
DMCA Copyright Complaint to Google - dbaupp
https://www.chillingeffects.org/notices/10275257#
======
dbaupp
This removes a variety of projects from Google search results, including ones
from Mozilla (specifically, Rust), Facebook, Yahoo, Netflix, openSUSE, as well
as github documentation, e.g.

    
    
      - https://github.com/yahoo/pure
      - https://github.com/rust-lang/cargo
      - https://github.com/openSUSE/wicked
      - https://github.com/Netflix/Lipstick
      - https://github.com/facebook/rebound
      - https://help.github.com/articles/dealing-with-non-fast-forward-errors/
    

(NB. the sender, wickedpictures.com, is NSFW.)

~~~
Natsu
Actually, this was sent by "Takedown Piracy LLC" working on behalf of
Wickedpictures. They file DMCA notices by the truckload according to the
results I get in Chilling Effect's search, so you can safely assume they're a
DMCA notice spammer.

Unfortunately, it does not list the individual lawyer who signed off on this
complaint, or I would be tempted to draft a letter to their local bar
association pointing out how careless they are, as no reasonable person could
mistake Github's documentation for a porno movie.

~~~
akusete
Rule 34.

~~~
frandroid
Oh, commit to me!

~~~
JonnieCache
That doesnt sound very sexy. Surely we should all be forking each other.

------
declan
If you send bogus DMCA takedown notices, and this qualifies as one, there can
be legal consequences. The DMCA requires:

 _" A statement that the information in the notification is accurate, and
under penalty of perjury, that the complaining party is authorized to act on
behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed."_

Whoops! This particular list of "infringing" URLs wasn't actually, well,
accurate. The problem for whoever sent this bogus takedown (Wicked Pictures or
its agent) is that now they can be held liable.

In a case brought by EFF in response to an earlier bogus takedown from
Diebold, a federal judge in California held that Diebold could be "liable for
damages" \-- even though Diebold had by that point withdrawn the takedown
request and promised not to send another.

DMCA 512 section (f) says that someone sending bogus takedowns "shall be
liable for any damages, including costs and attorneys’ fees..." In the Diebold
case, Diebold eventually paid EFF something like $125K in lawyer fees.

Note that this situation probably won't get that far. That's because the DMCA
doesn't require Google or any other provider to comply with bogus takedown
notices. And Google happens to have some smart attorneys (at least one ex-EFF
lawyer, in fact) on its payroll who are well aware of that fact.

~~~
teddyh
> _Note that this situation probably won 't get that far. That's because the
> DMCA doesn't require Google or any other provider to comply with bogus
> takedown notices. And Google happens to have some smart attorneys (at least
> one ex-EFF lawyer, in fact) on its payroll who are well aware of that fact._

Google removed all URLs except 3:

[http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/removals/copyright/...](http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/removals/copyright/domains/github.com/)

In other words, Google is _not_ the EFF.

~~~
magicalist
Considering that they get requests for something like 8 million URLs to be
removed every week, your ire seems a bit misdirected.

Safe harbor has enabled the modern web in many ways, but the DMCA takedown
process is still heavily, heavily weighted toward the claimants.

It looks more like the URLs not taken down were mostly malformed or duplicates
of earlier claims and they took action on the rest. Purposefully not acting on
DMCA complaints due to obviously bogus takedown notices doesn't happen very
often because you generally have to be really sure of what you're doing. Hard
to do that when you have 8 million URLs to sift through to find the
problematic ones.

~~~
teddyh
> _your ire seems a bit misdirected._

Ire? You are misreading my comment. I merely sought to correct the parent
poster’s view that Google would not remove anything partly because they have
lawyers who used to work at the EFF. The fact is that Google _did_ remove
almost everything, and merely employing people who used to work for the EFF
does not cause Google to _be_ the EFF.

------
Doji
This chillingeffects site is quite fascinating. There seem to be a _lot_ of
instances of completely mistaken and reckless DMCA takedowns. Here's a
particularly absurd one:

[https://www.chillingeffects.org/notices/1148744](https://www.chillingeffects.org/notices/1148744)

I'm not sure a single URL in that list is actually infringing. The only thing
they seem to have in common is the name "Adam".

~~~
mcantelon
So one could file a bogus takedown for a competitor's website, etc. Ugh.

~~~
markbao
It's very unlikely that Google would follow through on an obviously wrong
takedown unless if the competitor was actually infringing copyright.

EDIT: Well, yes, they did do that here. My bad. My original point was that
Competitor A submitting a wanton DMCA takedown against Competitor B wouldn't
fly past Google's radar.

~~~
Doji
Unfortunately not every company has Google's ability to manually sift through
every bogus takedown request thrown their way.

~~~
jrochkind1
> _Unfortunately not every company has Google 's ability to manually sift
> through every bogus takedown request thrown their way._

Is there any evidence at all that _Google_ actually manually sifts through
every takedown (or even any takedown), or is everyone just speculating that
they must because they Google?

I have no idea, but if we actually have evidence or public statement from
Google to that effect, I'd be interested. And I definitely wouldn't assume it
without that. But lots of people in these comment threads seem to be doing so
(unless there's some widely known reports or evidence I don't know about?)

------
markbao
Presumably, Takedown Piracy LLC and their client would have to have signed the
Sworn Statements on Google's DMCA page [0]:

    
    
        I have a good faith belief that use of the copyrighted 
        materials described above as allegedly infringing is not 
        authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.
    
        The information in this notification is accurate and I 
        swear, under penalty of perjury, that I am the copyright 
        owner or am authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an 
        exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.
    

Is there any recourse or punishment for falsely submitting a DMCA takedown
request for content that is actually not under their copyright?

[0] [https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/dmca-
notice?rd=1](https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/dmca-notice?rd=1)

~~~
wmil
You actually can take them to court over false notices.

But that takes time and money most projects don't have.

If Github has the cash sitting around they could sick their lawyers on them
for some laughs.

~~~
vpeters25
A lawyer could make quite a bundle by taking these lawsuits on commission,
ambulance chasing / patent troll style.

After securing power of attorney from actual owner, mail form letters
requesting immediate withdrawal of dmca and payment of a "small settlement"
for the damages caused by it.

Heck, maybe the EFF could get a bunch of junior lawyers on this, it would
likely pay by itself.

------
personjerry
How the hell does [https://help.github.com/articles/dealing-with-non-fast-
forwa...](https://help.github.com/articles/dealing-with-non-fast-forward-
errors/) relate to their movies?

Why are they allowed to take down sites so obviously unrelated?

I imagine it's pretty easy to use this sort of takedown in a malicious manner
to remove competitors' sites, surely there is some defense mechanism against
this?

~~~
Natsu
> How the hell does [https://help.github.com/articles/dealing-with-non-fast-
> forwa...](https://help.github.com/articles/dealing-with-non-fast-forwa..).
> relate to their movies?

It doesn't. This outfit, per Chilling Effect's search, pumps out notices by
the hundreds. Most likely they use some script or tool to grab a bunch of URLs
from various Google searches, then dump them into a form letter. I'm not sure
if anyone was supposed to weed out the obviously bogus output, but I think we
can all see that nothing of the sort happened.

They churn these out fast enough that nobody is actually paying any real
attention to what they're doing from what I've seen.

------
lukesandberg
This is most likely due to a script screwing up. A lot of these companies
retain companies that specialize in filing these requests (see:
www.google/com/transparencyreport/removals/copyright/faq/ for some more
details.

My limited understanding is that these companies just use google search apis
to try to find search results matching keywords. Then they file requests for
every matching url. This is how obviously wrong requests show up.

There are also cases where requests appear to be malicious, but there are
really no consequences since you (iirc) have to prove bad faith which is next
to impossible and since everything is being adjudicated via third parties,
there is really no incentive.

~~~
Scaevolus
Proving bad faith or that someone "knowingly materially misrepresents... that
material or activity is infringing" when it's completely automated sounds very
difficult.

~~~
Zancarius
One has to wonder if that's part of the intent.

"Oh, haha, sorry about that. Our automated tool screwed the pooch on that one.
We promise we'll do better next time."

------
bossmojoman
I hear that [https://help.github.com/articles/dealing-with-non-fast-
forwa...](https://help.github.com/articles/dealing-with-non-fast-forward-
errors/) is pretty hot.

~~~
ExpiredLink
hard core - it contains push, pull, fetch and even merge. NSFW!

~~~
Beltiras
Most sexy of all: rebase. You can go back and do things differently the second
time around.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
git push --force is often neglected, but it's rather kinky.

------
click170
Wow, this is awesome, thank you! It would have taken a half hour to come up
with such an extensive list of torrent sites, and here they've done all the
hard work for me! Merry Christmas to me!

Side note - I'm surprised they've included some pages which do not contain
copyrighted work though, they may be exposing themselves on that one.

~~~
kngspook
As I was scrolling through the list, that was my thought too... "Hey, check
out all these porn sites I didn't know about!"

Then I realized their master plan: they're protecting their business model by
(1) making it harder for us to do our work since it's harder for us to find
the software libraries/tools we need, and (2) by providing us with a list of
porn sites they fill up the time we would've otherwise spent coding.

~~~
viraptor
Some are pretty terrible though. At the bottom of the list there's a link to
"the rocki whore picture show". Why would anyone want to create that in the
first place? (apart from satisfying the "there's porn version of it on the
internet" rule)

------
vinhboy
This whole DMCA reporting business is pretty interesting

[http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/removals/copyright/...](http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/removals/copyright/reporters/1620/Takedown-
Piracy-LLC/)

[http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/removals/copyright/...](http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/removals/copyright/reporters/?r=all-
time)

This husband wife team is racking up some huge censorship numbers.

------
contrahax
One of my projects is on this list. #95 -
[https://github.com/wearefractal/glob-
watcher](https://github.com/wearefractal/glob-watcher)

Just a small Javascript module I wrote to power gulpjs
([http://gulpjs.com](http://gulpjs.com)). This system is totally broken.

------
lukesandberg
[http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/removals/copyright/...](http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/removals/copyright/domains/github.com/)

That page shows all the dmca requests to google that target github.com. Wicked
pictures shows up in a number of requests but they are by no means the only
copyright holder issuing requests.

You can click through to the request pages and get links to chilling effects
and it will also tell you which URLs were requested that were _not_ taken
down. ChillingEffects just reports on the requests, not the actions.

~~~
Buge
So Google removed them all except 3? That seems pretty bad.

~~~
intortus
If companies didn't remove targets of takedown requests immediately and
without scrutiny, then user content on the internet would not be able to
exist.

------
ghuntley
Have submitted a counter-complaint (#2-4109000005746) for the following:

# curl
[https://www.chillingeffects.org/notices/10275257](https://www.chillingeffects.org/notices/10275257)
| grep github

    
    
         https://help.github.com/articles/dealing-with-non-fast-forward-errors/
         https://github.com/Zizzamia/ng-tasty
         https://github.com/zen-kernel/zen-kernel
         https://github.com/yahoo/pure/releases/
         https://github.com/yahoo/pure
         https://github.com/YabataDesign/afterglow-theme
         https://github.com/wet-boew/wet-boew
         https://github.com/wearefractal/glob-watcher
         https://github.com/wanderlust/wanderlust
         https://github.com/thombergs/wicked-charts
         https://github.com/Thibauth/python-pushover
         https://github.com/tcnksm/vagrant-pushover
         https://github.com/substack/pushover
         https://github.com/SteveSanderson/knockout-es5
         https://github.com/sps/pushover4j
         https://github.com/sensu/sensu-community-plugins/blob/master/handlers/notification/pushover.rb
         https://github.com/schneems/wicked/wiki/Testing-Wicked-with-RSpec
         https://github.com/schneems/wicked
         https://github.com/satyr/coco
         https://github.com/satyr
         https://github.com/sampsyo/beets/issues/546
         https://github.com/rust-lang/cargo
         https://github.com/rniemeyer/knockout-delegatedEvents
         https://github.com/rniemeyer/knockout-amd-helpers
         https://github.com/qbit/node-pushover
         https://github.com/openSUSE/wicked/issues/432
         https://github.com/openSUSE/wicked
         https://github.com/Nuku/Flexible-Survival/blob/master/Stripes/Candy
         https://github.com/Netflix/Lipstick
         https://github.com/nemomobile/lipstick
         https://github.com/mrmrs/colors
         https://github.com/mirage
         https://github.com/mileszs/wicked_pdf/issues/78
         https://github.com/LubosD/darling
         https://github.com/laprice/pushover
         https://github.com/kryap/php-pushover
         https://github.com/krisselden/broccoli-sane-watcher
         https://github.com/Knockout-Contrib/Knockout-Validation
         https://github.com/knockout/knockout
         https://github.com/knockout
         https://github.com/kirang20/wgxp-java-rosa
         https://github.com/jreese/znc-push/blob/master/doc/pushover.md
         https://github.com/jnwatts/pushover.sh
         https://github.com/jfinkels/flask-restless/
         https://github.com/jasonlewis/resource-watcher
         https://github.com/huxi/lilith
         https://github.com/hannorein/rebound
         https://github.com/gregghz/Watcher
         https://github.com/feuerbach/tasty
         https://github.com/facebook/rebound-js
         https://github.com/facebook/rebound
         https://github.com/erniebrodeur/pushover
         https://github.com/entertailion/Fling/blob/master/README.md
         https://github.com/enkydu/raspi_runner
         https://github.com/dyaa/Laravel-pushover
         https://github.com/danesparza/Pushover.NET
         https://github.com/crazed
         https://github.com/callmenick/css-loaders-spinners-2/tree/master/js
         https://github.com/callmenick/css-loaders-spinners-2
         https://github.com/allure-framework/allure-core
         https://github.com/abrt/satyr
    

Thanks for reaching out to us!

We have received your legal request. We receive many such complaints each day;
your message is in our queue, and we'll get to it as quickly as our workload
permits.

Due to the large volume of requests that we experience, please note that we
will only be able to provide you with a response if we determine your request
may be a valid and actionable legal complaint, and we may respond with
questions or requests for clarification. For more information on Google's
Terms of Service, please visit
[http://www.google.com/accounts/TOS](http://www.google.com/accounts/TOS)

Regards,

The Google Team

~~~
nissehulth
Are they going to accept that counter-complaint, coming from a third party?
(yes, I should probably read up on DMCA procedures)

~~~
ctoshok
GitHub doesn't :( I filed one for the craftbukkit takedown a while back, and
got a polite response saying it has to be the content owner.

------
nathan7
Also among them: [https://github.com/facebook/rebound-
js](https://github.com/facebook/rebound-js)
[https://github.com/facebook/rebound](https://github.com/facebook/rebound)

------
r109
There should be harsh penalties against wrongfully filed DMCA's, did they
Google Search a keyword then blanket filed a ton of URL's?

------
hellbanner
[https://github.com/schneems/wicked/wiki/Testing-Wicked-
with-...](https://github.com/schneems/wicked/wiki/Testing-Wicked-with-RSpec)
was removed.. is Google automating these??

~~~
saraid216
Automating stuff is sort of Google's mantra.

------
lstamour
Nobody's pointed it out, so I'll say I'm really surprised wet-boew was picked
up in all this -- it's from the Government of Canada, and what they've done to
try and advance web accessibility, etc. [http://wet-
boew.github.io/v4.0-ci/index-en.html#about](http://wet-
boew.github.io/v4.0-ci/index-en.html#about)

The name is not ... the greatest, though. Maybe they should have called it
"Boilerplate, eh?" ;)

~~~
calvinr
Yeah we aren't the best at coming up with names, we love acronyms and they
always have to be bilingual.

So Web Experience Toolkit - Boîte à outils de l’expérience Web

I'm pretty sure it was named by a committee.

------
facorreia
Including:

[https://help.github.com/articles/dealing-with-non-fast-
forwa...](https://help.github.com/articles/dealing-with-non-fast-forward-
errors/)

[https://github.com/yahoo/pure](https://github.com/yahoo/pure)

------
rebelde
For the record, I had reported something similar to HN a few months ago about
education.github.com.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7940883](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7940883)
[https://www.chillingeffects.org/notices/1724976](https://www.chillingeffects.org/notices/1724976)

------
damm
Some of the urls in there are clearly unrelated; too bad everyone will have to
counter notice to restore services.

------
DanBC
I'm surprised that one of the disruptive groups has not written a couple of
bots that do mass DMCA takedown across a wide range of providers and content.
Sure, it's illegal but that hasn't stopped them before. It feels like an easy
way to create havoc.

------
bmh_ca
A letter I wrote them (as a collaborator on Knockout, one of the referred-to
repositories):

[https://github.com/knockout/knockout/issues/1674#issuecommen...](https://github.com/knockout/knockout/issues/1674#issuecomment-69030783)

------
bvanslyke
Wow, I'm not familiar with this film studio, but this is a terrible move on
their part. I don't go to the movies much anyway, but I'm gonna try to avoid
paying for any of their films, and I urge everyone who cares about an open
internet to do the same.

~~~
chris_wot
These movies don't get released to the cinemas. Well, not NORMAL cinemas :)

------
Beltiras
Here's the counter to the DMCA (as it relates to Google Search): Browser app
which parses the linked DMCA complaint and lists the probable URLs in the
complaint, related to the search being performed.

------
tdaltonc
Google's legal department might be a fun place for a machine learning expert
to spend some time teaching machines to detect bogus DMCA takedowns.

------
kbart
Is there any tool to put back URLs from chillingeffects.org back to Google
search results? Should not be that hard to make one (i.e. Firefox plugin).

~~~
leni536
The problem is that you lose ranking information. These are just a bunch of
URLs unsorted (or maybe lexicographically sorted) in a file. It would be quite
hard to seamlessly include the URLs.

AFAIK ddg does not take down search results based on DMCA notices but I'm not
sure about that.

------
bartosaurus
Someone should write a script to just DMCA anyone that trolls legitimate
projects and use the rules against these asshats.

------
crazysim
I posted this in #rust because I was having trouble with rustc and targets.
Thanks for posting this!

~~~
crazysim
I must say though. This was unnoticed for a week if I first reported this!

[https://botbot.me/mozilla/rust/2015-01-07/?msg=28933399&page...](https://botbot.me/mozilla/rust/2015-01-07/?msg=28933399&page=3)

~~~
kibwen
Thanks for reporting it! The proper Mozilla folk seem to be taking action at
this point.

------
beedogs
Why on earth do search engines even respond to DMCA complaints? This is
madness.

~~~
caractacus
Because it's the law?

------
lechevalierd3on
Why do we even waste time and effort for just porn...

~~~
chrismcb
Because money.

------
nailer
May be NSFW, depending on your workplace.

~~~
TranquilMarmot
I almost looked up `Wicked Pictures` while at work, but (thankfully) stopped
once I read a few of those URLs and realized... yeah, that's not something I
want to be going to at work.

------
anon4
It's getting to the point where you can just scrape chillingeffects.org to
find all the hottest torrent sites hosting actual content.

