We have seen cases where copyright holders take down pirated contents in their numbers, but the latest move to go for open source software is something that has not been witnessed before. Paramount Pictures we learned has sent a DMCA notice to Google to take down Ubuntu, an operating system that is very popular. Something that although Ubuntu may be at fault, but nevertheless, still worrisome.
Copyright holders have been sending millions of requests of DMCA to Google on a monthly basis to take down pirated contents in an effort to curb the menace.
Due to this huge request that is becoming more frequent, cases of mistakes have been noticed. In the past few years till date, observations have been made about the different mistakes with some being graver than others.
In the course of the week, there was a takedown request made regarding a content that is very popular on Ubuntu and BitTorrent releases.
Ubuntu distros unlike blockbusters from Hollywood are made available with free licenses, therefore, encourage that is be shared. Ubuntu’s download site makes use of BiTorrent as one of its choices.
Seeing some of its famous operating system on sites like torrent is not going down well with Paramount Pictures. As is contained in a DMCA sent by the company’s partner in an anti-piracy movie studio to Google, a download page found on Ubuntu torrent, precisely ExtraTorrent was asked to be taken down.
The movie in question Transformers – Age of Extinction, is argued to be an infringement of copyright by Ubuntu.
We find it surprising how the URL was made a target since as we checked there was no reference to Transformers in the entire page.
We suspect that Transformers could have been mentioned in the “recent searches” entries, which we think is not yet substantial.
Google did not mind the status of Ubuntu concerning its stand as a non-infringing, but however, went ahead to take down the page and making it unavailable on its search index. This may not have come as a surprise though since the company is inundated with requests on a regular basis.
From the last check made, 3 million “URL” are sent to Google as pirated urls on a daily basis. Even with automated filters for search engines put in place to detect mistakes, it is almost impossible to be able to do this by hand submissions.
Although the DMCA from Paramount may not be that grave, however, it goes to show the wrongs that can go unnoticed with these notices from automated DMCA. Is there an end to this issue soon? Well, we cannot say for sure because these copyright holders are not in a hurry to work on their accuracy.
However, Google made a promise not too long ago that is will do its best to prevent mistakes and abuses.
According to Google spokesperson, they are working endlessly to ensure that non-infringing materials do not get disabled. The spokesperson also said Google is always working to improve the process so that abusive and erroneous DMCA notices can be detected.
We are glad that there are a lot of options available for search in Ubuntu.
