2019-04-18 - Russell Greer: (Incomplete) DMCA Takedown Notice

[Apteryx Owenii]

(iv) Information reasonably sufficient to permit the service provider to contact the complaining party, such as an address, telephone number, and, if available, an electronic mail address at which the complaining party may be contacted.

There's a common belief that a complaining party has to dox themselves in order to file a proper DMCA takedown. I don't really see it. I'm sure there's plenty of case law that clarifies what "reasonably sufficient" means in this context, so maybe some court decided that the law is interpreted to mean that you have to provide a valid physical address. Just based on the law itself, though, it seems like just an email address might be sufficient contact information to satisfy this element. I don't really see any reason why a mailbox service address wouldn't be german

The funny thing is that while the person trying to take content down needs to provide "information... such as an address, telephone number... electronic mail address" the language for someone filing a counter notification reads differently:

To be effective under this subsection, a counter notification must be a written communication provided to the service provider’s designated agent that includes substantially the following...
(D)The subscriber’s name, address, and telephone number, and a statement that the subscriber consents to the jurisdiction...

I guess the idea here is to make it easier to sue someone for infringement but it doesn't really take into account that people would be filing false takedowns. So some nitwit filing spurious takedown notices doesn't have to surrender as much information as the person trying to respond to them. This became a factor when Alex Mauer started DMCAing everyone in the world and was so off the deep end that a lot of people on YT didn't want to bother counter-notifying because they wanted to avoid giving up personal info.

 

[The Dude]

(Added to the OP.)

Subject: Re: DMCA Takedown Notice to Immediately Remove my Copyrighted Material
Date: Fri, 19 Apr 2019 19:41:55 -0600
To: Null <null@kiwifarms.net>
From: russell.greer.28@gmail.com

Josh,

Respectfully, I don’t need to. It’s your duty to investigate my claims upon written notice.

Sent from my iPhone

---

Subject: Re: DMCA Takedown Notice to Immediately Remove my Copyrighted Material
Date: Fri, 19 Apr 2019 19:52:08 -0600
To: Null <null@kiwifarms.net>
From: Russell Greer <russell.greer.28@gmail.com>

There are so many hate filled, slanderous threads about me that I do not know the exact location of where it is on your site. All I know is that two people have said that the book is on the site and so is the song:

[large, blank space omitted]

Sent from my iPhone

---

Subject: Re: DMCA Takedown Notice to Immediately Remove my Copyrighted Material
To: Russell Greer <russell.greer.28@gmail.com>
From: Null <null@kiwifarms.net>
Date: Sat, 20 Apr 2019 07:57:13 +0300

that is absolutely not how it works and you can literally eat shit you gimpyfaced exceptional individual

put this in your lawsuit cuck

"So many hate filled, slanderous threads..." Um, correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure we only have one thread about Russhole Greer. Unless you count the handful or so threads where he tried to intimidate Dear Leader into taking down his thread or his poorly written, lie-filled books and then we all laughed at Russ. We did have a sub-forum for a little while, but Russ doesn't do enough to warrant several threads about him. Anyway, the point is that we only have one thread about Russhole. Just more bullshit lies in the poor attempt at making Russ look like a victim.

Oh, and its "libel", Russ. The word you're looking for is libel, not slander. Slander is spoken, libel is written. They should have taught you that in paralegal class, along with burden of proof. But you were probably too busy creeping on the girl in front of you on the days they taught those subjects. And neither libel nor slander apply to the things we say about you because they're all true. You provide the content, and we discuss it for a laugh.

 

[Shaka Brah]

@Kosher Salt I think the important takeaway about Russell's previous cases is that they were responded to by actual lawyers. With I think only one exception, he actually managed to force people to go to a courtroom and listen to his dumb ass, rather than just getting a lecture from a judge and told to go away.

If he sues Null, no celebrity lawyer is going to firebomb his imaginary friend. He's just going to be throwing pro se claims into the circular file.

 

[The Un-Clit]

Who told Russ about content on the farms anyway? Think it’s the same asshole who was posting in his thread while simultaneously pretending to be his friend?

No, it absolutely wasn't him. Russhole knew about his page LONG before that all went down. This is at least his 3rd attempt at getting Null to DELETE FUCKING EVERYTHING about him, because plights. And mentally ill trolls etc.

He just hates reading the hurtful truth on this page so much that he really REALLY dosen't want to look through it himself and read through well over 1000 pages of people archiving and laughing at his recockulous behaviour with employers and lawsuits, the endless thirsting after instathots, badly arguing law with people who actually know their shit and blatant stalking-behaviour with regards to pop-stars as well as the examples of how easily he had been trolled in the past.

He would much prefer it if he could influence someone to do it for him, and I'm betting that he's already begged his co-workers who are sick to death of hearing about his plights and been told to fuck right off..

 

[Tommy Wiseau Kin]

"So many hate filled, slanderous threads..." Um, correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure we only have one thread about Russhole Greer. Unless you count the handful or so threads where he tried to intimidate Dear Leader into taking down his thread or his poorly written, lie-filled books and then we all laughed at Russ. We did have a sub-forum for a little while, but Russ doesn't do enough to warrant several threads about him. Anyway, the point is that we only have one thread about Russhole. Just more bullshit lies in the poor attempt at making Russ look like a victim.

Oh, and its "libel", Russ. The word you're looking for is libel, not slander. Slander is spoken, libel is written. They should have taught you that in paralegal class, along with burden of proof. But you were probably too busy creeping on the girl in front of you on the days they taught those subjects. And neither libel nor slander apply to the things we say about you because they're all true. You provide the content, and we discuss it for a laugh.

No it was less he didn’t do enough and more of him constantly sperging about the same thing over and over again.

 

[Opiophile]

"All I know is that two people have said that the book is on the site and so is the song."

Wow Russ, that is pretty retarded even for you. You have filed a lawsuit on grounds of "someone told me," not investigating it yourself before hand?

I guess I'm expecting far too much from the guy who sued Ariana Grande because she didn't say she liked his suit or some shit.

 

[Kiwi Lime Pie]

There's a common belief that a complaining party has to dox themselves in order to file a proper DMCA takedown. I don't really see it. I'm sure there's plenty of case law that clarifies what "reasonably sufficient" means in this context, so maybe some court decided that the law is interpreted to mean that you have to provide a valid physical address.

My speculation is that courts expect any type of address supplied - real or electronic - to be a valid one for DMCA-related correspondence if for no other reason than the fact the DMCA is declared to be accurate and signed under penalty of perjury. Perhaps one could get by with just an email address for DMCA requests submitted electronically depending on prior case law and rulings relating to what's considered sufficient and valid.

I guess the idea here is to make it easier to sue someone for infringement but it doesn't really take into account that people would be filing false takedowns. So some nitwit filing spurious takedown notices doesn't have to surrender as much information as the person trying to respond to them. This became a factor when Alex Mauer started DMCAing everyone in the world and was so off the deep end that a lot of people on YT didn't want to bother counter-notifying because they wanted to avoid giving up personal info.

This a bit interesting in that someone counter-responding to a DMCA notice has to provide this information when the original DMCA filer may not have to. The whole Maurer thing about not wanting an unstable person to have the dox associated with with a counter notice is probably why such people can file their DMCA notices with impunity. Who wants to willingly supply their personal details as part of a counterclaim to someone both unstable and/or acting in bad faith?

Ad-libbing is a really stupid idea when you have a template laid out for you that contains the exact language the court will expect you to use.

Although the courses focused more on applying the rules (and key exceptions), the professor that taught my Business Law 1 & 2 courses made it very clear to us early in each class that legal documents have to be as exact and concise as possible. It's one thing to remove a section from a template that's inapplicable - such as a reference to farm land in a document that will refer to city property, for example - but it's another to edit, remove, or otherwise omit a necessary and required section that would make it easy for the opposing party to claim the document is somehow defective and unenforceable in part or whole.

Russ must have been daydreaming about 10s or celebs during those class lectures.

 

[NOT Sword Fighter Super]

I hope he sues.

Those always turn out well.
Internet lolsuits are some of my favorite things.

 

[Opiophile]

Thanks for shaming me into finally getting rid of my 'sent from my Samsung etc' phone-e-mail tagline.

I left it on because I didn't give a shit. Until now I never thought about what anyone else thought about it.

If I could find and fix within 1 minute, Russ can manage it too. ya, right, he'll be on the phone to Apple screaming about his plights, and the 'sent from my Iphone' tagline literally force-fed him a crap-burger.

It's obviously Apple's duty to find what's causing the "Sent from my iPhone" signature and to remove it for him.

When they tell him how to do it himself he will sue Apple next for, "being ableist and discriminating against him for his disability."

 

[GethN7]

Given he considers the entire Greer thread an affront to all that is decent in his world, and he knows his ego cannot stand wading through all the shit said about him to find what needs to be removed, even if in doing so he might score a legit legal victory in the process, and he instead half asses things and tells Null to look for it just tells me he's too proud, lazy, and arrogant to get his hands dirty, even if it's to his own benefit.

Which, given his massive sense of entitlement, makes perfect sense, and underscores perfectly why he's not getting anything accomplished in life, he doesn't really try.

 

[Dr. Henry Armitage]

He still hasn’t cottened on to the fact that the person you’re “suing” has no obligation to help you in that suit save a subpoena. It’s stunning. It’s hilarious. Rusty, please give us more of this!

But remeber guys, Russ has all the same legal training as a lawyer.

 

[m0rnutz]

Can someone make a Beta Greer vs Chad Moon edit for this chain of emails?

Loving how he expects Null to have the exact post on memory though

 

[Marvin]

Given he considers the entire Greer thread an affront to all that is decent in his world, and he knows his ego cannot stand wading through all the shit said about him to find what needs to be removed, even if in doing so he might score a legit legal victory in the process, and he instead half asses things and tells Null to look for it just tells me he's too proud, lazy, and arrogant to get his hands dirty, even if it's to his own benefit.

Which, given his massive sense of entitlement, makes perfect sense, and underscores perfectly why he's not getting anything accomplished in life, he doesn't really try.

Yeah, I bet he's going to post about how he sent a takedown to null, but null is illegally ignoring his request (regardless that he fucked up the request). He's going to blabber about this, but not too loudly, lest people ask him too many details about the situation.

 

[Kosher Salt]

Yeah, I bet he's going to post about how he sent a takedown to null, but null is illegally ignoring his request (regardless that he fucked up the request). He's going to blabber about this, but not too loudly, lest people ask him too many details about the situation.

Interestingly, the OP of Greer's thread did used to have a link to the book. It now links to Rekieta's YouTube read-through playlist. And it was edited suspiciously close to when Russ sent the takedown.

Russ basically just linked to the OP, and it might have been a valid takedown for at least that - at least valid enough to err on the side of caution. Expecting Null to dig through the whole thread to find infringing posts, however, is still not reasonable.

(I don't know whether the OP linked to the song, because the archive that I found was dated before the song dropped.)

 

[MG 620]

Dear Mr. Greer,

Since I'm a good person, I'll do part of the job for you.

The book is featured here:

https://kiwifarms.pa/attachments/hghh-gif.315633/

 

[James Smith]

You have to provide a physical address where you will accept service of process in a counter-notice because a counter-notice typically restores the allegedly infringing material absent a lawsuit. You don't have to provide a physical address where you will accept service of process in a DMCA notice because the legislators that wrote it didn't anticipate a need for the accused or the ISP to serve a lawsuit upon the accuser (i.e. they didn't realize that wanton abuse would happen.)

 

[Shibaru]

m8 that notice looks fake as hell

 

[MarinaAnnDanzig]

"You have to provide a physical address where you will accept service of process in a counter-notice because"

that is when shit gets real. Anyone can file a take down notice on someone else's behalf, without a physical address or a physical signature. IMO the act was meant to be sort of a courtesy call. Like "hey cut that shit out", if you will. What has to be included in a takedown notice is VERY clear but there are no real repercussions for sending false notices. Like @SoapQueen1 states "they didn't realize that wanton abuse would happen". However, the stakes are much higher when counter notices are filed because the next step is the courts. The first step to getting your content removed is file a takedown. The infringer has 30 days to file a counter claim. If they choose to do so the counter notice gets sent back to whomever filed the the original DMCA. The content stays down for ten days. With in that ten days the original filer has two options, do nothing and the content gets restored or take it to the courts. That is why the counter notice must include a real address. It's so if the original filer chooses to take you to court he MUST know which jurisdiction to file his claim in. So, if it isn't included in counter notice then it is deemed a false counter notice and the content stays down.

TL;DR A physical address and phone number is needed in a counter notice so the original filer knows what jurisdiction to file in.

He definitely managed to fuck up sending a pre-written letter. Everything past "This letter is official notification" is too clean and professional to be his writing.
ETA: Here is the template he used, first result for Googling "DCMA takedown notice template"

Sorry this is a bit off topic but I remember reading this way back when. The article itself wasn't memorable on it's own but the very last comment was...

If I was homeless I think that I'd be much more worried about ..you know ...NOT being homeless then online justice over shit someone said about me..........

 

[Abd]

Yeah. DMCA takedown is actually pretty smart. A service provider is immunized from copyvio claims if they follow the DMCA process, wherein the complainant links to the alleged violation, and provides contact information. At this point, I would not lean on the contact information being as was given. Rather, DMCA takedown is for service providers, i.e., the domain host, not the site operator, so this is not an actual DMCA takedown request. The host, properly notified, will then notify the site operator to take the material down, forwarding the information. The operator may avoid host takedown by filing an objection, which must give an address for acceptance of process in the U.S. Federal Court district of the alleged violator. The host may then leave the material up, the dispute is entirely between the alleged owner and the alleged violator. Hosts do not have to investigate ownership. GoDaddy, however, has a policy that one must accept the jurisdiction of the Arizona Federal Court, which is nuts. They have completely misunderstood the DMCA, which is odd. I have not looked at DreamHost policy, but it is probably compliant.

A defective owner address may still leave the request as valid, my opinion, but Not An Attorney. A host will not get into such bullshit detail, such as figuring out if the Copyright Office has approved of an address. The whole point of DMCA was to make response a no-brainer for ISPs.

The real deficiency in this was the lack of a link. A service provider would ignore such a notice with no risk. There is an alleged link in the mail, but it is broken. This guy needs help. Up the creek, no paddle. Utterly lost and believes he is right. Etc.

(He later gave a functional link, but to a thread, with no easy-to-follow instructions to find the offending content. A service provider will allocate 13 seconds to find the material. Greer has no idea how the real world functions, and probably should be in a hospital, but they don't do that any more.)

 

[AngeloTheWizard]

Another DMCA, huh? Must be Tuesday.