In the world of copyright strikes, if you’re on YouTube, or DMCA takedown requests if you own a website or not, many people are worried about being on the receiving end.
It’s the kind of thing you hear about a lot, but people believe it can’t happen to them.
On the 1st of May, 2024, literally the day the month started, I received a strange message from Cloudflare.
My first thought was “Someone is trying to fuck with me again” before laughing it off.
It was in the morning.
The message (private details omitted)
“Cloudflare received a DMCA copyright infringement complaint regarding: animedirectory.net.
Reported URLs:
https://animedirectory.net/listings/studio-ghibli/
https://animedirectory.net/listings/the-studio-ghibli-themed-guesthouse-kuku/Original Work: Copyrighted Japanese anime owned by GKids. Pursuant to 17 USC sec. 512(c)(3)(A)(ii) a representative list of titles is located at https://gkids.com/
Comments:We have forwarded this complaint to your hosting provider.
Thanks,
The Cloudflare Team
You may notice when reading the image or the QUOTE text that the website is animedirectory.net
This is relevant for 3 reasons:
- It’s owned by Anime Motivation.
- It’s connected to Anime Motivation.
- It redirects to Anime Motivation.
The two URLs were directory listings of Studio Ghibli and their theme park.
The page looked similar to this via MAL, but better and more detailed. Like a Wikipedia page of sorts but more modern.
This is how we know these claims made by GKIDS were bogus and nefarious at best.
- No copyright was being infringed.
- Sites like MAL, Wikia fandom, and Wikipedia, among others have similar pages.
- A license agreement isn’t required in this scenario.
- Nothing is being sold, manipulated, changed, ripped off, or misrepresented.
When it comes to DMCA, while the intentions may have been good when it was created, it has become a form of abuse for many copyright holders.
Meaning they abuse DMCA to take down people they don’t like, or creators with certain opinions or sites they take issue with. As opposed to using it for genuine abuse of their copyrights.
Who is Remove Your Media LLC?
Other than the fact they worked on behalf of GKIDS in the USA, who are connected to Studio Ghibli, they seem to be a service used on behalf of studios, companies, streaming services, copyright holders, and so on.
In their own words regarding DMCA in particular:
“Our key to success lies in relentless search engine removals, repeat hosting/registrar DMCAs, social media elimination and advertising enforcement correspondence. We remove millions of infringing links, every week, and are directly responsible for the closure of nearly one thousand illegal domains annually.”
As I covered in a SEPARATE post on the main site of Anime Motivation (a website I own), this doesn’t seem as genuine as they try to make it.
Unfortunately, most have been forced into silence on the issue, or they simply backed down despite not being in the wrong.
The web host was informed so I went about my day without a care in the world
“Thank you for contacting us.
We haven’t yet received any notice about your site.
If we receive one, we will notify you.”
And that was that.
Turns out over a week later, or about a week later I guess, the problem was NOT a problem as I already knew.
Knowledge is power.
The web hosts response:
“I wanted to provide you with an update regarding the DMCA complaint.
We received it via our data center. When we looked at it, it seemed that the reported URLs and source websites displayed different content. We discussed the same with the data center and concluded that no further action is needed on your part.
Best regards.”
And that was all she wrote.