Does LeakID represent Bohemia and/or Rocket?

[kodabar 71]

Some of you might know of my installation guide for DayZ

http://kodabar.blogs...rma-2-free.html

It's been used by approximately 400,000 people, so I think I'm justified in saying it's quite popular.

As part of the guide, I include links to a couple of files. In one section, I provide links to the beta patch page and I also provide links to Mediafire where I host copies of the beta patches. The beta patch FTP server seems to go down from time to time, so I try to make the beta patches available elsewhere otherwise I get a lot of comments from readers saying that they can't access them.

I also have another article about the (now discontinued) single player file from Kronzky. This is an old article from quite some time ago. Back in the days of 1.7.0, some people were having difficulty in getting the single player file to work, so I provided a link to a mirror of the 1.7.0 DayZ files, again hosted on Mediafire.

Today, I received a notice from Mediafire saying that Hervé Lemaire of LeakID was asserting that he represented the rights owners of the following files and had asked for their removal under the DMCA:

• ARMA2_OA_Build_95389.zip
  
• dayz_code_v1.7.0.rar
  

Here's the notice I received. I apologise for the atrocious English, but the mistakes are Mr Lemaire's.

BDM user "lachandra" says: Hello, My Name is Hervé Lemaire , CEO of LeakID, I am legal representative of lemaire which does business under the name Metropolitan, Authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed. You are hereby given notice valid under the DMCA copyright infringement notification requirements, 17 U.S.C.512. I am the designated agent of the owner of the copyrights of the images and audio/visual works listed below. I believe that the images and audio/visual works listed at the times cited below are being copied and distributed in a manner that has been not authorized by the owner of the copyrights, its agent or the law. All link below containing pirated versions of lemaire copyrighted works. The information in the notice is accurate, under penalty of perjury. Please remove all linksAs soon as possible, we will check them everyday. Thanks to inform us about y our actions. We appreciate your efforts toward this common goal. Very truly yours, Hervé Lemaire Leakid 15 bis rue de chateaudun 92250 La garenne colombes France 0033698211000 Contact lemaire La dame en noir

Despite not providing an email address, I did find one on LeakID's website (and yes, the English is just as mangled on there). I've written to him asking if he does indeed represent Bohemia Interactive and Rocket. It would seem to me highly unlikely that he does.

As Mr Lemaire's address and phone number as given in the notification do not match those on the website, I can't be sure that the email will reach him. So before I attempt to telephone him (I do speak French), I was wondering if anyone knew if he does indeed represent Bohemia and/or Rocket. I was also wondering if Bohemia and Rocket object to the distribution of these files.

I can understand Rocket not wanting links to old versions of DayZ out there. The link came from an old article that no longer receives much traffic and I would happily remove it if he should so wish. But I find it hard to believe that Bohemia would disallow the mirroring of OA beta patches, especially as they are available on many other sites.

Does anyone have any idea what's going on before I parlez Francais with Mr Lemaire?

[Ipurgepeople 106]

I've seen a few DMCA notices in the past few years, and each of them have presented an email address. This sounds fake to me, especially the broken english. I've seen a DMCA notice on behalf of japanese companies which was presented in perfect english. So it's not that only american companies know how to type out english legal jargon.

In my opinion, this is a load of bullshit, but with things such as DMCA notices, you really have to tread carefully. Really the only true way you can effectively find out is to hire a lawyer to look into it.

Edited September 6, 2012 by Ipurgepeople

[kodabar 71]

Thank you. I'm relatively sure this is nonsense and that Monsieur Lemaire is claiming title to works that he has no rights to, but I thought it as well to check before I phone him. It seems that LeakID has a reputation for claiming rights to works for which they cannot possibly have any title or rights of representation, but it is possible that Bohemia have contracted him to protect their products and he's been a little too enthusiastic.

[Ipurgepeople 106]

Phone him, call him an incompetent fool, and be done with it, :)

I was planning on providing you a copy of an actual, official DMCA notice from FUNimation to a site I used to frequent, but they seem to have removed the notice, so never mind. :D

Edited September 6, 2012 by Ipurgepeople

[puppetworx 474]

It looks like perhaps this guy is trying to boost his SEO by getting people to search for LeakID. I sure did it and found lots of people saying that this guy is spamming content on MediaFire claiming he is acting as agent for the publishers.

Not saying it's not legit, but I share your doubt.

[Tweakie 199]

Hopefully you live in the US and can sue him for "emotional distress" or whatever they call it.

[Heiduk 265]

1. Don't take any of the advice offered here, including mine. Talk to a lawyer.
   
2. Copyright law in the US is fucked. See the DMCA take down of NASA's video of Curiosity landing on Mars.
   
3. My understanding is that by sending that notification Mr. Lemaire is certifying, under penalty of perjury, that he is authorized to act on behalf of the rights holder. If that is not the case he could also be opening himself up to civil liability. See: http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap5.html
   

Good luck,

[Hetstaine 10852]

1. Copyright law in the US is fucked. See the DMCA take down of NASA's video of Curiosity landing on Mars.
   

That was so hopelessly pathetic. Bodes well for the future.

[kodabar 71]

Thanks for all your thoughts and advice.

One of the more curious aspects of this situation is the internationality of it all. I'm British, living in England. LeakID are French. Bohemia Interactive are based in Czech Republic and Rocket is from New Zealand. That Mr Lemaire is using a piece of American legislation (the DMCA) is only of relevance because Mediafire (the site on which I hosted the files) is based in Texas.

I'm going on holiday for a few days. When I come back, I'll be phoning Mr Lemaire of LeakID to ask if he is indeed an authorised agent for Bohemia Interactive Studios and Dean (Rocket) Hall. I rather suspect he isn't. But I shan't be calling the man a liar until I have an opportunity to discuss the matter with him.

Should our conversation fail to conclude that Mr Lemaire and LeakID have legitimate title to act as agents for Bohemia and Rocket, I'll be filing a counter-DMCA notice. I note with some humour that a search for "LeakID" on Google (well, in the UK at least) prompts this page as the fourth result.

[Audio Rejectz 144]

Hi, I am VERY up to date with copyright / publishing and licencing laws, as i own the record label Audio Rejectz. Though i can not tell you 100% that this guy does or dosnt represent Bohemia or Rocket, there are some flaws with his email.

First, he does not inform you on who his clients are. This is always something that has been present in any of these situations i have seen in the past.

Second, You are not claiming ownership, selling the files or distributing copyrighted material in an illegal form. These files are of free origin and are distributed my methods of Legal free download. Hosting these files on Medifire is NOT illegal in anyway nor is it in breach of copyright as they are fundamentally freeware.

And finally

LeakID normally only deal with Audio and Visual Piracy

I had to deal with one of these a year back, discovered it's actually a BlackHat method. anyone can contact any file sharing service and claim DMCA violations and make them suspend any file you don't like? All it takes is to claim you are a file owner or representative of the owner (LeakID are making illegal false claims in this case, as they are not and cannot be owners of it ) and the file will be suspended.

MediaFire are bound by Federal law that if they receive a complete DMCA notice they have to prevent the file from being shared

Your only current option is to counterclaim, if LeakID dont respond your file will be re-instated..BTW he is also Head of EMI music's anti piracy

herve.lemaire@leakid.com thats his email

Edited September 7, 2012 by Audio Rejectz

[TORnet 10]

Read your owners manual as you and anyone who is a legitimate customer of Bohemia interactive are allowed to modify/change any files they want within the game note that external injectors and such will still get you banned if you use them in multiplayer but if you modify the PBO/signature/data files they are not allowed to ban you even in multiplayer if you do get banned you are entitled to a full refund + compensation and Rocket is a Bohemia employee so his work is not an exception.You are free to distrubute any files from DayZ and don't let them tell you otherwise if they do ask them to do a formal answer under penalty of perjury and see how their tone changes.

[Heiduk 265]

I just saw this story on Slashdot. It looks like you aren't the only one getting harassed by LeakID. I hope it's just a coincidence Bohemia is using the same copyright attack dog as the hackers. ;-)

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/09/07/1738222/cloud-firm-mediafire-flags-malware-samples-for-dmca-violation-bans-researcher

[kodabar 71]

Update:

When I posted the initial message to this thread, I also sent an email to both the contact email address listed on LeakID's website and Mr Lemaire's own address (listed by another poster above). I explained the situation and asked him to assert that he was acting as Bohemia's agent. Answer comes there none.

This morning, I called the offices of LeakID with the phone number listed on their website (http://www.leakid.com/). A very nice lady answered the phone and she told me (in French) that she has nothing to do with LeakID and that the phone numbers changed long ago.

I called the mobile phone number that was listed in Mr Lemaire's DMCA notice. Unsurprisingly, it was not answered. I left a message (in French) on his answering machine and I'm waiting for the phone to ring. I somehow doubt it will. But I'm going to keep on at Mr Lemaire until I get a response.

In the meantime, I have filed a formal DMCA counter-notice with Mediafire. One of the neat things about Mediafire's upload system is that it checks to see if files have already been uploaded. If they have, then it doesn't upload them again, just links them to your account. And when I've been uploading beta patch files and DayZ files, I've noticed that it has done just that. So it's not just me that has been caught up in this, but other Mediafire users too.

[kodabar 71]

Update:

This took a while. I submitted a formal counter-claim on September 11th. Mediafire did not respond within the fourteen business days mandated, so I had to follow it up a couple of days ago. They wrote back just now

I did finally manage to get hold of Mr Lemaire on the phone. I began by asking (in French) if he was an agent or representative of Bohemia Interactive or Dean Hall. He said "Non." Although I had introduced myself, I didn't explain why I was contacting him, so perhaps he thought I was a prospective client. I then asked why he had filed an incorrect DMCA claim against the files I had hosted on Mediafire. He ummed for a second or two and then hung up. When I called back later on, his mobile phone was turned off. I haven't been able to contact him since.

But here's the reply I got from Mediafire:

Thank you for contacting MediaFire.

Unfortunately the counterclaims were made too long after the files were suspended, so they have since been deleted. However upon reviewing your case we agree that Mr. Lemaire sent a fraudulent claim, so all strikes have been removed from your account. You are free to re-upload your files as you like, but if you ever receive a false claim like this one please inform us ASAP so we can rectify the situation.

We appreciate you bringing this to our attention and we value the opportunity to uphold the distribution rights of protected content.

Sincerely,

Charlie

| MediaFire | The DMCA Processing Department |

The counter-claims were not made too long after the files were suspended; Mediafire just didn't bother to deal with my counter-claim when they were supposed to. They also failed to notify me by email (as their policy states they will) when the DMCA claim was made. So 10/10 for doing the right thing in the end, but 1/10 for not following their own policies and ignoring a DMCA counter-claim until hassled about it.

The matter is now at an end, but now I can say that Hervé Lemaire is a liar.

[Hetstaine 10852]

Sweet :) Love a happy ending, especially in this day and age.

[Ipurgepeople 106]

Wow, the guy sure as heck didn't expect to be called out on his obvious bullshit, did he?

Good for you, and even better for everyone else who deals with this buffoon. You should put this story on youtube or something so everyone can know about this scammer.

[kodabar 71]

Actually, that's not a bad idea at all. I may well make a video. Thanks for the suggestion.

[puppetworx 474]

Wow kodabar, well played sir. I still can't actually figure out what this guy was upto though, or in what way he would benefit. I wouldn't be surprised if he is just running a bot with some kid of heuristics algorithm which trawls for data it thinks (based on who knows what) is copyrighted. Apparently YouTube pulls down videos all the time based on bogus copyright claims which are just taken for granted. Mediafire seems to be another one which does this. It's a dangerous precedent that a mere allegation of wrong-doing can have your data deleted or worse, I do not like it one bit.

[kodabar 71]

The way he listed the links he wanted taken down provides some clues. Here are my links and one other (he posted hundreds in one dense block of text - I enclose one of the others for clarity). He's using Feedburner somehow and his links include the source document from where he found the links (my blog). I don't know how he's searching though.

I'll be sure to post an article to my blog detailing what happened, just in case he's subscribed to the RSS feed.

I don't quite understand how he gains from this. I suppose it's possible that he touts for new business by claiming he's taken down infringing content already. Oh, mind you it has just occurred to me that performers such as Tupac do have a tendency to write "dayz" instead of "days" in their song titles. It could be that he's searched for "Mediafire + dayz" so maybe he just doesn't give a fuck that innocent people get caught up in his wide net.

http://www.mediafire.com/?wtzefzfim6um6qu (http://kodabar.blogspot.fr/2012/05/dayz-offline-single-player-practice.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+Kodabar+(Kodabar))

http://www.mediafire.com/?jv5cm7e6qvy5n4j (http://kodabar.blogspot.fr/2012/05/dayz-how-to-get-on-server.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+Kodabar+(Kodabar))

http://www.mediafire.com/?rinerqzsrxgc0jg (http://kodabar.blogspot.fr/2012/05/dayz-how-to-get-on-server.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+Kodabar+(Kodabar))

http://www.mediafire.com/?qidupe06u51auu8 (http://themuzinc.blogspot.de/2012/09/big-jess-honorable-mention-vol-1-2012.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+TheMuzincBlog+(The+Muzinc+blog))

Edited October 3, 2012 by kodabar