Impostor Sending Out DMCA Notices In Chaturbate's Name Now Targeting Techdirt URLs

from the doubling-down dept

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about a long series of questionable DMCA notices I thought had been issued by online onanism portal Chaturbate. The takedown requests appeared to have been generated by a faulty algorithm with no human vetting involved. Many of those I examined appeared to target names of Chaturbate broadcasters, but without any of the precision one normally associates with the word "target." Sites named for delisting included geographical research, an Amazon page for a book about the Hadron Collider, track meet records collections, and even Chaturbate itself.

After some discussion with Chaturbate, it was determined someone is filing notices in Chaturbate's name, but without Chaturbate's official blessing. The scattershot, extremely prolific approach was now harming Chaturbate's reputation, tying it to bogus DMCA notices targeting all sort of non-infringing content. (I have since updated the original post to reflect the my conversations with Chaturbate and offer my apologies for naming the wrong party in the original post.)

Whoever's performing these bogus takedowns hasn't stopped. Chaturbate's legal rep has been asking Google for more details on the impostor requests. Google is looking into it, but so far has only provided an incredibly long list of likely auto-generated Gmail addresses as the source of these bogus notices, which now number into the thousands.

While we continue to work towards discovering who's behind these bogus notices, there have been some interesting developments. First, the impostor is now including Techdirt URLs, including the original post and my user page, in their takedown requests.

Second, whoever's doing this appears to have read my post. The issuing party has changed from Chaturbate LLC to Multi Media LLC. This is the name Chaturbate uses when it issues takedown requests. I never used the name in the updates to the post but did link to an example of a genuine Chaturbate takedown notice, as supplied to me by Chaturbate's representatives.

This would seem to indicate whoever's behind the bogus takedowns is aware multiple parties are trying to expose them. The DMCA notices containing Techdirt URLs contain almost nothing but adult-themed URLs, suggesting the TD pages may have been added in an attempt to bury the story. It still could be a faulty algorithm is flagging anything containing words like "Chaturbate," but the relative lack of unrelated sites suggests a slightly more targeted approach is being taken, even though there's still an emphasis on quantity over quality.

The other theory is the post hasn't been read, but the impostor has received challenges from Google when submitting notices under the Chaturbate LLC name. A little research may have uncovered the fact Chaturbate's legitimate takedown service only issues takedowns under the Multi Media LLC name.

If the impostor is reading these posts, they might want to remember the perjury side of it doesn't cover the URLs targeted for takedown, but rather the assertion they represent the rightsholders listed in the notices. According to Chaturbate, this impostor doesn't. All rights are retained by each individual Chaturbate broadcaster and Multi Media LLC makes no claims otherwise when issuing takedown notices on behalf of its clients. The impostor, however, makes these claims for several performers in each takedown request and does so under the names of companies they don't work for or represent. We're still trying to find out who's behind this and will keep you posted as this investigation proceeds.

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Filed Under: copyright, dmca, takedown

Companies: chaturbate, google