Google Overwhelmed with Bogus DMCA Takedown Requests

[Guest GuiGaSXxL]

Inspired by the overzealous campaigns against digital piracy, many important film studios have asked the search giant to not only remove their own legal material, but even to drop their Facebook pages and Wikipedia posts.

After Google announced of its intentions to publish DMCA notices (within the frames of a program called Google Transparency Report), the company found itself overwhelmed with an unprecedented number of requests.

Although some of those requests appeared valid, there are a lot of slips, most of which occur thanks to the engine’s automated filters. Nevertheless, some of the notices are obviously out of the ordinary and raise serious questions about people handling takedown notices.

Since November, Google started to receive DMCA requests on behalf of some high-profile film studios. For example, Lionsgate notice asked the company to delete infringing links which allowed Internet users to download “Cabin in the woods”. But for some reason, the request in question also contained links towards legitimate copies of the film hosted on Amazon, iTunes, Blockbuster and Xfinity.

Another example is 20th Century Fox’s request. The film studio asked Google to remove links of “Prometheus”, and the provided list of “illegal copies” included legitimate copies found on Verizon, a collection of the Prometheus Watch Company, and even a Huffington Post article! Moreover, the takedown notice also included the popular series of “How I Met Your Mother” posted on CBS’ official site.

The examples are endless – BBC Films, Summit Entertainment, Sony Pictures, and Walt Disney Pictures also filed notices without (apparently) reading them. The Motion Picture Association of America claimed that all of the aforementioned notices are bogus, announcing that “Yes It Is – No Piracy!” has nothing to do with studios and is totally fake.

Source: SaM

[Guest HellYeah]

Good job mate. Carry on....