ZUFFA notifies Google about copyright infringement
Today, there were a number of reports concerning a Digital Millennium Copyright notification that Zuffa sent to Google back in…
Today, there were a number of reports concerning a Digital Millennium Copyright notification that Zuffa sent to Google back in September. The text of the takedown notice was provided courtesy of Google at a website, http://www.chillingeffects.org. The takedown notice provided in relevant part as follows:
On behalf of Zuffa, LLC and/or its subsidiaries and affiliated companies, I am writing to notify you of the infringement of Zuffa, LLC’s intellectual property rights in the titles identified in this email in Google search results. Demand is hereby made that Google take immediate action to stop such infringements. The search results and links identified in this email are specific examples of Google search results linking to images, artwork, video files, video streams and websites that infringe upon Zuffa, LLC’s intellectual property rights. Zuffa, LLC hereby demands that Google promptly remove and disable the links to all unauthorized copies of works whose copyrights are owned by Zuffa, LLC of which it is aware, including the infringing files identified in this email.
The e-mail takedown notice concludes with a list of specific URLs that Zuffa alleges lead to works that infringe on its intellectual property. Notably, the infringing URLs appear to be specific to the events, i.e. the links are not to the homepage of the allegedly infringing websites.
As S.C. Michaelson correctly notes in an article, The UFC Wants You to Know Where to Find Illegal Streams, the obvious downside of such a takedown notice setting forth the specific websites where alleged infringement is occurring is that a list like that could become public providing a roadmap to those seeking illegal streams. That is precisely what occurred today at the MMA specific websites that posted the e-mail.
If you check some of these links, admittedly I only checked a few, it appears, at first blush at least, that Zuffa was successful. For example, I plugged one allegedly infringing site into Google and here was what came up:
In response to a complaint we received under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we have removed 1 result(s) from this page. If you wish, you may read the DMCA complaint that caused the removal(s) at ChillingEffects.org.
However, it appears, at least for some of the links I tried, that the website search results still come up in Google albeit for different URLs, i.e. events. Thus, Google did not shut down the website where the alleged piracy is occurring, but instead simply disabled the specific link referenced in the takedown notice.
Given that the websites are still active in some instances and the fact that the e-mail has now been made public with an apparent roadmap to allegedly infringing sites, you may be wondering if Zuffa made the right move here.
In making that determination, it is worth checking out the Google DMCA instructions. Google requires very specific information, including FOR WEB SEARCH, YOU MUST IDENTIFY EACH SEARCH RESULT THAT DIRECTLY LINKS TO A WEB PAGE THAT ALLEGEDLY CONTAINS INFRINGING MATERIAL. This requires you to provide (a) the search query that you used, and (b) the URL for each allegedly infringing search result. Accordingly, Zuffa had no choice but to provide the specific URLs at issue.