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Anyone else got a weird DMCA takedown notice on GCP?

e1630m

10/1/23, 2:15 AM

I have a VM instance on GCP, and I have received the following mail from [email protected]

Hello,

Google has been notified, according to the terms of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), that some of the materials in your Google Cloud Platform project, [redacted but this is correct my project id], allegedly infringe upon the copyrights of others.

Unless you resolve this alleged infringement within 3 business days, we will be required to remove the material in question by suspending your project or VM, or such other action as we deem necessary, and we will not provide additional notifications before removal.

The DMCA is a United States copyright law that provides guidelines for online service provider liability in case of copyright infringement. For more information on your and Google’s obligations under the DMCA, see https://library.educause.edu/topics/policy-and-law/digital-millennium-copyright-act-dmca, and see https://support.google.com/legal/contact/lr_dmca?product=googlecloudstorage for the process that Google requires in order to make a DMCA complaint.

To avoid Google intervention on the material in question, you must do one of the following within 3 businessdays:

Reply to this email and submit a counter notification pursuant to sections 512(g)(2) and (3) of the DMCA. (For more information about the requirements of a counter notification, see https://support.google.com/legal/contact/lr_counternotice?product=appengine); or Remove the allegedly infringing content from your project. Please note that unresolved repeated violations of the DMCA may result not only in your project being suspended, but also your Google account being disabled as well.

If you have legal questions about this notification, you should retain your own legal counsel. If you have any other questions about this notification, please let us know.

The affected URLs are listed below:

https://[redacted. this is unreachable url starts with genegeldik.xyz]

https://[redacted. this is unreachable url formatted as https://IP_ADDRESS:443. when I visited http://IP_ADDRESS, it says Error: Not Found The requested URL / was not found on this server.]

Regards, The Google Team

However, I have absolutely no idea why I got this mail. I only got one VM instance on the project, and the external IP of the VM instance has absolutely no relationship with both genegeldik.xyz and IP_ADDRESS appeared on the 'affected URLs' section. My VM instance only got a tomcat server running and it hosts one thing, my first ever jsp project which does not serve any copyright-infringing content.

I've replied to this email like 10 hours ago and got no response so far, and the other help channels, including GCP online chat support and regional GCP phone number, didn't help either as they're focused on billing issues.

Anyone else had similar DMCA takedown issue with GCP? If I accidentally used copyrighted material, I'm going to remove it from my server ASAP, but it's pretty hard because they gave me no useful information other than 2 completely useless URLs which are seemingly unrelated to my project.

Any ideas?

0 + 0

cloud

google-cloud-platform

dmca

CatchAsCatchCan

10/1/23, 3:10 AM

DMCA is a known pain, but it's not clear what answer you're expecting here. You've redacted the relevant URLs so we only have your assertion that there's no copyright infringement, and even without that there's nothing we can do. Follow the process that Google have given you. Good luck.

e1630m

10/1/23, 3:59 AM

@CatchAsCatchCan Okay I'll just link as is. The first one is https://xx.genegeldik.xyz/72fe9bb58e02e669273c902c1f48f501/601/streamradar_devirene_kadar_anladin_fe1a0a48_hd_1034.ts

e1630m

10/1/23, 4:15 AM

@CatchAsCatchCan and the second one is https://35.244.170.58:443 As I've mentioned earlier, I or my VM instance have no relationship with both URLs to my best knowledge. That's not even my external IP address, nor domain name of my VM instance.

e1630m

10/1/23, 4:15 AM

@CatchAsCatchCan and it's hard to follow the process. One of them is removing the allegedly infringing content from my project. I can't follow this route, since both URLs are completely not related to my VM instance in any way. I checked if my instance got hacked but I couldn't find any suspicious material on my tomcat server.

e1630m

10/1/23, 4:16 AM

@CatchAsCatchCan The other option is submitting a counter notification pursuant, which is also useless. If you click the link, you'll see that it's basically fighting over the URL in question. However, the URL in question is not mine, and I have no idea why GCP sent this to me in the first place.

John Hanley

10/1/23, 4:28 AM

Not a solution but based upon experience. 1) Create a new Google Cloud Project. 2) Move/recreate your services in the new project. 3) Delete everything in the old project. 4) Complete this before the three days are up. 5) Notify Google that you deleted the VM in question.

John Hanley

10/1/23, 4:29 AM

One additional tip to do immediately. Allocate a new IP address. Assign this to your existing VM. Delete the old IP address. Do not worry if this breaks your site as you will be moving to the new project.

CatchAsCatchCan

10/1/23, 4:36 AM

@e1630m The URLs are unreachable, at least from my PC. I still don't see how this is relevant to [sf]. We can't explain Google's actions. Your problem is with navigating the process that Google have given you, and that is not a server administration problem. I'm flagging as off-topic.

e1630m

10/1/23, 5:54 AM

@JohnHanley Thanks.. I'm tempted to do that, just in case. But "2) Move/recreate your service" part kinda worries me. Does that mean I have to start all over again from creating VM instance and configure everything? Or is there any way to copy my VM instance to the newly created project? Cause if it's the former, it's quite a bit of hassle for things I didn't do...

John Hanley

10/1/23, 6:21 AM

I work in security, disaster recovery and forensics. I am also a Google GDE. If Google shuts down your instance you will not be able to access anything on it. Worry about politics and fault later. You will need to recreate everything. Download your files using a good SSH client and then reupload. You might be the victim of somebody else's problem, but within three days you will not be able to prove that.

e1630m

10/1/23, 7:08 AM

Okay. I'm going to download everything right now just in case. I still hope that this was just a mistake and Google rectify its mistake before doing anything on my project, but if they actually suspend my project for URL and IP which I've never seen and completely unrelated to my project to my best knowledge, then I'll just delete the GCP account altogether and move onto AWS or Azure.

Elon Musk

I sit in a Tesla and translated this thread with Ai:

EN: Anyone else got a weird DMCA takedown notice on GCP?

TH: มีใครได้รับการแจ้งเตือนให้ลบ DMCA แปลก ๆ บน GCP ไหม

RO: Mai a primit cineva o notificare ciudată de eliminare DMCA pe GCP?

RU: Кто-нибудь еще получил странное уведомление о нарушении авторских прав в цифровую эпоху на GCP?

VI: Có ai khác nhận được thông báo gỡ xuống DMCA kỳ lạ trên GCP không?

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