ELECTRONIC FRONTIER FOUNDATION ENTERS BATTLE AGAINST WARNER BROS.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has filed a friend-of-the-court brief backing the cyberlocker Hotfile in its suit against Warner Bros., which it accuses of taking down content that the studio didn’t own. As reported by TorrentFreak.com, which tracks the BitTorrent scene, Warner Bros. blames the takedowns on a software malfunction. However, EFF Intellectual Property Director Corynne McSherry observed, “Hotfile’s customers unfairly lost access to content because of Warner’s bogus takedowns. But under Warner’s theory, any company could sidestep accountability for abusing the [Digital Millennium Copyright Act] by simply outsourcing the process to a computer.” She called Warner’s actions “a ploy to undermine the DMCA provisions that protect Internet users from overbroad and indiscriminate takedowns.”