
Dropbox DMCA takedown on personal folders - ayi
https://twitter.com/darrellwhitelaw/status/450096476060794880/photo/1
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jlgaddis
Looks like the OP was asked a few times if the files were shared publicly or
not. I think that's the key piece of information about this.

If it was copyrighted material that he shared/linked to publicly, then it
makes sense. If, however, it was private files that he hadn't shared with
anyone else, well, then this is a _HUGE_ deal.

~~~
pyvek
Yes, it looks like OP isn't presenting the whole story. The DMCA filing party
would have to provide the URL (of the public/shared folder) containing the
copyrighted material to dropbox for takedown. I don't think they can just
request dropbox to scan private folders to check for copyrighted content.

~~~
makomk
They'd have to provide the URL of _some_ public folder containing the
copyrighted material, but that's probably sufficient to get every identical
file taken down including ones in private folders.

~~~
pyvek
Yes it is sufficient and doable but the question is will dropbox do it? How
will they even identify whether I own or have the license to use the files I
have in my private folder. If I just keep my purchased ebooks in a dropbox
(private) folder and a public folder (belonging to someone else) containing
some of the same ebooks are flagged, why should I be affected?

~~~
makomk
If they don't want to meet the same fate as MegaUpload, Dropbox are certainly
going to take down all copies.

~~~
userbinator
In other words, you can't use Dropbox for any copyrighted content, even that
which you _own_ and are just storing there _privately_?

That doesn't even make sense... but then again, much of copyright law doesn't
either.

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zokier
Dropbox help explicitly refers only to shared files/public links wrt copyright
policy:
[https://www.dropbox.com/help/210/en](https://www.dropbox.com/help/210/en)

edit: on further reading of his tweets, it appears that he shared link to the
file with another person. So while Dropbox might be overstepping a bit, imho
it seems that their action was justified (assuming that the DMCA complaint was
originally justified).

edit2: Dropbox response
[https://twitter.com/dropbox_support/statuses/450176566375366...](https://twitter.com/dropbox_support/statuses/450176566375366656)

~~~
brownbat
@dropbox_support claims content removed under DMCA only affects share-links.

@darrellwhitelaw replies that's what he meant, only sharing is disabled.

Good find, that clarifies a lot.

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jstanley
One possibility is that Dropbox deduplicate files (they almost certainly do),
and somebody else had a public copy of the same file, and that was given a
DMCA takedown, which now also applies to his copy since it's the same file
even though it's private.

~~~
bashcoder
I should hope it doesn't work that way, because under section 117 of the
Copyright Act I'm allowed to keep an archival copy. [0]

[0] [http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-
digital.html](http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-digital.html)

~~~
vpeters25
There is nothing in dropbox's message suggesting he cannot upload or access
archival copies. It says they got a dmca notice so they disabled sharing on
some of them.

This is either a bug on dropbox where the message shows to anyone having some
flagged file(s), or he was sharing copyrighted content and conveniently
emptied the folder before taking the screen capture to paint dropbox in a
worse light.

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radley
It's important to note: once you add a link it can happen at any time.
Removing the link doesn't fix it (i.e. deleting & creating a new folder). The
folder path/name is permanently flagged and thus unusable even for personal
content.

------
khc
I randomly ran into someone working for the movie association in Hong Kong and
he told me that they regularly scan forums looking for links to copyrighted
materials. From time to time they do find links to Dropbox and Google Drive,
and they send takedown notices when that happens.

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ElDiablo666
Even if this isn't as nefarious as the title suggests, it's still an excellent
reason to drop dropbox. Have you tried owncloud? That's what I use and it's
perfect for escaping stuff like this as well as dropbox's new criminal terms
of service. Just in case there's anyone who doesn't know, dropbox recently
changed its terms of service to circumvent consumer protection laws by
requiring its users to forego common rights under the law, a common tactic
traitors are using these days (Microsoft also did that on Xbox live for
example). So please take the opportunity to learn about owncloud and ditch
dropbox as soon as possible.

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cmsmith
The text of the warning says:

"Certain files in this folder cannot be shared due to a takedown request with
the DMCA"

I interpret that as he has some copyrighted files in his private folder which
he is trying to make shared/public. Perhaps dropbox has previously gotten a
takedown request for those files (when shared by some other user), and to
comply with the request is preventing anyone else from sharing the files in
the future.

~~~
rrouse
That's not how DMCA works. That's how some of the bigger copyright
organizations (RIAA for example) want it to work.

Besides, what might be copyright infringement to one user might be legitimate
usage to another. For example, you might have an illegal copy of an ebook in
your folder, but I have the same copy, but mine was paid for. Should I lose
access to mine? OReilly books don't have DRM, so it's possible it could
happen.

~~~
zokier
> Besides, what might be copyright infringement to one user might be
> legitimate usage to another

While technically true, I think it is very rare that a file is DMCAd for one
user while another is _sharing_ it legitimately. Rare enough that a trip to
customer service is warranted.

> For example, you might have an illegal copy of an ebook in your folder, but
> I have the same copy, but mine was paid for. Should I lose access to mine?

Note that the discussion here revolves around sharing, not having personal
access. So while you should (and would with Dropboxs current system) retain
your own access to the files, you shouldn't be able to share it, which seems
reasonable to me.

~~~
ajross
Again, that's not the structure of the law. The DMCA requires that a takedown
notice specify the specific content. Both the data itself and the usage have
to be identified, there's no notion in the law of forbidding access to
specific "files" by their data alone.

~~~
zokier
Yes, Dropbox is working pre-emptively on their own initiative here.

The message is quite cleverly constructed, as it doesn't actually say that
there is a DMCA takedown request against the file (because there isn't). It
just says that there has been a takedown request sometime, possibly(probably)
against some other file/url.

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dsirijus
Here's a hacking opportunity - obfuscate files prior to Dropbox sync so they
fail at their duplicate detection.

~~~
camus2
no need for obfuscation.

Respect Dropbox TOS and your files will not be deleted.

Share some copyrighted material and deal with the consequences.

By the way you can encrypt files before sending them to the cloud, but in
order to share them with a third party you'd have to give your keys, which
makes little sense.

~~~
jschmitz28
Makes perfect sense to me if you don't trust your host not to report you. Keys
are small enough to just send in a private chat rather than hosted alongside
the encrypted file.

~~~
holyjaw
> if you don't trust your host not to report you

Don't do illegal shit on Dropbox; problem solved.

~~~
nitrogen
Laws are numerous and vary from place to place. Such simplistic advice can
never capture the nuances of every "right" decision everywhere.

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brownbat
It may be time to add a TrueCrypt volume to Dropbox...

~~~
dewiz
how would you avoid having the entire volume file being uploaded/downloaded
when you are just browsing it (access time changing) or changing just a small
file ?

let's say you have a TC volume of 5GB that contains your personal notes in txt
files. You edit one txt file and Dropbox will have to synchronize 5GB of data.

I prefer encrypting files one by one, e.g. using Cloudfogger.

~~~
oakwhiz
IIRC, the delta between two slightly different copies of the same TC container
is not the same size as the entire container. I'm actually not sure that TC is
designed to be used this way, since it gives away information about what is
being changed, when, and how much.

