[sdz]

For example, while claiming to remove files that are copies of the movie The Box, Warner removed several files related to the alternative cancer treatment book "Cancer: Out Of The Box," by Ty M. Bollinger. Another title deleted by Warner was "The Box that Saved Britain," a production of the BBC, not Warner.

This is really bizarre. Hotfile might technically be right in suing Warner Bros. for pulling content they don't own the rights to, but it's not as if Hotfile had a legitimate claim to having those files on its servers. Those files are copyrighted by someone, and surely the real rights holders would want their intellectual property removed from Hotfile if they knew about it. And now that Hotfile admits knowledge of these files, aren't they compelled to remove them anyway?

[edit]

Perhaps I should have said ironic instead of bizarre. I don't disagree that there's a legal case here.

[dexen]

The suit alleges fraud and abuse, not copyright infringement. I.e., Hotfile bemoans WB filed fraudlent takedown notices on content it did not own, harming the company and their users. If you asked me, this is theft of the copyright itself, as opposed to `plain' copyright infringement.

(...) and surely the real rights holders would want their intellectual property removed from Hotfile if they knew about it.

You don't know if the uploader of the books has license to publish them, and you cannot act under assumption they lack one.

[sdz]

Fair enough, the real rights owner may have uploaded the books and videos themselves. I just think there's some irony here that Hotfile suddenly cares about copyright.

[pyre]

Then you must also find irony in Warner's actions. They care so much about copyright and the law, but they can't even follow the rules.

[dspillett]

They care about protecting their own content and using the law to do so where possible - you can not logically infer from that fact that they care about copyright or the law more generally.

[rmc]

The WB & MPAA marketing message is that they care about the law generally, and creativity generally.

[seabee]

Are there alternative means of protecting your content?

[dspillett]

No.

I was questioning the assumption that because they use the law this way they are necessarily bothered one way or the other about the laws and regulations as they apply in contexts other than this one.

[dexen]

This is half of the harm WB did: people like me and you started believing Hotfile is somehow evil, disregarding the law and whatnot. We don't know that, we just subscribe to the black propaganda.

Behind WB's ham-fisted tactics may well be conflict of interests: if WB are to distribute multimedia themselves, they sure would consider Hotfile competitors and want to slow them down.

[Karunamon]

Hotfile has been in full compliance with the DMCA. Warner Bros, on the other hands...

[njharman]

There's no suddenly about it. Did you read the article? Hotfile created the tool WB is using to remove content. Hotfile is not responsible for their users. They are a hoster and under relevant law, DMCA, have specific responsibilities, which they seemed to have complied with.

[rmc]

Some of the files that WB removed were uploaded to Hotfile by the copyright owners:

"The software publisher that uploaded the file used Hotfile.com as a means for distribution of its open source software. Warner was not authorized by the software publisher to delete the file"

[evilpie]

Only because it's not legal anyway, doesn't mean that Warner can claim ownership of this content.

[pyre]

But Warner already removed the files, so Hotfile doesn't have to remove them.