The takedown requests concern a mixture of both infringing and legitimate links, with the proportion of legitimate links being exceedingly high. Several movie studios are swept up in the takedown requests, including Lionsgate, BBC Films, 20th Century Fox, Sony Pictures, Summit Entertainment, and Disney Pictures. Fortunately for them, Google has not censored most of the links.

Some examples include a takedown notice on behalf of Lionsgate, that, if it were followed through, would end with copies of Cabin in the Woods available via Blockbuster, iTunes, Comcast, and Amazon all being censored. This same sort of issue strikes the other studios, with other legitimate links including the Family Guy Wikipedia page, movie reviews on sites like The Independent and the Daily Mail, news pieces published on various websites, including CNET and Forbes, as well as links related to films other than the ones specified in the takedown notices.

There is speculation, however, that the takedown notices are not valid. The website YesItIs.org, which issued the takedown notices on behalf of the movie studios, now leads to a Go Daddy landing page. There’s no official word yet on whether the takedown notices were authorized, but if they weren’t, this is an excellent example of how the system can be abused by those with ill intent.

[via Torrent Freak]

This comes after the team-up of AT&T, Comcast, Cablevision, Time Warner Cable, and Verizon, who joined ranks with the MPAA and RIAA to form the Center for Copyright Information (CCI). The providers and MPAA/RIAA set out an agreement in which Internet subscribers would receive warnings for downloading copyrighted items. The subscriber will receive several warnings before the provider can then enact a harsher punishment.

None of the five providers have publicly commented on their involvement in the anti-piracy scheme. The leaked AT&T training documents provide the first glimpse into the plan, which is not without (extensive) controversy. The documents explain the upcoming changes to staff, and include this bit of info: “AT&T will not share any personally identifiable information about its customers with content owners until authorized by the customer or required to do so by law.”

An alleged source within the Center for Copyright Information told TorrentFreak that all five providers planned to launch the program on the same day. If true, this means that Verizon, Comcast, Cablevision, and Time Warner customers will begin receiving piracy notices November 28th, in addition to AT&T subscribers. The “online education tutorial on copyright” will be triggered on the fifth or sixth warning notice, at which point access to certain frequently visited websites will be blocked until the tutorial is completed.

[via TorrentFreak]

Both the MPAA and the RIAA have praised Google for its newfound intolerance of copyright infringement. It wasn’t too long ago that Google was at odds with the MPAA and RIAA, as the search giant stood against SOPA, a bill which the MPAA and RIAA both loved. Now, however, Google is understandably caught between a rock and a hard place. PCWorld reports that Google needs partners in Hollywood, and one of the best ways to do that is to crack down on copyright infringement. Indeed, Google may have just earned those partners in Hollywood, as the MPAA and the RIAA both seem pleased as punch by the implementation of this new policy.

No one is going to argue that copyright infringement is a good thing, but groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation are worried that some sites may unjustly get caught in the crossfire. “In particular, we worry about the false positives problem,” the EFF wrote on its website. “For example, we’ve seen the government wrongly target sites that actually have a right to post the allegedly infringing material in question or otherwise legally display content.” The EFF continues by saying that since this new policy is so vague, it worries that Google will end up doing the same thing – punishing law-abiding websites, “without recourse” for those who have been wrongly demoted.

There’s also the matter of false take down notices. It isn’t exactly a secret that some business like to file fake take down requests against their competitors as of way of gaining an edge, so Google will have to be watching out for that as well. Google will definitely have its work cut out for it when it rolls out this new policy next week, so it’s easy to understand why it’s making some Internet advocates a little worried. Stay tuned more details as this whole thing develops.

The case that prompted the legal quandary belongs to MyVidster, a website that allowed you to bookmarks links to videos around the web and share them with friends. MyVidster also supported embedding, so you could watch the videos on their website directly while being served with myVidster adverts.

Pornography company Flava Works found numerous MyVidster pages that had their videos embedded, and sent DMCA takedown notices. MyVidster wasn’t hosting the videos, though, only embedding them from other sites. Despite MyVidster’s claims of complying with the DMCA notices anyway, Flava Works decided to take the matter to court, believing the video link sharing site was guilty of copyright infringement.

The MPAA has rallied behind Judge Grady’s decision in the case that MyVidster is responsible because the video was viewable via their website. Google and Facebook, meanwhile, believe there is legal precedent that distinguishes hosting videos from merely embedding them. A 2007 case ruling by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals lays out how only the server that hosts the infringing material is guilty of copyright infringement, and not servers that provide links to the content.

The MPAA has noted that while it doesn’t necessarily mind if Carpathia turns the servers off, it is objecting to any transfer of the data. According to the MPAA, any transfer of data could result in a relaunch of the Megaupload website. According to the MPAA, it has learned that Carpathia plans to sell the data back to Megaupload.com with all film and TV content intact.

The MPAA claims ownership of much of the content on the Megaupload servers and believes the distribution of the material by sale or transfer would be a violation of rights. The MPAA fears that the only reason Megaupload and the co-defendants would offer to purchase 25,000 servers from Carpathia that host their data would be to put themselves in the position to relaunch Megaupload in the future.

[via Hollywood Reporter]

What the guys say here is that they’ve got two cases of dealing with the MPAA in regards to their ratings duties – one with the movie “Orgazmo” which they produced as an independent group, the other with the first South Park movie which was produced with Paramount Pictures. The first case has the MPAA giving their movie an NC-17 rating without explanation, demanding that they send in new cuts of the movie until they get it right so they can release it with an “R” rating.

The second case has the MPAA acquiescing to the requests of Paramount to give them specific edit suggestions so they can get it right (for an R rating) all at once. Have a peek at the video, beware some of the bleeped words if you’re at work. And as always, let us know what you think!

The MPAA says that it has no plans to sue individual users based on their personal data. The organization claims that it wants to consider suing Megaupload or “other entities” involved with the site. Carpathia has petitioned the courts to relieve it of the $9000 daily charge for managing all that data. Megaupload has asked the courts to unfreeze some of its assets to allow it to pay Carpathia to store the data and to help customers regain access to their data.

A hearing on the data storage is set for next month and apparently; federal authorities have copied some of the Megaupload data but not all. Those federal authorities have told Carpathian that the service could delete 25,000,000 GB of the Megaupload data that it is hosting. MPAA vice president Howard Gantman maintains that the motion picture Association is not concerned about the identities of individual Megaupload users.

[via Wired]