Netflix and Amazon send DMCA takedown requests for legal websites

[Alfonso Maruccia]

In context: Takedown requests are one of the most well-known results of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The US law designed to protect copyright and DRM online is routinely (ab)used by lawyers and giant corporation to squash pirates, but sometimes the entire process can bring harm to perfectly legal services.

The whole DMCA takedown process is mostly automated now, as law firms can send millions of removal requests per day to Google and other search engines. The idea behind a takedown request is to get a search engine to remove infringing URLs so users won't be able to find and access the corresponding pirated content as easily.

That's the theory, at least. In practice, things can go awry in very unexpected ways. Together with URLs pointing to clearly illegal sites and pirate contents, lawyers often send removal requests for perfectly legal websites. That's exactly what happened in recent cases involving Netflix, Amazon, and streaming search engine Reelgood.

Reelgood lets users browse, search, and watch films and TV shows from over 150 different services in the US and UK, providing a convenient way to aggregate content search. Reelgood doesn't promote any pirate activity, and yet it was targeted as such.

As reported by TorrentFreak, anti-piracy company Marketly – which deals in takedown requests for many "reputable" sources – recently sent two new copyright complaints to Google. The first complaint is on behalf of Netflix, while the second one is for Amazon. The complaints mostly target unlicensed streaming sites, but there are two Reelgood URLs thrown in the mix as well.

Google has removed the seemingly infringing URLs, so that a web search about the two (legal) links won't provide any result. As Mountain View's own transparency report highlights, in the past few years the reelgood.com domain has been target several times with takedown requests from Netflix, Horrid Henry, and other prominent copyright holders.

When it comes to content search through the increasingly complex (and expensive) streaming business, Reelgood is one of the few legal alternatives available on the market. Targeting the service for copyright infringement, even by mistake, would be counterproductive for those same legal streaming companies as users would be pushed to go the pirate way.

A potential alternative suggested by TorrentFreak would be a whitelist with legal websites and search engines, so that Reelgood and other legit companies could be exempted from suffering the DMCA takedown scourge once and for all.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/99118-netflix-amazon-send-dmca-takedown-requests-legal-websites.html

 

[human7]

The DMCA should be amended to put the burden of proof on the entity issuing the takedown notice before any action is required on the part of the hosting platform. Copyright infringement is a problem, but intellectual property rights abuse such as this (and patent trolls) are a greater problem.

 

[Codemeblackholee]

It's meant to protect copyrights online, but sometimes it's like a bull in a china shop, causing harm to legit services. Lawyers and big corps go wild, bombarding search engines with removal requests. Now, here's the kicker: they end up targeting perfectly legal sites like Reelgood, a handy platform that helps you browse and watch legit films and shows. Talk about a major misfire! We need a better solution, like a legit whitelist that exempts the good guys from this DMCA madness once and for all.

 

[Burty117]

It's meant to protect copyrights online, but sometimes it's like a bull in a china shop, causing harm to legit services. Lawyers and big corps go wild, bombarding search engines with removal requests. Now, here's the kicker: they end up targeting perfectly legal sites like Reelgood, a handy platform that helps you browse and watch legit films and shows. Talk about a major misfire! We need a better solution, like a legit whitelist that exempts the good guys from this DMCA madness once and for all.

A "legit whitelist" will get abused just as the system is right now. The real fix is as @human7 said above, the burden of proof should be put on the entity issuing the takedown. Then they have to spend the time proving their case which, in this case, would show Reelgood hadn't done anything and doesn't host any content.

 

[wiyosaya]

IMO, part of the problem is that this process (of sending take-down notices) is entirely automated with no human oversight.

 

[Twobits]

IMO, part of the problem is that this process (of sending take-down notices) is entirely automated with no human oversight.

Since part of the requirements for a dmca notice are swearing under risk of perjury that what is being stated as true, I doubt an entirely automated notice is technically legal. In addition the penalty for making false dmca statements needs to be enforced and substantial and not curable simple by rescinding the notice.

 

[hwertz]

There is a penalty clause for making false DMCA statements. It's just that nobody invokes this clause (since most people are not aware the penalty clause exists) so the penalties are never invoked. Please, if this happens to you, look up your rights!

 

[Shaitan]

This is why I'll NEVER pay for anything from Netflix or Amazon. And happily pirate stuff for as long as I can.

 

[Burty117]

Since part of the requirements for a dmca notice are swearing under risk of perjury that what is being stated as true, I doubt an entirely automated notice is technically legal. In addition the penalty for making false dmca statements needs to be enforced and substantial and not curable simple by rescinding the notice.

Yet it absolutely happens, all the time. You can find YouTube channels, Twitch streamers and all sorts getting taken down automatically everyday and usually falsely. Comes in waves as well, another company targeting something has caused X amount of channels to be closed etc...

There is a penalty clause for making false DMCA statements. It's just that nobody invokes this clause (since most people are not aware the penalty clause exists) so the penalties are never invoked. Please, if this happens to you, look up your rights!

As far as I can tell, no one has ever even been criminally prosecuted for sending false DMCA notices, let alone convicted. In fact, as far as I can tell, no one has ever been prosecuted for false copyright claims under any other laws, either. It's a bit difficult to find an authoritative reference stating something has never happened, and the best I found was the Wikipedia article on Copyfraud, which cites Fishman, Stephen. The Public Domain, Nolo (2006), pp. 24–29 for the proposition that (presumably as of 2006), "[n]o company has ever been prosecuted for violating" a related law on false claims of copyright. Obviously, that's not a great source, due to the date, not having access to the original text, and the fact that it's not quite the same law. I also tried quite a number of search terms on Google and found no criminal prosecutions there, either.

 

[zulu53]

Since part of the requirements for a dmca notice are swearing under risk of perjury that what is being stated as true, I doubt an entirely automated notice is technically legal. In addition the penalty for making false dmca statements needs to be enforced and substantial and not curable simple by rescinding the notice.

"not technically legal" is exactly why the author put in the "(ab)" in the article. Lawyers are "(ab)using" the DCMA system. Not that this (ab)use of the law is not practiced for all other laws on the book. There is a reason for the phrase "he/she got convicted (or not convicted) on a technicality". Its a modus operandi used by many many in the self-called legal "profession". The lawyers of Google and Netflix are clearly part of that group. Their is no way that this can be corrected except through the court of public opinion. Name and blame Google and Netflix lawyers in the media and take your complaints to your elected officials.

 

[dmatheson]

I don't understand WHY all of your ire is directed at the content owners. Why doesn't youtube have to do any policing itself? Many sites make a lot of money off of pirated content BEFORE they have to take it down. That's stealing. People who wouldn't steal a stick of gum from a drugstore seem to find nothing wrong with stealing from content creators. It hurts artists. YES these are giant evil corporations duking it out for dollars but 99.9% of the people who create that content are low and very moderately paid artists. When the content gets pirated it hurts us too. I think, as an artist, you should be able to register your content with a place like youtube or google and say no one but me has permission to post more than 5 sec. (or some arbitrary parameters) of this content. Because little independent artists, like me, don't have big bad lawyers and automated web crawling programs to protect our content, it just gets swiped left and right by everyone with no consequences. I hold my nose and root for the Disneys and Sonys out there because at least they're fighting on my side. Without them there would be no legal protections. They pay of the legislators (I think they like to call it lobbying but a spade is a spade) to at least make the laws theoretically protect my work but I don't think I should have to go out and police it myself because, how can I? These programs are doing what law enforcement really should.