Google Sues Men Who Weaponized DMCA Notices to Crush Competition
Two men who allegedly used 65 Google accounts to bombard Google with fraudulent DMCA takedown notices targeting up to 620,000 URLs, have been named in a Google lawsuit filed in California on Monday. Google says the men weaponized copyright law’s notice-and-takedown system to sabotage competitors’ trade, while damaging the search engine’s business and those of its customers.
While all non-compliant DMCA takedown notices are invalid by default, there’s a huge difference between those sent in error and others crafted for purely malicious purposes.
Bogus DMCA takedown notices are nothing new, but the rise of organized groups using malicious DMCA notices as a business tool has been apparent in recent years.
Since the vast majority of culprits facing zero consequences, that may have acted as motivation to send more. Through a lawsuit filed at a California court on Monday, Google appears to be sending the message that enough is enough.
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