This is fantastic news
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/09/eff-wins-release-warner-bros-documentsA federal judge in Florida ruled Thursday that Warner Brothers Entertainment must release key information about its automated scheme to send copyright infringement notices to websites. The documents will give the public a better look into robo-takedowns and their potential for abuse as Congress considers changes to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).
The ruling comes in response to EFF’s request to release records from the Disney v. Hotfile lawsuit, in which several movie studios accused the cyberlocker site Hotfile of copyright infringement based on Hotfile users’ sharing of movie files.
Hotfile countersued Warner for abusing the DMCA’s takedown procedure, which allows copyright holders to have user-posted material taken down from many sites based only on an accusation of copyright infringement. Hotfile accused Warner of repeatedly sending notices about material that was not Warner’s, including files that shared common words like “box” and “fringe” with the titles of Warner films, and even copies of a software program called JDownloader that Warner had no rights in but didn’t want the public to have.
A judge found that Warner might be liable under Section 512(f) of the DMCA, which prohibits sending takedowns without having a basis for believing the content is actually infringing a copyright owned by the person initiating the takedown.
In February, EFF asked the court to release the sealed records that explain the court’s decision, including aspects of Warner’s robo-takedown system that Hotfile had challenged.
Hopefully we will see the big copyright zealots cease sending out hundreds of thousands of fake takedowns with little regard to their legitimacy, it really is about time such corporate abuse of the system was brought to an end and this decision makes that day a step nearer.
