

Movie Studios Ask Google To Censor Their Own Films, Facebook and Wikipedia - derpenxyne
http://torrentfreak.com/movie-studios-ask-google-to-censor-their-own-films-facebook-and-wikipedia-121203/

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aroberge
I wish Google would use a strategy that a former colleague used in an upper
year Physics course. While encouraging students to discuss problems, he
informed them that plagiarizing assignments was not allowed. When he got the
first assignment, he noticed that the solution handed in by one of the top
students in the department was identical to the one handed in by a much weaker
student. So, he gave zero to the top student and full marks to the weaker
student. (It should be noted that the contribution of each assignment towards
the final grade was likely less than 2%). As he expected, the student who got
zero went to see him. My colleague told him that he had no foolproof way to
show that it was the other student that plagiarized the assignment and that
the best method to prevent another zero being given was to not allow other
students to plagiarize his assignment - if indeed this is what had happened.
This solved the problem for that year ... and for many years after as word got
around.

So... I wish Google would selectively remove links that are clearly submitted
erroneously (claiming that, since the studios own these sites, no third party
is claiming fair use) whereas preventing links where fair use appear clearly
reasonable (such as wikipedia and reviews from news outlets) from being
removed.

~~~
tomjen3
I very much doubt that that actually happened. It seems more likely to be a
story created to scare people.

But it seems that the problem here is that google accepts DMCA requests that
are not signed by an individiual but mass produced by a computer. That really
shouldn't be allowed and I don't know why it is (what other legal documents
are mass produced by a computer with no human oversight? Deeds? wills? power
of atterny? Didn't think so).

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mikeash
I'm curious, why do you doubt that it happened? Nothing in the story strikes
me as at all implausible.

~~~
tomjen3
An unnamed friend did something that would a) be blatantly unfair and b) he
knew would have been the subject of a complaint.

~~~
mikeash
Doesn't seem terribly unfair, but in any case I don't see why this person
would necessarily would care. As for the complaint, what's he going to
complain about, that he got a zero for letting somebody cheat off him? Not a
complaint worth worrying about.

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pemulis
> _The company appears to present itself as a DMCA remover on the website
> yesitis.org but lists no address. Considering the many mistakes made by the
> firm, one has to wonder whether their “under penalty of perjury” statement
> that they represent the copyright holders above is accurate._

I think this has to be a prank. The website was generated with a GoDaddy
website builder, filled with laughable plagiarized boilerplate, and doesn't
include any information that would identify a particular company. All of the
photos are stock photos. They include 'Adoption' and 'Personal Injury' under
their list of services. I think someone is seeing if they can get Google to
take down obviously legitimate websites when an obviously illegitimate source
asks them to.

~~~
JagMicker
I just checked YesItIs.org, and it now appears that the domain is parked and
the website inaccessible. Can anyone say, "hit & run"?

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DanBC
Strictly obeying someone's instructions is a well known technique for
sabotage.

Google really should just comply with any validly formed DMCA request they're
given, but put information links about that fact. (Which they do, to "chilling
effects".)

And someone really needs to start tackling blatantly false requests too.

Google has already taken big steps to please copyright holders. Their
detection stuff is remarkable.

~~~
mindcrime
_Strictly obeying someone's instructions is a well known technique for
sabotage._

Indeed. Rumor has it that American Airlines pilots have recently been engaging
in a similar strategy in order to put pressure on AMR management. Apparently
they simply follow the rulebook to the "t", phoning in maintenance requests
for the most minor nit-picky problems, following every procedure in
excruciating detail, etc., with a net result of causing American's "on time
percentage" to drop precipitously as flights are routinely delayed.

~~~
_delirium
This is partly a symptom of poor rules imo. American wants to have two things
at once: 1) a bunch of very detailed CYA safety rules; but 2) not to take the
financial hit that would be needed to actually implement those rules
faithfully as written. This works so long as employees are willing to turn a
blind eye to the rules, treating them as the not-really-intended-to-be-
enforced CYA rules that they are, but runs into trouble once someone takes
them seriously.

The solution, not that likely to happen, would not be to write rules that you
don't intend to budget the staff/time to actually follow as written.

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anigbrowl
_Interestingly enough, they above examples were all sent by an outfit called
“Yes It Is – No Piracy!” which we’ve never heard of before._

Didn't stop you attributing the behavior to the rightsholders in the headline
and most of the article, though, even though there's no way of knowing whether
they were actually involved.

~~~
shinratdr
You expected more due diligence from TorrentFreak?

If so, that's a game you just can't win.

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rasur
I sometimes get the feeling that the movie studios could be outsmarted by a
box of rocks. This example doesn't really do much to change my mind.

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bradleyjg
Google should comply. If the rightsholders want to give their titles the
internet death penalty who are we to argue?

~~~
sjbach
That punishes users of Google search who want to find these titles.

~~~
mtgx
That's okay. Google can just show them the torrent links instead, which
"normally" should appear in search results, but Google has been trying to
downrank them more and more lately.

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belorn
The solution should be pretty simple. Apply same damages rules currently used
in IP infringement for any false claim that tries to apply ownership over
someone else work.

So if a false DMCA is made over a news article or review, then who ever did it
will have to pay damages as if he took exclusive ownership over the news
article, and thus pay what ever the sell price is for complete transfer of
copyright. If buying complete exclusive rights to a news article cost say, $1
mil, than that's the damages to be payed.

After all, that would just follow the same concept being pursued in court
cases by the same companies filing those false DMCA's.

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w1ntermute
Google should just completely censor all MAFIAA content. Let's see how long it
takes for these fuckers to back down. One week? Two weeks? I bet they'll never
submit another DMCA complaint agian, legit or not.

~~~
Karunamon
As nice as the message would be (We don't need your content; get bent;
kthxbai), Google is never going to do it. Part of their business is predicated
on MafiAA content (movie and music store) and it would be suicidal for them to
toss that.

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drivebyacct2
This is just a whole other level of stupid that I would have never even
thought possible.

