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Ubuntu Piracy

Comcast Subscriber Receives DMCA Notice For Downloading Ubuntu (torrentfreak.com) 130

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: Every day, people who download and share pirated content receive DMCA notices via their ISPs, warning them to cease and desist their infringing behavior. While the majority of these notices are accurate, one Ubuntu user says he has just been targeted by an anti-piracy company alleging that by torrenting an OS ISO released by Ubuntu itself, he breached copyright law. Posting to Reddit's /r/linux sub-Reddit, a forum with more than 656K subscribers, 'NateNate60' reported the unthinkable. After downloading an official Ubuntu ISO package (filename ubuntu-20.04.2.0-desktop-amd64.iso) he says he received a notice from Comcast's Infinity claiming that he'd been reported for copyright infringement.

"We have received a notification by a copyright owner, or its authorized agent, reporting an alleged infringement of one or more copyrighted works made on or over your Xfinity Internet service," the posted notice reads. NateNate60 wisely redacted the notice to remove the 'Incident Number' and the precise time of the alleged infringement to protect his privacy but the clam was reported filed with Comcast on May 24, 2021. "The copyright owner has identified the IP address associated with your Xfinity Internet account at the time as the source of the infringing works," it continues, adding that NateNate60 should search all of his devices connected to his network and delete the files mentioned in the complaint.

The allegedly infringing content is the 64-bit Ubuntu 20.04.2.0 LTS release but the first big question is whether the file is actually the official release from Canonical. Given that the listed hash value is 4ba4fbf7231a3a660e86892707d25c135533a16a and that matches the hash of the official release, mislabeled or misidentified content (wrong hash, mislabeled file etc) appears to be ruled out. Indeed, the same hash value is listed on Ubuntu's very own BitTorrent tracker and according to NateNate60, this is where he downloaded the torrent that led to the DMCA notice. It doesn't get much more official than that. According to the DMCA notice sent by Comcast, the complainant wasn't Ubuntu/Canonical but an anti-piracy company called OpSec Security, which according to its imprint is based in Germany. Presuming the notice is genuine (albeit sent in error), Comcast needs to be informed that mistakes have been made. The ISP has a repeat infringer policy and given the current hostile environment, terminating users is certainly on the agenda. Indeed, the notice states just that.

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Comcast Subscriber Receives DMCA Notice For Downloading Ubuntu

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  • Perjury? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mattventura ( 1408229 ) on Wednesday May 26, 2021 @04:29PM (#61425494) Homepage
    Isn't it perjury due to the fact that they are claiming ownership of the copyrighted work when they clearly do not own it?
    • by msauve ( 701917 )
      >Isn't it perjury...

      No, they're not telling it under oath to a court. And it's not a DMCA notice. It's up to Comcast to put OpSec Security on a "three strikes, you're out" plan.
      • by msauve ( 701917 )
        ...just to clarify, what was called a "Notice of Action Under the DMCA" came from Comcast, and doesn't come close to meeting the requirements for a DMCA Takedown Notice.
      • by taustin ( 171655 )

        It says it's a DMCA takedown notice. Whether or not it meets all the legal requirements to be one is impossible to determine, since the actual DMCA notice, if it was one, was sent to Comcast, not to the user. But it certainly wants to be taken as one

      • Re:Perjury? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Sebby ( 238625 ) on Wednesday May 26, 2021 @04:48PM (#61425570)

        >Isn't it perjury... No, they're not telling it under oath to a court

        Unfortunately, that is the case (ie. they can't get into trouble this way).

        However, I wonder if the user could sue them for defemation/slander (can't remember which applies), given that they've basically gone through official channels to claim the user has committed a crime, even though he clearly has not.

        • Re: Perjury? (Score:5, Interesting)

          by e3m4n ( 947977 ) on Wednesday May 26, 2021 @04:54PM (#61425580)
          The EFF should take them to task. Claiming ownership is theft of IP even if its open source. Start with $100million in defamation damages. Let them squirm. IMO its like a patent troll. Just kill them financially till there are no rocks to crawl out from under. When done go as far as to take their mother-in-laws house to sell to pay off their losses. When these abuses go unchecked they happen more frequently. Make the pain so severe that citizens of Seti Alpha 6 feel the slap across the face.
          • "It appears that you have downloaded a copyrighted file without permission." Or words to that effect. The letter is a private communication and could easily be read as a statement of opinion or simply as a warning. The geek's dreams of a big win in court often turn to dust. Expect litigation to consume years of your life and much of your savings.
            • And there inlies the problem. The law should require burden of proof on behalf the claimant. They click a button, turn a joe schmoes life upside down, and they never think about it again. The law should require payment to a dinner for two at the Rainbow Room. Better dot your i's and cross your T's. Otherwise your paying for one hell of a dinner out. I'll give you a silent nod when she's screaming my name later that night. If anyones life should have to get disrupted it should be the tro
              • by jwhyche ( 6192 )

                This exactly. This is why you need to use a VPN that makes you look like your are at least in another country, for every torrent. Even if you are using it for strictly legal activity. The people send out these notices don't care if you are using bittorrent to download Linux ISOs. They see the bittorrent network as nothing but a huge copyright violation. They want to bring down the whole network; they just push a button and cackle.

        • Re: Perjury? (Score:5, Informative)

          by Quila ( 201335 ) on Wednesday May 26, 2021 @07:18PM (#61425970)

          The DMCA says that it is perjury if you file a takedown notice wrongfully claiming to be the copyright owner, or their representative, of the work.

          • by Sebby ( 238625 )

            The DMCA says that it is perjury if you file a takedown notice wrongfully claiming to be the copyright owner, or their representative, of the work.

            I think the "stay of of jail" card they use is that they state that they're acting on the 'good faith belief' that infringement has occurred, which still puts the onus on the ISP and the person they're attacking (yes, attacking) to prove otherwise to dismiss it, and none of it on them. (Otherwise, there wouldn't be such stupid cases of this happening.)

            Essentially, a DMCA takedown is a rubberstamp for corporations to accuse anyone they choose of infringement to keep their status quo.

      • Re:Perjury? (Score:5, Informative)

        by hey! ( 33014 ) on Wednesday May 26, 2021 @06:56PM (#61425902) Homepage Journal

        Whether it is perjury or not has nothing to do whether it is as statement given before the court and everything to do whether there is a legal obligation to be truthful in your statement, which there does not appear to be for DMCA takedowns. There's a curious asymmetry in the language describing the obligations of the parties giving a DMCA take down notice and parties filing counter-notices:

        From 17 US Code 512 [cornell.edu], the party giving notice provides:

        A statement that the information in the notification is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, that the complaining party is authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.

        but the party giving a counter-notice provides:

        A statement under penalty of perjury that the subscriber has a good faith belief that the material was removed or disabled as a result of mistake or misidentification of the material to be removed or disabled.

        Note the different wording. On the face of it, it appears the party giving notice commits perjury only if it falsely claims to be authorized by the owner, not if it makes other lies in its statement. The party filing a counter-notice commits perjury if it makes any false statements. I can't find any instances of anyone facing criminal charges for filing a false takedown. There are *civil* cases though claiming damages from fraudulent takedowns.

        This law appears designed to protect the rich and only the rich. Anyone who is the victim of a crime can refer the crime to authorities, but seeking civil damages can take millions of dollars.

        • by msauve ( 701917 )
          >only if it falsely claims to be authorized by the owner

          Nope. You stopped short. It's "the owner of an exclusive right". If they're giving notice for someone who is not the exclusive owner (as would be the case here if an actual notice was filed) it's perjurious. It's not the "believed owner", or the "in-good-faith owner", they have to be authorized by _the owner._
    • No, they aren't claiming ownership. These copyright firms don't claim ownership of any of the content they monitor and report. Sounds more like a disgruntled employee of the German firm decided to do it for the lulz more than anything.

      • No, they aren't claiming ownership.

        Seems to me like they are either claiming ownership or that they are authorized to represent the owners:

        "We have received a notification by a copyright owner, or its authorized agent..."

      • They claim that they are authorized by the copyright holder according the 17 USC 512

    • Depends on how the law is written. The DMCA is trash so it might not be perjury until they get into a court filing scenario. But this guy can also simply submit a counterclaim to comcast and make the problem "go away."
    • by lkcl ( 517947 )

      ti's more than that: as we learned with the youtube-dl fiasco, it's a criminal offense under the U.S. DMCA to make misrepresentations.

    • No. You have to read the DMCA carefully. The perjury provision only applies to the part where the person claiming infringement is authorized to make the claim on behalf of the copyright owner. The statement that the copyright was infringed is not made under penalty of perjury.

      Two scenarios:
      • Alice has a copyrighted work and has authorized Bob to chase down infringers. Bob sends a typical DMCA notice to everybody in the known world that claims the recipient has infringed on Alice's work. There's no perju
    • It's also while laws should never allow third parties to sue on behalf of others. We don't need misguided buttinskies trying to do their good deeds in error. And yet, sounds a lot like a current state law allowing third partie sto sue where the state itself is prevented from doing so...

  • by Tablizer ( 95088 ) on Wednesday May 26, 2021 @04:29PM (#61425496) Journal

    DMCA makes it too easy for the big guys to screw the small guys. Plutocrats "purchased" this law via lobbying and campaign donations. Most consumers would not support it if they knew what it entailed. But their opinion was trumped (no pun intended).

    Sure, there are "remedies" for consumers who are mis-fingered, but they are time-consuming and round-about. Most mom-and-pop shops and individuals give up unless their day job outright depends on it.

    • The biggest problem is apathy. This would fail all the tests required for a DMCA takedown and this company would fail hard in court.

      They need to demonstrated by signature that someone from Canonical authorised them to go after this specific file.
      They need to demonstrate a good faith belief that the material is being used incorrectly.
      They need to demonstrate that they are authorised to write the letter on Canonical's behalf.

      These are covered under the perjury clause. They will get away with it only because n

  • Torrent = Piracy (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Thelasko ( 1196535 ) on Wednesday May 26, 2021 @04:33PM (#61425502) Journal
    For ISPs, Torrents = Piracy. I doubt they checked the copyright. They just saw torrent activity on the network and sent the notice.
    • Re:Torrent = Piracy (Score:4, Interesting)

      by geekmux ( 1040042 ) on Wednesday May 26, 2021 @04:52PM (#61425576)

      For ISPs, Torrents = Piracy. I doubt they checked the copyright. They just saw torrent activity on the network and sent the notice.

      This is akin to finding someone who merely owns a Bitcoin wallet, and immediately accusing them of illegal money laundering.

      Morons should be sued so hard they don't even want to be an ISP anymore.

    • by jythie ( 914043 )
      It looks like in this case they sent a notice about a specific torrent and its contents by name, so that means it was in their system as one to watch for.
    • by timonak ( 800869 )
      Not exactly. As an ISP you have to register a designated agent with the copyright office https://www.copyright.gov/dmca... [copyright.gov]. DMCA notices then get automatically emailed to the email addr listed for the designated agent by what ever clown outfit is alleging infringment. Then in theory the ISP is supposed to process those and send the notice to the user. Competent ISPs have that whole process entirely automated via the ACNS XML attachment in the email. Source: Wrote our ANCS processor/customer lookup/emailer.
    • by xwin ( 848234 )
      How is this moderated "insightful"? Comcast did not send DMCA notice. Some German company did. You can see it right in the notice. There should be a large fine for sending invalid DMCA notices and then these companies will think twice. Better yet the lawyers should be disbarred after one offense.
    • For ISPs, Torrents = Piracy. I doubt they checked the copyright. They just saw torrent activity on the network and sent the notice.

      No they didn't. ISP's don't give two shit about this, and they also aren't the source of such notifications. Re-read TFS.

    • > For uninformed ISPs, Torrents = Piracy.

      Blizzard used to use [fandom.com] BitTorrents to download WoW, StarCraft 2, and Diablo 3. It is not clear if the current launcher still uses torrents like the previous Blizzard Downloader [fandom.com] did.

      Anyone still claiming Torrents == Piracy is ignorant and uninformed for for the last 15+ years.

  • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday May 26, 2021 @04:38PM (#61425524)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • You (Score:5, Funny)

    by BrookHarty ( 9119 ) on Wednesday May 26, 2021 @04:42PM (#61425538) Journal

    Wouldn't download a car would you?

  • by Sebby ( 238625 ) on Wednesday May 26, 2021 @04:45PM (#61425552)

    (albeit sent in error)

    More like "sent fraudulently".

  • Did they authorize Comcast or OpSec Security to represent their interests? Could this be a simple case of fraud?

    • As OpSec a german law firm, they could under the German law on the behalf of any copyrignt owner (client or not client) sue anyone. You add to this some DMCA salt and you have anyone (german law firm) able to claim a copyright violation against anyone where MCA apply :(

      • You're a moron, they are unable to prosecute a suit in the US District Courts, which are the ones that have jurisdiction over the person, unless they are representing the copyright holder. If they were to sue, the attorney of record with the court, would likely get sanctioned.

  • by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Wednesday May 26, 2021 @05:09PM (#61425632)
    the company is doing this to pad their numbers. e.g. "We found 1,000,000 instances of your copyrighted content online Mr Customer!".

    Or it could just be an absurd level of incompetence.
  • action taken related to a bogus take down! Is there any down side to individuals and organizations legal-evil-speak lies on paper?
  • As others have explained, this kind of abuse is sadly allowed by the US's DMCA. The false notice might be defamation, but that would be a hard thing to prove unless the target's Internet access was restricted or cut off (thereby causing actual damages).

    But if the notice was filed by a German company, then German law is also relevant. Does German law provide a cause of action for someone who is so falsely accused of copyright infringement?

  • Do they also download every torrent to check? They are the biggest pirates of all.

    • An image search database called IQDB got taken down for kiddie porn recently due to lack of sense, what happened is that some cunt's webcrawler clicked the IQDB link on a 4chan post that contained CP before it got deleted, and IQDB then had a thumbnail, and then it picked up the thumbnail that THEY made IQDB pick up, and it went downhill from there. Same thing also happened to SauceNao which crawls Pixiv and such for reverse-image search.

      https://saucenao.blogspot.com/... [blogspot.com]

  • Use it when you download pirated stuff, and use it when you download legit stuff too as it protects you from incompetence as well.

    If everyone did it the people sending copyright notices would have nothing to do and mistakes like this would not happen.
  • ...just like lawsuits or other ostensibly-good mechanisms that are prone to abuse.

    If you use them, and you're wrong, you should bear the cost of the process or a penalty fee. There has to be SOME cost to the thing, to deter (as in this example) abuse.

  • They're totally, unabashedly, ginormously fucked. Take them to court. They can't win. This is a slam, fucking, dunk for any lawyer worth a shit. Nuke them from orbit. It's the only way to be sure (that they don't pull this bullshit again.)
  • by gillbates ( 106458 ) on Wednesday May 26, 2021 @07:07PM (#61425932) Homepage Journal

    I can't help but wonder, that since the DMCA takedown is made under penalty of perjury, if I could bill the complainant for the legal fees incurred to respond to his mistaken request?

    From the information provided, the complainant is not authorized to act on behalf of Canonical. In that case, it would seem they have not exercised a proper duty of care with respect to the filing of such notice, and should be liable for costs incurred as a consequence of their actions.

    I know it's rare for damages to be awarded in cases of genuine misunderstandings, but I wonder if there's a lawyer here who could comment on the liability an entity would face for filing DMCA takedown notices in a negligent or frivolous manner.

    • Regardless of the "perjury" status (which seems dubious), it points a a lack of due diligence - negligence, in fact.

      Given the escalating penalties for repeat DMCA offenders, I think it only sensible that false accusations made under the DMCA auspices should also carry an escalating penalty.

      Firstly, I don't think it's at all reasonable that companies can throw out DMCA threats, with all the stress, hassle and (potentially) cost that can incur for the accused, with no cost to that company if they are wrong. S

  • Hey same here!!! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by BLToday ( 1777712 ) on Wednesday May 26, 2021 @07:25PM (#61425984)

    Cox, a few years, sent me a notice for downloading several Linux distributions through torrent. I was trying to save the distributions some bandwidth by using torrent instead of downloading direct. I think the ISP just default to sending out copyright notices if they see torrent traffic.

  • by mfearby ( 1653 ) on Wednesday May 26, 2021 @07:36PM (#61426024) Homepage

    If a company keeps sending erroneous DMCA notices, then they should be ignored on a permanent basis.

    • No. It's precisely this kind of apathy which promotes this bullshit. DMCA has a provision for incorrect notices to be covered under perjury. Take these fuckers to court. If they can't prove that Canonical directly authorised them to act on their behalf then they are screwed.

  • They bought it and they paid for it. Much of the time they even write it themselves.

    Do you think these clauses were originally written by anyone employed by the US government? It's likely the text was cut and pasted from documents sent to legislative staff who put in in the draft. This is how it's done these days.

    You only have the "rights" that your corporate owners allow you to have. The DCMA takes away your property rights. Do you think you own something if you can't repair it? You certainly don't con

  • The ISP has a repeat infringer policy and given the current hostile environment, terminating users is certainly on the agenda. Indeed, the notice states just that.

    1. Let them terminate you
    2. Sue
    3. Profit!

  • The law should be amended. First time a mistaken or false DMCA claim goes out, the violator pays a small fine. Second time, a bigger fine. Third time, a major fine and the violator is blocked from issuing DMCAs for three months. Skin in the game.
  • As reported, this story makes no sense. A German company issues a DCMA takedown notice against an American citizen/resident for downloading a file owned by a third party, Ubuntu. To the best of our knowledge the German group has no connection with Ubuntu, yet somehow and for some reason the German group claims it is representing Ubuntu and cited the correct file name, file hash, and date/time of the download?

    Is the German group associated with Ubuntu?
    Does DCMA allow for 'vigilante' filinigs by parties not a

  • It's 5$ a month for 5 gadgets.

  • When I changed ISP, they offered me an e-mail address, which I declined, and I didn't enter an e-mail in the online account the provided me with for billing.

    This means they have no way to reach me except by telephone or by actually writing me a letter.

    So their copyright notifications go in /dev/nul

  • This is a decades old problem I used to receive notices for downloading hairy porn from the hairy potter rights holders, and other even totally unrelated copyright owners agents back in the Kazaa and Limewire days.

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