WEBVTT - Faking a DMCA Takedown to Boost Search Rankings 0:00:04.440 --> 0:00:12.319 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there, 0:00:12.320 --> 0:00:15.760 and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. 0:00:15.840 --> 0:00:19.520 I'm an executive producer with iHeart Podcasts and how the 0:00:19.640 --> 0:00:23.160 tech are You? So I may have told this story 0:00:23.400 --> 0:00:25.759 on tech stuff before, but if I had, it was 0:00:25.840 --> 0:00:28.680 years ago, because that's when it happened. So a friend 0:00:28.720 --> 0:00:32.040 of mine was in a job search and they were 0:00:32.159 --> 0:00:35.080 unhappy in their current work situation at the time. They 0:00:35.080 --> 0:00:37.760 wanted to find something with a better company that better 0:00:37.880 --> 0:00:41.120 utilized their skills and knowledge and didn't make them feel 0:00:41.159 --> 0:00:42.960 like crying at the end of every day, and so 0:00:43.040 --> 0:00:47.440 they started looking online for various opportunities. They used LinkedIn 0:00:47.680 --> 0:00:49.839 and some other tools to try and find something that 0:00:49.960 --> 0:00:54.760 was stable and appealing basics for a job search right well. 0:00:54.800 --> 0:00:58.680 Along that search, they encountered some scam artists and predators. 0:00:59.040 --> 0:01:01.760 So my friend would sometimes ask my opinion of some 0:01:01.880 --> 0:01:04.720 of the responses that they received. They would send me 0:01:04.760 --> 0:01:06.360 on a little bit of a hunt to find out 0:01:06.920 --> 0:01:10.640 is this a legitimate offer or is this company doing 0:01:10.680 --> 0:01:14.000 something shady and underhanded. They were worried that some of 0:01:14.000 --> 0:01:16.120 the responses they got were a bit too good to 0:01:16.200 --> 0:01:18.880 be true. So I looked into it, and often they 0:01:18.880 --> 0:01:21.120 were too good to be true. And I'm sure a 0:01:21.120 --> 0:01:24.720 lot of you out there are familiar with similar scams, right, 0:01:24.760 --> 0:01:28.919 where someone gets offered one position, when they go into 0:01:28.959 --> 0:01:33.160 interview for it, they are offered something totally different. Right. 0:01:33.240 --> 0:01:35.840 It's a bait and switch, where it's a different position 0:01:35.920 --> 0:01:38.760 with different pay. They're not going to get nearly the 0:01:38.840 --> 0:01:42.920 stuff that they had been promised or suggested through the 0:01:42.920 --> 0:01:46.760 whole job search situation. That sort of stuff, unfortunately, is 0:01:47.480 --> 0:01:52.800 terribly common and it's really crappy. So often when I 0:01:52.840 --> 0:01:55.880 would look into these offers that my friend was getting, 0:01:55.960 --> 0:01:59.000 I would find that they frequently linked to a website that, 0:01:59.080 --> 0:02:04.360 at least on a very casual surface glance, looks somewhat legitimate. 0:02:04.800 --> 0:02:08.840 But even just a cursory look at the site, especially 0:02:08.840 --> 0:02:11.840 clicking around a little bit to the different pages in 0:02:11.880 --> 0:02:14.240 the site, would reveal that the whole thing was just 0:02:14.280 --> 0:02:16.880 a facade. I remember one supposed I think it was 0:02:16.919 --> 0:02:19.720 a real estate company that was offering my friend an 0:02:19.840 --> 0:02:24.040 incredible starting position and salary. And when I went to 0:02:24.040 --> 0:02:26.959 the website, the website did look pretty slick, The office 0:02:27.000 --> 0:02:29.920 space looked really nice, the folks, and the photos looked 0:02:29.960 --> 0:02:34.680 really photogenic, and immediately I thought something was fishy. For 0:02:34.760 --> 0:02:37.840 one thing, like me, my friend is based in the 0:02:37.880 --> 0:02:41.680 metropolitan Atlanta area, and yet the building that I saw 0:02:41.800 --> 0:02:45.559 on the website didn't look like it was in Atlanta, 0:02:45.600 --> 0:02:49.640 even though there was an Atlanta address that was on 0:02:49.680 --> 0:02:53.800 the website. Now you could argue, well, maybe it's in 0:02:53.840 --> 0:02:56.080 a part of Atlanta I'm just not familiar with, or 0:02:56.200 --> 0:02:59.400 maybe this was a company that has offices in different 0:02:59.400 --> 0:03:01.560 cities and what I was really looking at was an 0:03:01.680 --> 0:03:04.880 HQ building in some other city or something. But I 0:03:05.000 --> 0:03:06.800 used the address that was listed on the site to 0:03:06.840 --> 0:03:09.680 look up the location online, you know, get a street 0:03:09.760 --> 0:03:13.840 view look at this supposed place, and not only did 0:03:13.840 --> 0:03:17.920 the building look totally different, there were no businesses matching 0:03:18.160 --> 0:03:20.799 the name of the one that was contacting my friend 0:03:21.040 --> 0:03:23.639 at that particular building location. I was able to find 0:03:23.960 --> 0:03:26.840 the businesses that were in that building, and none of 0:03:26.880 --> 0:03:29.000 them matched the thing that was sent to my friend. 0:03:29.320 --> 0:03:31.600 So then go back to the website to click around 0:03:31.600 --> 0:03:33.640 some more. I find that some of the links, like 0:03:33.880 --> 0:03:37.160 links to bios for the leadership team or whatever, led 0:03:37.200 --> 0:03:41.040 to unfinished pages. I just had stuff like lorum ipsum 0:03:41.160 --> 0:03:44.160 style gibberish in them. So the more I looked, the 0:03:44.200 --> 0:03:47.720 more it appeared to be just a hastily assembled trap 0:03:48.000 --> 0:03:52.080 designed to lure hopeful people into taking the bait. Now 0:03:52.160 --> 0:03:54.400 what the scam was, I don't know, Like, I don't 0:03:54.440 --> 0:03:56.000 know if it was going to be a bait and switch. 0:03:56.200 --> 0:03:58.320 I don't know, if it was really some other company 0:03:58.360 --> 0:04:00.800 that was just looking to get you know, cheap labor. 0:04:01.120 --> 0:04:03.240 I don't know if it was like a phishing attempt 0:04:03.240 --> 0:04:07.200 to get my friend's personal information. That doesn't really matter. 0:04:07.280 --> 0:04:10.480 What was clear was that there was something shady happening. 0:04:10.760 --> 0:04:13.040 The real clincher was when I did a reverse image 0:04:13.080 --> 0:04:15.280 search on some of the photos that were in the page, 0:04:15.680 --> 0:04:19.400 because some of the reverse images went to stock photography sites, 0:04:19.400 --> 0:04:25.039 but others linked to identical websites that had businesses with 0:04:25.120 --> 0:04:30.240 different names in different cities, but otherwise the website was identical, 0:04:30.440 --> 0:04:33.839 with the same language and everything, to the point where 0:04:33.880 --> 0:04:37.440 the same mistakes were showing up on some of these pages. 0:04:37.839 --> 0:04:40.680 And clearly this was just a scam that was being 0:04:40.760 --> 0:04:44.160 run over and over and over again in different locations. 0:04:44.480 --> 0:04:47.360 So I warned my friend, and I also got very, 0:04:47.480 --> 0:04:51.840 very very angry about the scam. Now, I hate scams 0:04:52.080 --> 0:04:55.960 and cons and deceit, but I really hate the ones 0:04:56.240 --> 0:04:58.760 that prey upon people who have the most to lose. 0:04:58.920 --> 0:05:01.400 If you're going to scam the billionaire out of a 0:05:01.480 --> 0:05:04.680 million dollars, I mean, what you're doing is wrong, but 0:05:04.720 --> 0:05:07.800 I'm not gonna be sad for the billionaire. But if 0:05:07.800 --> 0:05:11.480 you're scamming people who are trying to make a positive 0:05:11.520 --> 0:05:14.800 change in their lives because they're currently in a bad situation, 0:05:15.160 --> 0:05:18.920 that's just the worst. Now, from the con artist viewpoint, 0:05:18.960 --> 0:05:21.480 I totally get it, because you want to target people 0:05:21.520 --> 0:05:24.760 who are already highly motivated to buy into whatever it 0:05:24.839 --> 0:05:27.240 is you're selling. But when you consider the people who 0:05:27.279 --> 0:05:29.480 are typically looking for a job or in a situation 0:05:29.560 --> 0:05:32.240 that is already pretty tough, and then on top of 0:05:32.279 --> 0:05:34.760 that you throw a scam at them, that just makes 0:05:34.800 --> 0:05:38.920 my blood boil. So why did I bother telling this story. Well, 0:05:38.920 --> 0:05:42.960 it's because there's a similar scam that I read about today, 0:05:43.360 --> 0:05:45.640 and I didn't know about it untill I saw an 0:05:45.760 --> 0:05:48.920 article by Kevin Purdy on Ours Technica. Y'all know I 0:05:48.960 --> 0:05:51.599 love Ours Technica. I don't have any connection to the website, 0:05:51.640 --> 0:05:54.359 but I love their work. And the article is titled 0:05:54.680 --> 0:05:58.960 fake AI law firms are sending fake DMCA threats to 0:05:59.000 --> 0:06:03.279 generate fake SEO games, which is a heck of a title. 0:06:03.520 --> 0:06:06.960 And yeah, this con game gets a bit convoluted. It 0:06:07.000 --> 0:06:10.520 starts to make me think of some of those films 0:06:10.600 --> 0:06:13.240 like that you would see, especially around the nineties and 0:06:13.279 --> 0:06:17.040 two thousands, of like these scams that would be scams 0:06:17.040 --> 0:06:19.960 on top of scams on top of scams, where following 0:06:20.000 --> 0:06:22.919 it starts to get a little challenging. It's similar in 0:06:23.000 --> 0:06:26.279 that way. So let's give you a little scenario that's 0:06:26.360 --> 0:06:29.240 kind of an analogous to what we're talking about. Imagine 0:06:29.240 --> 0:06:31.960 that one day you go out and you check your 0:06:32.000 --> 0:06:34.880 mail because sometimes you still get stuff in the mail, 0:06:35.360 --> 0:06:38.680 and you find out there's a notice that's included in 0:06:38.720 --> 0:06:41.279 your mail that day, and the notice claims that you 0:06:41.320 --> 0:06:44.599 are under investigation for a supposed crime that you have 0:06:44.680 --> 0:06:47.720 committed against a person you have never heard of. What's 0:06:47.839 --> 0:06:50.760 even more strange is that this notice is coming from 0:06:50.839 --> 0:06:53.479 a police department that has a weird name. It doesn't 0:06:53.680 --> 0:06:56.000 match the one that's actually in your area. It seems 0:06:56.080 --> 0:06:58.720 kind of odd, so you decide, you know what, I'm 0:06:58.720 --> 0:07:01.240 going to look into this, and you look up that 0:07:01.279 --> 0:07:03.760 police department and you find out there's no police force 0:07:03.839 --> 0:07:07.640 in your city that has that name. Then you look 0:07:07.680 --> 0:07:10.440 and you find out there's not any person by the 0:07:10.520 --> 0:07:13.760 name of the supposed victim that you can find anyway. 0:07:14.200 --> 0:07:17.000 You would think that was really strange, right. That's kind 0:07:17.000 --> 0:07:20.480 of how the scam we're going to talk about worked, 0:07:20.760 --> 0:07:23.400 and not that it worked. It didn't work because the 0:07:23.440 --> 0:07:25.480 person they sent it to was far too smart for this. 0:07:25.920 --> 0:07:29.200 But we'll also talk about why the scam exists in 0:07:29.240 --> 0:07:32.000 the first place later on in the show, because it 0:07:32.080 --> 0:07:35.600 wasn't just to you know, phish information or get money. 0:07:35.640 --> 0:07:37.920 In fact, that wasn't the key to it at all. 0:07:38.360 --> 0:07:42.360 The article covers the story of a journalist named Ernie Smith, 0:07:43.560 --> 0:07:46.600 so not the musician or producer or anything. It's the 0:07:46.680 --> 0:07:50.880 journalist Ernie Smith, and Smith author is a newsletter called Tedium, 0:07:51.280 --> 0:07:54.960 which is a nice little fun way of piggybacking on medium, 0:07:55.000 --> 0:07:58.800 I guess, or at least like kind of slyly acknowledging 0:07:58.880 --> 0:08:02.560 medium with your own. I gotta admit, that's exactly the 0:08:02.600 --> 0:08:04.200 sort of name I would have picked if I were 0:08:04.240 --> 0:08:06.880 writing a newsletter I will say that, based upon what 0:08:06.920 --> 0:08:09.680 I've seen of the newsletter, which I've just subscribed to it, 0:08:09.720 --> 0:08:13.280 because again I was unfamiliar with Smith's work until I 0:08:13.320 --> 0:08:15.600 read this article, I will say that, based upon what 0:08:15.640 --> 0:08:18.960 I've seen, it's well worth checking out. He does cover technology, 0:08:19.080 --> 0:08:21.760 but he also has articles on lots of other stuff, 0:08:22.120 --> 0:08:24.960 like Neapolitan ice cream and its role in the space industry. 0:08:25.480 --> 0:08:28.120 It seems like a cool dude. So anyway, Smith will 0:08:28.160 --> 0:08:32.400 often use images in his newsletter, which is pretty standard online, 0:08:32.640 --> 0:08:36.520 and he makes sure to source those images appropriately and 0:08:36.559 --> 0:08:39.520 then to credit those sources, as is very much not 0:08:39.960 --> 0:08:43.679 standard online. I don't have to tell y'all that tons 0:08:43.720 --> 0:08:45.880 of folks out there on the web will just grab 0:08:45.960 --> 0:08:49.320 whatever images they can just doing an image search. They 0:08:49.360 --> 0:08:51.640 won't even spare a second thought about it. They'll PLoP 0:08:51.679 --> 0:08:55.080 it into their own stuff. So technically, this is what 0:08:55.120 --> 0:08:59.000 we would call stealing, and it's been explained to me 0:08:59.160 --> 0:09:03.800 a society only frowns upon it. So for that reason, 0:09:03.840 --> 0:09:07.120 we've got things like stock photography databases, and you can 0:09:07.200 --> 0:09:11.160 access these typically you access them for a fee, and 0:09:11.200 --> 0:09:13.240 then you can get images that you can include with 0:09:13.320 --> 0:09:15.800 all the permissions that you need to do so, the 0:09:15.840 --> 0:09:18.920 most rule abiding creators out there will go to that 0:09:19.000 --> 0:09:23.120 kind of trouble. Everybody else steals. Now, a lot of 0:09:23.120 --> 0:09:26.040 people will steal until they get a DMCA notice, and 0:09:26.080 --> 0:09:29.199 that scares the stealing right out of them. Now, the 0:09:29.280 --> 0:09:33.400 DMCA is the good old Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 0:09:33.480 --> 0:09:36.439 nineteen ninety eight here in the United States, and here 0:09:36.440 --> 0:09:39.240 in the US copyright law has gone through quite a 0:09:39.280 --> 0:09:44.120 few revisions over its history. Now we can just oversimplify 0:09:44.240 --> 0:09:49.280 that whole history by saying that typically large media companies 0:09:49.400 --> 0:09:54.079 like Disney have lobbied big time, really again and again 0:09:54.120 --> 0:09:58.880 in order to extend copyright protections for longer and longer periods, 0:09:59.120 --> 0:10:02.199 and this lets them maintain an exclusive grip on certain 0:10:02.240 --> 0:10:06.760 ip You probably have heard that the Steamboat Willy version 0:10:06.920 --> 0:10:10.120 of Mickey Mouse is now in public domain. That's true. 0:10:10.200 --> 0:10:13.080 It's the only version of Mickey Mouse that's currently in 0:10:13.120 --> 0:10:16.360 public domain. Other versions will enter into public domain as 0:10:16.440 --> 0:10:19.160 time goes on. But it doesn't mean that every version 0:10:19.440 --> 0:10:22.880 of Mickey Mouse is in public domain. And the reason 0:10:22.920 --> 0:10:24.920 it took so long to get to the point where 0:10:25.400 --> 0:10:28.280 the Steamboat Willi version would enter public domain is because 0:10:28.280 --> 0:10:32.000 companies like Disney would lobby very hard to get legislation 0:10:32.200 --> 0:10:37.920 passed to extend copyright protection beyond what it was running 0:10:38.000 --> 0:10:41.280 up against. Well, eventually we kind of hit the limit 0:10:41.360 --> 0:10:43.880 on that and everyone said, you know what, I think 0:10:43.880 --> 0:10:45.960 we pushed this as far as we can and so 0:10:46.760 --> 0:10:50.079 now we're not seeing that happen quite as much. Now. 0:10:50.120 --> 0:10:52.640 A lot more stuff has been added into copyright law 0:10:52.760 --> 0:10:56.560 besides just making it longer, and that particularly became true 0:10:56.640 --> 0:10:59.360 upon the dawn of the World Wide Web. So remember 0:10:59.559 --> 0:11:03.280 DMC gets passed in nineteen ninety eight. That's when the 0:11:03.840 --> 0:11:06.400 Web was maturing. It had yet to go through the 0:11:06.440 --> 0:11:11.280 Dot Com crash, but like it was definitely a big factor. 0:11:11.640 --> 0:11:15.040 So the DMCA introduced quite a few new concepts into 0:11:15.040 --> 0:11:18.679 copyright law. So, for example, there's the paradoxical nature of 0:11:18.760 --> 0:11:24.280 digital rights management or DRM. So with US copyright law, 0:11:24.320 --> 0:11:29.400 we have this concept of fair use. There are exemptions 0:11:29.440 --> 0:11:32.880 of copyright in which it is fair to use copyrighted 0:11:32.880 --> 0:11:35.320 material that does not belong to you, but they are 0:11:35.440 --> 0:11:37.800 very specific and it only comes up when you are 0:11:37.840 --> 0:11:40.800 actually defending yourself in a court case. It's not something 0:11:40.840 --> 0:11:44.800 you can proactively put out there anyway. One of the 0:11:44.800 --> 0:11:47.959 concepts of fair use. Is that it is totally legal 0:11:48.240 --> 0:11:51.440 for someone to purchase a copy of something like an 0:11:51.480 --> 0:11:54.280 album or a piece of software or whatever it might be, 0:11:54.679 --> 0:11:57.520 is totally legal to make a copy of that thing 0:11:58.000 --> 0:12:01.640 for the purposes of a personal back That's completely within 0:12:01.679 --> 0:12:06.120 the rights of citizens, which seems pretty straightforward. But certain 0:12:06.200 --> 0:12:10.120 companies will use DRM protections that make it difficult or 0:12:10.160 --> 0:12:13.800 impossible to make a copy of their stuff unless you 0:12:13.880 --> 0:12:16.840 first strip out the DRM. But if you were to 0:12:16.880 --> 0:12:20.360 strip out the DRM, it makes the DRM moot. So 0:12:20.400 --> 0:12:24.839 the DMCA says, hey, it's illegal to strip out DRM. 0:12:25.559 --> 0:12:28.920 If in fact there is DRM on the stuff you buy. 0:12:29.280 --> 0:12:32.000 That means that, yeah, it's legal for you to make 0:12:32.000 --> 0:12:35.520 a backup copy. However, DRM is preventing you from making 0:12:35.520 --> 0:12:38.520 a copy at all, and it is illegal to remove 0:12:38.559 --> 0:12:41.480 the DRM. So by extension, you're legally allowed to make 0:12:41.480 --> 0:12:45.439 a copy, but technically you can't because laws are fun 0:12:45.559 --> 0:12:48.760 and fair and it makes sense, all right, I'm getting 0:12:48.800 --> 0:12:52.559 way off track here. So the DMCA also includes processes 0:12:52.559 --> 0:12:56.880 for sending takedown notices, and this, again on the high level, 0:12:56.920 --> 0:12:59.520 is pretty straightforward, at least if you assume that the 0:12:59.559 --> 0:13:02.880 party that sending the takedown notice actually has the authority 0:13:02.920 --> 0:13:05.840 to do it. So basically, it goes like this. Let's 0:13:05.840 --> 0:13:09.240 say that you are the creator of some kind of content. 0:13:09.400 --> 0:13:12.160 Might be a photograph, that might be music, it might 0:13:12.200 --> 0:13:15.160 be writing, whatever it is. You hold the copyright for 0:13:15.240 --> 0:13:17.720 this content, or maybe you don't. Maybe you didn't actually 0:13:17.760 --> 0:13:21.280 copyright it, you just created it. In fact, a copyright 0:13:21.320 --> 0:13:26.480 is not necessarily required to send to a DMCA takedown notice. Now, 0:13:26.559 --> 0:13:28.560 let's say that you find that someone else has made 0:13:28.640 --> 0:13:31.839 use of your content without your permission. You have the 0:13:31.960 --> 0:13:35.559 right to process a takedown notice against that someone else. 0:13:35.880 --> 0:13:38.760 It's kind of like a cease and desist letter, and 0:13:38.840 --> 0:13:42.080 it indicates that if someone else doesn't take down your material, 0:13:42.320 --> 0:13:45.559 you could pursue a legal claim against them. So it's 0:13:45.640 --> 0:13:49.800 kind of like the first step toward initiating a more 0:13:50.000 --> 0:13:56.440 serious legal action against someone perpetrating copyright infringement. Okay, that's 0:13:56.480 --> 0:13:59.000 a lot, and there's a bit more to it, but 0:13:59.200 --> 0:14:02.600 we'll get more that after we come back from taking 0:14:02.679 --> 0:14:14.600 a break to thank our sponsors. Okay, we're back. I 0:14:14.800 --> 0:14:19.120 just described before the break the process of sending a 0:14:19.200 --> 0:14:23.520 DMCA takedown notice to someone who's using material that does 0:14:23.560 --> 0:14:27.520 not technically belong to them. So a DMCA notice has 0:14:27.720 --> 0:14:32.000 several factors that the content creator or the creator's agent, 0:14:32.400 --> 0:14:36.120 right whomever it is that's pursuing this DMCA takedown, they 0:14:36.120 --> 0:14:38.720 have things that they need to include in their takedown 0:14:38.800 --> 0:14:41.240 notice in order for it to actually be valid under 0:14:41.280 --> 0:14:45.480 copyright law. You can't just send someone a handwritten note 0:14:45.520 --> 0:14:48.640 on a bar napkin that says, hey, take down that picture. 0:14:48.680 --> 0:14:51.760 You don't own it. I do. That's not enough. So 0:14:52.120 --> 0:14:54.840 if the takedown notice is missing some of these elements, 0:14:54.880 --> 0:14:58.240 then the entity that receives the notice can just refuse 0:14:58.280 --> 0:15:01.800 it or not pay attention because the notice itself didn't 0:15:01.840 --> 0:15:04.520 follow the law in the first place. It has to 0:15:04.560 --> 0:15:08.440 follow the rules in order to apply. And typically when 0:15:08.440 --> 0:15:10.920 we are talking about this, we're not actually talking about 0:15:11.160 --> 0:15:15.960 the copyright holder sending a DMCA takedown directly to the 0:15:16.040 --> 0:15:20.280 content creator that used that material. Instead, you're talking about 0:15:20.320 --> 0:15:23.160 a notice that is sent to some sort of service 0:15:23.200 --> 0:15:27.760 provider that is responsible for giving the content creator a platform. 0:15:27.880 --> 0:15:30.600 This could be any kind of company, from an Internet 0:15:30.640 --> 0:15:35.040 service provider to a web hosting service to a platform 0:15:35.120 --> 0:15:37.800 like YouTube, and then the service acts as a kind 0:15:37.800 --> 0:15:41.800 of liaison between the injured party, the copyright holder, and 0:15:41.840 --> 0:15:46.000 whomever made inappropriate use of that material. This is why 0:15:46.080 --> 0:15:50.080 platforms like YouTube are pretty lickety split when it comes 0:15:50.080 --> 0:15:54.200 to responding to DMCA takedown notices. YouTube has a history 0:15:54.200 --> 0:15:57.760 of acting very quickly in this regard because YouTube slash 0:15:58.000 --> 0:16:01.760 Google slash alphabet doesn't want to be held legally accountable 0:16:01.800 --> 0:16:06.160 for allowing copyright infringement on the platform. This dates back 0:16:06.200 --> 0:16:09.480 to the very early days of YouTube, and YouTube doesn't 0:16:09.560 --> 0:16:13.080 exactly have the desire or the ability to spend the 0:16:13.120 --> 0:16:16.000 money in time it would take to investigate every single 0:16:16.080 --> 0:16:19.600 DMCA claim to make sure that it's a legitimate claim. 0:16:19.680 --> 0:16:23.680 So often you will hear stories from YouTube creators who say, yeah, 0:16:23.800 --> 0:16:26.800 I got a DMCA takedown notice, but the company that 0:16:27.080 --> 0:16:30.280 issued it doesn't even own the material that I used. Like, 0:16:30.320 --> 0:16:33.600 there's some crazy stories out there, and in fact, a 0:16:33.640 --> 0:16:37.400 lot of people have weaponized DMCA takedown notices in an 0:16:37.400 --> 0:16:41.000 effort to silence channels they don't like. It's pretty nasty 0:16:41.000 --> 0:16:44.000 out there, and there are ways to appeal the whole situation, 0:16:44.440 --> 0:16:48.600 but it's time consuming and there's no guarantee that you're 0:16:48.600 --> 0:16:50.600 going to actually get the results you want, and that's 0:16:50.640 --> 0:16:53.880 really another tangent. It's another episode for another day. Now. 0:16:53.920 --> 0:16:56.120 Most of the time the people who are sending a 0:16:56.200 --> 0:17:00.640 DMCA notice want one of two things, or possibly both 0:17:00.680 --> 0:17:03.520 of those things. Most of the time they want the 0:17:03.560 --> 0:17:06.560 someone else to just take down the material that isn't theirs, 0:17:06.720 --> 0:17:09.359 to remove it from whatever it is, whether it's a 0:17:09.440 --> 0:17:13.480 video or a website or whatever. Sometimes they also want 0:17:13.480 --> 0:17:17.679 to be compensated for their works use in someone else's stuff. 0:17:18.080 --> 0:17:20.080 Sometimes they want both of these things. They want to 0:17:20.080 --> 0:17:22.680 be paid and they want the material gone. But that's 0:17:22.720 --> 0:17:26.160 not exactly what was happening with Ernie Smith's case. So 0:17:26.240 --> 0:17:29.720 Smith received a DMCA notice regarding a photo that he 0:17:29.880 --> 0:17:33.919 used of a keyfob, or as the photo description on 0:17:34.200 --> 0:17:38.600 unsplash claims, a quote close up of a cell phone 0:17:38.720 --> 0:17:42.320 on a car dashboard end quote. So this was an 0:17:42.320 --> 0:17:44.679 image that Smith was using in connection with the story 0:17:44.720 --> 0:17:47.720 he was relaying about a somewhat odd ride he had 0:17:47.760 --> 0:17:52.040 while using a ride hailing service unsplash just in case 0:17:52.080 --> 0:17:55.640 you're not familiar, because I wasn't. It's a stock photography 0:17:55.720 --> 0:17:59.720 site and technically getty Image owns it. Getty Image purchased 0:17:59.720 --> 0:18:02.800 on splash I think back in twenty twenty one, if 0:18:02.800 --> 0:18:06.040 I'm not mistaken. So Getty is a huge name in 0:18:06.119 --> 0:18:10.160 photography in general, stock photography in particular. Getting your images 0:18:10.160 --> 0:18:14.560 from Getty typically requires a substantial subscription fee, particularly if 0:18:14.560 --> 0:18:17.359 you want to be able to use an image in perpetuity. 0:18:17.720 --> 0:18:19.760 Most folks do want to be able to use an 0:18:19.800 --> 0:18:21.960 image in perpetuity. It means that you get to use 0:18:22.000 --> 0:18:26.320 it forever and ever for whatever purpose you want, because otherwise, 0:18:26.600 --> 0:18:31.640 if you're not having the agreement keep it in perpetuity, 0:18:31.640 --> 0:18:34.000 it means that you have agreed to a limited amount 0:18:34.040 --> 0:18:36.240 of time where you are allowed to use that image, 0:18:36.320 --> 0:18:38.320 and then once that time is up, you would need 0:18:38.359 --> 0:18:42.360 to go in and remove the image from whatever was inside. 0:18:42.800 --> 0:18:45.240 Let me tell you, if you're running a website or 0:18:45.280 --> 0:18:48.000 a blog, or a video series or whatever, you do 0:18:48.080 --> 0:18:50.240 not want to have to keep up with a complicated 0:18:50.320 --> 0:18:54.760 database of image rights and then regularly remove pictures from 0:18:54.960 --> 0:18:58.400 your various works. That's a huge hassle. You're just asking 0:18:58.520 --> 0:19:01.920 to miss something and leave yourself liable for legal action 0:19:02.040 --> 0:19:05.480 down the line simply because it got so complicated and 0:19:05.520 --> 0:19:09.520 convoluted that you overlooked one of those images. So most 0:19:09.560 --> 0:19:14.480 people go with the in perpetuity option. But unsplash is 0:19:14.520 --> 0:19:18.560 a stock photography site that licenses use of images for free. 0:19:18.880 --> 0:19:21.720 You are allowed to make use of those images even 0:19:21.760 --> 0:19:24.320 for commercial purposes. Like if you have a site that's 0:19:24.320 --> 0:19:27.560 selling something, you can still use images on unsplash. Like 0:19:27.640 --> 0:19:30.000 a lot of licenses say hey, you can use this 0:19:30.040 --> 0:19:33.800 as long as it's not for commercial purposes, Unsplash you're 0:19:33.840 --> 0:19:36.320 allowed to and you can use those images in just 0:19:36.359 --> 0:19:39.320 about any way you want. There is an exception I'll 0:19:39.359 --> 0:19:41.679 talk about in a second. You don't even have to 0:19:41.800 --> 0:19:45.359 credit the photographer while you're doing so. You can just 0:19:45.520 --> 0:19:48.919 use it unattributed. And this is kind of like what 0:19:49.040 --> 0:19:51.679 people were doing on the web in general, but in 0:19:51.720 --> 0:19:55.040 this case it's actually okay because it's covered by the license. 0:19:55.160 --> 0:19:58.320 It's a licensed use. The only thing you're not allowed 0:19:58.320 --> 0:20:01.399 to do is you cannot take images from unsplash and 0:20:01.440 --> 0:20:04.480 then sell those images to other people. That would be 0:20:04.880 --> 0:20:08.240 against the policy. You can use them again for commercial purposes, 0:20:08.440 --> 0:20:11.760 like if your newsletter is a paid newsletter, that's fine. 0:20:11.880 --> 0:20:14.720 You just can't troll through unsplashed, download a ton of 0:20:14.720 --> 0:20:17.560 photos and then sell those pictures somewhere else. That's against 0:20:17.600 --> 0:20:21.719 the rules. So Smith was following the rules. He had 0:20:21.760 --> 0:20:24.480 pulled an image from a source that allows for that 0:20:24.640 --> 0:20:27.800 kind of use. So imagine his surprise when he gets 0:20:27.800 --> 0:20:31.360 a DMCA notice about this very image. Now, I want 0:20:31.359 --> 0:20:35.199 to be clear, something like this could potentially happen, and 0:20:35.240 --> 0:20:37.920 it could be on the up and up. It could 0:20:37.960 --> 0:20:42.320 be possible that some photographer took a picture, someone else 0:20:42.400 --> 0:20:46.159 grabbed that picture, and they submitted it to unsplash, but 0:20:46.200 --> 0:20:49.760 they didn't do it with the photographer's permission. It's possible 0:20:49.800 --> 0:20:52.840 that photographer might find out that their image is now 0:20:52.880 --> 0:20:56.640 being used somewhere else and it wasn't licensed from them, 0:20:56.920 --> 0:20:59.359 and maybe they're using some sort of detection or search 0:20:59.400 --> 0:21:03.920 algorithm that's pulling up instances of that image. But typically 0:21:04.359 --> 0:21:07.600 that photographer would then need to go through by sending 0:21:07.640 --> 0:21:10.600 a notice to unsplash directly in order to get the 0:21:10.640 --> 0:21:13.360 image taken down from unsplash, because going after folks who 0:21:13.800 --> 0:21:17.199 have used the image from unsplash would be kind of 0:21:17.240 --> 0:21:21.120 like treating the symptom but not the disease, because as 0:21:21.160 --> 0:21:24.360 long as that image would stay on unsplash while other 0:21:24.400 --> 0:21:28.119 folks could be making use of it. So partly you 0:21:28.119 --> 0:21:31.320 would say, well, DMCA takedown notice should really go to 0:21:31.400 --> 0:21:35.520 the photography site, not to Ernie Smith. So Smith gets 0:21:35.560 --> 0:21:38.960 this notice and immediately he's somewhat skeptical of it, as 0:21:39.000 --> 0:21:41.760 he should be. And the notice threatened to quote unquote 0:21:41.880 --> 0:21:44.560 activate a case and a reference to section of the 0:21:44.640 --> 0:21:49.800 DMCA called DMCA Section five twelve s. And you might say, well, 0:21:49.800 --> 0:21:51.840 what the heck is that. Well, that section of the 0:21:51.920 --> 0:21:57.680 DMCA is titled Limitations on Liability relating to Material Online, 0:21:57.840 --> 0:22:01.040 And just from that title, if you just critically break 0:22:01.080 --> 0:22:04.400 down that title, it should make your eyebrows go up, 0:22:04.640 --> 0:22:07.639 because it's not the sort of title that sounds like 0:22:07.920 --> 0:22:11.120 it would give a copyright claimant a lot of leverage. 0:22:11.119 --> 0:22:16.800 In fact, the phrase limitations on liability seem to indicate 0:22:16.840 --> 0:22:19.280 that this is something else entirely. This is something that 0:22:19.320 --> 0:22:23.240 applies to a party that is potentially on the other 0:22:23.280 --> 0:22:26.080 side of this issue. They have limitations on how they 0:22:26.119 --> 0:22:29.040 are liable. In fact, if you really read through the 0:22:29.760 --> 0:22:34.320 section of the DMCA, and I did, I don't recommend it. 0:22:34.320 --> 0:22:37.400 It's not good reading. But if you did read through it, 0:22:37.400 --> 0:22:39.199 it would be hard for you to figure out a 0:22:39.200 --> 0:22:42.720 way where that section has any application to Smith, because 0:22:42.760 --> 0:22:47.119 really it's more about how system providers. Again, things like 0:22:47.240 --> 0:22:51.480 ISPs or YouTube or whatever would not be held liable 0:22:51.720 --> 0:22:56.600 for monetary relief or quote injunctive or other equitable relief 0:22:56.800 --> 0:22:59.840 end quote for the actions someone takes using their service. 0:23:00.040 --> 0:23:02.680 In other words, the idea is that the platform isn't 0:23:02.760 --> 0:23:05.840 held responsible for the actions of folks who are using 0:23:06.119 --> 0:23:09.560