Probably not. The DMCA provides remedies for notices filed in bad faith, but it'd be hard to prove the music group was acting maliciously rather than stupidly.
E.g. "Even if EFF could show that Universal Music acted recklessly or with negligence—that wouldn't be enough."
That sounds like an incentive for these companies to file deliberately nonsensical DMCA complaints, so that they'll always be able to disguise malice as incompetence.
Kind of sounds like some script hashed a "download" icon that's commonly used, and submitted a DMCA takedown claim. Or something along those lines.
It's time for some teeth to be added to the DMCA to prevent abuses like this, at a minimum there should be penalties for obviously fraudulent claims like this one.
Exactly. If I write a script to find and download open source files available via BitTorrent and my script has a flaw in it that causes me to accidentally download copyrighted material can I just say, "Oops! Faulty script."? Not a chance. I'll still get sued and told that I am responsible for what my script does even if it was unintentional. Why then do copyright holders get a pass for their allegedly faulty scripts where they falsely claim under penalty of perjury that they own something they don't actually own?
> Why then do copyright holders get a pass for their allegedly faulty scripts where they falsely claim under penalty of perjury that they own something they don't actually own
Among other reasons, because they don't make such a claim under penalty of perjury. The only thing 17 USC 512 actually requires to be "under penalty of perjury" is the statement that you are acting on behalf of a copyright holder. Nothing else in the notice, including the list of alleged infringements, is part of that statement.
You seem to be parroting the unproven legal arguments of one of the parties to a DMCA lawsuit. The statute is fairly clear in what is required:
(vi) 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.
So if I send a DMCA takedown notice, I am stating under penalty of perjury that I have the right to submit the DMCA takedown for the property allegedly being infringed. It is quite clear. So if you send a DMCA takedown notice for something you don't have the right to - but claim you do - you have committed perjury.
I'm sure it's been said before and I'm sure it'll be said again, but there need to be punative measures. Automatic submissions like this that waste service providers' and uploaders' time and while it might not be malicious, if you file legally binding papers on somebody (like a DMCA) you should have your costs covered if it turns out to be bull.
Even an automatic $100 fine per 10 URLs per domain would stop idiots crap like this, and fairly remunerate Google for going through it.
If I'm reading this[1] correctly, these might be proxied DMCA submissions. Total Wipes Music Group sells software:
Total Wipes Anti Piracy is a complete anti-piracy system that allows to you
complete control to view, automate and remove illegal contents across
cyberlocker, torrents, vk.com, filestube.com and illegal streaming sites
whilst searching for your content across over 5 Billion piracy webpages
24/7. Our carefully own created script uses the info you provide to deeply
scan a vast range of IP networks, search engines, social sites, and other
infringing locations for illegal instances of your content. Following a
large group of data, our internal spider's scripts identify all links
as valid or not, beginning the removal process. A consistently action
of removing illegal instances of your content from all platforms drives higher
sales. Protecting your content from illegal and unauthorized use puts
copyright control back into your hands.
They are claiming that those URLs violate their copyright interest in some obscure music album. This is obviously an erroneous DMCA claim, filed either maliciously or by mistake.
These kind of things are often due to overly broad or malfunctioning algorithms. Maybe some algorithm just picked up a list of links ending in "download"?
Even if that's a mistake, it looks like gross negligence. These URLs aren't even tangentially related to music.
The DMCA states it is criminal to send false takedown requests, excusing from mistakes. However "Whoops, I sent a takedown for nothing but open source software!" is not a mistake. It is negligence in writing scripts or a human review process that avoids false takedown requests. If the city "mistakenly forgets" to repair the brakes on its busses, injuring dozens of people, they would of course be liable for the damages.
Sue schmue, they filed that form stating they owned the rights to the listed items under penalty of perjury. This is no joke, they should be criminally prosecuted.
As I understand it, they claim "under penalty of perjury" only that they own their original work; the claim that the links given actually infringe said work has no such penalty.
My understanding of the logic: It should be relatively easy to tell whether you hold the copyright in a work, unless weird things have happened (see also: SCO). Working out whether a second work is derivative, and if so whether that's fair use? Harder, and the job of a court. That's why it's also really easy to get work re-instated under the DMCA -- at that point, the DMCA has done its bit, failed, and the regular court system takes over.
I'm also curious about this. If there is no downside of filing a false DMCA complaint then what prevents someone from causing the receiver a ton of unnecessary work?
https://www.google.com/transparencyreport/removals/copyright...