MUSO Just Can’t Stop Sending DMCA Notices On Behalf Of Indicted Fraudsters
from the please-stop! dept
Let’s be clear about this upfront: MUSO is a European copyright enforcement group with all the negative trappings that come along with that industry. That being said, MUSO has also distinguished itself from other piracy tracking groups by making some forward-thinking statements that don’t track with the copyright industries, such as coming out against the use of DRM or when it essentially told copyright holders to fix their business models to start bringing pirates in as customers.
But MUSO is, as we said, still a copyright enforcement group at the end of the day. It sends out millions of DMCA notices every year. Much of that is done on behalf of customers you wouldn’t bat an eye at. But as TorrentFreak points out, at least one of MUSO’s customers is causing raised eyebrows.
While going over the list of clients, one name stood out like a sore thumb. Apparently, Muso is also working with a company named MediaMuv Inc. While this name may not ring a bell with the average person on the street, it sits at the center of one of the most controversial copyright swindling schemes in history.
Last December, the US Department of Justice launched a criminal proceeding against two men suspected of running a massive YouTube Content ID scam. By falsely claiming to own the rights to more than 50,000 songs, the pair generated more than $20 million in revenue.
This would be a perfect place to remind everyone that the copyright enforcement mechanisms at major sites like YouTube are horrifically flawed in ways that opens them up to fraud and abuse. We actually wrote about the MediaMuv case back in April, some four months ago. One of the scammers has pleaded guilty and is awaiting sentencing, which could potentially be incarceration over several years. MediaMuv has been shuttered.
And, yet…
Publicly available takedown notices show that MUSO continues to send takedown notices on behalf of MediaMuv, with the most recent one sent just a few days ago. Both Google and 4Shared took these notices seriously. Several URLs and files were promptly removed, even though the takedown notices were not sent by the legitimate rightsholder.
Apparently, MediaMuv was trying to limit piracy, which could have hurt their illicit Content-ID profits. And indeed, these notices do indeed target Latin American music, which is in line with the activities described in the criminal indictment.
Now, is it funny that these scammers also used MUSO to “limit piracy”? Hell yeah, dawg, that’s hilarious. But what’s not funny is that months after this scheme was found out, still MUSO is out there getting internet content taken down and/or delisted on behalf of those same schemers.
If your job is the enforcement of copyright on behalf of clients, it sure would be nice if MUSO bothered to be sure it was working for actual rightsholders. Or at least not admitted copyright scam criminals.
Filed Under: copyright, copyright troll, dmca
Companies: mediamuv, muso
Comments on “MUSO Just Can’t Stop Sending DMCA Notices On Behalf Of Indicted Fraudsters”
Still like my idea
Of a verification service with all the info in 1 spot.
That the corps could pay an amount to get the info they need. And a small charge to be input in the system.
The company would do all the background checks and everything.
Re:
Through in background checks, and preferable file copies of claimed works in a world where there are millions of people publishing copyrighted works, and it will not be a small charge. YouTube alone is over a thousand new works a minute, and photos are being put online and an even higher rate. That requires some serious, and well paid people power to have a hope of protecting anybody other than the already well protected labels, studios and publishers.
Without real solid background checks, it will be just another content ID system, easy to scam, and with many false claims in its records.
Re:
Like the US Copyright Office?
Ah, but this is a European company sending out nastygrams about latin american music (presumably from latin america). So… good luck navigating copyright law worldwide, and regarding worldwide region distribution issues, contracts, etc.
Re: Re:
Nice strawman claiming that European countries should have registration requirements, but the fraudsters were posting links to published works to prove they held the copyrights in question, the same as content producers without registrations do here. Registration won’t fix that, only due diligence on the part of content hosts paid for by big content producers will, which is why the system’s so broken.
Re:
you mean like the registrar of copyright in each country? No need for a new database, just extend the current “you have to register the copyright to sue” to “you have to register the copyright to file a DMCA”. Which according to my IANAL understanding is something platforms could implement as-is.
What would be new is a more formal registration process where the registered copyright owner has to designate their authorized agents rather than spurious agents just being authorized with minimal vetting.
'Standards? Those don't sound profitable at all.'
MUSO: We have standards for who we’ll take money from. You need industrial digging equipment to get down to those standards followed by electron microscopes to see them but we do have them.
Re:
You need industrial digging equipment to get down to those standards followed by electron microscopes to see them but we do have them.
That’s… actually wrong. Muso’s standards are among the 0.1% of germs you can’t see with an electron microscope. 😉
You’d think MediaMuv would have defaulted on payments to Muso by this point. Or did they pay ahead for multiple years?
Tip of the iceberg
The trouble is Google doesn’t seem to need any proof of the original source. We’ve just had four notices covering seven URLs. Five of those URLs have exclusively our own content. Two of them are our own work with licensed content that doesn’t even belong to the complainant.
But of course Google sees ‘Hearst’ (their Spanish outpost anyway) and believes the BS. The saga so far is here. In this case it’s a company called Red Points Solution SL, and from what I can tell, its processes do not work. You might even call them fraudulent. Google takes six days to act on your counter-notice, then allows the bogus complainant another 10 working days to do what they have to do. Till then, you’re libelled by Google when they say that results have been removed—making you look like a copyright infringer. Guilty till proved innocent.
Re: Red Points Solution SL can’t handle a free press
After publishing our story, guess what? Red Points issued another DMCA notice to remove that—they really don’t like getting negative press, and this is all they know how to do.
Basically they claim Hearst also owns the story we published attacking them. If Hearst really did hire them, why would they post a story attacking their own contractor?! Talk about providing evidence of perjury!
Red Points Solution SL can’t handle a free press
After publishing our story, guess what? Red Points issued another DMCA notice to remove that—they really don’t like getting negative press, and this is all they know how to do.
Basically they claim Hearst also owns the story we published attacking them. If Hearst really did hire them, why would they post a story attacking their own contractor?! Talk about providing evidence of perjury!