Technology

42661 readers

221 users here now

A nice place to discuss rumors, happenings, innovations, and challenges in the technology sphere. We also welcome discussions on the intersections of technology and society. If it’s technological news or discussion of technology, it probably belongs here.

Remember the overriding ethos on Beehaw: Be(e) Nice. Each user you encounter here is a person, and should be treated with kindness (even if they’re wrong, or use a Linux distro you don’t like). Personal attacks will not be tolerated.

Subcommunities on Beehaw:

This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

founded 4 years ago

MODERATORS

alyaza@beehaw.org

TheRtRevKaiser@beehaw.org

gyrfalcon@beehaw.org

rs5th@beehaw.org

coldredlight@beehaw.org

SemioticStandard@beehaw.org

TheRtRevKaiser@kbin.social

remington@beehaw.org

CyberGhost DMCAs Our Story About Their Bogus DMCA (Yes, Really) (www.techdirt.com)

submitted 4 months ago by Powderhorn@beehaw.org to c/technology@beehaw.org

8 comments fedilink hide all child comments

VPN company CyberGhost just sent Cloudflare a bogus DMCA takedown demand, claiming that our article about their last bogus copyright takedown demand, somehow violates their copyright.

I’m not sure I’d trust a VPN company that fucks up this badly.

There are a lot of sketchy VPN companies out there, and it’s sometimes tricky to tell which ones are legit, and which ones to be wary of. I would suggest that if your VPN company is running around sending totally bogus DMCA notices that’s a bad sign. But if your VPN company is sending bogus DMCA notices to take down stories about its bogus DMCA stories, well, then you really have found the worst of the worst.

Enter CyberGhost.

Almost exactly a year ago, we wrote about a bizarre copyright takedown involving CyberGhost. In that case, it had sent the takedown to Facebook because we had reposted the Daily Deal we had offered in 2016 for a CyberGhost subscription. As with all Techdirt posts, it had automatically reposted to our Facebook account.

For no clear reason, CyberGhost falsely claimed that Facebook post (but not our original post) violated its copyright (it does not). So yeah, this seemed like CyberGhost sending a copyright takedown of us running a promotion for their VPN from eight years earlier. How bizarre.

At the risk of sounding like a shill, Mullvad is the answer.

top 8 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] Prove_your_argument@piefed.social 21 points 4 months ago (1 children)

If you ask me, what we really need is an army of bots going around and literally DMCAing absolutely everything on behalf of every business out there that is submitting DMCA requests. Make the process practically impossible to police until someone forces a legislation action that fixes the whole system.

Erroneous DMCA requests should be so severe that once one is reported by a company authorized to perform the requests on behalf of the IP holder, the IP holder should be barred from any agents on their behalf performing them for a time period of at least 90 days.... with treble fines. It would be so much fun creating content that baits DMCA but is clearly fair use to break all their shit.

Unless someone is copying what you do nearly 1:1, dmca should not be valid. These clowns and crooks running for office talk all about how regulation stifles innovation and this is a true case for sure. So many small business owners are getting fucked by the wild west of DMCA takedowns today.

[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Agreed that if someone submits a dmca request they should be egregious enough that they're willing to pay for lawyers and court fees. If they're not ready to commit to that then it's not that severe

[–] Prove_your_argument@piefed.social 3 points 4 months ago

Pretty much. As-is the system is guilty until proven innocent, which is hosed.

[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 5 points 4 months ago

Well, not that they were top of the list but I've been considering a new von provider, and well they're out of the running now

[–] end0fline@piefed.social 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

An interesting read for sure. They had to know this would make them look bad, though..... right?

[–] Powderhorn@beehaw.org 5 points 4 months ago

It's one thing to have bad optics, but it's another entirely to give a fuck about them. (See also: Facebook.)

[–] entropicdrift@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

AirVPN has given me no trouble for many years

[–] Quexotic@beehaw.org 5 points 4 months ago

Ya know... PIA VPN never gave me any trouble, but turns out they spy on all their users and have non-trivial mossad links.

What I'm saying here is you should check on your VPN provider from time to time.