The screenshot of the email lacks detail so I don't know what part of the DMCA the author breached here, but this feels a lot like your standard DMCA abuse.
We’ll use an influencer for example. A false dmca claim has costs for them. Immediate costs in time, demonetizing, and reputation. It also has longer term risks - e.g., copyright strikes become bans. They are incentivized to pushback but have limited tools to do so.
When dealing with a company whose business is filing dmca complaints using an automated system, the business model isn’t a lawsuit - it’s a settlement where the influencer is made whole and you get paid. The risk to the company is existential if you have enough clients using you to push back and risking them getting a platform ban or an injunction against them filing automated dmca complaints. Say they file a thousand complaints a day against a thousand YouTube channels. If even 50 of those channels file a counter claim it’s going to set off alarm bells.
All that being said the most toxic part of this is the company calling itself a cyber security company and trying to obfuscate seemingly pretty responsible disclosures using dmca.
Can we start discussing 'you can run your own website/cloudflare/isp/backbone' conversation all over again instead of addressing some basic level of fair play?
This fits with the complete lack of care for ethics and societal awareness from Gary and Paul on down. They just want companies that can succeed by the usual amoral metrics of Silicon Valley (money). Which is entirely their right, but here is one of the social cost in a form most “hacker” founders can maybe appreciate. (As opposed to a low income resident getting evicted to make way for an illegal Airbnb)
> Why do you think copyright has anything to do with the post?
Because the Digital Millenium Copyright Act is for copyright. You haven't stated how the blog post infringes upon BK's copyright at all, so... yes, seems like a standard fraudulent DMCA claim.
> First thing first. This is NOT DMCA abuse. The DMCA is the only way to communicate with web companies and take down content. As such, it has become the legitimate way to take down any content that needs to be taken down, in the absence of alternatives.
This assumes that companies should be able to take down any content they do not like. This is very much not the case. The DMCA is very specifically only for copyrighted content.
From copyright.gov[1]:
> To be effective, a notice must contain substantially the following information:
> ...
> (v) a statement that the person sending the notice has a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law; and
> (vi) a statement that the information in the notice is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, that the person sending the notice is authorized to act on behalf of the copyright owner .
This is pretty clearly DMCA abuse. TFA isn't using any of BK's copyrighted content, which is what a DMCA claim alleges. Just because people have abused the form... pretty much since inception does not mean that it's not perjury to do so.
If BK wants to press charges for unauthorized usage of computer systems, that's another route. This would involve a police report, not perjury, and would probably not take down the website.
It's DMCA abuse because that process is only legal to use in case of actual copyright infringement, not just any content you might have a moral claim over.
You can see on the email that the "Original work" field is just a link to the BK website.
> It's DMCA abuse because that process is only legal to use in case of actual copyright infringement, not just any content you might have a moral claim over.
I will reply to this comment because it's the easier to address, you're really hitting on the main misconception :D
It is incorrect to think that the DMCA form is only valid for copyright.
You need to contact the other party to start a legal dispute, you can do so by any available communication channels. The website is hidden behind cloudflare which purposefully hides the identity of the author and prevents any contact, except via a DMCA form. Burger King filled the DMCA form to get in touch with the author. It's merely a mean to legally contact the author and start a dispute, in the absence of better options.
It worked, cloudflare forwarded the form to the author (and the author decided to take down the article on their own). I really can't think of any reason why it would not be considered a reasonable and legitimate use of the form. All the better because it's an official legal form.
> The website is hidden behind cloudflare which purposefully hides the identity of the author and prevents any contact, except via a DMCA form
The blog post says that the author contacted Burger King and they had some sort of communication channel available, Burger King just chose not to use it.
DMCA is NOT a contact form. Part of the process is an attestation that you are the owner of a copyright and the content is infringing on that copyright, lying on that is perjury (even though I've never seen it enforced, perjury in general is rarely enforced). The convenience of DMCA as a contact and takedown form does not legitimize it's use as one.
It's fraud and perjury to file a DMCA claim for any reason other than someone infringed your copyright. A DMCA claim is only valid if you swear on penalty of perjury that the target infringed your copyright. Otherwise it's meaningless.
Just because it's the tool they have doesn't legitimize the use of a copyright takedown just to take down information they do not like. DMCA is specific and in theory limited (though many companies abuse it) the proper channel for non infringing content you don't like is the courts.
The screenshot of the email lacks detail so I don't know what part of the DMCA the author breached here, but this feels a lot like your standard DMCA abuse.
This AI generated takedown was funded in part by a Y-Combinator: https://cyble.com/press/cyble-recognized-among-ai-startups-f...