One of the recurring themes on Plagiarism Today has been how difficult it is to send a DMCA notice to Google, especially over their Blogger service. I first wrote on the topic in 2006, and posted a workaround to email a DMCA notice to Google in 2008.
However, sometime very recently, Google updated their Blogger DMCA page, to include a new contact form that automates much of the process.
Since Blogger, Google’s free blog hosting service, has been a strong focus for spam blogs and other kinds of infringers, this is a potentially huge step forward, especially for those who have dealt with misuse by Blogger users. The previous means of emailing a notice to Google involved creating a PDF of the notice, complete with scanned signature, and emailing that in. This form makes it almost instantaneous to send in a complaint to Google.
However, there are some limitations to this form that have to be considered and it is important to use it for the right reasons.
How it Works
The form, though not much to look at, could not be much more clear. It works by having the person filing the complaint fill out a series of blanks and then submit it, much like with any other contact form.
Someone filing a DMCA notice puts in their name (first and last), company, email address, location of original works, description of the original works, infringing URLs, agree to two sworn statements and then date/sign the form. It is very straightforward and ripped pralmost directly from the DMCA itself.
There are only three issues that I see with the form.
- Offline Works: The form could be a bit difficult to use for works not already on the Web. You are required to list both a location of the work and identify the work. Though both are a requirement of the DMCA, sometimes they are one and the same, for example with books and ISBNs. However, both boxes are required. You may for example list the publisher and ISBN in the location box and the Title in the first, as Google suggests.
- Layout: I’m having some trouble viewing the form in my browser (Firefox on Mac) as the description text runs over the edge of my monitor and I can’t scroll horizontally. I was able to work around this by doing a “select all” and pasting the text into another application.
- No Additional Contact Information: Though it’s not specifically required by the DMCA, it is considered a best practice to obtain mail and phone contacts for people filing the notice. The reason is that, should there be a dispute, the person who is the subject of the notice may need that information to appropriately respond.
All in all, while the system has its flaws, it is a vast improvement over the one that existed before. Still, there are some limitations to be wary of.
Limitations and Problems
It is important to remember that the new Blogger DMCA form is exclusively for Blogger and not any other Google services. For example, Picasa, Orkut nor any other Google service offers an online form for filing a DMCA.
In those cases, the method I described above is the easiest way to email a DMCA notice successfully.
Hopefully Google will create other forms to make filing DMCA notices easier for those services. My wager is that they are taking this route to discourage people from filing DMCA notices with Google Search over items hosted on other Google services. Not only is that a waste of time for Google, which likely spends much longer dealing with search DMCA notices than regular ones, but less effective for copyright holders.
I’m hoping this marks the beginning of a change for Google in terms of speed, cooperation and user-friendliness when it comes to matters of copyright infringement.
Bottom Line
It is nice to know that, after literally years of talking and writing about these issues, Google is finally responding. There had been rumors such a system was in the works for some time, but after years of no activity, it seemed that the project had been abandoned.
Though the new form is far from perfect, it is definitely a step in the right direction and a tremendous improvement over the current DMCA regime at Google. If I were doing my DMCA Seven review of Google Blogger today, I would likely say that it is a “B+” rather than its original “D”.
Google has taken a very big step forward and I encourage others to take advantage of this form when reporting abuse on Blogger. If you do, please let me know what your results are as I’ll be eager to hear what others’ experiences are like.
I will post on my own as soon as I have cause to file against Blogger.
thanks
That's interesting. I never had an issue filing a DMCA via the form, if you could forward me the replies you got back, I'd be interested in taking a closer look.Regarding the image hosting, I think I know what the problem may be. Blogger doesn't actually host the images (not many at least). The images are actually on their Picasa service. You may want to contact their DMCA team and see if they can be of more help:http://www.google.com/picasa_web_dmca.htmlStupid? You bet. This is a big part of why Google needs a centralized DMCA process to handle all LOBs. They don't do that and, as a result, it can be difficult to tell which product you should contact. Think about it, you could reach out to Picasa, Blogspot and Google Search all for the same case. Big headache.Regarding Disqus, I've forwarded the issue to their team. I'll let you know what they tell me. Thanks for the heads up!
For the first time last week I filed just to have reposted images removed from Blogger. First complaint – you have to use their onsite form. That's fine … it's a little weird the way it requires the info formatted but I can deal. However, once you submit it, you get no confirmation. Ideally it should email the whole thing to you WITH the autogenerated case number. Because after that they'll email you the response with just a case number and no context except for the date you filed it. (And I file stuff with google adsense all the time.)The first filing I did was rejected outright because I didn't fill in the form properly. The second one I filed was rejected because "Google has decided not totake action based on our policies concerning content removal." And they gave no additional information. Part of my issue with google & blogger is their photo hosting. A blog might be well within fair use with reposting a photo, but then it gets hotlinked on forums & crazy livejournal webstores. If I just give blogger the URL of the image, they won't do anything about it. If I tell them where it's hotlinked, they say that's not their website. I'm stumped. And irritated. *Oh, and disqus is positively irritating … it won't let me sign in and it won't let me post because I already "exist" … may as well just dump this whole comment.*
Glad it was resolved. It's that time of year where these things always take longer though…
I waited another week and then sent them a note asking what was going on. They've taken care of it now. I think it just got lost in the shuffle.
When I've done it there has usually been only a 3-5 working day delay, I'd say you are outside the norm. That being said, I always get slower DMCA responses in the summer due to people being gone on vacation and I haven't filed via this form in the past two weeks. So that could be part of it…
Anyone else able to document the turnaround on this? I've been waiting more than a week and it's a pretty clear cut case since it's a blog with only two posts and one of them is a full reprint of one of my posts including hotlinked photos but stripped copyright info.
Good idea on a future article. I'm going to have to consider that! Thanks!
Google Accepts Online DMCAs for Blogger | PlagiarismToday http://tinyurl.com/cxlbds
RT @CopyrightLaw: Google Accepts Online DMCAs for Blogger: http://tinyurl.com/cxlbds
RT @CopyrightLaw: “Google Accepts Online DMCAs for Blogger” http://tinyurl.com/cxlbds
RT @PattyHankins: Google makes it easier to file DMCA for Blogger http://is.gd/snTE from @plagiarismtoday
“Google Accepts Online DMCAs for Blogger” http://tinyurl.com/cxlbds
I understand when filing legal papers that involve folks saying that they're correct under the penalty of perjury they need something that distinguishes one Sam Smith from anther Sam Smith (like the address – which doubles as fantastic contact information). What I'm saying is that these go betweens that we file these papers with don't necessarily protect this information. Now there's an interesting article – how is that info stored and what do they do with it? Let's face it, when I'm dealing with some spammers/scammers/scrapers, these are overseas folks who might have far more nefarious plans in mind than just taking some of my text for use in the SEO building.
I think Google could make a lot of improvements in a lot of ways. I agree you could've created a better form (not that I've looked at Google's, but I respect your opinion and you've seen it).What I don't get is (and maybe I'm slow or just missing a really simple point here and I'll attempt to tie my thoughts together) but if bloggers repost "used" material they get the Google spank (as Angie calls it). But because of their algorithms they have created the problem of crap content being all over the internet and mis-used. That's complaint #1.I recently learned that Google owns Youtube (okay, maybe I AM slow) and this leads to my second complaint.Youtube is full of 'shit' videos. You can cut that word if you want, but I'm being honest here. Any dumb jerk can decide they want to make a 'video', they can go grab any artist's song they choose and make a total piece of junk with it. If this is not pirating or copyright infringement I don't know what is. European artists like Iron Maiden have stopped allowing their videos to be embedded. The videos you can embed are user created with an album cover image, etc. Somehow I don't think the artists are very pleased and this is not how they want their music viewed.I did a post about it (http://themusicrocks.com/blog/2009/04/will-new-…..)In my opinion, Google creates these sites and allows this crap to go on and then after they've let it get out of hand, they finally decide to enforce some laws (much like government). I'm not saying people don't need to be punished for it, I'm saying Google should give these things a lot more forethought than they do.Maybe they're late on the DCMA notice because they did want to hammer out all the legal implications of it, but why didn't they just give this matter and the problem with Youtube some forethought before they unleashed their beast? Or maybe it's all just a ploy to stay in the headlines and appear like they're trying to do the right thing? With so many people down on Google it's likely.I've been extremely upset with Youtube over this. It's disgusting to go look for a favorite video and find out some idiot created an image and put the artists song on it. When I found out that Google is behind Youtube, it all made perfect sense–once again, they've allowed something that could be really good to become shit.The part I don't get is, they try to do something good, they allow it to go bad and get worse before they ever do anything. As a blogger, if I use material that's posted elsewhere, I get penalized, but yet Google allows (by owning Youtube) the act of blatant plagiarism with user created videos. Can anyone explain that to me?Bottom line is, I agree it's about time, but that doesn't stop me from complaining about their lack of foresight…and just Google in general. LOLMaybe I've made my point clear, it's hard to proofread in this little box. I should get out of the box now.From the part of the Cpoyright 2.0 show that I got hear, it was very good. I'll try to download the file to finish it up. Busy day.Have a great one Jonathan!
Agreed that it is about time. Very welcome for the info!
The contact info is always a tough issue and here is why. When you file a DMCA notice, the law doesn't specify what information you have to give up, just enough for the other party and the host to reasonably contact you. Google feels email is enough for that and I am not going to disagree with them.The flip side though is the counter-notice. When one files those they HAVE to provide postal and other information as to be available for the filing of a lawsuit. It seems unfair to have people provide more information when providing a counternotice than when filing the original notice.There are ways around giving out your personal information. Perhaps an article for tomorrow?
Knowing Google, it's because they wanted to hammer out every potential legal implication of this. What is worrisome though is that they didn't just take forever to do it, but that they did it rather poorly. I expected more of Google really.Still, it is a huge improvement. I just have the feeling I could have built a better, easier and more complete form in an hour.
All I have to say is, it's about time. Thanks for reporting this.
Honestly I'm a bit relieved by the "contact info" part. I have to include that for eBay takedown notices, and they pass that along to the eBay seller … and sometimes they get very nasty with me. I feel a bit adrift – they have my address, email and phone number but even if eBay agrees that they are in violation and removes the material, I never know who they really are. I'll try filing one of these later today to see how it goes. I have a huge list of blogger blogs with my material on them and I haven't felt like printing & faxing.
–"There had been rumors such a system was in the works for some time, but after years of no activity, it seemed that the project had been abandoned." –If they basically copied the DMCA's notice, you have to wonder why it took so long.