
Pirate site with No Traffic attracts 49m bogus DMCA notices - kilburn
https://torrentfreak.com/pirate-site-with-no-traffic-attracts-49m-mainly-bogus-dmca-notices-170219/
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1_2__3
> Instead of scanning the site and sending an accurate takedown notice to
> Google, APDIF tries to guess the URLs where MP3Toys stores its content.

So, they commit a federal crime, then (when they send the DMCA notice)?

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freehunter
The courts have ruled that unauthorized directory traversal is illegal. The
case against weev already proved that.

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rjbwork
Can't they now be sued for invalid DMCA's? It's perjury to lie about those
things I believe. One probably shouldn't fully automate something that
perjures you if it's wrong.

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Dylan16807
Sadly the law is set up so that total negligence is okay. As long as you don't
_specifically know_ it's invalid, you can send out all the DMCAs you want.

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choward
B-b-b-but I didn't know. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

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0xcde4c3db
This smells like it's designed to maximize numbers that get reported back to
APDIF's members as "number of pirates shut down" instead of actually
preventing infringement.

Also, people have gone over the perjury stuff, but isn't there some kind of
ground that encompasses flooding somebody with groundless legal
demands/notices like this? I'm not sure tortious interference or abuse of
process would apply, but the general principle seems to be around in various
forms.

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sigmaprimus
So if I understand this story correctly, the .xyz site robots have baited
APDIF robots into filing complaints to googles robots which in turn block .xyz
sites URLs? For what purpose? Is is just to promote their site? Or is it so
that .xyz can now sue Google for removing their URLS without doing their due
diligence based on future losses? Very interesting concept, might this be an
early example of machine warfare?

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err4nt
Reminds me of (web) spider traps!
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider_trap](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider_trap)

If it's an extension of this idea, then it's been around for a while already
(close to 20 years?)

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Klathmon
while I understand what you meant, it's kind of funny that "web spider" could
refer to both of them!

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elastic_church
This is amazing.

tl;dr APDIF guesses the URL for the infringing content, mp3toys.xyz auto-
generates a page with different infringing content as soon as the new URL
accesses that route, new URL gets indexed by google in the DMCA takedown
notice.

if only they could also monetize the fake DMCA requests as well

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philipov
Did someone with knowledge of APDIF's practices make this site to exploit a
weakness in their automation? That would be precious.

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gruez
More likely it's a site used for seo spam. You see similar auto-generated
sites for Windows error messages advertising "registry cleaner" programs.

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RugnirViking
This is a fascinating example of frivolous use of takedown requests.
Presumably it is prohibited to make a takedown request on something upon which
you do not own copyright? Can this be contested in any way?

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sandworm101
By the person who has had material wrongfully taken down, yes. But these fake
takedowns dont result in material actually being taken down. So no.

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cmac2992
This hits close to home. I worked on a music blog and we got thousands of
bogus DMCA takedowns. You basically have zero recourse from the SEO
punishment.

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revelation
How can a Brazilian organisation send a DMCA request in the first place?
Unless I missed that DMCA has somehow been elevated to international law.

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0xcde4c3db
It's been a while since I read up on this, but I believe that under the Berne
Convention, foreign copyrights of signatories are entitled to the same
protections that each signatory provides to domestic copyrights. In that case,
the applicability depends on whether the recipient, not the copyright owner,
is subject to US jurisdiction.

