Ah, yes, you know someone's desperate when you see a bogus DMCA claim like this. Not the first time this happened and definitely won't be the last.
This also demonstrates why it is bad for a law to mandate private entities to do moderation, in this case taking down copyright infringement materials when reported. Google, like basically all big platforms, doesn't care if a claim is fraudulent because the parties impacted cannot hold it accountable — google will just tell you they are themselves victims of the fraudulent claim. And to be fair, they are. But it has to enforce the claims or else lose its safe harbor exemption. This practically allows bad actors to use platforms as their shields, and in the end no one but the victim suffers any consequences for their abuse of the copyright laws.
I think a more sane approach would to require every copyright takedown to require a court order. Granted, the legal system is not perfect, but judges are not incentivized to always side with the supposed copyright holder like online platforms do. They will not be letting someone claiming to be living on a deserted island to file a claim and even when fraud does occur, they will at least know where the claim is actually coming from and be able to punish the fraudster accordingly.
A good start would be to require that claimants must verify their real identity. The claim in this case was made by an apparent pseudonym and their address is fictional. Both should themselves be reason to reject the claim. The fact that anyone apparently can submit claims to Google under false names seems insane to me.
This is another problem with letting private entities be the arbitrator. How is Google supposed to know if Ellie Piee is a real person? It can ask for ID verification of course, but these can be faked, and when that happens there is little Google can do to hold the claimant accountable. A court will certainly have an easier time verifying the identity of the claimant and take action when fraud occurs.
> How is Google supposed to know if Ellie Piee is a real person?
That doesn't really matter. Anyway it's silly to question whether Google, a multi-trillion dollar company, can validate someone's ID when they already do it in many other aspects of their business.
But is Google treating some claims different from others? Are Ellie Piee's claim against Gergely Orosz's article, and the latter's appeal treated exactly the same as any other? In other words, if I use an obviously bogus identity to make DMCA claims against Google content on their own platforms, will they immediately take it down and then go through the same standard appeal process? If not, then the system isn't "abused" it's used exactly as it was designed to be used. In an asymmetrical manner to the benefit of some.
So the real question isn't "how can Google validate an identity", it's "why is Google treating some different from others"? It sure isn't an accident.
Google has no problems "verifying" me with mapping to my phone number, etc. (Actually, it does, after a long and storied startup career, I can no longer create a new Google account because my phone number "has been used too often").
There's also the asymmetry of "you don't need to supply ID to make a DMCA claim, but you will to appeal it", which people can and have used to discover identities for more harassment.
How are banks supposed to know if Ellie Piee is a real person?
Actually
How is Google supposed to know if Ellie Piee is a real person when Ellie Piee pays for a Google product? Or otherwise uses a Google service that requires identity
Fictional address, sure: that would, as I understand, be some kind of fraud, and can reasonably be prohibited if there's a mechanism to do so… but then you run into the problem that not everyone has an address.
I appreciate the sentiment, as someone who is sympathetic to the plight of the homeless / unhoused. But in practical terms, when it comes to aligning a system with justice, IMHO requiring DMCA plaintiffs to have a legal address seems preferable to the status quo.
The onus is on the DMCA processor to verify the legitimacy of the claim. I don't have a real solution, but Congress created the problem and should solve it.
There's of course a whole legal system that has been dealing with this since for ever.
If I were to implement it myself, I'd use a third party service like those that can verify passports and driver's licenses and so on.
No they don't. The onus on them is to comply with the takedown request and provide for immediate restoration with a counter-notice. If the initiator is acting in bad faith it will be exposed if they attempt to litigate.
The friction free restoration flow is what Google is missing because they don't actually follow the DMCA process. Amend the law to strip safe harbor immunity in this scenario and suddenly we'd see abuse effectively combated.
Etsy seems to operate in the same way as google. I had a DMCA against a listing of mine that should have been protected as parody. Etsy immediately complied with the takedown, and then I emailed the complainant and they agreed it was a mistake from their system/consultant. But they never took the next step of contacting Etsy to say they were wrong. So I could never restore the listing.
from another perspective - who is better resourced than Google to determine if a person and place are real or fictitious? They make these decisions all the time when it suits them. And explain to me this population who is filing DMCA take-down requests that doesn't have an address? the Venn diagram seems shockingly small.
Indeed. But it's not something that Google can do, so bolting on an identity verification requirement to the DMCA process isn't helpful. Re-routing DMCA requests through the bureaucracy of the courts might work.
If counterclaims require doxxing yourself under penalty of perjury, then I would assume that's still perjury even if the other guy started it, so just making the counterclaim process easier doesn't fix the problem.
A middle ground (which wouldn't clog up an overburdened court system) would require a US attorney to draft and sign a complaint for a takedown request, putting their accreditation on the line.
You could also require a signed letter that has been properly notarized. Again, adds an independent 3rd party with a verified identity and something to loose. And falsifying is a crime.
Was this really DMCA? The article implies it is, but I don't see any evidence (maybe I missed it). There is discussion of what the DMCA says, and Google took the article down. However it is generally understood that DMCA rarely is used to take things down. Instead Google has a "I can't believe it isn't DMCA" process that looks similar, but in reality it isn't actually DMCA.
If this is really DMCA then the author should press charges - DMCA take downs are done under penalty of prejury which is a criminal act. Since author legally has copyright they have legal protections under DMCA for exactly this.
If this isn't DMCA then it is just Google decision not to index something. They have the right to not index anything they choose not to. Nothing the author can directly do about this - but indirectly they can be witness that Google isn't a "common carrier" since they choose not to index that wasn't copyright, so you just need to find some case where someone else sues google because they found something "harmful" (likely something like suicide instructions)
That may be DMCA notice but I think that BluGill get to the heart of the matter in saying the Google doesn't follow the DMCA process. They have their own process that is a warped mirror of the DMCA process and they use the DMCA process as a fig leaf to hide their policies are different.
Google was notorious for not acting on counter-claims:
"For anyone out there who have been DMCA'd from Google and a properly filled out counter DMCA to them was rejected with the following: "Thanks for reaching out to us. At this time, Google has decided not to take action." Please contact me immediately " https://x.com/gelbooru/status/1168036119893688320
Here is a January 2026 view for the pro-easy take down side showing that Google is now requiring identities to issue DMCA claims:
>"Fast‑forward to January 2026, and the same system now questions the very identity of the complainant, demanding proof that was never required before. "
https://ubos.tech/news/googles-dmca-process-leaves-creators-...
It reads multiple times “DMCA” on that page but you’re saying it could be some unspecified other type of complaint.
If that’s really the case, isn’t Google a fraudulent party here by sending people DMCA notices that aren’t? The DMCA perjury penalty would seem to apply here as well (lying about receiving a third party notice).
> you know someone's desperate when you see a bogus DMCA claim like this
I don't think this means desperation, it's just these assholes weaponize the law on a regular basis.
Honestly, I usually like to give people the benefit of the doubt. But these Pollen guys seem like grade-A assholes. It is astonishing to me the gall to double charge people on the order or $3.2M and never return the money. I can't bear to not repay someone even a dollar, but intentionally doing stuff like this seems to be run of the mill for these guys. I can't even get in the headspace of people who would do this.
Also (tangential nit for the sake of information-sharing), to "bare" oneself is to be vulnerable; you meant "bear" as in to be able to carry or support something -- and the "myself" is extraneous. So, "I can't bear to..." HTH! :)
This could be like warrants and judicial overview. Warrants are not slow. This is only a gatekeep on "does this make any sense". And of course, the cost of the court system/overview/etc could be born by judgments against those found actually guilty.
> I think a more sane approach would to require every copyright takedown to require a court order.
In a country with an efficient legal system, maybe…
Requiring the claimant to put something at stake (make it a nominal deposit you get back in case of either no challenge or the case actually going to court) seems more realistic, but I’m not holding my breath for a reform of the law to that extent.
Claimants put something at stake: false DMCA takedowns are under prejury laws which carry prison sentences.
I doubt this is really a DMCA case though. DMCA laws exist, but to invoke them requires some specific steps which Google prefers you skip.
The fact that this probably isn't DMCA may leave Google open to being sued, but you would have to see a lawyer - be prepared to spend several million dollars to win a few thousand.
I fucking loathe the current DMCA regime with all of my being. That being said, it is currently the only chance of victims of revenge pornography getting any reprieve whatsoever. I think the solution needs to be to actually punish bad-faith actors rather than to make it more onerous to report violations. It is already illegal to file false DMCA claims, but it has literally never been enforced. Changing the laws doesn't help when the existing laws already have an answer for the problem but aren't being enforced.
This is an extremely common technique against investigative reporting, in particular because certain social media / blogging platforms allow backdating posts [1]. So people just copy your post, claim DMCA, and then take it down quickly after.
DMCA notices are meant to be submitted "under penalty of perjury", and false notices could in theory result in civil action being taken against those who send them. In practice, neither of these occur even if the sender is a real person, like a record company lawyer lending their name to complaint that are entirely computer generated, or, in this as in so many cases, a completely fabricated identity.
Requiring verification through government ID for takedown notices should be a minimum requirement.
We got told by the 9th circuit that false claims submitted under penalty of perjury are actually just "opinions" not capable of being proven true or false.
Yes, it's "I swear under penalty of perjury that it's my opinion that this infringes my copyright."
Creator's rights need to be safeguarded but the DMCA gives legal weight to people without legal training and when they fuck it up (accidentally or intentionally) they get the no-consequence "but it's just, like, your opinion, man, and no-one expects you to be a lawyer".
I'd be curious if any prosecutions are a real deterrent - it seems not. YouTube has to follow the DMCA but also enforces its stricter content ID, with popular creators getting hit (and being vocal) and YouTube seeming to "fix" the issues (until next time).
Ultimately the whole system needs reform now where it's easier than ever via LLMs to send off these notices.
AFAIU, the whole deal is that the bogus claims never actually reach the DMCA stage - big platforms implement their moderation policies and copyright claim handling specifically to avoid involving the legal system. It's that intermediate layer that incentivizes automated, bogus claims, as there's effectively zero consequences to them.
Just as there are SEO firms that help companies ascend the rankings, there are "reputation management" firms that erase bad news by publishing new articles & by pushing takedown requests on articles they don't like. As with SEO, Google appears to tacitly encourage this.
It seems obvious that there should be a review process for takedown requests, with penalties for frivolous requests. (Up to and perhaps including lawsuits to cover costs and for the sake of deterrence.) But it's not at all obvious to Google.
In the UK, “Wright” is the 14th most common surname. It appears in Chaucer, and appears to cover approximately 900,000 people globally.
“Negus” is indeed less common - most prevalent in Ethiopia (where it means “king”) - seems to be 6-7000 people globally currently. However, that _isn’t actually the name_ of the CEO in this case, which is “Negus-Fancey” - an English double-barreled name with different etymology: akin to the relationship between Java and JavaScript.
I understand the desire to make someone who has allegedly done something bad look worse by ties to other people in the service of conspiracy theory. I can’t tell if your surname is “Flesch” or not (it seems no less reasonable than your own assumptions about names) - but if it is, other bearers of that name have committed _far_ worse crimes than financial fraud.
I’m guessing the obvious fakeness of the request is part of it: they’re testing to see if anyone is paying attention. Maybe the author doesn’t care if it gets taken down after four years; maybe they see a super fake request and assume it won’t succeed (or read it as spam). It also costs them nothing and has zero legal liability because there’s nobody to prosecute for such a fake request.
Already 12 points after just 34 minutes. As noted at the end of the article, streisand effect is alive and well and this article is on its way to the front page.
The thing that stands out to me isn't even the fake identity or the fake country. It's that the incentives are completely backwards.
Submitting a bogus DMCA is basically free. Google's cheapest option is to comply first and sort it out later. Meanwhile the person who did nothing wrong has to spend hours (or money) fixing it.
That's a system where every incentive points toward abuse...without knowing what and how this system works behind the scenes, makes me wonder...if it's one of those "delegated to Accenture" processes; like the Google Drive file moderation...
Funny, is recently searched “match plate in French“ the LLM went straight to match sticks and dinner plates, and the dummizer in search fixed “plate“ to “play“ and went into soccer territory.
I still have no clue how the foundry pattern is called in my native language.
A few months ago I got in touch with Google legal team to remove an ad that wasn't legal. They said that they don't moderate third party content. (???? Bro what?). Except for this bogus excuse, the ad was paid for by a foreign state trying to influence my country's opinion on some non profit organizations. The ad wasn't compliant with the European regulation on political ads (in my opinion). I thought of getting in touch with my communication authority but it's something that went on for days with Google and eventually you're left with no willpower left. Mind you I referenced the points of the law I thought they were breaching (well not just me, this thing went on an italian newspaper before I asked for removal), which is not the most interesting way to spend time
I help run a domain legal case search engine (UDRP.tools) and we run into this type of stuff too. Notices that results are being purged. It's bullshit. We aggregate legal case data and provide analytics about UDRP cases. These aren't private and it's not personal information. It's all coming from publicly documented arbitration decisions. Trying to hide/erase your history in (domain) court on google claiming copyright is a lie. eg. https://lumendatabase.org/notices/27934920
It’s great when someone has such a large online presence that, if they have a problem with a huge company like Google, the company ends up fixing it just for the PR. I doubt they’d respond the same way to an average person.
> Why does Google allow fraudulent DMCA notices to be filed with no penalty?
Because Google started the process of removing humans from every loop possible years ago, and these sorts of things are the results of those sorts of things.
While that is true, and Google deserves are shaming they get for their terrible handling of DMCA, lets try to be real. Autoaccepting all DMCA takedown requests with zero verification is simplest and cheapest approach to be complaint. Failing to delete a file is tho only way to be on hook for any repercussions.
I have seen that posh double-barreled surname before: Charles and Cathy Negus-Fancey were the managers of the reclusive cult musician Scott Walker and his interface to the world. Any close relation?
I'm curious how Google notifies people about things like this... do they pull an email out of whois, or your DNS SOA? If there's nothing linking your website to a Google account, it seems like they could just make your website disappear.
I have received notifications for stories published by the org I work at when they were delisted for certain terms. Like here, it’s people who got caught doing disreputable things and trying to cleanup their online presence.
> Why does Google allow fraudulent DMCA notices to be filed with no penalty?
Because there is no law that requires a penalty. It's very common on YT, if you are big enough of a company you can file them willy nilly and never get any consequence
The biggest issue is that to challenge them, you have to dox yourself, even if the DMCA claim is completely bogus and itself is contains bullshit information about nobody who actually exists (e.g, in a doxing war, the party that fires a bullshit DMCA claim first has a huge advantage).
> Shouldn't offending side reimburse the expenses?
In an ideal world. They might even be legally liable in this one. But you still have to sue them to get the money, which is an expensive gamble for a very small pay off.
Pretty much this. Cashier takes $20 out of the register at a gas station and it goes on their criminal record. Gas station owner shorts the cashier $20 on their pay and there's basically no recourse.
Ah, the wonders of copyright. A weapon disguised as protection. Like with age verification and "think of the children", copyright claims have "think of the small artists".
> The fake DMCA is made by a fake profile from a country with zero inhabitants. The removal requests by this "Ellie Piee" are made from the country called Bouvet Island, an uninhabited Norwegian dependent territory in the South Atlantic/Southern Ocean near Antarctica. It has zero inhabitants, and is referred to as the "world's most remote island."
this is the most infuriating part, you don't even have to be a person to do this?
The incentives seem backwards. Filing a fraudulent DMCA request appears almost free, while contesting one can require time, legal knowledge, or money. That creates an asymmetric cost where bad actors lose little by trying, but legitimate publishers bear most of the burden. Even a lightweight verification step or a refundable deposit could change that calculus.
Should have used a GDPR takedown instead of copyright: in the EU, Google doesn't tell you the identity of the requester, what qas allegedly infringing, or even the affected URl, and there's no ability to challenge. Great stuff. (/s)
This also demonstrates why it is bad for a law to mandate private entities to do moderation, in this case taking down copyright infringement materials when reported. Google, like basically all big platforms, doesn't care if a claim is fraudulent because the parties impacted cannot hold it accountable — google will just tell you they are themselves victims of the fraudulent claim. And to be fair, they are. But it has to enforce the claims or else lose its safe harbor exemption. This practically allows bad actors to use platforms as their shields, and in the end no one but the victim suffers any consequences for their abuse of the copyright laws.
I think a more sane approach would to require every copyright takedown to require a court order. Granted, the legal system is not perfect, but judges are not incentivized to always side with the supposed copyright holder like online platforms do. They will not be letting someone claiming to be living on a deserted island to file a claim and even when fraud does occur, they will at least know where the claim is actually coming from and be able to punish the fraudster accordingly.
That doesn't really matter. Anyway it's silly to question whether Google, a multi-trillion dollar company, can validate someone's ID when they already do it in many other aspects of their business.
But is Google treating some claims different from others? Are Ellie Piee's claim against Gergely Orosz's article, and the latter's appeal treated exactly the same as any other? In other words, if I use an obviously bogus identity to make DMCA claims against Google content on their own platforms, will they immediately take it down and then go through the same standard appeal process? If not, then the system isn't "abused" it's used exactly as it was designed to be used. In an asymmetrical manner to the benefit of some.
So the real question isn't "how can Google validate an identity", it's "why is Google treating some different from others"? It sure isn't an accident.
There's also the asymmetry of "you don't need to supply ID to make a DMCA claim, but you will to appeal it", which people can and have used to discover identities for more harassment.
Actually
How is Google supposed to know if Ellie Piee is a real person when Ellie Piee pays for a Google product? Or otherwise uses a Google service that requires identity
Fictional address, sure: that would, as I understand, be some kind of fraud, and can reasonably be prohibited if there's a mechanism to do so… but then you run into the problem that not everyone has an address.
There's of course a whole legal system that has been dealing with this since for ever.
If I were to implement it myself, I'd use a third party service like those that can verify passports and driver's licenses and so on.
The friction free restoration flow is what Google is missing because they don't actually follow the DMCA process. Amend the law to strip safe harbor immunity in this scenario and suddenly we'd see abuse effectively combated.
Notaries do this all the time often for free or for a fairly minimal fee.
The solution doesn't have to be perfect to be better.
If counterclaims require doxxing yourself under penalty of perjury, then I would assume that's still perjury even if the other guy started it, so just making the counterclaim process easier doesn't fix the problem.
If this is really DMCA then the author should press charges - DMCA take downs are done under penalty of prejury which is a criminal act. Since author legally has copyright they have legal protections under DMCA for exactly this.
If this isn't DMCA then it is just Google decision not to index something. They have the right to not index anything they choose not to. Nothing the author can directly do about this - but indirectly they can be witness that Google isn't a "common carrier" since they choose not to index that wasn't copyright, so you just need to find some case where someone else sues google because they found something "harmful" (likely something like suicide instructions)
Isn't this screenshot on the article evidence https://storage.ghost.io/c/39/f8/39f85cc7-8637-40fc-a57c-f45... ? Or could it still be the "I can't believe it's not DMCA" you've mentioned?
Google was notorious for not acting on counter-claims: "For anyone out there who have been DMCA'd from Google and a properly filled out counter DMCA to them was rejected with the following: "Thanks for reaching out to us. At this time, Google has decided not to take action." Please contact me immediately " https://x.com/gelbooru/status/1168036119893688320
Here is a January 2026 view for the pro-easy take down side showing that Google is now requiring identities to issue DMCA claims: >"Fast‑forward to January 2026, and the same system now questions the very identity of the complainant, demanding proof that was never required before. " https://ubos.tech/news/googles-dmca-process-leaves-creators-...
If that’s really the case, isn’t Google a fraudulent party here by sending people DMCA notices that aren’t? The DMCA perjury penalty would seem to apply here as well (lying about receiving a third party notice).
I don't think this means desperation, it's just these assholes weaponize the law on a regular basis.
Honestly, I usually like to give people the benefit of the doubt. But these Pollen guys seem like grade-A assholes. It is astonishing to me the gall to double charge people on the order or $3.2M and never return the money. I can't bear to not repay someone even a dollar, but intentionally doing stuff like this seems to be run of the mill for these guys. I can't even get in the headspace of people who would do this.
Also (tangential nit for the sake of information-sharing), to "bare" oneself is to be vulnerable; you meant "bear" as in to be able to carry or support something -- and the "myself" is extraneous. So, "I can't bear to..." HTH! :)
Well, they would be if you needed one for every DMCA takedown.
In a country with an efficient legal system, maybe…
Requiring the claimant to put something at stake (make it a nominal deposit you get back in case of either no challenge or the case actually going to court) seems more realistic, but I’m not holding my breath for a reform of the law to that extent.
I doubt this is really a DMCA case though. DMCA laws exist, but to invoke them requires some specific steps which Google prefers you skip.
The fact that this probably isn't DMCA may leave Google open to being sued, but you would have to see a lawyer - be prepared to spend several million dollars to win a few thousand.
1) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39355869
Requiring verification through government ID for takedown notices should be a minimum requirement.
https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca9/22...
Creator's rights need to be safeguarded but the DMCA gives legal weight to people without legal training and when they fuck it up (accidentally or intentionally) they get the no-consequence "but it's just, like, your opinion, man, and no-one expects you to be a lawyer".
https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/51541/has-anyone-bee...
Ultimately the whole system needs reform now where it's easier than ever via LLMs to send off these notices.
It seems obvious that there should be a review process for takedown requests, with penalties for frivolous requests. (Up to and perhaps including lawsuits to cover costs and for the sake of deterrence.) But it's not at all obvious to Google.
“Negus” is indeed less common - most prevalent in Ethiopia (where it means “king”) - seems to be 6-7000 people globally currently. However, that _isn’t actually the name_ of the CEO in this case, which is “Negus-Fancey” - an English double-barreled name with different etymology: akin to the relationship between Java and JavaScript.
I understand the desire to make someone who has allegedly done something bad look worse by ties to other people in the service of conspiracy theory. I can’t tell if your surname is “Flesch” or not (it seems no less reasonable than your own assumptions about names) - but if it is, other bearers of that name have committed _far_ worse crimes than financial fraud.
https://www.mailplus.co.uk/tv-guide/tv/394562/crashed-800m-f...
The thing that stands out to me isn't even the fake identity or the fake country. It's that the incentives are completely backwards.
Submitting a bogus DMCA is basically free. Google's cheapest option is to comply first and sort it out later. Meanwhile the person who did nothing wrong has to spend hours (or money) fixing it.
That's a system where every incentive points toward abuse...without knowing what and how this system works behind the scenes, makes me wonder...if it's one of those "delegated to Accenture" processes; like the Google Drive file moderation...
I still have no clue how the foundry pattern is called in my native language.
Because Google started the process of removing humans from every loop possible years ago, and these sorts of things are the results of those sorts of things.
This has been known for years. Copyright has been abused for many many years in this sense.
And Google is very well known for their completely absent human-in-the-loop support, so that doesn’t help either.
I have seen that posh double-barreled surname before: Charles and Cathy Negus-Fancey were the managers of the reclusive cult musician Scott Walker and his interface to the world. Any close relation?
You know you can just read the linked articles, right?
Edit: parent has edited their post, it used to say something like "google has never notified anyone about such things".
1. The whole Pollen case (I didn't know about)
2. That Google can be tricked so easily?
3. The whole "industry" that seems to be in place to clean the image of some scumbags in the internet (this whole Ellie Piee from Bouvet Island)
I think the most worrying part is Google's fragility to hurt itself.
Because there is no law that requires a penalty. It's very common on YT, if you are big enough of a company you can file them willy nilly and never get any consequence
In an ideal world. They might even be legally liable in this one. But you still have to sue them to get the money, which is an expensive gamble for a very small pay off.
this is the most infuriating part, you don't even have to be a person to do this?