Re: lots of DMCA request's... (1/day)

["Gregory Maxwell" <gmaxwell@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, May 15, 2008 at 6:56 PM,  <tara@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Hi everyone, I run an exit node (nickname: swopusa), and now I'm averaging 1 DMCA request per day for TV shows, movies and the like, from paramount, NBC universal, etc.
>
> I do BW limiting @ 100k/sec -- 2GB/day.  Otherwise it's the default configuration.
>
> I'm really not all that smart about tor, I've never even used it as a client. I don't mind occasional DMCA requests but 1 a day is starting to piss off my ISP (linode.com) and frustrate me.
>
> Any one have thoughts, besides NOT running an exit node?


Okay, what I've seen lately is that people are connecting to
Bittorrent trackers via TOR.   This causes the tracker to see the TOR
exit as the client IP, but the actual data is exchanged directly
between the peers without TOR's involvement.    As such *no
copyrighted data crossed the tor node*.  This makes a lot of sense for
the user since it hides their IP from people trying to enforce
copyright, but doesn't really slow down their transfers.

With this in mind, Are the DMCA notices coming from the same few parties?

If so, the following tactic might be helpful:

A valid DMCA complaint includes a sworn statement that the issuing
party, to the best of their knowledge, believes the claim of
infringement to be accurate. The copyright complaint is not accurate
in these cases, but that may not be clear to these DMCA-bots.  (They
shouldn't be making claims based on tracker reports ... since tracker
use != copyright infringement, but no court has yet slapped their
wrists for it...)

If you make sure that the appropriate party at each company has actual
knowledge of the nature of your IP as a anonymizing proxy that hosts
or transmits no copyrighted materials belonging to them and that
complaints of this type are going to be invalid and they continued to
send claims that you are distributing their works then they are at
risk of being found guilty of perjury.

Of course, there is no precedent for this kind of fight yet., but it
might be effective to make that argument in a certified letter to
their legal offices.  At the least it should cause them to figure that
you are more trouble than it's worth.

Obviously, it would be most wise to consult an attorney. I am not an attorney.

Socially, I don't see any problem with defending the use of TOR to
connect to trackers anonymously.  Connecting to a tracker and
exchanging data is not a crime, it's not copyright  infringement.
You're not disturbing the rule of law by anonymizing an actual crime.
The DMCA-bots should limit their complaints to cases where there is
more direct evidence of a crime available.  .... although the risk of
this line of thinking is that requesting the copyrighted data could be
argued to be inducement (or not a violation since it was sending the
data to the owners agent), so it may form an argument increased
surveillances powers by copyright holders.  :(    But I guess
copy[rf]ight philosophy is going pretty off-topic for this list.