YouTube says it has found "Smoking Gun" (strong evidence) to prove that the class action lawsuit brought by Grammy-winning musician Maria Schneider and Pirate Monitor Ltd is malicious. According to new evidence from Google's video site, the "pirated" movie uploaded to the platform and reported to the DMCA came from the same IP address.
This summer, Grammy-winning musician Maria Schneider and Virgin Islands-based Pirate Monitor Ltd teamed up to file a class-action lawsuit against YouTube.
To gain access to YouTube's Content ID system, the complaint states that YouTube is lenient with alleged removal notices and repeat infringers, and discriminates against smaller creators. Schneider said in the lawsuit that many songs were uploaded to YouTube without her permission. Pirate has made a similar argument.
In response, YouTube focused on Pirate, saying that the company and its agents uploaded pirated movies, and then claimed massive infringement on the platform, which disqualified them from accessing Content ID. "Pirate has devised a careful plan to prove that he has enough credibility to use YouTube's advanced rights management tools," YouTube said.
"Pirate, using pseudonymous agents, uploaded about two thousand videos to YouTube, claiming each time that the content did not infringe anyone's copyright," YouTube said. Shortly thereafter, pirate surveillance company invoked the notice and takedown provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to ask YouTube to remove the same video that its agent had just uploaded. ”
YouTube noted that Pirate Monitor still had no objection to the claims, but filed a motion to dismiss it, arguing that YouTube should provide detailed evidence to support its allegations. YouTube explains: "After a lot of investigation, YouTube has found strong evidence. In a large number of removal notices filed in November 2019, a RansomNova user who uploaded multiple videos from an IP address in Pakistan logged into a YouTube account from a connected device via a Hungarian IP address."
This Hungarian IP address is the same IP address that Pirate sent you a takedown notice to YouTube. That is, RansomNova shares Pirate's computer and Internet connection, which uses the same computer or network to send takedown notifications to YouTube.