[Infowarrior] - Warner Hid References to “Robots” And Its Deliberate Abuse of Takedowns

[Richard Forno]

In Hotfile Docs, Warner Hid References to “Robots” And Its Deliberate Abuse of Takedowns

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/10/hotfile-docs-warner-hid-references-robots-and-its-deliberate-abuse-takedowns

After months of delay, Warner has finally released documents detailing its notice and takedown practices. The documents were filed under seal in the now-defunct Hotfile litigation until a federal court (prompted by a motion from EFF) ordered Warner to produce them for the public.

These documents confirm the movie studio’s abuse of the DMCA takedown process. They describe Warner “robots” sending thousands of infringement accusations to sites like the now-closed Hotfile without human review, based primarily on filenames and metadata rather than inspection of the files’ contents. They also show that Warner knew its automated searches were too broad and that its system was taking down content in which Warner had no rights – likely a violation of the DMCA.

EFF has posted the documents on its Disney v. Hotfile case page, with the newly unsealed text highlighted in yellow. Although much of the record remains sealed for now, the newly released portions shed some light on Warner’s robo-takedowns and practices that may have crossed the line of legality.

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Although Warner described its “robots” as “highly sophisticated” and able to “effectively mimic the search a human would conduct, except faster,” it appears that the system didn’t look at the contents of files uploaded to Hotfile, but only “titles and superficial attributes of files.” In fact, according to Hotfile’s briefs, “Warner subjectively knew that its [robots] were consistently misidentifying small single files [under 200 megabytes] as Warner movies, but it continued to delete those files anyway.”

The documents also reveal that Warner used its takedown system to limit access to software that it didn’t want the public to have. Hotfile accused Warner of using its system to take down copies of a free and open source download manager called JDownloader, which was not owned by Warner. Newly released testimony from a Warner executive suggests that, in the words of Judge Williams, “Warner knew that its robots were systematically deleting copies of JDownloader . . . and refrained from correcting the error because Warner thought that eliminating JDownloader would serve its ‘anti-piracy’ purposes.”

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