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RIAA Defeats False DMCA Takedown Notice Claims in CourtErnesto Van der Sar, 15 Jan 11:47 PM Last March, popular hip-hop mixtape service Spinrilla fi

RIAA Defeats False DMCA Takedown Notice Claims in Court Ernesto Van der Sar, 15 Jan 11:47 PM Last March, popular hip-hop mixtape service Spinrilla filed a lawsuit against the RIAA. Spinrilla accused the music industry group of sending inaccurate DMCA takedown notices that waste resources and harm the site's goodwill and reputation. 'RIAA Doesn't Listen' The mixtape platform said the RIAA was using automated text-based searches instead of actually listening to tracks. As a result, the group allegedly reported non-infringing content. These inaccurate notices put Spinrilla users at risk of having their accounts terminated. The RIAA swiftly responded to these allegations, assuring the court that it had the best intentions. The example of a 'faulty' takedown notice Spinrilla listed in the complaint was a legitimate claim and was sent in good faith, it countered. No Action On top of that, the music group said that Spinrilla had no case because the alleged DMCA abuse would only be relevant if the site removed the contested music track. That didn't happen, as Spinrilla refused to take action. As such, the RIAA asked the court to dismiss the case. Spinrilla disagreed and countered that RIAA's interpretation of the DMCA is too narrow. The site doesn't believe that content has to be removed to suffer damages. And even if that is the case, Spinrilla would like an injunction to prevent future false takedown notices. Court Sides With RIAA After hearing the arguments from both sides, US District Court Amy Totenberg ruled on the motion to dismiss this week. Without determining if the RIAA's takedown notices were accurate or not, the Judge sided with the music industry group. Based on earlier jurisprudence, it is clear that to argue takedown notice abuse and a violation of the DMCA's 'Section 512(f)', Spinrilla has to show that it either 'removed' or 'disabled' the content in response. Put simply, someone can't argue that a copyright holder sent false, abusive, or deceptive DMCA takedown notices if the content isn't taken down. Nothing Was Taken Down In this case, Spinrilla complained about takedown notices the RIAA sent in 2019 and 2020. It specifically references one 'non-infringing' audio file which the group falsely asked to remove. However, the site never removed this file. "[B]ecause Spinrilla contends that the audio file is not infringing, the Complaint does not allege that the audio file was removed or disabled as a result of the takedown notice," Judge Totenberg writes. "Rather, Spinrilla alleges it has been forced to spend time looking into each of the numerous takedown notices, resulting in 'lost revenue' and damage to its reputation and goodwill. These are not the types of damages recoverable under Section 512(f)." The Judge says that even if the RIAA willingly requested the takedown of a non-infringing file, Spinrilla can't claim damages. To do so, the file had to be removed or disabled. "Spinrilla has failed to allege it took any of the actions involving removing or disabling access to the material required under Section 512(f) as necessary to state a claim under the DMCA for material misrepresentation and damages." Case Dismissed Based on the above, Judge Totenberg sees no other option than to grant the RIAA's motion for dismissal and to close the case. This is another victory for the RIAA, whose notices came under the scrutiny of various parties last year. Earlier this month ISP Bright House Networks lost a similar case over 'false' takedown notices, and last November the court dismissed Charter's takedown abuse claims as well. The ISPs and Spinrilla are all engaged in separate legal battles against the RIAA and/or its members, which sued the companies for failing to terminate repeat infringers. Those cases remain ongoing. — A copy of US District Court Amy Totenberg's ruling is available here (pdf) From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more. YouTube-DL Fallout: Google Rejects RIAA MP3 Ripper Takedown Notices Andy Maxwell, 15 Jan 09:57 AM The member companies of the RIAA are no strangers to sending DMCA takedown notices to have content removed from Google search. At the time of writing they have sent more than 94.4 million across more than 20,600 domains. The vast majority of these are standard DMCA claims, targeting content or links to content that directly infringe the labels' rights. However, in more recent times the labels added a new tool to their arsenal in the form of DMCA anti-circumvention notices. These first started to appear in earnest during 2019 and then continued into 2020. The majority targeted sites operating in the so-called YouTube-ripping niche, specifically those that allow users to enter a YouTube URL and have a permanent MP3 file dumped to their local machines. The RIAA soon discovered that if it formulated its notices in this way, while alleging that sites circumvent YouTube's 'rolling cipher', Google would permanently remove the URLs. Importantly, there is no official counternotice system to contest such takedowns, something which resulted in a game of whac-a-mole as sites took countermeasures. However, in October 2020 a special controversy was ignited and, out of nowhere, that appears to have changed the rules of the game. Youtube-dl Controversy Back in October the widely publicized attempt by the RIAA to have YouTube-ripping tool youtube-dl removed from Github caused outrage. Github's CEO quickly got involved and not long after, the tool was reinstated by the coding platform, with the company putting $1m into a defense fund supported by the EFF. These important developments seemed like they had the potential to have a negative effect on pending RIAA legal action but it now appears that the RIAA's Google delisting work is already being affected. RIAA Resumes Targeting Google Just weeks after Github reinstated youtube-dl, the RIAA began targeting Google again with similar demands. The first complaint asked Google to remove 16 URLs from its indexes belonging to YouTube-ripping site mp3-youtube.download. The complaint followed the established format of stating that the service breaches YouTube's 'rolling cipher', in breach of the labels' rights. "To our knowledge, the URLs indicated provide access to a service (and/or software) that circumvents YouTube's rolling cipher, a technical protection measure, that protects our members' works on YouTube from unauthorized copying/downloading," the notice reads. Days later, RIAA member companies EMI Music North America, Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group (and their associated record labels), submitted another complaint containing exactly the same language, this time demanding the removal of 14 URLs belonging to YouTube-ripper NoTube.net. These were subsequently followed by more takedown requests against x2convert.com and several other platforms – clickmp3.com, mp3-youtube.download, notube.net and x2convert.com (again), go-mp3.com, y2meta.com and ytmp3.cc. Google Begins Rejecting RIAA DMCA Notices With interesting timing, coming directly after the youtube-dl controversy, Google's response was different this time around. The company rejected every single DMCA takedown notice marking each with a 'No action taken flag' (1,2,3,4) while declining to remove any of the URLs from its indexes. Google provides no reason for the rejections but on past experience, it appears that the search giant no longer considers the RIAA's complaints to be valid. This raises an important question. MP3-Ripping Platforms Still Affected While likely to be welcomed by the sites targeted in the most recent batch of anti-circumvention notices, huge volumes of URLs have already been removed following earlier complaints. Interestingly, however, some DMCA notices that previously resulted in the removal of homepages belonging to several major platforms are no longer appearing at the bottom of search results. For example, the RIAA previously and successfully demanded the removal of youtubeconverter.io, yout.com, y2mate.com, flvto.biz and 2conv.com. At the time of writing, searches for those domains in Google show that removals against 2conv.com, flvto.biz and y2mate.com appear to have been removed but those against the remaining pair still stand. Google will almost certainly consider future requests on a case-by-case basis but at this stage at least, it seems that the action against youtube-dl has quite possibly changed the game in a way that the RIAA would've preferred to avoid. From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more. ©2021 TorrentFreak | Office 21338 PO Box 4336 Manchester, North West M61 0BW United Kingdom Web Version   Preferences   Forward   Unsubscribe     Powered by Mad Mimi®A GoDaddy® company