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Man sued for using bogus YouTube takedowns to get address for swatting
YouTube is suing a Nebraska man the company says has blatantly abused its copyright takedown process. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act offers online platforms like YouTube legal protections if they promptly take down content flagged by copyright holders. However, this process can be abused—and boy did defendant Christopher L. Brady abuse it, according to YouTube's legal complaint (pdf).
Brady allegedly made fraudulent takedown notices against YouTube videos from at least three well-known Minecraft streamers. In one case, Brady made two false claims against a YouTuber and then sent the user an anonymous message demanding a payment of $150 by PayPal—or $75 in bitcoin.
"If you decide not to pay us, we will file a 3rd strike," the message said. When a YouTube user receives a third copyright strike, the YouTuber's account gets terminated. A second target was ordered to pay $300 by PayPal or $200 in Bitcoin to avoid a third fraudulent copyright strike.
A third incident was arguably even more egregious. According to YouTube, Brady filed several fraudulent copyright notices against another YouTuber with whom he was "engaged in some sort of online dispute." The YouTuber responded with a formal counter-notice stating that the content wasn't infringing—a move that allows the content to be reinstated. However, the law requires the person filing the counter-notice to provide his or her real-world name and address—information that's passed along to the person who filed the takedown request.
This contact information is supposed to enable a legitimate copyright holder to file an infringement lawsuit in court. But YouTube says Brady had another idea. A few days after filing a counter-notice, the targeted YouTuber "announced via Twitter that he had been the victim of a swatting scheme." Swatting, YouTube notes, "is the act of making a bogus call to emergency services in an attempt to bring about the dispatch of a large number of armed police officers to a particular address."
YouTube doesn't provide hard proof that Brady was responsible for the swatting call, stating only that it "appears" he was responsible based on the sequence of events. But YouTube says it does have compelling evidence that Brady was responsible for the fraudulent takedown notices. And fraudulent takedown notices are themselves against the law.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 25 2019, @06:41AM (5 children)
But I thought that the big corporations that wrote these laws only had the small poor poor artists in mind. How come these laws are being used to hinder the poor artists? Surely the big corporations that wrote these laws weren't thinking only of themselves, right?
Does anyone else find it ridiculous that all someone has to do to get your information if they disagree with your Youtube video is claim, with no due process whatsoever, that you infringed on their copy protections? These laws are being used to stifle speech and to hinder the poor poor artists
What's even more outrageous is that the potential punishment for infringement is greater than the punishment for everything the perpetrator did in this article to the people that uploaded Youtube videos. The exact opposite should be true. Infringement should be a minor tort while fraudulent takedown notices should be a huge crime. In a sane world with laws not written by corporations fraud should be an offense far greater than infringement. False takedowns should also be an offense far greater than infringement. The burden should lie with the person claiming infringement to prove infringement and if it turns out they do not possess copy protection privileges over said content their punishment should be greater than the punishment of a would be infringer even if their infringement claims were a product of negligence.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Spamalope on Sunday August 25 2019, @02:09PM
Yeah. The lack of penalty for false reports, shifting the burden to the reported person, only requiring verification of the reported entity are all clues as to what the law are actually for.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 26 2019, @04:18AM
What are you implying, that somehow Christopher L. Brady should have been censored? He was just exercising his right to free-speech.
He didn't actually do anything but speak; blame the others who acted on the speech, they are the culprits here.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday August 26 2019, @07:21AM (1 child)
Maybe there should be a three-strikes rule for takedown requests: If you do three false takedown requests, you lose the copyright on whatever work you falsely claimed was infringed upon.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 26 2019, @03:14PM
I like it, but it should be your ability to claim infringement for a time. Part of the issue is that there are multiple ways a fraudulent claim may be submitted: For each: actual infringement, not infringement by fair use but not recognized by claimant, not infringement because the piece use doesn't violate copyright(incorrect identification of piece, piece is no longer covered by copyright), human error Consider the following: Claimangt has copyright, Claimant is employed by the party who owns copyright, Claimant has no ownership of copyright, Claimant believes they have copyright but is mistaken. Many of the potential scenarios don't involve either party owning the copyright, hence ability to dispute is what I believe should be restricted.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 26 2019, @05:29PM
No, nobody I'm aware of has claimed that the corporations only had the artists in mind - please share where that idea was advanced. Just as nobody claimed that the corporations don't have interests at play themselves. And the copyright enforcement system does not only benefit the corporations with no benefit accruing to the artists. (Or, more correctly, the songwriters most usually). Nobody even suggested that 'small' artists would be the beneficiary. The system before the Internet already supported the artists who were above the line and had recouped their expenses well above any indie act. It's a little disingenous to suggests that artists (both labeled and indie) do not obtain value out of the copyright system. And the system remains the same today: The music production industry benefits the music production industry and the recording artists make their money from touring. Sure, there are corner cases and artists who produce themselves and thus get a bigger chunk of the pie yet the YouTubes/Amazons/What-Have-You-Distributors-On-Teh-Internets get their cuts also just as radio stations did.
Does anyone else find it ridiculous that the owner of a copyright should file a lawsuit to allege that every YouTube video which infringes copyright and name YouTube as a defendant and/or get a judge to sign off on a subpeona to compel YouTube to disclose what it knows about the poster so that private investigators can track down the uploader to compel that person to pay the copyright holder a nominal royalty? Because that would be the process if a friendly lawyer's letter saying, "Please, sir, take down that reproduction of our audio recording that has monetary value to us and your host-protected selves aren't liable for such that we may take our contractual cut and pass the remainder along to be bundled as a lump royalty payment" was canned by YouTube under the copyright system of years past, you know. Or one might just have held YouTube liable as a provider of unlawful infringement from the get-go....
What's even more outrageous is that any person with an Internet connection could deliver a performance of such pieces to any and all who asked for it and just say, "muh freedoms of speeches trumps your rights as the legally entitled publisher of the work!"
Your solution would sure make a larger number of lawyers richer in the process. Now, you say that you think this will benefit the artist how?