Abuse of Youtube's copyright infringement claim process for doxxing purposes

http://owningyourshit.blogspot.ca/2012/08/abuse-of-youtubes-copyright.html

by iProject • 14 years ago

132 54 14 years ago

owningyourshit.blogspot.ca

I wish I could care about this, but the 'doxx' and lulz and generally childish writing make me assume this is another case of internet entitlement issues.

knowtheory2• 14 years ago

Regardless of your personal feelings for this woman, do you agree that this is an exploit that youtube exposes where attackers may be able to get personal information about a youtube account holder?

roel_v• 14 years ago

Regardless of what the (obscure) legal reality is in this matter, do you agree that this woman presents her case in a juvenile way, and shows a general lack of understanding of the real-world procedures (as opposed to how keyboard warriors imagine things are or should be) in matters like this, and an apparent unwillingness to learn about them, to a point where it makes her seem unsuitable to voice an informed opinion about it, and certainly ill-suited to be the flag bearer for a contentious topic like this one?

See how that works?

DanBC• 14 years ago

No.

You put the details of your legal representative on that form.

peterwwillis3• 14 years ago

It's funny that you phrase it that way. I didn't know the author was a woman (does it matter?).

As others have noted, this form doesn't need your personal information, so no I don't agree that this is an "exploit". You never have to give your personal information.

The situation reminds me of people who make anti-Scientology videos and then cry about freedom of speech when the cult's legal juggernaut descends. Is it fair to get a DMCA or lawsuit threat just because someone disagrees with your content? No (assuming you did not violate copyright protection laws). But getting bit by a shark because you're wading in its pool isn't fair either - just inevitable.

jere2• 14 years ago

I'm not sure which you take issue with. Do you think:

-she has no right to privacy?

-she deserves to be harassed?

-she deserves fraudulent copyright claims against her?

-or do you simply think the use of words not in your vocabulary makes her opinion irrelevant?

Doxxing is a concise term that describes a real phenomenon and it happens to be quite old in internet terms.

I would expect some informal language in a transcript to a youtube video. However, after reviewing the entire transcript again, I don't see much informal writing at all. I have no idea what you're referring to with "lulz" and I'm still looking for this "childish writing."

ajross• 14 years ago

Generally I find myself in the "pro-harrasee" camp. But honestly not this time. Obviously she does have the right to expect Google not to reveal her private information. And they don't. And any harrassment being done (as I read it, there is none actually alleged) must stop.

But at the same time: she doesn't have an inherent right to have youtube host her videos either. Using the free service means she has to abide by their rules, one of which is the (in this case, abusable) copyright counterclaim process. She doesn't have to give the claimants her info just like Google doesn't have to host her data. Stick it on Vimeo, or put it up in an S3 bucket.

And as an aside: I have to admit I had no clue what "doxxing" was either and had to look it up. I'll straight up admit that kind of jargon turned me off. Trying to communicate to the broader community using language specifci to your little enclave is just poor persuasion tactics.

knowtheory2• 14 years ago

Regardless of the truth of this woman's specific claims... This seems like the point at which youtube has to make decisions about who their automated takedown system actually serves.

Reddit's CEO refers to Reddit as akin to a city-state and himself as mayor. Youtube has essentially the same problems in governance. They have to juggle a host of competing interests ranging from free speech rights, to copyright infringement, to the right to privacy. It has constituents large and small, individual users on up to multimillion dollar companies. Their constituents are not aligned on a host of issues, and this is clearly one of them.

So we know whose side the federal government is on, the question is, whose side is Youtube on?

icebraining2• 14 years ago

I'd say they're on the side that doesn't expose them to a massive lawsuit by media companies.

devicenull• 14 years ago

What exactly do you want Youtube to do? Under the DMCA, they don't get to decide what content is infringing or not.

The requirement to provide your name/address is so the DMCA complaints can be handled in a court, which is a perfectly reasonable thing to do.

__alexs• 14 years ago

Transfer the ownership to EFF and put their info on the form?

engtech• 14 years ago

Interesting idea. I wonder if anyone has stepped up to prevent the chilling effect of DMCA takedown notices?

It seems like a non-profit could handle this role where they act as a proxy where the victim of the notice asserts they have copyright, sends the information to the proxy and then the proxy acts on their behalf?

uxp• 14 years ago

Isn't that basically what Righthaven was doing, on the other side of the legal courtroom? Taking control of the copyrighted work and suing infringers on behalf of content owners?

neurotech1• 14 years ago

Interesting idea. The proxy service would most likely be in the form of a "copyright agent" service for copyright/DMCA takedowns, with some degree of privacy protection for site owners. This would enable large scale monitoring of abuse.

The "act on their behalf" might be considered legal representation. As I understand (IANAL), the EFF as an organization doesn't provide legal representation to others, and more commonly refer them to a lawyer or law school clinic for further assistance.

Righthaven got struck down because they were only assigned "right to sue" and not ownership or exclusive rights to the copyrighted work.

0x03• 14 years ago

Interesting technique, and I see how the behaviour of the opponents can be annoying. But the lawsuit threat is ridiculous. Is youtube required to provide free anonymous video hosting to this person? Perhaps she should ask for her money back instead.

rmc• 14 years ago

Just because she is not paying money, doesn't mean she has no rights. YouTube are still under contractual and moral obligations regardless of how much money she gave them.

Symmetry2• 14 years ago

Contractual obligation? What contract? I guarantee you that the clickthrough agreement the blogger signed explicitly said that Google might do what it's doing now.

Moral obligation? If you start saying that someone providing a service has a moral obligation to open themselves to civil suits on behalf of the people they serve then you'd see a lot fewer people offering free services.

eridius2• 14 years ago

YouTube is (inadvertently) aiding other people in an attempt to harass her, and the only recourse they provide requires her to reveal her full name to her attackers, thus opening her up to offline harassment. Seems like a good reason to sue.

0x03• 14 years ago

I don't know american law, but to me that would be just as silly as suing the post office because someone sent you a postcard with the message "fuck you".

Anyway, if she sues, won't her name be on the public records of the case?

IMHO she should just host her videos elsewhere. I can't even begin to imagine how many similar cases of internet drama goes on over at youtube every single day.

chris_wot• 14 years ago

Perhaps they should refer to 17 USC § 512 (f). She can sue for misrepresentation. Frankly, I'm surprised that nobody has! I'm sure if she wanted she could extract a lot of money. It would sure stop frivilous takedown requests, too!

girlvinyl5• 14 years ago

The EFF famously sued a DMCA troll, it was quite dramatic. https://www.eff.org/cases/diehl-v-crook

Symmetry2• 14 years ago

Wow, I didn't know that aspect of the DMCA had ever been used. Do you know of any other cases of that happening?

porsupah• 14 years ago

The posting implies that the RL information required to make a counterclaim will be supplied to the party making the complaint.

Is this indeed how YouTube's process works? If so, it certainly would seem to be problematic. A proxy, such as a shell company, or simply a friend, would seem to be plausible alternatives.

girlvinyl5• 14 years ago

Youtube is simply following the DMCA here and this is precisely how the process works. If it worked any other way, the hosting provider (youtube in this case), would not enjoy safe harbors under the law. This aspect of the DMCA is specifically created to protect hosting companies from lawsuits involving automated upload of copyrighted material.

Essentially, Prima makes an accusation - "I swear your user is hosting my copyrighted material via your site." Host informs Secunda. Secunda has two options, either 1) Have the material removed by host or 2) submit sworn statement to host that they did not violate copyright and that Prima can come sue them at this address.

At that point the host re-instates the material in question and will remove it only upon receipt of initiation of a lawsuit.

This provision of the DMCA was created by the ISPs and specifically the cable companies because they didn't want to be liable for things their users did on their networks. This is the result.

zokier• 14 years ago

I think this is not DMCA request. Google has it's own takedown mechanism, which afaik what this is about.

girlvinyl5• 14 years ago

Also, to add: Yes, you are completely right. Any rights holder can designate an agent to work on this on their behalf.

girlvinyl5• 14 years ago

That is not how the DMCA works. All she has to do to file a counter claim is submit contact information of someone authorized to act on behalf of the works submitted, be that an attorney, friend or other business agent (the only requirement is a US address). Do you think Britney Spears puts her personal phone number on RIAA take down requests? The RIAA doesn't even own the copyrights they get taken down themselves, they're acting on behalf of the copyright owner.

Also, if you're a site owner or content owner, you need to go right now to http://copyright.gov/onlinesp/ and register as a designated agent for content and notifications. Get ahead of this before it becomes a problem. It's $35.

Retric• 14 years ago

Youtube obeys the DMCA rules, but also has a vastly streamlined process that's being somewhat openly abused that lacks anyway to effectively fight back.

Ihavenoname• 14 years ago

Considering how prevalent abusive and wildly inaccurate automatic take downs are one must consider google itself is exploiting the process to obtain personal information. Google absolutely doesn't want you to remain anonymous it diminishethree value of their analitics. I think they should provide more tools to the uploader so they can make informed choices and defend their rights. I fear google will avoid this this as google benifits from the abusive system.

droithomme• 14 years ago

Great link, and anyone with a site should file. I'm not sure that someone with only a youtube account can file as he's not actually hosting things himself, youtube is. (edit: actually in their list there are 11 individual youtube channel owners who have registered using their youtube channel address. Some of these also have their own separate sites though. Example: http://www.copyright.gov/onlinesp/agents/h/hyundai_motor.pdf. Also, the Copyright Office's list there is abysmal - if the person lists the site starting with "http" or "www" then it is indexed under H or W and not the actual site name. Since they have no search capabilities, it's rather likely many won't be found by someone looking to file a complaint.)

Also, according to that page and schedule of fees, prices have been raised, and it's $105 now, plus $30 more if you have more than one domain name to register for, up to 10.

Also should note that the person in the link doesn't want to reveal his address or his legal name, and although the "Designation of Agent" form only asks for the address of the agent, the "full legal name" of the service provider, which would be him if he was self-hosting and unincorporated, is also required.

freeslave• 14 years ago

should websites outside of the U.S also do this?

redthrowaway• 14 years ago

>All she has to do to file a counter claim is submit contact information of someone authorized to act on behalf of the works submitted, be that an attorney, friend or other business agent

This actually seems like a great idea for a business: DMCA takedown protection. Register your works with us, and we'll take care of the disputes and counterclaims. You pay us a signup fee for each work, and a fee for each work we successfully defend. In return, you get peace of mind and an agent familiar with the system to wrestle with claimants on your behalf.

drucken• 14 years ago

As far as I understand, Youtube operates the following copyright tools [1],

A. Content owners: Copyright Infringement Notification (modelled on US DMCA takedown).

- content owners fill out a form with specific pre-stated legalese expressions for specific content.

- contact: email address is preferred, no specific contact information is mandated.

- user content blocked, replaced with claim statement and Strike received on account.

B. Content owners: Copyright Verification Programme.

- this seems to be an expedited and broader version of the CIN tool for mass content removal.

- need to identify agents for your ownership. Identity process unknown.

- user content blocked, replaced with claim statement and Strike received on account.

C. Content owners: Content ID (nothing whatsoever to do with US DMCA).

- an automated or semi-automated process to flag content according to any of a number of policies that content owners decide.

- this includes deciding what is or is not "Fair Use"...

- unlike the CIN and CVP processes, accounts of matching content are not issued Strikes, which would ultimately close the account if sufficient number received, but the content is blocked.

D. Content owners: Retractions.

- process that requires specific content identification, and content owner name as signature from original claimant account.

- removes claims and restrictions of CIN and CVP. Unclear how, if at all, it interacts with Content ID.

E. Users: Copyright Counter-Notifications.

- form that, among other things, requires full address information that is always relayed to original claimant.

- note. copyright laws of user's country of residence are irrelevant. The form of allowable counter-notification is based on the "location" [2] of the original claimant.

- Youtube "may then reinstate the material in question at our discretion".

In this case, the two claimants likely used the CIN which will result in Strikes without action by the user with Copyright Counter-Notifications.

In short and in my opinion, it is clear that this process is highly asymmetrical and prone to abuse - in this case as a form of harassment, if as claimed the user had zero infringing content in her videos.

[1] http://www.youtube.com/t/copyright_owners

[2] Ambiguous if whether that could refer to jurisdiction of any of the registered agents under the CVP, for example.

at-fates-hands• 14 years ago

The easy solution to this is to simply delete your account - and not engage in this little game, and then move your videos to Vimeo or some other video hosting site.

lubujackson• 14 years ago

YouTube's policy is beyond broken and is clearly being abused at this point. On the other hand, it a free site giving you unlimited hosting bandwidth for video. I don't think you get to sue the hell out of them for having internal policies you don't like - feel free to host your videos on your own server.

drcube2• 14 years ago

You have a blog, post your videos there. Stay off of Youtube, because it has shitty policies like this. Easy peasy.

Don't complain when people or companies abuse the control you voluntarily gave them over your content and creations. Take that control back, and own your shit.

beezee• 14 years ago

It actually bugs me the sense of entitlement- YT is a free service, technically can take stuff down for no reason at all and nothing anyone can say about it. I can understand why this woman is frustrated, but expecting YT to have human resources in place for DMCA takedown requests is totally unrealistic- chances are that channel would be flooded if it existed.

Either way, if you're not paying for something, what do you expect.

ubernostrum2• 14 years ago

I don't really understand why so many people seem to see an entitlement issue here (other than knowing from other contexts how many people really strongly dislike this woman, and so might be looking for ways to blame the situation on her).

YouTube is a free video hosting service whose use does not require you to sign up with or disclose your real identity. It is not "entitlement" to expect it to be what it is.

wpietri• 14 years ago

She thinks she's entitled to be treated like a human being. Seems reasonable to me.

The people I know at YouTube are very nice people. They presumably didn't say, "Hey, we'd like to host video for the entire world. And also do our best to fuck them over if they're being harassed." This is a weird corner case, and I hope they'll find a way to rejig their system to prevent this sort of takedown abuse.

Abuse of Youtube's copyright infringement claim process for doxxing purposes

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