An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: YouTube is suing a Nebraska man the company says has blatantly abused its copyright takedown process. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act offers online platforms like YouTube legal protections if they promptly take down content flagged by copyright holders. However, this process can be abused — and boy did defendant Christopher L. Brady abuse it, according to YouTube’s legal complaint (pdf). Brady allegedly made fraudulent takedown notices against YouTube videos from at least three well-known Minecraft streamers. In one case, Brady made two false claims against a YouTuber and then sent the user an anonymous message demanding a payment of $150 by PayPal — or $75 in bitcoin.
“If you decide not to pay us, we will file a 3rd strike,” the message said. When a YouTube user receives a third copyright strike, the YouTuber’s account gets terminated. A second target was ordered to pay $300 by PayPal or $200 in Bitcoin to avoid a third fraudulent copyright strike. A third incident was arguably even more egregious. According to YouTube, Brady filed several fraudulent copyright notices against another YouTuber with whom he was “engaged in some sort of online dispute.” The YouTuber responded with a formal counter-notice stating that the content wasn’t infringing — a move that allows the content to be reinstated. However, the law requires the person filing the counter-notice to provide his or her real-world name and address — information that’s passed along to the person who filed the takedown request. This contact information is supposed to enable a legitimate copyright holder to file an infringement lawsuit in court. Shortly after filing a counter-notice, the targeted YouTuber “announced via Twitter that he had been the victim of a swatting scheme.”
YouTube says it doesn’t have hard proof that Brady was responsible for the swatting call — even though it “appears” that way, but it does have compelling evidence that Brady was responsible for the fraudulent takedown notices, which are against the law.
of this story at Slashdot.
Source:: Slashdot