The NFL, NBA, and UFC Want to Rewrite the DMAC Takedown Act

The NFL, NBA, and UFC are attempting to increase the urgency of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) in order to have the law take down unauthorized livestreams sooner. The sports groups think that the legislation should specify how quickly a DMCA takedown notice takes effect.

The DMCA was signed in 1998 under the Clinton administration and requires that takedown notices be processed “expeditiously,” according to Section 512 of the act.

The NFL, NBA, and UFC wrote to the USPTO on August 23rd, urging the government to amend the wording from “expeditiously” to “instantaneously or near-instantaneously.”

When I watch an NFL game online on YouTube TV, it usually ends in a little over three hours. If I looked for an out-of-market stream of a certain game and found one that was not allowed by the NFL, it would most likely end before a DMCA takedown was completed – as the sports organizations argue.

“This would be a relatively modest and non-controversial update to the DMCA”

“This would be a relatively modest and non-controversial update to the DMCA that could be included in the broader reforms being considered by Congress or could be addressed separately,” the letter from the National Football League, the National Basketball Association, and the It also notes that web service providers sometimes take hours or even days to remove content in response to takedown notices.

Lost Revenue from Illegal Streaming

The organizations also want web service providers to implement user verification before authorizing livestream broadcasts, which they say will prevent unlawful sports feeds from freshly created user accounts. It primarily targets users who use their smartphone camera to record footage from a TV screen and stream it live.

Furthermore, the letter states that the “global sports industry is losing up to $28 billion in additional potential annual revenue” because individuals who watch pirated streams continue to do so effectively and see no reason to switch to a, well, pricey premium stream or subscription.

The NFL, NBA, and UFC claim that some livestreams appear “indistinguishable from the legitimate feed,” which is an incredible feat if it exists.

However, the organizations are dealing with a new technical era in which livestreaming is easier than ever before, something that was unimaginable in 1998. Some organizations, such as YouTube, appear to take down videos faster than others.

Change in DMAC Legislation

Corporations have also utilized takedowns inappropriately. While the three sports groups focus on video streaming, DMCA takedowns harm more than just the entertainment industry.

For example, modest online clothing resellers have dealt with manufacturers sending takedown notices under the pretense of intellectual property violation in order to avoid competing with lightly used and affordable items.

If takedowns happened “instantaneously,” many businesses could close swiftly with no obvious means to reopen.

While the NFL, NBA, and UFC would like to see the legislation modified immediately, all they have right now is a letter to the USPTO — so they’ll have to wait a long time for the government to act on this one as well.

Google Crackdown on Fraudulent DMCA takedown requests

Meanwhile, Google has launched a lawsuit against two men in the northern district of California, alleging that they utilized the DMCA takedown request process to remove competitor URLs from search results.

According to the lawsuit, the “defendants have weaponized copyright law’s notice-and-takedown process and used it not for its intended purpose of expeditiously removing infringing content, but instead to have the legitimate content of their competitors removed based on false allegations.”

According to the lawsuit, two people used at least 65 Google accounts to file thousands of false DMCA claims. These were filed against 117 third-party website URLs that sold printed t-shirts.

“Over the past few years, Nguyen, Pham and those working with them, are said to have created at least 65 Google accounts to send confirmed bogus notices targeting 117,000 URLs, plus another 500,000 URLs via notices that Google suspects are fraudulent too,” a report from TorrentFreak states.

Google clearly intends to send a message to anyone who attempts to use a DMCA takedown request to harm competitors within Google Search or to raise their own results by eliminating listings above them. We believe this is Google’s first lawsuit regarding such charges, and it may not be the last.

By Geoff Thomas