Google has come to the defense of the cyberlocker Hotfile, which has been accused by the MPAA of promoting "massive digital theft." In an amicus brief, Google accuses the MPAA of misleading the court about the intentions of the framers of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), insisting that under its provisions, it is the responsibility of copyright owners to police sites like Hotfile and to alert them when they discover an infringing file. Service providers, the filing states, citing past court decisions, have no obligation to remove copyrighted material on their own "based on generalized awareness that unspecified (or even 'rampant') infringement is occurring on their services." The DMCA, the filing states, "requires expeditious removal of particular infringing material, not open-ended investigation into potential infringement across an entire service." Moreover, it noted, the courts have held that copyright owners, not service providers, must identify and locate each instance of infringement and then issue a formal notice that it be taken down. In response, the MPAA said that Google's brief should not be allowed to be submitted, since it "appears to be part of a systematic effort by Google, itself a defendant in ongoing copyright infringement cases, to influence the development of the law to Google's own advantage." It noted that Google's lawyers also represent Hotfile, that Google is "acting as a partisan advocate for Hotfile," and that Google's brief would effectively circumvent the limit on the number of pages that a legal brief filed in the court may contain.

20/03/2012