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DMCA Takedown Company Thinks It's Making A Point With 'Transparency Report' -- Really Just Looks Like A Jackass
from the what-point-are-they-making-really dept
Over the weekend, TorrentFreak picked up on yet another weird case of some copyright extremists trying to "make a point" but really just coming across as jackasses instead. It involves one of a group of wacky companies that promise to help issue DMCA takedown notices for copyright holders. In this case, it's an outfit called "Remove Your Media" (creative!) which put up a Tumblr site and a tweet pretending that it was "turning the tables" on the famous and useful Lumen Database (formerly known as the Chilling Effects database):
If you went to that website, for at least a little while, Remove Your Media was posting full details of people who filed counternotices to some of its DMCA takedowns. These postings made no effort whatsoever to redact personal information such as emails and phone numbers (TorrentFreak has an image where it redacted the info itself).
The "point" that Remove Your Media is so weakly trying to make is that there is a tiny group of copyright extremists who think that Lumen / Chilling Effects is itself a source of piracy because in posting DMCA notices, it leaves the links that copyright holders are demanding be taken down (it's noteworthy that Lumen does redact personal information, though). Of course, these are apples to oranges differences. The reason that Lumen leaves up those links is because the whole point of Lumen is to act as a clearinghouse of data for people to understand how the DMCA is used. And, in fact, it's been an invaluable tool for us and other researchers in finding examples of DMCA abuse. That would be significantly more difficult if the links in the notices were redacted. In fact, it would take away nearly all of the value of the database.
In response to the TorrentFreak article, it appears that Remove Your Media has taken down the information that it posted, and replaced it with a link to the head cheerleader of the anti-Lumen/Chilling Effects crowd, Ellen Seidler. Seidler has spent many, many, many yearstilting at windmills complaining about piracy, which she blames for the poor performance of her poorly reviewed film (which, amusingly, borrowed its title from a much more famous movie). Just a few months ago, at the Copyright Office hearings in San Francisco, Seidler again raised this issue of Lumen itself being some sort of "rogue site" for posting DMCA notices.
However, as was pointed out at the time, there is basically no evidence whatsoever that Lumen is used as a source to find pirated links to any extent that matters at all. Without any evidence of pirate hordes searching an academic database of DMCA takedown notices, this hardly seems like a worthwhile thing to bitch about. And, besides, what Remove Your Media did in "turning the tables" doesn't even make the point it wanted to make. There's a world of difference between posting the details included in a DMCA notice in such a database, and deliberately revealing someone's private info. One is a legitimate attempt to collect useful data on how DMCAs are being used.
The other is just acting like a complete jackass.
The "point" that Remove Your Media is so weakly trying to make is that there is a tiny group of copyright extremists who think that Lumen / Chilling Effects is itself a source of piracy because in posting DMCA notices, it leaves the links that copyright holders are demanding be taken down (it's noteworthy that Lumen does redact personal information, though). Of course, these are apples to oranges differences. The reason that Lumen leaves up those links is because the whole point of Lumen is to act as a clearinghouse of data for people to understand how the DMCA is used. And, in fact, it's been an invaluable tool for us and other researchers in finding examples of DMCA abuse. That would be significantly more difficult if the links in the notices were redacted. In fact, it would take away nearly all of the value of the database.
In response to the TorrentFreak article, it appears that Remove Your Media has taken down the information that it posted, and replaced it with a link to the head cheerleader of the anti-Lumen/Chilling Effects crowd, Ellen Seidler. Seidler has spent many, many, many years
However, as was pointed out at the time, there is basically no evidence whatsoever that Lumen is used as a source to find pirated links to any extent that matters at all. Without any evidence of pirate hordes searching an academic database of DMCA takedown notices, this hardly seems like a worthwhile thing to bitch about. And, besides, what Remove Your Media did in "turning the tables" doesn't even make the point it wanted to make. There's a world of difference between posting the details included in a DMCA notice in such a database, and deliberately revealing someone's private info. One is a legitimate attempt to collect useful data on how DMCAs are being used.
The other is just acting like a complete jackass.
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At least, in the EU, you'd have some grounds to bring the case to the EU Data Protection authorities.
In fact, I'm asking myself if people from the EU could sue them. They are a US based company, but they are operating with EU data, so they have to follow European laws.
Well, more or less, I guess...
Not sure if the data also include names, but it isn't that hard to link a name to a phone and to an email if you have the proper (illegally obtained) data.
And yes, phone numbers aren't always public information. Home phones are public, but mobile phones not so much. It isn't even allowed to keep a phone guide of mobile phones.
PS: now, it's things like these why the Europeans don't trust in US companies to handle their personal data; and why the Privacy Safe Harbour was challenged (and the new one will, most probably).
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