by Ellen Seidler | Copyright, Google, Law, Piracy
Hop aboard for another spin on Google’s DMCA Merry-Go-Round
It’s not news that Google-hosted Blogger websites are a favorite storefront for online pirates. It’s also not news that Google does its best to obstruct DMCA takedowns by setting up various roadblocks along the way. Today I discovered yet another example of just how difficult Google makes the DMCA process–this time with Blogger-hosted sites that use custom domain names.
When you create a blog using Blogger you’re given a domain that ends in blogspot.com. However users are free to use a custom domain name instead. That’s all well and good, unless the website distributes pirated content. In that case, if you’re a creator trying to get your pirated content removed (by Google), you’re likely to run into problems.
Usually, when one of these pirate entrepreneurs creates a site on blogspot.com a rightsholder can send a DMCA by using Google’s annoying web form (or annoy them by sending an email: [email protected]). However, if you use the same DMCA form to report a blogger-hosted site with a custom domain, Google won’t remove it. They’ll just send you back to the beginning.
I found out about this twist when I sent several DMCA notices this week on behalf of an indie film distributor. I requested the removal several pages of pirated movies I found on a Blogger-hosted website with a custom domain. The claim was rejected and the response on the Google Removals Dashboard read: Inappropriate for TCRP. Please submit through the standard web form.
TCRP stands for “Trusted Copyright Removal Program” but the problem is that I didn’t use any sort of TCRP…I wish I could, but I’m just a lowly commoner who doesn’t have access to this program. I USED THE STANDARD WEB FORM!!!!
Why–when there’s no doubt that this website is streaming a full copy of the film on a Google-hosted website–do they send me back to the same standard web form I used to send the original request? It’s an endless loop. Follow along below:
A DMCA request was sent using Google’s own web form (for Blogger) yet the claim is rejected and I’m told to send the takedown again using the very same form?
Apparently, even though Google hosts the pirate site, it refuses to remove infringing content the pirate is using a custom domain, not a blogspot.com domain. Welcome to the Google DMCA Merry-Go-Round. 🙁
When I researched the issue further I discovered I’m not the only one running into this problem. On Google’s own Blogger Help Forum there’s a recent thread about the issue. Last month a user DeeLite310 posted a question after receiving the same— Inappropriate for TCRP. Please submit through the standard web form–response to a DMCA s/he sent reporting a Blogger site pirated games.
Once again the not-so-helpful Google response was to send DeeLite310 (who’s not part of the TCRP) back the beginning of the Google Blogger DMCA merry-go-round. Here’s part of the exchange (but I suggest reading the entire thread to fully appreciate just how frustrating dealing with Google can be):
Welcome to the Google Merry-Go-Round…DeeLite310 is sent back the beginning…again and again…
Google loves to throw the word “transparency” around a lot in discussions around how it handles DMCA requests. Too bad it doesn’t provide more transparency when creators, victimized by pirates using Google products, make good faith (legal) efforts to request the removal of infringing content. As I’ve said before, the DMCA is broken…
*Update 5/16/16: During May’s Section 512 hearings in San Francisco I spoke with Fred von Lohmann, Google’s senior copyright counsel, about my blog post. He told me that I had indeed discovered a “bug” and that Google staff was working to fix the issue. I was happy to hear that Google was responding in a positive manner to this problem. I’ll test out whether it has been fixed by resending the original DMCA notice that prompted this post. Stay tuned…
Update 6/28/16: According to Mr. Von Lohmann, the bug has been fixed.
by Ellen Seidler | Copyright, Google, Law, Piracy, Tech
Google could learn a thing or two from VIMEO about how to run an efficient DMCA takedown system
Love it or hate it, for now the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) is the law of the land when it comes to safeguarding creative content online. The law, passed nearly 20 years ago, is woefully outdated, but for now, it’s the only tool creators have to protect their work from online thieves. Unfortunately, not every company in the business of “user generated content” approaches DMCA compliance the same way.
Google, a company that makes billions each year in ad revenues generated via trafficking in dubious content, has set up a takedown system that ensures the sending of a DMCA takedown notice is an onerous and inefficient task. After all, the harder Google makes it, the more discouraged creators will become, and the more money continues to flow into its coffers…
Anyone who’s made music or a movie probably has had experience with sending a DMCA takedown request to Google in some form. Whether it’s removing pirated music on YouTube, or requesting the takedown of pirated movies off Blogger sites, creators must tackle a haphazard and convoluted patchwork of online forms in order to get their work removed from Google’s online products.
Not that Google will listen to me, but I’m going to offer some suggestions for simple ways the company could improve the takedown system. Part I will focus on Blogger, Google’s online website platform that’s become the favorite of many pirate entrepreneurs due to its ease of use.
As a creator, when you discover a pirate website hosted by Google’s Blogger (on blogspot.com) is offering pirated copies of your music or movie, to get it removed you usually have to send a DMCA notice to Google.
Here’s where Google turns what could be a relatively easy task into a huge time suck. First, in order to find the correct online form for Blogger you’re forced to click through a myriad of radio-buttons on Google’s Removing Content From Google page. When you finally do manage to click your way through to the proper form (it takes 7 clicks) you’ll waste more time carefully filling in each and every section. Note, your browser’s auto-fill function won’t work particularly well here. Finally, after you complete the form and click send, you can only wait (and hope) that the content will be removed. It can literally take weeks and sometimes it never gets removed.
Here’s where it gets particularly annoying. Many companies, take the video-hosting site Vimeo, for example, give rights holders several ways to send a takedown notice: email, a web form or snail mail. When sending a DMCA to Vimeo (and many other sites) I use a template I created (with an attorney’s help) that makes it easy to copy and paste infringing links into a DMCA takedown email. It’s not only quick, but I have a record of the notice in my sent email box. For indie content creators fighting online piracy, email is by far the most efficient way to send and record DMCA notices. As far as I’m concerned, Vimeo earns a gold start for DMCA takedown efficiency.
Vimeo provides a shining example of good DMCA takedown practices:
- Vimeo accepts email submissions. It’s quick and efficient–a godsend if you have to send notices routinely (as many musicians and filmmakers do).
- You have a copy of the DMCA notice you sent and proof of when it was sent.
- You receive an email confirmation from Vimeo that the material has been removed and their message includes a copy of your original DMCA notice.
- Vimeo provides a reference # so that if there are any issues with your notice, you can easily follow-up with the real person that signs the email receipt.
Meanwhile, over at Google, things aren’t so straightforward. Each time I send a DMCA takedown to Google via its web form, if I want to keep a copy, I’m forced to create a PDF copy of web form. Even then some of the entries don’t show up. For the rights holder it’s an imperfect and time-wasting process. Google has intentionally created a takedown process that impedes creators at every step.
Google’s Blogger takedown procedure is a joke:
- Google requires users navigate through a series of buttons (7 clicks) to get to the DMCA web takedown form.
- Google requires you fill in the entire form each time you need to sent a takedown notice.
- Google does not give you a copy of the form you sent, only a brief acknowledgement that you sent something signed by the mysterious “Google Team.”
- Sender never receives notification infringing material has been disabled.
Because of their business practices, Google does have to deal with tons of takedown notices every day. It’s a mess of its own making and they certainly have the financial resources to deal with it responsibly. Google reps insist a web form is the only way to make sure they receive the information required in a DMCA notice. However, their refusal to accept emails (that could be read by a bot) forces indie artists who routinely send takedown requests to its web maze.
Since users are forced to use a DMCA web form, there’s certainly NO justifiable reason Google can’t respond with an email confirmation that includes the original takedown notice. After all, that’s an automated process and would require ZERO resources on their part. Google chooses not to do so because they want to make the process as opaque and complicated as possible. While it complies with the letter of the law, Google has refined a system whereby creators are discouraged from exercising their legal rights at every turn.
Google’s DMCA practices are designed to impede rights holders every step of the way
Vimeo quickly sends an email confirming removal
Along with the email, Vimeo includes the original DMCA notice
Google makes users jump through hoops to send a DMCA notice, doesn’t provide a copy, and offers no confirmation that any action has been taken
Google includes a case number in the subject heading of the email, but don’t bother trying to contact Google using it. The “Google Team” won’t respond. So what’s the case number good for? Not much.
As for turnaround time-when I send VIMEO a notice within hours the content has been removed (and I receive an email confirmation along with a copy of my notice). With Google it can literally take weeks…and sometimes nothing happens…ever.
In order to improve the DMCA system on Blogger I would ask for the following:
- Offer a direct link to the Blogger DMCA takedown form
- Allow the form to be auto-filled and if one has a Google account information the form would be pre-filled with the appropriate information
- Send an email receipt that includes a copy of the DMCA notice
- Send confirmation when the infringing content has been disabled
- Remove content in a timely manner. This means days, NOT weeks.
For a company like Google that can take us to the top of Mt. Everest with the click of a mouse it’s beyond comprehension as to why they can’t offer content creators a better way to utilize the DMCA process. Google periodically publishes puff PR pieces extolling the myriad of ways it supposedly tackles piracy, but in reality helps maintain the status quo where the rights of online thieves are held in higher regard than those of creators. Of course for Google impeding the legal rights of creators is good for business. Profits ahead of people is the key to Google’s success.
Next week-Part II-YouTube’s DMCA CMS takedown, another inefficient mess for rights holders.
by Ellen Seidler | Copyright, Film, Piracy, Tech
Is this really what lawmakers had in mind when they wrote the DMCA?
Seriously, it’s not that I just love spending my time bashing Google, but the fact is that this company deserves to be taken to task (every second of every day) for the lousy job it does dealing with the rampant piracy on its Blogger platform. The slide show below is simply more documentation as to just how absurd, convoluted and outright busted the DMCA takedown process is with the barnacle that is Blogger (Blogspot.com). While mothership Google pretends not to notice, web pirates grow and thrive in the waters of its safe harbor.
Not only does Blogger provide a sanctuary for movie pirates around the globe, but Google’s cloud-based storage Google Drive, often a host for the Blogger pirated movies streams, looks a lot more like Megaupload than a legit business. Figures, for a company trying to bust indie-musicians and rip-off professional photographers, developing slick and slimy ways to avoid the law seems about par for the crooked course.
Google makes billions leveraging content created by others. The least they could do is respect our right to remove it, but that would mean less content for them to leverage, and thus less money for them. For Google, though it regards itself as the emperor of tech, ever evolving to offer society the next big thing; it’s really just like many other multinational behemoths seeking to protect and its increase profits. Who cares where those profits come from? Given greed’s at the company’s core, I once again welcome you to another example of Google’s takedown labyrinth.
[rev_slider Google_DMCA_circus]
When Congress crafted the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) in 1998 they explicitly carved out “safe harbor” from liability for copyright infringement so long as the service provider, “upon obtaining such knowledge or awareness, acts expeditiously to remove, or disable access to, the material.”
Section 512(c) limits the liability of service providers for infringing material on websites (or other information repositories) hosted on their systems. It applies to storage at the direction of a user. In order to be eligible for the limitation, the following conditions must be met:
- The provider must not have the requisite level of knowledge of the infringing activity, as described below.
- If the provider has the right and ability to control the infringing activity, it must not receive a financial benefit directly attributable to the infringing activity.
- Upon receiving proper notification of claimed infringement, the provider must expeditiously take down or block access to the material.
The legislation also contains this language with regard to a service provider being eligible for limitations on liability, “: (1) it must adopt and reasonably implement a policy of terminating in appropriate circumstances the accounts of subscribers who are repeat infringers…
After you step through these slides and read my previous posts examining Google’s dysfunctional takedown procedures, can you really believe Google is “expeditiously” honoring the intent of the DMCA? If so, I’ve got a bridge to sell you…
by Ellen Seidler | Copyright
This past Monday the Wall Street Journal published a thought-provoking piece “As Pirates Run Rampant, TV Studios Dial Up Pursuit.” Written by Christopher Stewart, the article explored how the television industry, studios, and film distributors are protecting their businesses from the ravages of online piracy. Kathy Wolfe, founder of Wolfe Video, the largest distributor of independent LGBT films in the world, spoke about the challenge of staying in business amid a sea of piracy. She told the Wall Street Journal that she estimates online piracy cost her small company more than 3 million dollars in 2012. In order to prevent that figure from growing, Wolfe spends over $30,000 annually (half the company’s profits) to scan the web for infringing content and send takedown notices. When I spoke with her today, she told me that her company could easily be forced out of business were anti-piracy efforts not in place.
In the meantime, according to Wolfe, they are working hard to develop a robust online streaming business. She says that 38% of their income now comes from online streaming and she expects that percentage to grow “radically” every year. “Now with our Wolfe on Demand [website], we have a formula that is accessible and affordable,” says Wolfe. She adds that by establishing their own online portal, and not depending on exclusively on other sites (iTunes, Amazon, Hulu, etc), Wolfe can direct a bigger percentage of profits back to the filmmakers.
Despite Wolfe’s success in growing online sales, mitigating piracy has become a fundamental part of protecting their business. “If it weren’t for our anti-piracy efforts, we certainly wouldn’t be functioning at the level we’re functioning at now,” she says.
After all, it’s still difficult to compete with free and the indie filmmakers who partner with Wolfe (including myself) are fortunate that the company bears the brunt of worldwide anti-piracy efforts. But whether it falls to a small independent film distributor such as Wolfe, or an individual filmmaker, the job of removing pirated content from the web is an onerous (and expensive) one.
Where does one begin? Well, in the example I’m about to outline, these are the 12 Steps a filmmaker would follow in order to remove ONE illegal movie from the web:
Step One: Find the film using Google search.
Step Two: Navigate to the YouTube (Google) channel featuring dozens of pirated movies.
Step Three: From there, click the movie you want and go to the description linking to a Blogger (Google) pirate site.
Step Four: Before you leave YouTube (Google), send a DMCA notice either via Content ID system or email.
Step Five: Navigate to the Blogger (Google) website, click the link.
Step Six: Click past pop-up ads to find the embedded film.
Step Seven: Fill out and send a DMCA notice to Blogger (Google) via online web form.
Step Eight: Click the VK icon on the embedded film to navigate to the host site for the infringing file.
Step Nine: Create an account with VK to find that actual URL of the infringing file
(amid more than 100 other uploads by the same pirate).
Step Ten: Fill out and send a DMCA Notice to VK via the online web form (no email address provided).
Step Eleven: Send a DMCA takedown to Google search to have the original link removed from search (YouTube link) in case Vk.com doesn’t respond.
Step Twelve: Get depressed when you have to begin all over a couple of days later when the Blogger pirate makes a new YouTube channel.
Let’s begin our journey with Google search–unquestionably the world’s most popular path to find links to pirated films. In the example below, I searched for the indie French film “Tomboy.” Thanks to Google, I ended up on a YouTube movie channel with links to more than 100 popular indie films. The films aren’t actually uploaded to YouTube. Instead, a it’s dummy file with the movie poster that includes a link to an external website in its description.
I’ve written before about the fact that YouTube is routinely used by pirates as an efficient means attracting traffic to their pirate websites and the example outlined here is no exception. In this case, the YouTube channel links to an external site also hosted by Google’s on its very own Blogger platform: http://cinegay9.blogspot.com.
If you are an indie filmmaker whose film pirated on this site, how can you remove the link? Well your first step would be to send a DMCA takedown notice to YouTube asking that the link to the pirate site be removed using their online form…
You have to fill in each line but, even when you click and send, your takedown request won’t touch the linked-to pirate’s page even though it’s also a Google entity, in this case a Blogspot.com offering an actual embedded stream of your (pirated) film.
If you click the link below the movie description on YouTube you’ll eventually end up at the pirated blog but, before you can glimpse the page, you’ll have to endure, and click past, a pop-up advertisement featuring ads from a panoply of well-known companies including: Dodge, Network Solutions, Reebok, XBox 360, Norton Software, Comcast and Hootsuite.
After you close the pop-up window, you’ll come to the pirate’s website.
Click the thumbnail for the movie, and after you click through another pop-up advertisement featuring ads from Progressive Insurance, Stanford Hospital, Home Depot, U.S. Forest Service, and Toyota….
you’ll eventually arrive at an actual embedded stream of the full movie:
Ok, so if you’re the indie filmmaker who made this film, what do you do next? Well, before yo leave the Blogger site you can notify Google (again) by sending a DMCA takedown notice to Blogger.
However, even if the Blogger page disappears, the online stream doesn’t. So what’s the next step? Well, at first glance the video is clearly hosted on a Russian site, vk.com (a site like Facebook). However, if you click the VK logo, you don’t end up at actual film, but rather a page full of uploaded (pirated) movies on this pirate’s Vk.com account (seen below).
Click on the film and nothing happens so uncovering the actual stream file and URL seems hopeless. But, if you’re really persistent, there is a way. To do so you must create an account at VK.com (and give up your cell phone number). It’s a major pain involving a text message with a confirmation code, etc.
Once you have an account and log in, you’ll finally be able to navigate to the infringing file and find the actual URL you’ll need to report in your takedown notice.
There’s no guarantee that any of these pages or links will be removed so in order to be totally thorough, you may want to file a DMCA notice to have Google remove the original search result that led you to your pirated film in the first place.
Of course, after all this work, you think you’re finished right? After all, you check back with YouTube and the pirate who started this whole process account has been terminated for “multiple third-party claims of copyright infringement.”
Victory right? Well, not so fast…revisit Google search and you’ll discover that Cinegay9blogspot’s channel has been reincarnated with the user name reotereds. Guess it’s time to start the DMCA takedown process all over again…
YouTube pirate wastes no time in generating a new channel to attract traffic to his blogger-hosted pirate website
Tell me again why artists, photographers, filmmakers and musicians should have to go to these lengths to protect their work from thieves? Wouldn’t our time be better spent creating our art, rather than having to police it so that we can earn a living and afford to spend time to create something new?
