I get the feeling this must have been a notice issued by a robot … any human (with a clue about youtube) that looked at it would pretty quickly see what was happening. Suspect they need to get a bit more sophisticated with their automatic issuing of notices.

Graeme
CTO Scouta.com

Maybe so Graeme, but its a legal notice none the less and it’s even worse if they a generating this stuff automatically…it would make it a complete abuse of the DMCA>

asdg

websherrif? what basement dwellers

Thanks for the video… I would have preferred Great White though

Websherrif looks more like a John Giacobbi self-adoration and promotion site. Could he put any more gross pictures of himself?

Totally agree with you Duncan, can’t think of anything worse than routine, automatic issuing of legal notices. We need to keep humans with a clue in the loop.

I guess we’ll hear something back from websheriff sometime soon and then we’ll know what we are really looking at here.

And don’t forget to listen to my EXCLUSIVE interview with Scouta co-founder Richard Giles about the DMCA story on G’Day World #259.

I thought there was some perjury clause in the DMCA - that if somebody issues a takedown notice when they shouldn’t have then they can be charged with perjury. Not that I expect that anyone actually will be prosecuted, but you never know.

Scot, you are correct. The DMCA lets you file suite against someone who has wrongly issued a take down notice.

Scouta could easily sue Web Sheriff if they were feeling nasty.

When not abused, the parts of the DMCA that don’t deal the criminalization of content protection circumvention are actually good for us. For creators of content or copyright material, it provides a standardized way to take action against somebody who is infringing your copyright without having to go through a complex and expensive process. I would think that this is important to bloggers and developers who wish to protect their work, but who don’t have the financial means to have a team of lawyers working for them.

For those that have infringed copyright, the DMCA gives you an option to remove the offending content. Much better than just being sued. So the DMCA takes something that was previously very complicated and only available to large corporations and simplifies it and makes it available to everybody - overall, a good thing, so I think calling for its abolishment isn’t right

The problem is that abuses of the system are all too frequent, which is the case here. The notices sent to these guys don’t contain all the information that is required by the Act - so whoever is sending them obviously has no idea what they are doing. Since the notices haven’t been sent out properly, these guys can safely ignore them. Also, a notice doesn’t mean that you are in trouble - and it is common that people over-react.

It hasn’t been established if embedding or linking are actually a violation or not. You could argue that you aren’t hosting the file, so its not your issue. You could also argue that you are publishing and disseminating the material, and regardless of who is hosting it, you are at fault (for eg. somebody scraping Techcrunch could simply put the articles in an iframe rather than copy them and then argue that they aren’t violating)

Scot and Noah –

That’s interesting information Re: DCMA and perjury. The Techdirt story which Duncan mentions is about my “cease and desist” letter (I received it yesterday via e-mail) involving videos I never uploaded to YouTube.

This is good info, not that I intend to sue a technologically incompetent lawyer. Regardless, the blogosphere has taken notice, and I look forward to the continued discussion — the music industry has gone apesh*t.

Since ugly sites came up recently, websheriff.com is pretty ugly. craigslist is much better than this turd. I guess when you have an ugly site, you don’t need to worry about people stealing it. websheriff.com/services.htm is particularly bad. Need some usability expertise over there.

I don’t understand why WebSheriff would do this… Did they do it on spec, hoping that Warner Music would pay them afterward? It seems clear they didn’t consult with Warner BEFORE they issued the notice. Or did they just do it out of the goodness of their hearts?

As has been said above, the DMCA protects people from blatant abuse. The EFF has been helping people countersue takedown notice senders who have no right to be sending takedown notices.

There’s also a fairly large lawsuit right now against google/youtube claiming that they are responsible for illegally displayed content on their sites, and they are expected to argue that they should have the same protection under the DMCA as an ISP- as long as they take down content they have been served a notice for, they can not be held accountable. When someone decides to send them thousands of take-downs without ensuring that they’re really copyrighted though, the DMCA allows them to countersue.

Our government proves once again that it is incapable of writing ANY law that actually benefits anyone other than the special interests.

Feminism wasnt about gender, it was about the ability of the english language to support ANY law wriiten by ANY lawyer. That was the trick that sealed the America’s fate and the evidence of it’s consequenses are clearly in.

Hahaha Scot #9, that is really funny. Ask Martha or Scooter. On the other hand we have a proven liar named Billary and his minions of corruptacrats that lay blame everywhere but the people responsible. Lest not forget the signature on that POS DMCA. Yea, the corruptacrats are looking out for US, LOL…

You couldnt argue with J.Goebles in 1936 either….

This DMCA you american’s have seems fun. I’m in the UK and have been sent two so far. The first actually had youtube URL’s in it that I was requested to remove?? (no I am not YouTube UK (who are hiring btw)) and the 2nd referred to embeds that were on blip and youtube & google and nothing of ours. I do like the idea of this counter sue thing

These @$$hole lawyers are out of control.

Let me clarify…not all lawyers are jerks…but the bad ones…and there are a lot of them…..are really really bad.

Noone mentioned this yet, so I will. YouTube allows the owners of content to make it so that that content cannot be embedded on other sites. IOW, if the content owner (or rather the uploader) wants to, they could have prevented scouta.com from being able to embed said content. That means the DCMA notice is completely w/o merit.

I’m sure someone over at Web Sheriff will hear an earful about this one. Sounds to me like someone just didn’t do their research.

Web Sheriff
Protecting Your Rights on the Internet
Tel 44-(0)208-323 8013 / Fax 44-(0)208-323 8080
websheriff@websheriff.com http://www.websheriff.com

Hi-There TechCrunch,

In view of the contents of your news piece above - and your readers’ comments - we thought that we should throw some light on this for you as follows :-

1. Contrary to suggestions, this would actually appear to be a HUMAN error, as Web Sheriff does not Spam blogs and media sites … … in fact, we actually price ourselves on the fact that all data that we assimilate is checked by real people as opposed to some robot … … this is what enables us to distinguish between, say, a Russian, pirate, pay-to-download site and an artist’s biggest fan who just happens to have put an mp3 on his / her blog before release out of (understandable) enthusiasm for the artist … … which makes it all the more embarrassing on the extremely rare occasions that we get a ‘friendly fire’ incident / someone gets hit by a stray bullet.

2. Additionally, Web Sheriff always adopts a fan and blog friendly approach, as we do not think that music fans should be persecuted for merely being over-enthusiastic and, as such, do don’t adopt the ‘big stick’ approach that certain agencies / rights bodies employ … … we simply carry out artists’ and labels’ wishes and, at the end of the day, it’s their choice to decide whether or not they wish to allow their music (or videos) to be distributed on the net before release, as it’s their music !!

3. To place this into context, tens of thousands of DMCAs are (correctly) issued by Web Sheriff everyday - and all over the world - and incidents such as this can generally be counted on the fingers of one hand (each year).

So, our apologies to Scouta (who, we understand, have permission to link to this clip on YouTube) and, even though you guys have made this little story big news, we genuinely appreciate being able to air our response with you and your readers.

With Thanks & Regards,

WEB SHERIFF

I think the obviousness of this particular case is what has sent many readers into a tizzy. With just 3 clicks of the mouse, I was able to confirm the videos on Scouta were being hosted by YouTube.

Accidentally wrongly accusing someone isn’t a little story to me and many others, Web Sheriff. Let’s hope your company has a little more due diligence on its part and brings the average 5 cases of wrong accusations per year down to something much lower.

Thank you for responding to this issue and acknowledging fault. Many a lesser company wouldn’t have done the same.

We’ve restored the link at Scouta again and we’re happy to have this sorted out nice and quickly.

Graeme Sutherland
CTO, scouta.com

Web Pirate
Protecting All The Warez On The Internets
Tel +1 123 4567
thepiratebay.org

Dear Web Sherrif,

Please get fucked.

With Thanks and Regards,

WEB PIRATE

Note 1 of the takedown notice is my favorite…

“Note 1: The information in the notification is accurate and, under
penalty of perjury, Web Sheriff is authorised to act on behalf of the
exclusive owner of the rights alleged to have been infringed in this
Notification.”

Since the information wasn’t accurate, is Web Sheriff guilty of perjury?

I’m glad this has been resolved. But it does point to the cased of people shooting first before really examining what is going on. It does show maybe the lack of experience and research skills on the part of certain Firms.

The sad thing is the legislation in this case allows for the lodgment of a Cease and Desist without any real grounds. Yes the process has failed in this case.

Web Sheriff
Protecting Your Rights on the Internet
Tel 44-(0)208-323 8013 / Fax 44-(0)208-323 8080
websheriff@websheriff.com http://www.websheriff.com

Hi Again TechCrunch,

Following-up on this thread, the “perjury” aspect of the above relates to the honestly held opinion of the sender of the DMCA at the time it was sent … … in this instance a (copyright) clip was picked-up and a take-down request was issued (in the belief that it was an infringement) … … the fact that this was erroneous (due to the usage being permitted) doesn’t mean that the sender should end-up The Tower of London !! … … although further measures have been put in place to ensure that there is no repetition.

Once Again, With Thanks & Regards,

WEB SHERIFF

( Thank you WEB PIRATE for saying what we all feel! )

Hi Web Sheriff storm trooper,

I find your “Guilty until proven innocent, and even then, still guilty” approach to enforcing copyright ownership similar to the communist “Red Scare” of the 1950’s.

Any notice I receive from you will be immediately answered with a counter-notice:

http://fairusenetwork.org/refe.....tback1.php

Your short sighted greed, charging the big media companies to their bully, is actually hastening their extinction.

Love and Kisses,

Todd

There isn’t an issue here; They should simply ignore the DCMA take down notice. Go on doing business as general

Web Sheriff
Protecting Your Rights on the Internet
Tel 44-(0)208-323 8013 / Fax 44-(0)208-323 8080
websheriff@websheriff.com  http://www.websheriff.com

Hi Todd,

You seem to feel pretty strongly about this but, then again, many artists do too … … some bands are cool about having their music circulating freely on the net before / around the release date, but you must also appreciate that many bands / artists are not happy about this and - again - at the end of the day, surely it’s their decision as it’s THEIR MUSIC ?!

These decisions are by no means always financially motivated (although, again, if any artist wants to protect their royalties, that’s also their decision and they have a right to do so) … … more often than not, however, the decision to restrict the availability of new material before release is to do with preserving the marketing plan and artistic integrety of the release … … imagine how ‘flat’ a painter’s opening night would be at a gallery exhibition if everyone had already seen all of the paintings on the net, it would take away all of the artistic / creative impact.

For the info of TechCrunch’s readers (and Todd), Web Sheriff is not against ‘free music’ per se and we regularly advise labels and artists to allow 2, 3 or 4 tracks (depending) from any new album to be freely circulated to fans as promo tracks before release as a way of thanking fans for their enthusiasm (and patience !!).

Anyway, even if you disagree with us - which you probably will - at least, hopefully, you’ll be able to appreciate these issues from the artists’ and labels’ perspective.

Kind Regards,

WEB SHERIFF

I’m with Concrete on this one; the show must go on. I also happen to love the White Stripes and this video just rocks my socks off.

Hi Duncan,
Thanks for letting us know about this. Dabble received the same notice for the same video. Nice to see it’s happening to others as well.

Regarding the DMCA *notice* (yes, these are called “DMCA Notice and Takedowns”, not DMCA’s — if WebSherriff sent out the actual DMCA each time they wanted someone to remove something, they would have far more of an issue because we wouldn’t have a notice, we’d have the copy of the law.)

We also noted that the notice didn’t comply with DMCA rules and not just in terms of pointing to a correct and legal copy. We have a DMCA and copyright policy, and don’t allow people to email in requests like this because they can be forged and don’t have a real signature.

Since we don’t host the video, Youtube does, we also don’t have the video itself to remove, just links and text around it.

Additionally, WebSheriff said that we were violating The White Stripes “copyright, trademark and moral rights.”

Regarding the trademark, I would beg to differ. Dabble is a search engine, and therefore has “speech about things” but not the things themselves. Talking about something, correctly (as in the Dabble record they said was infringing the White Stripes trademark was actually a White Stripes video, put up by Warner Brothers) is not “causing confusion in the marketplace for users” which is usually the problem when trademark infringement occurs. Trademark is supposed to prevent brand confusion in the marketplace, among other things.

There is a case, noted here:
http://www.tabberone.com/Trade.....Kids.shtml

Where the New Kids on the Block sued to have a newspaper not refer to them by name, because they said it was “trademark infringement.” They lost the case because the judge said that the newspaper was accurately talking about the real New Kids and that free speech trumped the use of words which happen to be trademarked, in this case. We believe that search engines fall under this category as well.

I used to process DMCA notice and takedown requests from Google, for Chilling Effects, a couple of years ago, and would suggest people take a look at Chilling Effects, which catalogs all this stuff. (chillingeffects.org)

When we get a real notice in the mail, we will file it there so there is a public record of it. Most of what’s there include things from Scientologists, music companies and a few other disparate entities.

Scouta should do the same with their Web Sherriff notice or any other DMCA notices they get.

mary

Thanks for clarifying the situation regarding human error, Web Sheriff. I’m relieved to know that robots don’t write your legal letters….However, maybe they write your blog posts because there’s either gross spelling, grammar or punctuation errors in every one of your posts.

Not just the ‘casual use of language’ accepted on blogs and the Internet generally, but ‘integrety’…?

Also, ‘all data we assimilated is checked by real people’….let’s get this straight…The Borg ‘assimilate’; real people ‘gather’, ‘collect’, even amalgamate…but never assimilate, especially when they are not a technically-advanced enough populace to use a dictionary.

It would seem that Web Sheriff is nothing more than some guy with a busy mouth and a sales pitch employing legal-undergraduate dropouts who know more about Samuel L. Jackson than Samuel Johnson…and more about the Spice Girls convention than the Berne Convention and similar.

Thanks for trying to be the central control freaksters of the Internet, but we already have Microsoft for that!

Yep. Your website sucks ducks! Ask your web designers for your money back. As a web design manager, I would shoot any of my staff that built a commercial website like that, garotte them afterwards for taking money for it, then rip out their innards for creating a links page with only one link back to my web design company, thereafter I would decapitate them for using copyright images on a customer’s website without appropriate acknowledgement (you might want to look into that) and subsequently bury them at sea for designing a site without any consideration for web standards, accessibility and usability.

However, let me add that your core business intention (ridding the Internet of rip-off merchants, thieves, gangsters and the plain dangerous) is extremely laudable, but you should do your research.

‘Nuff said.