Microsoft files DMCA request at Microsoft

@ 2013/08/02
Microsoft has ordered Google to purge its own web pages from Google searches for infringing Redmond copyrights.

Microsoft filed a Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedown request against itself in a case which is being cited as proof that the big software companies are not looking closer at who they are issuing takedown notices to.

The Vole has been using software to automatically generate DMCA takedown requests to try to scrub the net of pirated content.

This leads to the accusation that casting the net too wide traps innocent webmasters.

False requests are providing comedy value as they become more common. The Vole has issued takedown requests against the US Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Health and Human Services, the National Institutes of Health, TechCrunch, Wikipedia, BBC News, Bing.com, Google.com, and many others.

HBO had a crack at removing links to the open-source VLC media player.

It's being driven by the usual suspects. Big Content outfits like Microsoft, the Recording Industry Association of America, NBC, and Walt Disney.

Google says that it used to receive around 225,000 DMCA requests per week and now it gets 3.5 to 4.5 million a week.

Between January and July 2013, Google erased more than 100,000,000 - that's 100 million - links from the web as a result of DMCA takedown requests. This is twice the number of links Google wiped in 2012.

Google polices the DMCA takedown requests but it only rejects three percent.

It was Google which saved Microsoft's butt when its software tried to delete the six Office solutions pages from the search list.

A red faced Vole told TorrentFreak Google's online form requires identification of both the copyrighted content being infringed and the website address of the infringement.

A vendor properly listed six URLs as Microsoft copyrighted content that was being infringed, but then inadvertently copied and pasted those same six URLs in the field to identify the locations of infringement.

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