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Google Drive flags file only containing “1” for copyright infringement

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Re: Google Drive flags file only containing “1” for copyright infringement

#361
post #15

I'm curious if it was related to the file name. I created a few 1-byte files with just "1" in them, with different names, including "output04.txt". No problems so far. Also uploaded variations with "\n" and "\r\n" after the "1". And enabled sharing to anyone with the link. No issues so far. Google drive does support metadata like a description and comments. I wonder if someone posted some copyrighted text in a commen…

Just tested this myself. Got the same results as you while using different file names. Difficult to believe that Google has become so internally dysfunctional that it hasn't fixed this technical embarrassment twenty hours after first being being seen, and then five hours after being reported on front page of Hacker News.

A product manager with an MBA will argue this affects only a handful of customers, mostly non-paying, so fixing it should sit at the end of the backlog.

Re: Google Drive flags file only containing “1” for copyright infringement

#362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure it'll take time. Google cannot have it both ways though. They have a habit of completely restricting all ways of appealing or contesting these issues ostensibly because they think their tech is so good that it isn't required (at least in the vast majority of cases), and yet we have people permanently locked out of their personal and work GMails for months on end (or indefinitely) and now being accused of copyrig…

>They have a habit of completely restricting all ways of appealing or contesting these issues ostensibly because they think their tech is so good that it isn't required Are you sure it's not just because providing them would cost money?

They'll certainly cost money. Can they afford it? Yeah, they can.

I think the issue is that Google thinks that operational scale is what defines the correct solution- even when they are not at the scale that requires the solution they are using. They seem so enamored with operating at stupidly high scale that they don't realize they actually can afford to do this right, and if they did that while being mindful of scale, they would be much harder to displace than they currently are.

Re: Google Drive flags file only containing “1” for copyright infringement

#363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Won't help me when my computer starts refusing to read copyrighted files because it has decided its real masters are the copyright holders.

Buy hardware you can own. Stop buying Apple products.

The first and last Apple hardware I bought must have been over 15 years ago, a really thick 80 GB iPod with an actual hard drive inside it. I got rid of the Apple software and installed a custom OS on it. If I remember correctly, it was called rockbox. Now it's unthinkable that an Apple device would let me have this sort of control.

What happened to Apple is what will eventually happen to all other manufacturers. They want to own us.

Re: Google Drive flags file only containing “1” for copyright infringement

#364
post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“A review cannot be requested for this restriction.” Absolute madness cannot be reviewed… Reason cannot be applied.

Things are getting out of control. Reason has left the building. Here for instance is a clunker I've had from Cash App support (I'm disputing a package I never received which was returned to the merchant and the merchant won't answer any communications): "M.J. from Cash Support once more. To be clear, I am not misunderstanding the location of the package at this point, and understand that it has been returned to the…

It's terrifying, to be honest.

Re: Google Drive flags file only containing “1” for copyright infringement

#365
post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Update: It has now flagged the file with "0\n" in it. So it's official, Both 0 and 1 are copyrighted :) https://imgur.com/a/xMgh6Xn

Careful there. My law firm in east Texas happens to own the patent rights to a system and method of concatenating a plurality of 1s and 0s for the purpose of generating an encoding of a creative work, and as such you are in peril of infringing on one of my claims with your concatenation of 1s and 0s!

General Mills owns the copyright on 0s, sir. (Cheerios)

Re: Google Drive flags file only containing “1” for copyright infringement

#366
This seems like a really great case for property based testing and/or fuzzers. Randomly generated output should virtually never flag copyright (and would be rare enough that you could manually assess if it was accurate or not, likely). The core utility of system like this, which puts an enormous amount of leverage in the hands of automated decision making must be robust against things like this.

Re: Google Drive flags file only containing “1” for copyright infringement

#367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google claimed a copyright violation and did a takedown. That's what DMCA counter-notices are for. They phrased it in other terms, but ask a lawyer if that matters.

It matters for counter notice that they didn't issue a DMCA notice, you can always sue them of course, but since the first action is not under framework of DMCA, you cannot issue a counter notice to what is not a DMCA notice. The lawsuit is not strong either because their ToS says they can delete your all your data for any and no reason at all.

What Google calls the action is a non-issue. "Wrongful assertion of a copyright violation" is illegal and actionable. It's hard to win on that, but it's been done.[1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith_v._Summit_Entertainment_...

Re: Google Drive flags file only containing “1” for copyright infringement

#368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just tested this myself. Got the same results as you while using different file names. Difficult to believe that Google has become so internally dysfunctional that it hasn't fixed this technical embarrassment twenty hours after first being being seen, and then five hours after being reported on front page of Hacker News.

A product manager with an MBA will argue this affects only a handful of customers, mostly non-paying, so fixing it should sit at the end of the backlog.

Is that wrong? How many outraged people here are going to stop using paid-for Google products because of this? (people who didn't stop using paid-for Google products for all the times this kind of thing happened before). It's approximately none, isn't it?

Re: Google Drive flags file only containing “1” for copyright infringement

#369
post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if this is an incredible hash collision. hash("1") == hash(disney_movie.mp4)

Assuming is's a cryptographic hash function, that sort of collision just never happens.

Birthday paradox could play a role if there's enough content out there

Re: Google Drive flags file only containing “1” for copyright infringement

#370
Maybe for those times when copyright infringers try to split an infringing file into separate files containing only one bit, represented as text, to avoid detection. No, I am not serious.

Try testing a file that contains more than a single 1 or 0, such as 01111000.

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