In the world of copyright strikes, if you’re on YouTube, or DMCA takedown requests, whether you own a website or not, many people fear being targeted.
It’s the kind of thing you hear a lot about, but people think it can’t happen to them.
May 1, 2024, literally the day the month started, I received a strange message from Cloudflare.
My first thought was “Someone is still trying to fuck me” before laughing.
It was morning.
The message (private details omitted)
“Cloudflare has received a DMCA copyright infringement complaint regarding: animedirectory.net.
URLs reported:
https://animedirectory.net/listings/studio-ghibli/
https://animedirectory.net/listings/the-studio-ghibli-themed-guesthouse-kuku/Original work: copyrighted JapanThese anime belong to GKids. Pursuant to Section 17(c)(512)(A)(ii) of Title 3 of the United States Code, a representative list of titles is available at: https://gkids.com/
Comments:We have forwarded this complaint to your host.
THANKS
The Cloudflare team
You may notice when reading the CITATION image or text that the website is animedirectory.net
This is relevant for 3 reasons:
- It belongs to Anime Motivation.
- It is connected to Anime Motivation.
- It redirects to Anime Motivation.
Both URLs were Studio Ghibli directory listings and their theme park.
The page looked like this via MAL, but better and more detailed. Like a Wikipedia a kind of page, but more modern.
This is how we know that these claims by GKIDS were false and harmful at best.
- No copyright has been infringed.
- sites such as MAL, Wikia fandom, and Wikipedia, among others, have similar pages.
- A license agreement is not required in this scenario.
- Nothing is sold, manipulated, modified, scammed or distorted.
As for the DMCA, although the intentions were good when it was created, it has become a form of abuse for many copyright owners.
This means they abuse the DMCA to weed out people they don’t like, or creators with certain opinions or sites they disagree with. Instead of using it for real copyright abuse.
Who is Remove Your Media LLC?
Besides the fact that they have worked on behalf of GKIDS in the USA, which are connected to Studio Ghibli, they appear to be a service used on behalf of studios, companies, streaming services, copyright holders, etc.
In their own words regarding the DMCA in particular:
“The key to our success is the relentless removal of search engines, repetition of hosting/registrar DMCAs, elimination of social media, and ad enforcement correspondence. We remove millions of illegal links every week and are directly responsible for shutting down nearly a thousand illegal domains every year.
As I explained in a SEPARATE article on the main Anime Motivation website (a website I own), it doesn’t seem as authentic as they try to make it out to be.
Unfortunately, most were forced into silence on the issue, or simply backtracked when they were not wrong.
The site host was informed, so I continued my day without any worries.
“Thank you for contacting us.
We have not yet received any notifications regarding your site.
If we receive one, we will notify you.
And that was it.
Turns out a week later, or about a week later, I guess, the problem was NOT a problem as I already knew.
To know is to be able.
Host’s response:
“I wanted to provide you with an update regarding the DMCA complaint.
We received it through our data center. When we looked at it, it seemed like the reported URLs and source websites displayed different content. We have discussed this with the data center and have concluded that no further action is necessary on your part.
Sincerely.”
And that’s all she wrote.
