Google Defends Hotfile (and Megaupload) in Court

[Smith]

Google has filed a brief at a federal court in Florida defending the file-hosting site Hotfile in its case against the MPAA. The search giant accuses the movie companies of misleading the court and argues that Hotfile is protected under the DMCA’s safe harbor. Indirectly, Google is also refuting claims being made by the US government in the criminal case against Megaupload.

In February 2011, the MPAA announced a lawsuit against Hotfile, one of the Internet’s most popular cyberlocker services.

The site’s popularity is “a direct result of the massive digital theft that Hotfile promotes,” the movie industry group said.

Two weeks ago the movie studios asked the court to issue a summary judgment against Hotfile and shut the site down. The MPAA argues that Hotfile is a piracy haven that should not be eligible for DMCA safe harbor protection.

This request didn’t go unnoticed by Google, who have now filed an amicus brief in support of the file-hosting site. According to Google, the movie studios are misleading the court by wrongfully suggesting that Hotfile is not protected by the DMCA.

What makes this even more interesting is that many of the arguments made by Google are also relevant to the criminal indictment against Megaupload.

In their brief, Google points out that YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Wikipedia are able to thrive because they are protected by the DMCA. But, if the MPAA has its way, these and other services will be in serious trouble.

“Without the protections afforded by the safe harbors, those services might have been forced to fundamentally alter their operations or might never have launched in the first place,” Google writes in the brief.

The MPAA has argued that Hotfile has no right to exist because it’s used predominantly for copyright-infringing purposes. Google replies to this by arguing that it’s irrelevant how many infringements there are. Under the DMCA it would only be problematic if Hotfile is aware of each and every individual pirated file on its systems.

“The case-law uniformly rejects efforts to deprive service providers of the safe harbor based on generalized awareness that unspecified (or even ‘rampant’) infringement is occurring on their services,” Google writes.

Google continues to say that the DMCA specifically states that service providers such as Hotfile can’t lose their safe harbor protection because they refuse to filter content upon request from the movie companies.

“It guards against any claim that a service provider loses the safe harbor by failing to ‘adopt specific filtering technology’ or any other technique suggested by copyright owners for affirmatively seeking out possible infringement occurring on its service.”

Google stresses that the burden to report and identify pirated material lies with the copyright holder, not Hotfile, and suggests that the MPAA tried to mislead the court to believe otherwise.

“The Court should not be misled. It should resist any effort to shift the investigatory burden that Congress deliberately allocated to copyright owners or to impose on Hotfile policing obligations of which it is specifically relieved by the DMCA,” Google writes.

Moving on to another issue, one that’s also key in the criminal case against Megaupload, Google says that there’s nothing wrong with only removing links to files.

Both the MPAA and the US Government claim that it’s wrong for Hotfile to delete links but keep the actual files on their servers, but Google disagrees.

“Plaintiffs make much of the fact that Hotfile, at least for a time, apparently removed only the specific download link identified as infringing in a given DMCA takedown notice, and did not take the additional step of blocking other files on its system (not called out in the notice) that might have also have contained the copyrighted work at issue,” they write.

“But, in this respect, Hotfile did exactly what the DMCA demands, and plaintiffs’ takedown notices cannot be used to charge the service with knowledge of allegedly infringing material that those notices did not specifically identify.”

This is an interesting observation that does indeed make sense. While Google doesn’t mention it, removing the actual files would indeed be overbroad and wrong. For example, if an artist stores his files on Hotfile but wants to take unauthorized copies offline, he or she would not want Hotfile to delete the original as well. The same is true for YouTube videos and a variety of other content.

At the end of the brief Google asks the court to “reject plaintiffs’ efforts to undermine the protections provided by the statute’s safe harbors” and dismiss the motion for default judgment against Hotfile.

While Google’s interest in the Hotfile case is no surprise (they rely heavily on the DMCA themselves), it is intriguing to see that Google is fiercely defending Hotfile and in part Megaupload.

After all the attacks on cyberlocker sites in recent months Google’s support will be welcomed with open arms by the file-hosting industry. Whether the MPAA will be very happy is a different story.

Update: MPAA just asked the court to deny Google’s amicus brief. They argue that Google’s perspective is one-sides and that the company acts as a partisan advocate for Hotfile.

Source: http://torrentfreak.com/google-defen...-court-120319/

Smith Reviewed by Smith on 19th Mar 2012. Google Defends Hotfile (and Megaupload) in Court Google has filed a brief at a federal court in Florida defending the file-hosting site Hotfile in its case against the MPAA. The search giant accuses the movie companies of misleading the court and argues that Hotfile is protected under the DMCA’s safe harbor. Indirectly, Google is also refuting claims being made by the US government in the criminal case against Megaupload. In February 2011, the MPAA announced a lawsuit against Hotfile, one of the Internet’s most popular cyberlocker Rating: 5

[cvrle77]

If courts do what MPAA asks from them, and there is just ONE SINGLE CASE they won based on those manipulations, they could take down Google easily, ask for new refined laws, and what not. Google would most definitely go down, no matter how much money they have. So, fighting a battle on this level, and not letting MPAA win ONE single case, will assure that Google stays online.

So, don't be carried away that Google does this because of Hotfile and Megaupload, and how they are all loving, helpful and shit.
They do this because of themselves, even if it doesn't look that way.

[Smith]

Of course Google made this move for it's own sake, but it will be interesting to see what's going to happen now..

It's Google we're talking about after all.

[JGM]

WELL IT'S ABOUT TIME!!!!!

Finally some big company has stood up to the MPAA and all the others and said "oi morons start using your brain for one second and you might get somewhere!". The MPAA and others are just bullies plain and simple and want everything their way so the people they work for (and themselves) can become even richer than they are, they constantly go on about how much money is lost due to piracy but they never say how much they actually make because if people knew then they would be thinking "with all that money and yet you want more... seriously?"

Google might be out for themselves but it's about time that somebody stood up to the corporate buttfuck that is the MPAA, RIAA etc etc

JGM.

[cvrle77]

I wonder when will someone calculate, how much they extra-profited, from all those free advertising of their movies, games, music. Why someone doesn't make that equation, simply by showing them their income before, and after the internet piracy.

Pirates are their biggest advertisers, they wouldn't sell few % of what they are selling, without people spreading their thoughts about some movie, or song, if they previously didn't downloaded it from torrents, or rapidshare.

That is what someone should bring up.

Btw, it's good that Google took a stand. It's time for others to join them, and make a lawyer team, that will kick MPAAs asses, and probably put some of them in jail, for racketeering, extortion, monopoly, bribing, etc, etc...

Time to turn tables around, and hunt on MPAA heads start.
(hiring private investigation team, put all dirt about them publicly?)

[ceekeigh]

That's a good thing if Google is backing up Hotfile/Megaupload. It's time a big company will face this MPAA which is really bugging the download industry.

[ShareShiz]

EPICNESS

[Sonic]

not surprise for me

[michaellin85]

now the big guy is stepping in and standing up for the file host industry! it's a good move by google and of course for their own sakes as well. either way it's a win/win situation.

[dkp]

Actually popular sites like google, youtube, megaupload, hotfile etc are promoting products to some extend. Some copyright holders may call this copyright infringement but the reality is that without these popular sites and their services these products go unnoticed.

MPAA and others thought that by shutting down popular user input services like megapload & others their profit will increase but in reality the reverse will happen. Its like making the products and putting in box. For sales lots of promotion work need to done and filehosts and their affiliates were doing this job indirectly.