baytsp – Techdirt (original) (raw)

Fox Issues DMCA Takedown To Google Over SF Chronicle Article… Claiming It Was The Movie 'Chronicle'

from the on-the-penalty-of-perjury dept

So, Google just revealed its copyright takedown transparency report and it’s turning into the gift that keeps on giving. We’ve already discussed how it shows Microsoft DMCAing links that remain in Microsoft’s own search engine… and now reader David Sanger points us to another amusing one. On March 14th, apparently BayTSP (one of the more well-known “anti-piracy” firms), working for Twentieth Century Fox (a News Corp. company), demanded the removal of a link to SFGate.com.

SFGate? That’s the website for the San Francisco Chronicle — the main newspaper in San Francisco. So what was infringing? According to the DMCA notice (which says the filing came from Irdeto, the company that acquired BayTSP last year), insisted that what was actually at that link was:

“The copyrighted work at issue is the film “Chronicle”, which is owned by “Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation”

Now, wouldn’t that be something if the SF Chronicle was distributing the movie Chronicle illegally? But, of course, that’s hogwash. The truth is that BayTSP and Fox screwed up. The SFGate article is now back online and you can see it’s just an editorial about how SF Muni (the local public transit authority) should let students ride for free. That has nothing, whatsoever, to do with the movie Chronicle. What’s amazing is the word “Chronicle” doesn’t even show up in the article. It obviously shows up elsewhere on the page. After all, it is the website for the SF Chronicle.

Of course, in filing this DMCA takedown, BayTSP — who is a “trusted user” of the takedown system — swears upon the following statements:

I have a good faith belief that use of the copyrighted materials described in all notifications submitted through the Program as allegedly infringing is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.

The information in all notifications submitted through the Program will be accurate, and I swear, under penalty of perjury, that with respect to those notifications, I am the copyright owner or am authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.

That’s clearly bunk, however, since nothing on that page is even remotely related to the movie Chronicle. How do you have a “good faith belief” that there’s infringement when you clearly didn’t even take the briefest second to look.

Filed Under: chronicle, dmca, sfgate, takedown
Companies: baytsp, news corp, twentieth century fox

News.com Prevents Falsely Accused Grandmother Of Getting Kicked Off The Internet By The MPAA

from the but-who-will-protect-anyone-else? dept

One of the problems we’ve had with the whole “three strikes” concept that would kick people off the internet due to accusations, not convictions, of file sharing, is the fact that we hear all the time about innocent users accused of file sharing. Greg Sandoval, over at News.com recently came across a grandmother who was falsely accused multiple times of file sharing, and her ISP, Qwest, was threatening to kick her off the internet. We had not heard that Qwest had signed on with a “three strikes” program, so it’s a bit of news that it’s one of the companies who will accept bogus accusations. Not only that, but Qwest even told her that no other provider would grant her service because Qwest would let those other service providers “know her name and what she did.” Thanks, Qwest!

The problem, of course, was that Cathi Paradiso didn’t share any of the movies or TV shows she was accused of sharing, and she works from home as a recruiter — so losing her internet access would be devastating. But the only way she got Qwest to back down was because Sandoval and News.com became interested in the story and convinced Qwest to look deeper. But if Paradiso hadn’t been able to draw attention to herself from the press, she would have had no recourse. There was no one she could appeal to, and no official process to respond to the bogus claims of Hollywood. She got lucky that News.com was willing to pick up her story and contact Qwest, but what about anyone else threatened with bogus notices? Meanwhile, BayTSP, the company whose “evidence” has been shown to be flimsy and easily falsified in the past, stands by accusing her of file sharing, saying it was her own fault for having an open WiFi network, suggesting there’s something inherently wrong with sharing your WiFi. Yes, the company stands by its false accusation. Nice company.

Filed Under: due process, false accusation, file sharing, three strikes
Companies: baytsp, qwest

Entertainment Industry Copyright Notice Acknowledgement Forms Easily Hacked

from the nice-work,-baytsp dept

One of the companies that the entertainment industry hires to send out nastygrams to people it believes are file sharing illegally is BayTSP. The company tries to hunt down IP addresses and then try to notify the user. Apparently, a part of this process is also to include a link to a web form where the user can respond to the notice and tell BayTSP if you will comply with their infringement notice and remove the offending files from your computer. Except, some are noticing, that BayTSP’s method of doing this isn’t even remotely secure, so the response forms are available for anyone to see — and to respond to. You can find your own with a little help from Google.

Even worse, you could send your own notices, pretending to be BayTSP, and get people to fill out the forms instead. And, on top of that, some have discovered that BayTSP’s site has some scripting vulnerabilities such that you could create a fake complaint and get people to, say, download malware or enter credit card data. Once again demonstrating the high level of technical incompetence from the folks the RIAA and MPAA hire to piss off fans worldwide.