Microsoft filed a DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) request with Google. But, this one was one that might just deserve a Darwin Award. Who was the copyright infringer in this case? Yep, you guessed it. Microsoft.
Wait…. What?!? Yes, Microsoft filed a DMCA takedown request last week with Google, asking Google to remove Microsoft.com and Microsoftstore.com from the Google index. All because Microsoft is infringing on their copyright. Here is what was filed:
A recent PC Word article explains what happened:
Copyright holders and the companies they hire to manage DMCA takedown requests—in Microsoft’s case, a third party called LeakID—frequently automate the process, resulting in a flood of requests that are sometimes erroneous and aren’t always checked for accuracy before filing.
PC World also explains more about the process of DMCA requests:
If a copyright holder feels that a particular website is ripping off its work, it can send Google a DMCA takedown request and ask for the infringing site to be removed from the search engine. If Google determines that the site does indeed stomp on the copyright holder’s intellectual property rights, the site’s links disappear from Google Searches.
I have seen a lot of DMCA takedown requests over the years, and it truly does make sense to file a DMCA request not only with the web host of the offending website who has actually infringed upon your rights, but it also make sense to file that DMCA request with Google and Bing.com, as well. If you see that someone has taken content from your website, you should ask that the offending website remove your material–but also you need to tell Google. They will remove it from their search results, and it will look something like this:
That’s what the Google search will look like. The DMCA notice will appear at the bottom of the page of search results.
So, what seemed to be a pretty routine DMCA takedown request filed by Microsoft with Google, was, well, uh, not very routine.