Online Antipiracy firm sending copyright notices for downloading Ubuntu ISO
reddit.com
reddit.com
There is an infinitely small chance of collisions - but I would like them to produce a DMCA notice with the actual name of the infringed upon protected media, not just the hash.
I believe Canonical should step in, since this is someone claiming to act to protect their interests.
[0] https://torrent.ubuntu.com/tracker_index
Edit: searching for the hash returns two odd links; the first one is indexed by Google as a link to a software - Rebirth - that comes under the same hash as Ubuntu [1]; the other is the usual Lumen link for removed content [2] -- a DMCA notice from Disney.
Could this be a case of "automated DMCA notice" gone wrong?
[1] https://kat.rip/torrent/4ba4fbf7231a3a660e86892707d25c135533... [2] https://www.lumendatabase.org/notices/22636605?access_token=...
I didn't see the second link you posted? and I can't find the hash by CTRL+F on the page when clicking the link?
Am I missing something?
4ba4fbf7231a3a660e86892707d25c135533a16a ubuntu-20.04.2.0-desktop-amd64.iso 2.67GiB 120 8 1 2.67GiB
When I search for the hash I don't find [2] coming up in my search results, and when I click through to [2] I don't see the hash in the page.
And yes, I don't see the hash in the page too, I should read it more carefully before commenting. Sorry for the confusion.
That's the Ubuntu torrent - with the correct hash - but indexed by Google as a Rebirth torrent. At the bottom of the page [1] there is a link to the Lumen Database.
The first link has the hash in the URL. The Lumen Database one - even if I look at the full URLs - doesn't have the hash in the list. I am guessing that one of the pages had a link to the Ubuntu torrent.
This seems like a good reminder that Google decides what we see out of the interwebs!
[0] https://postimg.cc/30R85HHy [1] https://postimg.cc/Z9MjF8K1
Thanks for resolving my "not happening on my machine" issue! :)
93bdab204067321ff131f560879db46bee3b994bf24836bb78538640f689e58f /mnt/downloads/ubuntu-20.04.2.0-desktop-amd64.iso
If someone were to intentionally publish indexes that associate pirate titles with non-pirate SHAs, I imagine they’d be able to cause a lot of trouble for the DMCA takedown industry.
PS. It doesn't matter you downloaded free software, every person you'll contact in the process of straightening this out will be equally clueless and abusive.
The shady part is where they can just go to the ISP and request the personal customer information associated to an IP they believe is transferring the infringing content.
In Germany the law allows lawyers to ask and get this info from the ISP purely based on suspicion. This is the dirty secret related to how Germany enforces piracy laws. Getting internet access is predicated by accepting that this information will be passed on to private third parties (imagine getting internet access only if you agree to send your identity to Facebook if they want to check you are not violating FB rules by using a fake name).
Between this and the fact that a lawsuit is expensive and time consuming, they probably never pursue minor infringement in court if they get a counter from the user's lawyer.
Lawyers win either way, via the fines that they ask for (people are scared that this could escalate and just pay), or the fees to fight the fines (usually a letter highlighting the situation that personal information was obtained without a court order). So they have all the incentive to propagate the practice.
A court order is not supposed to be automated because it's exceedingly simple to make it output whatever you want while still claiming good faith.
Source: have been through many copyright claims and currently have a supreme court lawsuit pending.
This law is way too easy to abuse.
this should be considered a release into the public domain, an invitaion to use the file at no charge.
>>lawyers seeding copyrighted material on torrents to extract money<<
this should be some form of racketeering [trolling isnt strong enough lable]
What that means nowadays is that those people would now need to talk to the police. That implies in bringing some very good evidence, because our criminal system isn't antagonistic, and also facing the criminal consequences of false allegations.
As a result, some foreign companies tried very hard to create a copyright predator industry shortly after the criminalization, but had to abandon it. There are still copyright protections, mildly enforced, but not that kind of thing.
Yeah, thank god my country is not among this group. We have better things to do than police imaginary american property.
I remember reading a news article years ago about some MPAA lobbyist who came here to do his thing. A journalist asked him point blank if intellectual property should be a priority in a country that can barely manage to provide basic infrastructure for its entire population. People are literally hungry and yet this guy is here talking about copyright bullshit. I wish I could find this article again...
https://ustr.gov/sites/default/files/2019_Special_301_Report...
You can't just isolate yourself from them either without massive economic consequences. Even if you suffered through those consequences, they'll probably just force you to trade anyway just like they did with Japan once.
Given Trump focus on the internal affairs of the US, while the political climate was toxic at home, at least it let all others breath a little.
Now with Biden it will star all over again.. North-american companies, intelligence agencies, basically the status-quo interests being enforced all over..
At least now the government is caring about the environment and as while at home the policies are more left-leaning, i bet the will not be the same for foreign countries, and i expect things like copyright enforcement to gain more strength (basically all the traditional corporate and government bullies)
From the perspective of international political affairs its the resurgence of the good'ol "United Corporations of America" policy enforcement.
The only significant difference between him and Trump is aesthetic.
Strangely, the term "two party system" might lead one to assume there's a meaningful difference in real-world policy outcomes. Sadly, this is all too rare and, in practice, the differences are mostly in the claimed intentions and not the delivered results.
As an American, please accept my apology for all uninvited interference in the economic and political affairs of other nations.
No need for apologies. This is all super complex, gigantic, out of our hands mess that is hard to make it advance even a little. I know how it feels.
But its good to know that you care, and that's the reason why we should never fall for cheap generalizations.
The section on Switzerland is just about how annoyed the government is at their privacy protections.
For example, search the document for "right holder". It's full of this. Rights holders are concerned about this, rights holders are concerned about that... Why does some corporation's "concerns" matter at all? It's mind-boggling. This entire document is just an endless list of complaints from US corporations about countries that aren't playing by their rules. They want the US government to "fix" the other countries so they can turn a profit there.
My own country is an example. The government really likes to copy whatever it is developed countries are doing. Watching how other countries regulate stuff is a great way to predict what I might have to deal with in the future. We created our own GDPR after Europe did it. Telecommunications companies tried to lobby against net neutrality here citing the US as an "industry standard" example.
That particular business (Hollywood) happens to also be the propaganda arm for the current power, so naturally it's protected ham-fistedly by policy makers.
We had HADOPI, an organization announced as the Hammer of Thor for pirates. Not related but one of the elected members of our Assembly was talking about the OpenOffice Firewall.
Many discussions started on how this is legal and whatnot, an ISP also sent the IPs they were required to provides hardcopied on paper.
People started to create anti-HADPPI pages, after a chaotic discussion the law was changed from "you are a pirate" to "you did not secure your WiFi enough" (literally).
People started to use VPNs and forgot about the organization.
Then million of euros were poured into that idiotic organization (ah, we also have a tax on empty CDs and DVDs because they are used to copy pirated stuff...) and the first courts hit with the Hammer of Thor.
If I remember correctly, one person was convicted to 2000€.
It has now been quietly merged with another organization and I do not know if it still exists.
So much money spent on idiots doing idiotic work for idiotic results. Garbage in, garbage out.
If this is indeed a case of someone trolling the copyright trolls and not a mistake then good for them, I hope they win!
Also the victim should receive a reasonable indemnization, as a way to encourage sharing of content.
Maybe if copyright claims needed to be bonded to cover any counter claims, it might get somewhere.
If DMCA notices are automated, and the automation is producing false positives, then they should still be held 100% liable. Fix your automation or remove it entirely. The potential ramifications of a false positive (Massive fines, getting banned from your ISP when they're the only option in town, and more) are too severe to allow any number of them greater than zero.
EDIT: And I think the penalty for a false DMCA takedown request needs to be gargantuan. Seven figures, minimum. DMCA trolling should not be profitable.
Truer words have never been spoken right there. I feel like there’s an industry of folks that will perform DMCA takedowns on anyone’s behalf and they don’t care if they are correct or not. The onus is on the defendant. It’s sick.
The main alternative to engaging in electoral politics are protests, demonstrations, general strikes, etc.
It's not obviously so - which articles/amendments do you think it violates? In any case, it's insufficient for us to declare it unconstitutional, that's for a judge to decide. In the absence of such a ruling, we can elect legislators to repeal it. But that seems terribly unlikely unless you can pose new legislation to take its place.
Also this law circumvents the court of law, which sounds like it could be in violation of some more foundational laws such as the constitution.
Finally the law puts control over free speech in the hands of corporations.
I'd suggest an improvement to the DMCA would be to hold copyright holders responsible for claims determined to be made in bad faith, or even just an "excessive" number of false claims.
> I'd suggest an improvement to the DMCA would be to hold copyright holders responsible for claims determined to be made in bad faith, or even just an "excessive" number of false claims.
Yes, that would be a good idea. But it still leaves a bad taste, as it makes one wonder why we had to deal with the DMCA in its current form in the first place. Perhaps there should be a constitutional law which says that when it comes to things like entertainment and culture, then the benefit of the doubt should go to the people, not corporations. Imho, the US is taking the value of entertainment way too seriously.
I'd suggest extreme penalties for false DMCA takedown requests. Seven figures minimum for the first offense.
If you follow the DMCA takedown process, then you are shielded from liability for the copyright violation.
If you don't follow the process, then you are back to exactly where you would be if the DMCA didn't exist. You have to be taken to court to actually face any penalties.
DMCA limits my right to free speech. That could be still justifiable in case of copyright violations, but at least invalid cases of copyright notices should be punishable. Also, companies like Google/YouTube play a dubious role. No takedowns should happen unless the defendant agrees, because again, that limits free speech.
https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/nkztyv/comment/gzfsi...
A turd tsunami on a good day.
From their own website:
"Accurate Multi-Level Verification Use swift and accurate multi-level cyber verification techniques to confirm copyright infringement"
It sure doesn't sound to me like a company that would like it on record that they aren't as good as they think they are. Have them publicly admit the cock up.
https://mxtoolbox.com/SuperTool.aspx?action=dmarc%3aopsecsec...
But they are getting their own forensics feeds.
This seems to me that they are willifully staying in p=none so they can try and have plausible deniability should these things get public.
"Here's the hash of the file you're infringing." I mean, where did they get that from? It's a rather specific thing for a very specific file from a very specific source. How can that possibly be a mistake? At best it's a result of some automation that indiscriminately makes these claims, which doesn't fall under "cock up" in my book.
at about the same time there was a practice of a running padfile, that you would ammend every time you retorrented so that the hash would change and make it hard to kludge out the distribution network by tracking known hashes.
in summary it think it is very possible to "forge" hash numbers and impersonate or obfusicate the content
hash collision is rare, intentional hash mimicry maybe is not so rare.
if we held a copyright to kittehpix and took measures to monitor for infringement, could we not just claim that opsec has been flagrantly and repeatedly violating our copyright and have thier ISP disconnect opsec. It all seems to be set up "sos a good old boys word is all thats nessecary" fashion
I should say my personal hobby is walking into libertarian communities, asking if there's such a thing as intellectual property, then walking out whistling.
What are you trying to say?
It's not even a debate as at this point. More just sadness.