Comcast Subscriber Receives DMCA Notice For Downloading Ubuntu (torrentfreak.com) 130
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: Every day, people who download and share pirated content receive DMCA notices via their ISPs, warning them to cease and desist their infringing behavior. While the majority of these notices are accurate, one Ubuntu user says he has just been targeted by an anti-piracy company alleging that by torrenting an OS ISO released by Ubuntu itself, he breached copyright law. Posting to Reddit's /r/linux sub-Reddit, a forum with more than 656K subscribers, 'NateNate60' reported the unthinkable. After downloading an official Ubuntu ISO package (filename ubuntu-20.04.2.0-desktop-amd64.iso) he says he received a notice from Comcast's Infinity claiming that he'd been reported for copyright infringement.
"We have received a notification by a copyright owner, or its authorized agent, reporting an alleged infringement of one or more copyrighted works made on or over your Xfinity Internet service," the posted notice reads. NateNate60 wisely redacted the notice to remove the 'Incident Number' and the precise time of the alleged infringement to protect his privacy but the clam was reported filed with Comcast on May 24, 2021. "The copyright owner has identified the IP address associated with your Xfinity Internet account at the time as the source of the infringing works," it continues, adding that NateNate60 should search all of his devices connected to his network and delete the files mentioned in the complaint.
The allegedly infringing content is the 64-bit Ubuntu 20.04.2.0 LTS release but the first big question is whether the file is actually the official release from Canonical. Given that the listed hash value is 4ba4fbf7231a3a660e86892707d25c135533a16a and that matches the hash of the official release, mislabeled or misidentified content (wrong hash, mislabeled file etc) appears to be ruled out. Indeed, the same hash value is listed on Ubuntu's very own BitTorrent tracker and according to NateNate60, this is where he downloaded the torrent that led to the DMCA notice. It doesn't get much more official than that. According to the DMCA notice sent by Comcast, the complainant wasn't Ubuntu/Canonical but an anti-piracy company called OpSec Security, which according to its imprint is based in Germany. Presuming the notice is genuine (albeit sent in error), Comcast needs to be informed that mistakes have been made. The ISP has a repeat infringer policy and given the current hostile environment, terminating users is certainly on the agenda. Indeed, the notice states just that.
"We have received a notification by a copyright owner, or its authorized agent, reporting an alleged infringement of one or more copyrighted works made on or over your Xfinity Internet service," the posted notice reads. NateNate60 wisely redacted the notice to remove the 'Incident Number' and the precise time of the alleged infringement to protect his privacy but the clam was reported filed with Comcast on May 24, 2021. "The copyright owner has identified the IP address associated with your Xfinity Internet account at the time as the source of the infringing works," it continues, adding that NateNate60 should search all of his devices connected to his network and delete the files mentioned in the complaint.
The allegedly infringing content is the 64-bit Ubuntu 20.04.2.0 LTS release but the first big question is whether the file is actually the official release from Canonical. Given that the listed hash value is 4ba4fbf7231a3a660e86892707d25c135533a16a and that matches the hash of the official release, mislabeled or misidentified content (wrong hash, mislabeled file etc) appears to be ruled out. Indeed, the same hash value is listed on Ubuntu's very own BitTorrent tracker and according to NateNate60, this is where he downloaded the torrent that led to the DMCA notice. It doesn't get much more official than that. According to the DMCA notice sent by Comcast, the complainant wasn't Ubuntu/Canonical but an anti-piracy company called OpSec Security, which according to its imprint is based in Germany. Presuming the notice is genuine (albeit sent in error), Comcast needs to be informed that mistakes have been made. The ISP has a repeat infringer policy and given the current hostile environment, terminating users is certainly on the agenda. Indeed, the notice states just that.
Perjury? (Score:5, Interesting)
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No, they're not telling it under oath to a court. And it's not a DMCA notice. It's up to Comcast to put OpSec Security on a "three strikes, you're out" plan.
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It says it's a DMCA takedown notice. Whether or not it meets all the legal requirements to be one is impossible to determine, since the actual DMCA notice, if it was one, was sent to Comcast, not to the user. But it certainly wants to be taken as one
Re:Perjury? (Score:5, Interesting)
>Isn't it perjury... No, they're not telling it under oath to a court
Unfortunately, that is the case (ie. they can't get into trouble this way).
However, I wonder if the user could sue them for defemation/slander (can't remember which applies), given that they've basically gone through official channels to claim the user has committed a crime, even though he clearly has not.
Re: Perjury? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re: Perjury? (Score:3)
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This exactly. This is why you need to use a VPN that makes you look like your are at least in another country, for every torrent. Even if you are using it for strictly legal activity. The people send out these notices don't care if you are using bittorrent to download Linux ISOs. They see the bittorrent network as nothing but a huge copyright violation. They want to bring down the whole network; they just push a button and cackle.
Re: Perjury? (Score:5, Informative)
The DMCA says that it is perjury if you file a takedown notice wrongfully claiming to be the copyright owner, or their representative, of the work.
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The DMCA says that it is perjury if you file a takedown notice wrongfully claiming to be the copyright owner, or their representative, of the work.
I think the "stay of of jail" card they use is that they state that they're acting on the 'good faith belief' that infringement has occurred, which still puts the onus on the ISP and the person they're attacking (yes, attacking) to prove otherwise to dismiss it, and none of it on them. (Otherwise, there wouldn't be such stupid cases of this happening.)
Essentially, a DMCA takedown is a rubberstamp for corporations to accuse anyone they choose of infringement to keep their status quo.
Re:Perjury? (Score:5, Informative)
Whether it is perjury or not has nothing to do whether it is as statement given before the court and everything to do whether there is a legal obligation to be truthful in your statement, which there does not appear to be for DMCA takedowns. There's a curious asymmetry in the language describing the obligations of the parties giving a DMCA take down notice and parties filing counter-notices:
From 17 US Code 512 [cornell.edu], the party giving notice provides:
but the party giving a counter-notice provides:
Note the different wording. On the face of it, it appears the party giving notice commits perjury only if it falsely claims to be authorized by the owner, not if it makes other lies in its statement. The party filing a counter-notice commits perjury if it makes any false statements. I can't find any instances of anyone facing criminal charges for filing a false takedown. There are *civil* cases though claiming damages from fraudulent takedowns.
This law appears designed to protect the rich and only the rich. Anyone who is the victim of a crime can refer the crime to authorities, but seeking civil damages can take millions of dollars.
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Nope. You stopped short. It's "the owner of an exclusive right". If they're giving notice for someone who is not the exclusive owner (as would be the case here if an actual notice was filed) it's perjurious. It's not the "believed owner", or the "in-good-faith owner", they have to be authorized by _the owner._
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No, they aren't claiming ownership. These copyright firms don't claim ownership of any of the content they monitor and report. Sounds more like a disgruntled employee of the German firm decided to do it for the lulz more than anything.
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No, they aren't claiming ownership.
Seems to me like they are either claiming ownership or that they are authorized to represent the owners:
"We have received a notification by a copyright owner, or its authorized agent..."
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They claim that they are authorized by the copyright holder according the 17 USC 512
Re: Perjury? (Score:2)
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ti's more than that: as we learned with the youtube-dl fiasco, it's a criminal offense under the U.S. DMCA to make misrepresentations.
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Two scenarios:
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It's also while laws should never allow third parties to sue on behalf of others. We don't need misguided buttinskies trying to do their good deeds in error. And yet, sounds a lot like a current state law allowing third partie sto sue where the state itself is prevented from doing so...
Re:Could be a game clone (Score:5, Insightful)
A real DMCA takedown notice has to be pretty specific as to what the infringement is.
Re:Could be a game clone (Score:5, Insightful)
A real DMCA takedown notice has to be pretty specific as to what the infringement is.
No, it is *SUPPOSED* to be specific. But if it isn't, there is no penalty. Just as there is no penalty for filing false DMCA claims. That is why the DMCA is widely abused.
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Yep. You don't have to state under penalty of perjury that you believe that the content infringes any particular copyright — only that you are the owner of the copyright that someone [not necessarily you] alleges is infringed by that content or are authorized to represent the owner of that copyright.
Ostensibly, this means it would be lawful for me, as the owner of copyright on various pieces of HTML, to programmatically file frivolous takedown notices on every page on the Warner Music Group website,
Re:Could be a game clone (Score:4, Insightful)
More to the point, if enough activists did things like that, perhaps those companies would rethink their use of entirely software-based Content ID systems (with no humans in the review loop) that currently are constantly flagging classical music ensembles for "infringing" on their recordings of random pieces of music composed two centuries ago. Heck, maybe it might even be enough to convince them to fix that "under penalty of perjury" clause to work the way it should.
To repeat, with coarse language for emphasis: So why fucking aren't you?
Because that sort of activism is a better fit for college kids who have actual free time and who don't have enough assets to be worth suing. By the time you're my age, the cost-risk-reward balance makes it problematic at best.
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ISPs will just refuse all requests except from those who have paid a nominal fee to register as an approved DMCA watchdog. To fix it you need to get congress involved, which means getting rid of all the IP lovers in there.
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And this is what needs to change.
I would suggest that any DMCA notice which does not specifically identify what the alleged infringed work is and the copyright holder of said work should be automatically deemed invalid, and that repeated filing of false DMCA claims should have harsh criminal (not civil) penalties.
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No, it is *SUPPOSED* to be specific. But if it isn't, there is no penalty. Just as there is no penalty for filing false DMCA claims. That is why the DMCA is widely abused.
There is no penalty for enacting unconstitutional laws either, which is why it’s done relatively often. We only penalize that which we try to inhibit.
but they dont't ask for real dmca notices (Score:2)
like on youtube, the dmca complaints aren't actual dmca notifications so there's not penalties.
the companies should simply demand to get actual dmca notifications. but they don't want to deal with the overhead.
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Still purjury. Their ownership of a similar game does not confer ownership to the game on the Ubuntu distro.
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If that was their complaint, they would have to take up legal issues with Ubuntu corporation. You can't file DMCAs against people for downloading patches from Microsoft.com, just because someone has an ongoing legal dispute with Microsoft.
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The hashes agree with the official version.
Re:Could be a game clone (Score:5, Insightful)
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...since most ISPs have a monopoly/duopoly in their area...
I'm irritated and annoyed at this statement because I hear it far too often, and yet I can't even comprehend it, much less relate. I probably have half a dozen choices in my area. Apparently in the US, that's rare..?
Maybe choice is what really needs to be made available, in order to end DCMA abuse.
Re: Could be a game clone (Score:2)
That is indeed rare in large parts of the US. In my state, there are two choices, and it's not really much of a choice because the one provider, Frontier, is notoriously horrible.
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I bet wherever you are the service providers are sharing a common network.
In most places each service provider runs their own network infrastructure to your door, this makes it cost prohibitive to supply a service to an area if there is not enough people in the area who will use the provider.
So generally the first one to get in there is the one most people use, anyone who tries to move in afterwards will have to offer a very competitive service or fa
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I'm irritated and annoyed at this statement because I hear it far too often, and yet I can't even comprehend it, much less relate. I probably have half a dozen choices in my area. Apparently in the US, that's rare..?
Maybe choice is what really needs to be made available, in order to end DCMA abuse.
Here in the US I have one option for internet, a 1.5 Mbps DSL connection. No competition.
That, isn't "internet". That, is a fucking joke. How do they even find IT people to work for them? Even they would be pissed about that kind of "performance".
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Here in the US I have one option for internet, a 1.5 Mbps DSL connection. No competition.
That, isn't "internet". That, is a fucking joke. How do they even find IT people to work for them? Even they would be pissed about that kind of "performance".
Often they -don't- find IT people. That's why the service is so bad.
It's not always a good thing, to have the first of a new technology. 8-}
bittorrent uploads? (Score:2)
bittorrent uploads?
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It's also tortuous interference as it's making a legal threat and causing a risk of Internet access termination for potential customers who attempt to aquire Canonical's product.
For the 1% by the 1% (Score:5, Insightful)
DMCA makes it too easy for the big guys to screw the small guys. Plutocrats "purchased" this law via lobbying and campaign donations. Most consumers would not support it if they knew what it entailed. But their opinion was trumped (no pun intended).
Sure, there are "remedies" for consumers who are mis-fingered, but they are time-consuming and round-about. Most mom-and-pop shops and individuals give up unless their day job outright depends on it.
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The biggest problem is apathy. This would fail all the tests required for a DMCA takedown and this company would fail hard in court.
They need to demonstrated by signature that someone from Canonical authorised them to go after this specific file.
They need to demonstrate a good faith belief that the material is being used incorrectly.
They need to demonstrate that they are authorised to write the letter on Canonical's behalf.
These are covered under the perjury clause. They will get away with it only because n
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Hmm, 1998 law (DMCA) and someone is suggesting Trump had something to do with it....
You're the one suggesting that. GP just used the verb "to trump" and even pointed out that they didn't intend to make a connection to Trump.
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1998 law (DMCA) and someone is suggesting Trump had something to do with it....
Are you talking about yourself? Otherwise it doesn't make a lot of sense.
Torrent = Piracy (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Torrent = Piracy (Score:4, Interesting)
For ISPs, Torrents = Piracy. I doubt they checked the copyright. They just saw torrent activity on the network and sent the notice.
This is akin to finding someone who merely owns a Bitcoin wallet, and immediately accusing them of illegal money laundering.
Morons should be sued so hard they don't even want to be an ISP anymore.
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For ISPs, Torrents = Piracy. I doubt they checked the copyright. They just saw torrent activity on the network and sent the notice.
No they didn't. ISP's don't give two shit about this, and they also aren't the source of such notifications. Re-read TFS.
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> For uninformed ISPs, Torrents = Piracy.
Blizzard used to use [fandom.com] BitTorrents to download WoW, StarCraft 2, and Diablo 3. It is not clear if the current launcher still uses torrents like the previous Blizzard Downloader [fandom.com] did.
Anyone still claiming Torrents == Piracy is ignorant and uninformed for for the last 15+ years.
Re:Torrent = Piracy (Score:5, Informative)
Why would you torrent Ubuntu anyway? Its asking for this kind of trouble.
Because if you torrent it, it will come down at 3 - 5 time the speed it would if you download directly from Ubuntu. I always torrent my Linux ISOs for this reason.
This is a perfectly legit use for torrents.
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Because if you torrent it, it will come down at 3 - 5 time the speed it would if you download directly from Ubuntu.
You have to jump through some hoops to download directly from Ubuntu. If you just click the download button on their main page, you get directed to a mirror site which is often hosted at a huge ISP or some other high-capacity server.
Lately, any ISOs I've downloaded from their mirrors has maxed out my end of the connection, and I can get an entire DVD in a little over five minutes. For me, even if a torrent were faster than that, the couple of minutes saved would just not be worth the effort of remembering h
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Not only that but seeding torrents for distro releases is a quick/simple/easy way for non-coders to give a little back. Maybe not as important for a distro with corporate backing or a foundation (redhat, ubuntu, debian) but for a one-man deal like Slackware it could be a real help.
Re:Torrent = Piracy (Score:5, Insightful)
Why would you torrent Ubuntu anyway?
Because I want the download to happen quickly and to have the checksum automatically checked.
In the 90's I was trying to use a modem and Windows 95 to download Linux images, and I kept having errors. I would spend hours on the download, burn a CD-ROM, and then the CD-ROM wouldn't even finish booting. Frustrating! (I finally went to a bookstore and bought a Linux book that came with a CD-ROM of Linux, and that's how I finally got a computer to run Linux.)
This experience made me a little bit of a fanatic about using downloading protocols that compute checksums and automatically re-download any blocks that are corrupted. If you have lots of errors, a good protocol means you still succeed in the download (it just takes longer) while a simple protocol means you will never succeed.
If you use BitTorrent, when it says the transfer is done, you know it's not only done but bit-perfect. For this reason, my first choice always is to use BitTorrent to download ISO images of Linux.
Of course, these days, I'm on a much more reliable Internet service, so I could probably get away with downloading ISO images just using HTTP file transfer. But I just don't see any reason not to use a reliable protocol like BitTorrent.
Its asking for this kind of trouble.
I think we need to push back against this kind of thinking. Other commentators gave the example that owning cryptocurrency should not mean you are automatically suspected of money laundering. Also, using encryption should not mean you are automatically suspected of being a spy or downloading child porn.
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If you use BitTorrent, when it says the transfer is done, you know it's not only done but bit-perfect.
There's nothing special about BitTorrent in this regard. If you use any protocol based on TCP/IP, such as HTTP, then you get the same checksum calculations. Packets with bad checksums are discarded and retransmitted. When done, you have a bit-perfect file.
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That only protects against network glitches. What if what if the server/client disk glitches on read/write, or if one of them has an SEU while the file's in RAM, or one of the many other events that can corrupt a file occur?
File checksumming protects against all of the above on top of network glitches.
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If you're concerned about integrity then do it properly and checksum manually using the provided hashes from the file author. Relying on bittorrent to checksum solves some issues with network integrity but doesn't address at all authenticity.
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If the torrent file says to download a file with the checksum 9FA76D97FAB96EB6FE96FA6DF then it will download 9FA76D97FAB96EB6FE96FA6DF and no other, and I have yet to hear about a malware file matching the checksum of a legit file which I will admit is theoretically possible but in practice is impossible outside of sheer dumb luck. A file's presence is all it needs to start wreaking havoc on your computer.
There is also no denying that the author himself could be compromised and decided to bundle malware in
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You missed my point. My point is the torrent file checksum is established by the torrent protocol alone, not independently. The checksum will match the file if it is legit. It will match the file if it's not. The torrent checksum only ensures that the file correctly moved its way across the network which is necessary due to the the multi-source / distributed nature of where files come from. i.e. it solves a torrent specific problem. You are wholly reliant that the .torrent file was correct when you first go
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It's not clear to me why a checksum published on a website is any more robust than a .torrent file published on the same site. If your issue is with trackers and the aggregation of torrent files, then I agree with you, the downloader take a risk that the aggregator has been compromised. However, if handled in the same way, torrent file checksums and manual md5/sha1 checksums are equally robust - they're essentially the same operation.
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There's nothing special about BitTorrent in this regard. If you use any protocol based on TCP/IP, such as HTTP, then you get the same checksum calculations. Packets with bad checksums are discarded and retransmitted. When done, you have a bit-perfect file.
No, the file is not bit-perfect.
The chance of a fault is not zero. Even if the chances of a fault are low, it could still happen the very first time you try it (that's how chance works). And the larger the file gets the worse your chances are.
Also, The calculations are not the same. Last I checked, the LRC in an HDLC packet (on which Tcp/IP is based) was only 16bits. Even if the new versions use 32 bit LRC it is still not much.
People don't talk about this because they don't know what to do about it. But tha
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I agree that bittorrent is fine generally speaking. Its not my fault that using bt on a service like Comcast makes you a target, where you risk losing access for perfectly legitimate things. Looks like downloading 20.04LTS on my home connection via the browser would take about 6 minutes. Is bt so much faster that it matters?
Not worth it to me.
Re:Torrent = Piracy (Score:4, Interesting)
This experience made me a little bit of a fanatic about using downloading protocols that compute checksums and automatically re-download any blocks that are corrupted. If you have lots of errors, a good protocol means you still succeed in the download (it just takes longer) while a simple protocol means you will never succeed.
There's no such thing as a simple protocol these days. There's only poorly written software (the choice of protocol doesn't save you from this), and incorrect files hosted on a server (the choice of bittorrent doesn't save you from this as it faithfully checksums whatever the original file is, not the checksum independently provided).
It's 2021, we haven't had to checksum for protocol related concerns since before the Y2K bug. Data integrity is ensured through stock standard downloads from websites. Mind you in 2021 the bigger concern would be MITM and the sources messed with, and your protection there is manually verifying a checksum against the ones published by the company, not relying on some automatic protocol, especially not one distributed to random Joes on the internet.
That said if you at least limited yourself to the official tracker then you have something going for you.
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The key is to not half bake a verification solution. If you're so concerned about your data integrity you would verify the checksum after against an independently provided source. Bittorrent doesn't save you from the many actual ways incorrect ISOs have been distributed, such as the documented fake ISOs published on Debians own website which got instantly identified and removed thanks to published checksums mysteriously changing. At least they can remove it, good luck revoking a torrent.
Relying on bitcoin i
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: Come on, Starlink! (Score:2)
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You (Score:5, Funny)
Wouldn't download a car would you?
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You wouldn't steal a baby, either.
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Wouldn't download a car would you?
Of course I will! Five minutes after I get a 3D printer big enough to print it out.
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I would. :P
"albeit sent in error" (Score:5, Insightful)
(albeit sent in error)
More like "sent fraudulently".
Who owns Ubuntu? (Score:2)
Did they authorize Comcast or OpSec Security to represent their interests? Could this be a simple case of fraud?
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As OpSec a german law firm, they could under the German law on the behalf of any copyrignt owner (client or not client) sue anyone. You add to this some DMCA salt and you have anyone (german law firm) able to claim a copyright violation against anyone where MCA apply :(
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You're a moron, they are unable to prosecute a suit in the US District Courts, which are the ones that have jurisdiction over the person, unless they are representing the copyright holder. If they were to sue, the attorney of record with the court, would likely get sanctioned.
If I had to guess, IMHO (Score:3)
Or it could just be an absurd level of incompetence.
You know I have never heard of any (Score:2)
What does German law say? (Score:2)
As others have explained, this kind of abuse is sadly allowed by the US's DMCA. The false notice might be defamation, but that would be a hard thing to prove unless the target's Internet access was restricted or cut off (thereby causing actual damages).
But if the notice was filed by a German company, then German law is also relevant. Does German law provide a cause of action for someone who is so falsely accused of copyright infringement?
How do they know? (Score:2)
Do they also download every torrent to check? They are the biggest pirates of all.
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An image search database called IQDB got taken down for kiddie porn recently due to lack of sense, what happened is that some cunt's webcrawler clicked the IQDB link on a 4chan post that contained CP before it got deleted, and IQDB then had a thumbnail, and then it picked up the thumbnail that THEY made IQDB pick up, and it went downhill from there. Same thing also happened to SauceNao which crawls Pixiv and such for reverse-image search.
https://saucenao.blogspot.com/... [blogspot.com]
Just use a VPN (Score:2)
If everyone did it the people sending copyright notices would have nothing to do and mistakes like this would not happen.
Seems like there should be a flip side (Score:2)
...just like lawsuits or other ostensibly-good mechanisms that are prone to abuse.
If you use them, and you're wrong, you should bear the cost of the process or a penalty fee. There has to be SOME cost to the thing, to deter (as in this example) abuse.
Lawyer up and sue (Score:2)
I can't help but wonder... (Score:3)
I can't help but wonder, that since the DMCA takedown is made under penalty of perjury, if I could bill the complainant for the legal fees incurred to respond to his mistaken request?
From the information provided, the complainant is not authorized to act on behalf of Canonical. In that case, it would seem they have not exercised a proper duty of care with respect to the filing of such notice, and should be liable for costs incurred as a consequence of their actions.
I know it's rare for damages to be awarded in cases of genuine misunderstandings, but I wonder if there's a lawyer here who could comment on the liability an entity would face for filing DMCA takedown notices in a negligent or frivolous manner.
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Regardless of the "perjury" status (which seems dubious), it points a a lack of due diligence - negligence, in fact.
Given the escalating penalties for repeat DMCA offenders, I think it only sensible that false accusations made under the DMCA auspices should also carry an escalating penalty.
Firstly, I don't think it's at all reasonable that companies can throw out DMCA threats, with all the stress, hassle and (potentially) cost that can incur for the accused, with no cost to that company if they are wrong. S
Hey same here!!! (Score:5, Interesting)
Cox, a few years, sent me a notice for downloading several Linux distributions through torrent. I was trying to save the distributions some bandwidth by using torrent instead of downloading direct. I think the ISP just default to sending out copyright notices if they see torrent traffic.
"Repeat infringer" needs to be both ways (Score:4, Insightful)
If a company keeps sending erroneous DMCA notices, then they should be ignored on a permanent basis.
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No. It's precisely this kind of apathy which promotes this bullshit. DMCA has a provision for incorrect notices to be covered under perjury. Take these fuckers to court. If they can't prove that Canonical directly authorised them to act on their behalf then they are screwed.
Corporate America owns the law (Score:2)
Do you think these clauses were originally written by anyone employed by the US government? It's likely the text was cut and pasted from documents sent to legislative staff who put in in the draft. This is how it's done these days.
You only have the "rights" that your corporate owners allow you to have. The DCMA takes away your property rights. Do you think you own something if you can't repair it? You certainly don't con
A simple solution (Score:2)
The ISP has a repeat infringer policy and given the current hostile environment, terminating users is certainly on the agenda. Indeed, the notice states just that.
1. Let them terminate you
2. Sue
3. Profit!
There ought to be penalties, for both sides (Score:2)
We're missing something... (Score:2)
As reported, this story makes no sense. A German company issues a DCMA takedown notice against an American citizen/resident for downloading a file owned by a third party, Ubuntu. To the best of our knowledge the German group has no connection with Ubuntu, yet somehow and for some reason the German group claims it is representing Ubuntu and cited the correct file name, file hash, and date/time of the download?
Is the German group associated with Ubuntu?
Does DCMA allow for 'vigilante' filinigs by parties not a
Just get a fucking VPN already (Score:2)
It's 5$ a month for 5 gadgets.
I solved that problem (Score:2)
When I changed ISP, they offered me an e-mail address, which I declined, and I didn't enter an e-mail in the online account the provided me with for billing.
This means they have no way to reach me except by telephone or by actually writing me a letter.
So their copyright notifications go in /dev/nul
Decades (Score:2)