Bogus copyright and trademark complaints have threatened all kinds of creative expression on the Internet. EFF's Hall Of Shame collects the worst of the worst.
Takedown Hall of Shame Honorees
The Mistake So Bad, That Even YouTube Says Its Copyright Bot ‘Really Blew It’
Copyright filters don’t work. And sometimes, they fail so badly that they scare creators and make them self-censor. YouTuber SmellyOctopus has over 21,000 subscribers to his YouTube channel, and about 2,000 on Twitch. In early January 2019, SmellyOctopus did a nine-minute, private stream where spoke into his microphone to...DMCA Mystery: Did Epic Games Send a Takedown to Itself?
Welcome to a brand new kind of whodunnit. This one has everything: an extremely popular game, a short-lived takedown, and so very many memes. The ways of the DMCA and YouTube are unknown and unknowable. Trailers are a time-tested and proven way of getting attention for a new piece of...Sony Finally Admits It Doesn’t Own Bach and It Only Took a Bunch of Public Pressure
Here’s the thing about different people playing the same piece of music: sometimes, they’re going to sound similar. And when music is by a composer who died 268 years ago, putting his music in the public domain, a bunch of people might record it and some of them might put...FIFA Is Not Okay With Dancing In Front of the TV
It’s World Cup time. That means goals. And goals means goal celebrations. Here’s a compilation of U.S. soccer fans celebrating a last-second goal in the 2010 World Cup. Ah, memories. Anyway, FIFA apparently doesn’t like it when fans celebrate near their television sets. It sent a takedown...Author Trademarks the Word 'Cocky,' Earns the Ire of Romance Writers Everywhere
It’s a bad idea to come after romance authors’ favorite double entendres. Unfortunately, Faleena Hopkins, holder of a trademark on the word “cocky” and a shaky understanding of trademark law, fired a bunch of shots and not only missed the mark, but managed to turn her entire industry against her...A Critic Uses the DMCA to Avoid Criticism
Critics, perhaps more than anyone, should know fair use. It’s impossible to review a book, movie, or a video game without using text or images from that same copyrighted work—that’s why fair use is so critical to free speech. So a professional critic is the last person you’d expect to...Video Game Developer Says He Won't Send a Takedown of a Bad Review, Does So Anyway
Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we get into a Twitter fight with someone who gave our video game a bad review on YouTube. And when we say that we would never send a DMCA takedown for it. And when one mysteriously turns up anyway. This is...Landis + Gyr Agrees to Leave Documents Up, Then Sends Notice to Take Them Down
A Georgia energy company has made two separate attempts to take down public documents that let Seattle residents know how the “smart meters” on their homes work. Back in 2016, a local activist obtained two documents from the City of Seattle related to the smart meter technology. But some companies...Ten Hours of Static Gets Five Copyright Notices
Sebastian Tomczak blogs about technology and sound, and has a YouTube channel. In 2015, Tomczak uploaded a ten-hour video of white noise. Colloquially, white noise is persistent background noise that can be soothing or that you don’t even notice after a while. More technically, white noise is...Attempt to Silence the Political Speech at Right Wing Watch
Former Navy chaplain and Colorado Assembly candidate Gordon Klingenschmitt launched a campaign to use the DMCA to shut down the YouTube account of People for the American Way's Right Wing Watch (“RWW”) project. RWW reports and comments on the political views of folks like Klingenschmitt, using their own words...Religious Group Shows Little Tolerance for Parody
The Church of Scientology International (CSI) demanded that GoDaddy take down a website, cheerupwillsmith.com, that uses parody and satire to tweak CSI, its alleged relationship to actor Will Smith, and its reportedly aggressive control over the activities of its members. The site included a letter, purportedly from Scientology leader David...What Can Time Warner Cable Do Worse?
If you live in New York City — or follow anybody on Twitter who lives in New York City — you have probably heard plenty about Time Warner Cable's Customer Service. That's the joke behind the gripe site TWCCustomerService.com, which looks a lot like a Time Warner site but asks...
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No Downtime For Free Speech
Headquarters for all things related to EFF's work protecting free speech from bogus legal threats.
