Takedown notices can be a good way for content owners to protect their work, but it’s less effective when companies start to report their websites as “piracy havens.” This is what an Indian branch of Sony Pictures did recently, and they are not alone.
Copyright holders send millions of “takedown” notices daily, hoping to get pirated content taken down or make it harder to find.
People have different opinions about how well the DMCA takedown process works. Still, it doesn’t help companies report their websites for copyright violations.
Sony Targets Sony for copyright issues
A few days ago, this is essentially what happened. In a notice sent on behalf of Sony Pictures Network India, the company asks Google to take 34 URLs off the Sony Liv platform, which Sony owns.
Markscan, a group that works to stop piracy, sent the notice in question. It includes links to copyrighted movies and TV shows on the streaming portal, probably not pirated. The information consists of links to SonyLiv.com and IMDb for the film “Cold Courage.”
It’s unclear why a Sony-owned company is going after a Sony-owned over-the-top (OTT) streaming service. Still, these takedown notices do nothing to make it easier to find legal content. The same mistake was made a few months ago, so it’s not the first time.
More Unfortunate Takedowns
Other rightsholders have also said that the Sony Liv service is a “pirate” platform, which worsens things. This includes takedown requests from “Shoopte Film sales,” “Multi Screen Media,” and “Cricket Australia.”
Google caught most of these mistakes, which is good. The search engine denied most of the takedown requests, but two Sonyliv.com URLs were taken down.
Sony is not the only company that tells Google about its website. Many other big companies, like Warner Brothers and Walt Disney Pictures, seem to have done the same.
It’s important to remember that fake notices have been sent to Google in the past by people who said they were from a rightsholder but didn’t have permission. But the message from Sony Pictures doesn’t show that this is the case, so Sony may want to look more closely at how it is trying to take down the video.
