after finding out that suing everybody wasn’t good for their image. There is, however, a new war that the copyright lobby is waging that’s far more murky in its legality.

    The courts are now having to deal with the issue of linking to content that may be illegal. Copyright law has generally been applied to those who host the content themselves. Now the law is being applied to sites that host zero content, but rather link to content on other Web sites. That’s where the case of Anton Vickerman comes in.

    Should linking to copyrighted material be illegal? Where do we draw the line in copyright law? Let us know in the comments.

    It was reported Monday that Vickerman was convicted on two counts of conspiracy to defraud. He now stands to serve four years in prison for running surfthechannel.com. The Web site hosted links to content off site – both legal and illegal. He was said to have made £250,000 through advertisements on the site in 2008.

    The interesting part is that Vickerman could not be charged for copyright violation. The prosecution had to go with charges of conspiracy to facilitate copyright infringement. Facilitating copyright infringement is a hard sell in most courts because most people charged with the crime usually aren’t aware that the content they’re linking to illegal.

    Unfortunately for Vickerman, he sold advertisements on his Web site. The mere fact that he made money by linking to this illegal content is what doomed him in the first place. The prosecution stated that Vickerman’s Web site “was created specifically to make money from criminal activity.” The defense obviously argued that this was not the case, but it’s hard to argue with the £250,000 made over the course of a year. That’s obviously more than what running a link aggregator would cost.

    It causes one to think if the result would have been the same if Vicerkman had made no money off of the site. There are plenty of other sites out there that only link to illegal content, but make no money from it. They pay for the servers out of their own pocket or with donations from users. It seems to be a legal gray area that only becomes criminal activity once the site owner starts to make money off of it.

    Vickerman isn’t the only UK resident who is facing charges over linking to illegal content, nor is he the most well known. We’ve covered the extradition case of Richard O’Dwyer extensively over the past year and it’s far messier than Vickerman’s case ever was.

    For those who need a refresher, O’Dwyer is a 23-year-old from the U.K. who is going to be extradited to the U.S. for copyright infringement. What was his crime? He linked to online streaming videos of U.S. television shows and movies. The kind of shows that citizens in the U.K. can’t easily gain access to until months after their original airing in the U.S.

    Just like Vickerman, however, O’Dwyer is being charged because he made money off of his Web site – TVshack.net. The site was reported to have had about 300,000 users per month and he made about £147,000 in revenue over three years from the site. For his crimes, O’Dwyer would be extradited to the U.S. where he could face up to 10 years in prison.

    Of course, this brings us to the difference between O’Dwyer and Vickerman. Why can one be tried in the U.K. while the other has to be tried in the U.S.? Many groups and activists don’t see a difference and are fighting to have O’Dwyer tried in his native country. Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales started a petition in June that called for the halting of O’Dwyer’s extradition. He even went so far to say that O’Dwyer is the “human face of the battle between the content industry and the interests of the general public.”

    O’Dwyer’s mother even jumped into the fray with a passionate plea for her son to remain in the U.K. She said that her son’s extradition is not about copyright, but rather the U.S. wanting to flex its control over the Internet. She said that her son’s case is about “America trying to control and police the Internet.” She also said that it’s “wrong that America should lay laws down on the Internet for other countries.”

    Both Wales and O’Dwyer’s mother bring up good points that lead to a much larger question. Why does the copyright industry care so much about linking to content? Why would they go out of their way to prosecute some guys that ran a Web site that never hosted any of this content, but rather linked to it. Most of the content on these sites were submitted by users. The DMCA has a safe harbor provision that protects Web sites from the actions of its users. Of course, a Web site can only qualify for safe harbor if they have no knowledge about the infringing content. It’s hard to say if Vickerman or O’Dwyer knew the content they were hosting was illegal.

    Should O’Dwyer be extradited to the U.S. for merely linking to copyrighted material? Should either men receive DMCA protections? Let us know in the comments.

    All of this is meant to lead up to the biggest problem at hand – Google. There are other search engines, but Google has been targeted the most for their actions. The copyright lobby has been constantly on Google’s back for linking to copyrighted content. They even claim that Google prioritizes infringing links over legitimate links in search results for those searching for something as innocuous as “Justin Bieber MP3.”

    Back in January, when the debate over SOPA was in full swing, media mogul Rupert Murdoch said that Google was a “piracy leader.” He said that Google streams movies, which I assume he means YouTube, and sells adverts around them. That kind of response to Google is typical hence why Google and other search engines were given a code of conduct by the U.K.’s Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

    The code of conduct says that Google and other search engines should “assign lower rankings to sites that repeatedly make available unlicensed content in breach of copyright.” It also calls upon Google to “stop indexing Web sites that are subject to court orders.” In short, it’s all about the copyright industry wanting Google to stop linking to illegal content. They might have gotten their wish last week.

    The Internet collectively freaked out when Google announced that they were adding DMCA takedown notices to their search algorithm. Google’s SVP of Engineering, Amit Singhal, said that “sites with high numbers of removal notices may appear lower in our results.” Many people immediately began to assume that this was just Google bowing to copyright lobby pressure and why wouldn’t they? While it’s highly unlikely that Google would be convicted for copyright violations, the DMCA definitely protects them, it gives them a bargaining chip in Washington and Hollywood.

    The mere fact that Google did this in the first place, however, is a major cause for concern. There are plenty of legitimate sites that receive bogus takedown notices all the time. Most of these sites thrive off of user created goods and media. Would Google knock them down in search results because of some overzealous copyright warrior?

    Our own Chris Crum was quick to point out that Google’s new ranking signal was only one out of over 200. Sites that were already doing well are still going to keep doing well. Your favorite YouTube videos and Etsy stores are still going to stay near the top of search if Google has anything to say about. What is worrisome is that Google even had to address in the first place.

    With Google backing the idea that linking to illegal content is indeed illegal, it only legitimatizes the current trend of going after those that only host links. Will Google’s move make the copyright lobby more aggressive in going after those who run link aggregate sites? Will it only go after those who link to television shows and movies? What about news aggregate sites that link to content from the overly protective AP?

    It’s still too early to tell, but a war on links may be coming. The Internet was built on links, but that may not be the case for much longer if laws continue to punish the mere act of linking.

    Do you think links are in danger? Would the copyright lobby try to destabilize one of the key tenets of the Internet? Let us know in the comments.

  • Remember, Google’s Newest Ranking Signal Is Only 1 Of Over 200

    Google announced on Friday that starting this week, it would begin using the number of “valid” copyright removal notices it gets for a site as a ranking signal. This immediately rubbed a lot of people the wrong way.

    In fact, various groups were quick to speak out about Google’s new policy. The EFF, for example, called the policy “opaque,” and expressed its concerns about how Google will make its determinations, and about the road to recourse (or lack thereof) that sites will have.

    “Sites may not know about, or have the ability to easily challenge, notices sent to Google,” said Public Knowledge Senior Staff Attorney, John Bergmayer. “And Google has set up a system that may be abused by bad faith actors who want to suppress their rivals and competitors. Sites that host a lot of content, or are very popular, may receive a disproportionate number of notices (which are mere accusations of infringement) without being disproportionately infringing. And user-generated content sites could be harmed by this change, even though the DMCA was structured to protect them.”

    Other have questioned how Google will deal with these notices with regards to its own properties – namely, YouTube. YouTube, of course, gets plenty of takedown requests, but they go through a different system (which Danny Sullivan has broken down into great detail). In fact, the takedown request form Google pointed to in its announcement of the feature, specifically mentions YouTube:

    “If you have a specific legal issue concerning YouTube, please visit this link for further information. Please do not use this tool to report issues that relate to YouTube.”

    Sullivan says Google told him, however, that “notices filed against YouTube through the separate YouTube copyright infringement reporting system will be combined with those filed against YouTube through the Google Search reporting system,” and that Google will treat YouTube like any other site. However, he reports, Google does not expect YouTube to be negatively affected by this, nor does it expect other popular user-generated content sites. Google, he says, told him that it will take into account other factors, besides the number of notices it receives.

    Well, this makes sense, because Google was pretty clear in its announcement that it was simply adding this as a signal – as in one of over 200.

    “We aim to provide a great experience for our users and have developed over 200 signals to ensure our search algorithms deliver the best possible results,” Google’s Amit Singhal said. “Starting next week, we will begin taking into account a new signal in our rankings: the number of valid copyright removal notices we receive for any given site.”

    YouTube and other popular sites likely have enough other signals working in their favor to counter this one signal. It doesn’t sound like Google’s newest signal is necessarily going to be its weightiest.

  • New Google Algorithm Change Immediately Raises Concerns

    As previously reported, Google announced that it will implement a new ranking signal into its search algorithm next week. The search engine will start taking the number of “valid” copyright removal notices it receives for a site, into account when ranking content.

    Are you concerned about this new addition? Let us know in the comments.

    Almost as soon as the Blogosphere was able to react to the news, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) put out its own post about it. Julie Samuels and Mitch Stoltz with the EFF write, “Earlier this summer, we applauded Google for releasing detailed stats about content removal requests from copyright holders. Now that we know how they are going to use that data, we are less enthusiastic.”

    The two go on to express concerns with how “opaque” Google is being about the process, despite Google’s claim that it will “continue to be transparent about copyright removals.”

    The EFF’s concerns are the vagueness of what Google considers to be a high number of removal notices, how Google plans to make its determinations, and how “there will be no process of recourse for sites who have been demoted.”

    Google does say that it will “continue to provide ‘counter-notice‘ tools so that those who believe their content has been wrongly removed can get it reinstated.”

    “In particular, we worry about the false positives problem,” says the EFF. “For example, we’ve seen the government wrongly target sites that actually have a right to post the allegedly infringing material in question or otherwise legally display content. In short, without details on how Google’s process works, we have no reason to believe they won’t make similar, over-inclusive mistakes, dropping lawful, relevant speech lower in its search results without recourse for the speakers.”

    “Takedown requests are nothing more than accusations of copyright infringement,” the EFF addds. “No court or other umpire confirms that the accusations are valid (although copyright owners can be liable for bad-faith accusations). Demoting search results – effectively telling the searcher that these are not the websites you’re looking for – based on accusations alone gives copyright owners one more bit of control over what we see, hear, and read.”

    The EFF concludes by saying that Google’s “opaque policies” threaten lawful sites and undermine confidence in search results.

    The EFF is not the only group to quickly speak out about the announcement. Public Knowledge, a consumer rights group, also put out a much longer response.

    We also received the following statement from Public Knowledge Senior Staff Attorney, John Bergmayer:

    “It may make good business sense for Google to take extraordinary steps, far beyond what the law requires, to help the media companies it partners with. That said, its plan to penalize sites that receive DMCA notices raises many questions.

    “Sites may not know about, or have the ability to easily challenge, notices sent to Google. And Google has set up a system that may be abused by bad faith actors who want to suppress their rivals and competitors. Sites that host a lot of content, or are very popular, may receive a disproportionate number of notices (which are mere accusations of infringement) without being disproportionately infringing. And user-generated content sites could be harmed by this change, even though the DMCA was structured to protect them.

    “Google needs to make sure this change does not harm Internet users or the Internet ecosystem.”

    It’s going to be quite interesting to see how Google’s new policy/signal holds up to abuse, and whether or not we see fair use significantly jeopardized.

    Tell us what you think about the change in the comments.

  • Dropbox Responds to Megaupload Comparisons

    Yesterday, stories covering Dropbox’s new sharing feature pointed out how the feature made the Dropbox service similar to other cloud storage services, such as Megaupload, that have been accused of harboring piracy. Today, Dropbox is in damage control mode and is responding to critics. They are detailing how the Dropbox service differs from other cloud sharing services and what features they have implemented to combat piracy.

    Public Relations firm Allison & Partners, on Dropbox’s behalf, has released a definitive statement about Dropbox’s commitment to making sure the sharing feature is not used for copyright infringement:

    “Dropbox explicitly prohibits copyright abuse. We’ve put in place a number of measures to ensure that our sharing feature is not misused. For example, there’s a copyright flag on every page allowing for easy reporting, we place bandwidth limits on downloads, and we prohibit users from creating links to files that have been subject to a DMCA notice. We want to offer an easy way for people to share their life’s work while respecting the rights of others.”

    As a commenter to the previous article pointed out, the Dropbox bandwidth limits for public links will certainly help to curb widespread piracy through dropbox. Dropbox help pages state that the bandwidth limit for publicly linked files is 20 GB per day for free accounts and 200 GB per day for premium accounts. Links that hit these limits are automatically suspended. This will handily curb the amount of copyrighted video and music that can be shared through Dropbox, but other material with smaller file sizes, such as ebooks, could be still be shared widely before hitting that limit.

    The other anti-piracy implementations mentioned in the statement, copyright flags and responding quickly to DMCA notices, are things that other cloud storage services already practice. In fact, responding to DMCA notices is required by law and was also practiced by Megaupload, which was shut down earlier this year by the U.S. Justice Department.

    The fact is, Dropbox is doing everything right – but it’s still not enough to stamp out pirates. Any method of sharing files on the web will be used to transfer copyrighted material, and cloud storage services will have to constantly respond to copyright violations. Making services such as Megaupload, or potentially Dropbox, responsible for their users actions is the real problem. Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom also thought the DMCA gave sufficient safe-harbor protections to storage services.

    Even Google, which will soon launch its Google Drive service, will have to contend with the same issues and has already dealt with some of them because of YouTube. That’s probably the reason it weighed in on the court case against Hotfile last month.

    What do you think? Is Dropbox doing enough to curb piracy or are they in danger of copyright lawsuits? Let me know in the comment section below.