Posts by Dylan Reeve
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The relevant wording in the DMCA is:
upon notification of claimed infringement as described in paragraph (3), responds expeditiously to remove, or disable access to, the material that is claimed to be infringing or to be the subject of infringing activity.
Disabling the public URL that provides access to a file certainly meets this test.
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Hard News: The Mega Conspiracy, in reply to nzlemming,
Good thing you’re not a lawyer, then ;-)
If I am wrong on that case then YouTube has NEVER complied properly with a DMCA takedown notice, and the ability to dispute them is completely pointless as the data ceases to exist before anything can be done about it.
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Hard News: The Mega Conspiracy, in reply to nzlemming,
Your presumption that MU deduped is founded in the understanding that that is how you would do it, as it makes sense here in NZ where online storage costs a damn fortune. It’s not the case in the US. Storage is extremely cheap there.
That was simply one situation in which I could imagine that removing a link to a file might be considered not to have removed all links to it or something,.
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Hard News: The Mega Conspiracy, in reply to Graeme Edgeler,
My bit.ly example was just that, an example that I could quickly conjure up where two URLs point to the same data. To comply with the takedown stuff in the DMCA you actually have to remove the data, not just the URL. Perhaps another example:
imagine someone complained to Russell about publicaddress.net; he stops publicaddress.net from showing up, but we all know the ip address, so go there instead, which still works fine.
Right but what I'm saying is that each file on MegaUpload had (I believe) only one publicly facing URL with which it could be accessed, and was also about the only way a content owner would be able to uniquely identify it. Disabling access to that URL which I believe MegaUpload did is sufficient to count as removal. The uploader could still get it from their account, and the data still existed but that is allowable.
It's exactly the same as YouTube - the video you linked has only one official URL, if YouTube disables access to it via that URL they have effectively removed it from the "public" internet.
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Hard News: The Mega Conspiracy, in reply to nzlemming,
Nope. The content is still there and it’s the content that infringes. The DMCA requires you to remove the infringing content, not just access to it. Potentially, you’d make it worse for yourself if you didn’t, as you would then be, as owner of the server, personally infringing the copyright of the content owner and thus personally liable.
Removing public access to the content is effectively the same as removing it, and as far as I can determine meets the requirements of the DMCA, in exactly the same way that YouTube does.
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Hard News: The Mega Conspiracy, in reply to Graeme Edgeler,
imagine the youtube video at http://bit.ly/aFg4gr is alleged to be infringing.
someone complains to youtube, which makes it so that http://bit.ly/aFg4gr doesn’t work, but still does.But is that the case?
As far as I can recall (I can't test it now obviously) MegaUpload links had a single publicly facing URL. The fact that the same content might be available through multiple links means that it was uploaded and shared multiple times.
In your example above - you couldn't complain to YouTube about a bit.ly link, they don't control that. You could complain to bit.ly perhaps, and they would then disable it so that shortened link no longer redirected to the YouTube link.
However if you complained to YouTube about their file they would disable it, and any links that redirected there (bit.ly etc) would similarly be disabled by virtue of the fact the main source link would be disabled.
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Hard News: The Mega Conspiracy, in reply to Matthew Poole,
Dylan, you know as well as I do that a link is not the content, though. The DMCA requires that the content be removed on notification of infringement, not that a link to the content be removed. The allegations are that MU was removing only links, not the infringing content, thus they knowingly allowed infringing content to be hosted because they didn’t remove it.
If I remove an HTML file which contains a link to a copyrighted MP3, I haven’t removed the infringing material unless I also delete the MP3.
It's all rather unclear. If a given file is accessed by a specific URL only (which is how MU works generally) then removing or deactivating that link is effectively removing it. Similarly if your video on YouTube is removed for a DMCA complaint they don't delete the media, they just disable access to it. In fact I believe it would be a breech of the DMCA for MegaUpload to DELETE the media based on a notice - there is an allowance for users to appeal the notices.
Now if we presume that MegaUpload, like many file-lockers, has a de-duplication system in place that identifies where multiple 'files' contain the same content and stores them only once, then you could assume that if 8 people have uploaded "Super Awesome Movie[EZTV].avi" then the file will be stored once, but have effectively 8 links to that content. If one is subject to DMCA complaint then only that one should be removed as the legal status of the other 7 duplicates is unknown and without a complaint it would be inappropriate for MegaUpload to remove or disable access to those copies.
Until some detail is available about what that allegation actually means I can't see a way in which it is obviously a failure to follow the requirements of the DMCA for the purposes of Safe Harbour
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Hard News: The Mega Conspiracy, in reply to nzlemming,
They are alleged to not have taken down material when advised under the DMCA that it was present, but only to have removed the reported links to the material, while leaving it and unreported links in place so that infringement could still continue. This, if proven, would be a breach of the 'safe harbour' provisions.
I've seen that reported too, but it seems insane. If I make a DMCA claim to something of mine on YouTube will they remove all copies of that same item (even perhaps some that have been modified slightly?) - no. They remove the items specifically mentioned, which is all they should be required to.
In the case of a service like MegaUpload which may possibly use de-duplication techniques to reduce storage requriements they still should not be required to remove all copies of a given file. For example, what if Kayne West, an authorised person, has uploaded a copy of one of his songs to share with reviewers etc. If another copy of the same file is reported then it shouldn't also impact his legitimate copy.
I can't see any situation where they would be required to remove any more than specifically what they were notified of. As I understand it they had automated removal systems for publishers, I believe Universal were able to automatically remove 5,000 links a day, for example.
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It's interesting the way the news articles seem to have been using "Mega Conspiracy"...
Dotcom and six others are alleged to be part of a group called the "Mega Conspiracy",
(From NZ Herald today)
It's usually used in a way that would imply to anyone not familiar with the case or FBI indictment that they were calling themselves "Mega Conspiracy" - which of course tends to suggest they were indeed knowingly up to no good.
As for the cost to the NZ taxpayer - 76 officers, two helicopters, etc - if Dotcom is extradited (or deported perhaps) then who gets the seized property? Millions of dollars of property has been seized by the NZ Police and I can't imagine the Americans have any claim to it, so who gets it? Perhaps that pays for the operation (and so much more)?
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So, what about a referendum then? Obviously it would be a while before it could be voted on, but why not? If Family First can get enough people for that stupid smacking referendum then I surely this shouldn't be too hard?
And, handily Family First could continue to use their voteno.org website (unless the question were phrased so that the 'No' option was in favour of same sex marriage).