After Restoring YouTube-dl, GitHub Revamps Its Copyright Takedown Policy

On October 23rd GitHub initially complied with a takedown request for the open-source project youtube-dl — and then after 24 days, reinstated it. “If there’s a silver lining to the episode, it’s that GitHub is implementing new policies to avoid a repeat of a repeat situation moving forward,” reports Engadget: First, it says a team of both technical and legal experts…

Proctoring Software Company Used DMCA To Take Down a Student’s Critical Tweets

A series of tweets by one Miami University student that were critical of a proctoring software company have been hidden by Twitter after the company filed a copyright takedown notice. TechCrunch reports: Erik Johnson, a student who works as a security researcher on the side, posted a lengthy tweet thread in early September about Proctorio, an Arizona-based software company that several…

Netflix Targets Critical ‘Cuties’ Tweets With Copyright Takedown Requests

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: Every week, Netflix sends out thousands of takedown requests, most of which target pirated copies of its movies and TV-shows. Yesterday, however, we spotted a series of copyright infringement notices with a different and rather uncomfortable theme. The streaming giant asked Twitter to remove dozens of tweets that included footage from the French…

Man Sued For Using Bogus YouTube Takedowns To Get Address For Swatting

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: YouTube is suing a Nebraska man the company says has blatantly abused its copyright takedown process. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act offers online platforms like YouTube legal protections if they promptly take down content flagged by copyright holders. However, this process can be abused — and boy did defendant Christopher L. Brady…

YouTubers Union Teams With Actual Labor Union To Pressure YouTube

A group of content creators say they’re organizing to make YouTube become a fairer platform, reports Motherboard: The YouTubers Union, a community-based movement fighting for the rights of content creators and users, has joined forces with IG Metall, Germany’s largest union and Europe’s largest trade union. Together, they have launched a joint venture called FairTube and sent a letter of demands…

DIY Facial Recognition For Porn Is a Dystopian Disaster

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Vice News: Someone posting on Chinese social network Weibo claims to have used facial recognition to cross-reference women’s photos on social media with faces pulled from videos on adult platforms like Pornhub. In a Monday post on Weibo, the user, who says he’s based in Germany, claimed to have “successfully identified more than 100,000…