After
receiving a number of false DMCA notices from the largest record
labels, the file-sharing service Mega has terminated Kim Dotcom’s cloud
hosting account. While this fact is supposed to prove that the company
takes copyright infringement seriously, it also shows that it's also
vulnerable to abuse.
Kim Dotcom, the founder of now defunct MegaUpload and now running Mega had to deal with a number of copyright violation allegations within recent years. As you know, the US started a criminal case against the New Zealand entrepreneur a couple years ago and still wants him extradited. In the meantime, the major film and music companies have also started their own lawsuits against Kim.
Now Dotcom can add one more allegation to the list, but this one is quite interesting, as it originates from cloud hosting service Mega, which he founded himself. Kim was using his own file-sharing service to share his own music album “Good Times” for free. Despite the fact that Dotcom holds all the rights, a number of music labels continued to send Mega DMCA notices claiming that the album was “infringing.”
Although it was clear from the very beginning that the takedown requests were all false, this still resulted in Dotcom having his Mega account blocked for “repeated violations” of the terms of service. If you try to download a copy of the album through the official download link on Kim.com website, you will see the message saying that the file is no longer available and that the associated user account has been… terminated.
Of course, the account termination didn’t last for long, because it was triggered by false takedowns. Nevertheless, this situation clearly shows how easy it can be to abuse the takedown process to terminate someone’s account, at least for some time. Mega is trying to avoid the fate of MegaUpload and show that the company takes every DMCA notice seriously. However, it also means that the service needs to develop a system that would allow to flag repeated false takedowns in order to prevent this kind of abuse in the future. The company’s representatives admitted that they are doing their best to improve their systems in order to monitor the takedown process and be able to identify false notices.
Fortunately, Dotcom’s account was reinstated in the end, but he can’t be too happy with the record labels trying to spoil his mood with such “mistakes”.
Kim Dotcom, the founder of now defunct MegaUpload and now running Mega had to deal with a number of copyright violation allegations within recent years. As you know, the US started a criminal case against the New Zealand entrepreneur a couple years ago and still wants him extradited. In the meantime, the major film and music companies have also started their own lawsuits against Kim.
Now Dotcom can add one more allegation to the list, but this one is quite interesting, as it originates from cloud hosting service Mega, which he founded himself. Kim was using his own file-sharing service to share his own music album “Good Times” for free. Despite the fact that Dotcom holds all the rights, a number of music labels continued to send Mega DMCA notices claiming that the album was “infringing.”
Although it was clear from the very beginning that the takedown requests were all false, this still resulted in Dotcom having his Mega account blocked for “repeated violations” of the terms of service. If you try to download a copy of the album through the official download link on Kim.com website, you will see the message saying that the file is no longer available and that the associated user account has been… terminated.
Of course, the account termination didn’t last for long, because it was triggered by false takedowns. Nevertheless, this situation clearly shows how easy it can be to abuse the takedown process to terminate someone’s account, at least for some time. Mega is trying to avoid the fate of MegaUpload and show that the company takes every DMCA notice seriously. However, it also means that the service needs to develop a system that would allow to flag repeated false takedowns in order to prevent this kind of abuse in the future. The company’s representatives admitted that they are doing their best to improve their systems in order to monitor the takedown process and be able to identify false notices.
Fortunately, Dotcom’s account was reinstated in the end, but he can’t be too happy with the record labels trying to spoil his mood with such “mistakes”.
0 comments:
Post a Comment