![\"caution\"](\"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/caution-1.jpg\")
Over the past few years, copyright holders have asked Google to remove billions of links to allegedly pirated content.<\/p>\nOver the past few years, copyright holders have asked Google to remove billions of links to allegedly pirated content.<\/p>\n
Most of these DMCA notices point to infringing material but occasionally mistakes are made, which can do serious harm. Even worse, the DMCA is also abused by scammers for personal gain. <\/p>\n
Over the past weeks, we have seen a new wave of suspicious takedown requests. These notices are not standard DMCA notices but point out links that supposedly bypass DRM restrictions, which violates the DMCA\u2019s anti-circumvention policy.<\/p>\n
Google handles these \u2018Section 1201\u2019 notices outside of the regular takedown system, which means that they\u2019re not listed in the public transparency report. However, they are sent to Lumen\u2019s takedown archive, where we spotted dozens of these dubious takedowns. <\/p>\n
Two weeks ago we saw several notices that listed the \u201cUnited States Copyright Office\u201d as the sender, supposedly acting on behalf of the \u201cVideo Industry Association of America.\u201d At the time, the Copyright Office confirmed that these were sent by an imposter<\/a>. <\/p>\n In recent days we have seen several similar notices and this time the Video Industry Association of America<\/a> is listed as both the sender and the copyright holder. However, plenty of questions remain. <\/p>\n First of all, we\u2019re not aware of any legitimate organization that calls itself the \u201cVideo Industry Association of America.\u201d But even if we were to believe that, the takedown request itself is rather confusing, as this example shows<\/a>. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n The \u2018American\u2019 organization starts one request off in Russian and finds it hard to construct proper English sentences. In another notice, it complains of sites and apps that circumvent the copyright protection of streaming services, while classifying these as \u201csoftware cracks<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n Things get even more problematic when we look at the URLs that are reported. While these include tools such as DVDFab and YouTube-rippers, which some rightsholders see as problematic, various legitimate sites are targeted as well. <\/p>\n For example, this notice<\/a> includes the homepages of Internet providers such as Spectrum, Xfinity, and Verizon, as well as the news sites Wired, The Verge, USA Today, and Techradar. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n In some cases, the notices list articles that explain how people can download content from streaming services such as Netflix. However, those mostly point to legal options, such as this Wired article<\/a> about Netflix\u2019s offline viewing feature.<\/p>\n This is just the tip of the iceberg. We have also seen Engadget, CNBC, CNET, and many other news sites targeted. Even Quora, PureVPN, and Pinterest can\u2019t escape the wrath of the Video Industry Association of America.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n The good news is that Google took no action in response to most of these takedown requests. However, not all sites were that lucky<\/a>. The smaller news outlets Fossbytes.com<\/a>, Techloot<\/a> and Robots.net<\/a> had their homepages wiped from Google\u2019s search results<\/a>. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n TorrentFreak spoke to Fossbytes\u2019 co-founder Adarsh Verma, who said that these claims damage the publication\u2019s reputation and lead to a reduction in traffic.<\/p>\n In addition to Fossbytes\u2019 homepage, an article<\/a> explaining how people can legally download videos from Netflix has been removed from Google\u2019s search results as well. <\/p>\n Fossbytes reported the issue to Google, which informed the site that there is no official counter-notification process for these anti-circumvention takedowns. As such, the URLs remain deindexed for now.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is no formal counter notification process available under US law for circumvention, so we have not reinstated these URLs,\u201d Google replied, requesting a detailed explanation from the site.<\/p>\n The response above comes from an email Fossbytes shared with TorrentFreak. This reveals some interesting details that are not available in the Lumen database, including the name, email address, and geolocation of the \u2018Video Industry Association of America\u2019 representative.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n As can be seen above, the sender is actually located in Russia and identifies itself as \u201cWolf Fang,\u201d which isn\u2019t a typical name, not even in Russia. The email address, which we won\u2019t publish, comes from Gmail and references another animal\u2019s fangs. <\/p>\n Speaking with TorrentFreak, a Google spokesperson says that the company is aware of the fraudulent activity and is taking action. <\/p>\n \u201cWe are aware of these fraudulent notices. We have a number of mechanisms in place to detect abuse, and are always making improvements to our approach. Our transparency efforts are designed to help third parties, including journalists, identify these types of issues, and when they come to light, we reinstate URLs as appropriate,\u201d Google says.<\/p>\n Based on Google\u2019s response, it seems likely that Fossbytes, Robots.net, and other wrongfully flagged sites, can expect their links to reappear in Google\u2019s search results eventually. <\/p>\n For now, it remains a mystery who\u2019s behind these notices. It wouldn\u2019t surprise us if the \u201cVideo Industry Association of America\u2019 is actually a direct competitor of the stream-ripping and DRM circumvention tools that are reported. <\/p>\n This is a strategy<\/a> we have seen<\/a> several times<\/a> in the past. A competitor targets URLs from competing apps and sites, so their own site will end up higher in Google\u2019s search results.<\/p>\n In this case, however, the person in question is drawing quite a bit of attention, by adding hundreds of perfectly legitimate URLs to the takedown requests.<\/p>\n From: TF<\/a>, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.<\/p>\n![\"russian\"](\"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/russian.jpg\")
<\/center><\/p>\nTargets Include Verizon, The Verge, and Quora<\/h2>\n
![\"bogustakedown\"](\"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/ispbogus.jpg\")
<\/center><\/p>\n![\"quora\"](\"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/quoraetal.jpg\")
<\/center><\/p>\nLegitimate Sites Removed from Google<\/h2>\n
![\"fossbytes\"](\"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/fossbytes.jpg\")
<\/center><\/p>\nGoogle is Aware of the Problem<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/wolffang.jpg\")
<\/center><\/p>\nGoogle is Aware of the Problem<\/h2>\n