Microsoft claims BBC's Cbeebies website infringes Windows 8 copyright

SOFTWARE DEVELOPER Microsoft has mistakenly issued a Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown notice to Google that included links to the BBC, CNN and Wikipedia.

Microsoft and many other firms regularly issue DMCA takedown notices to Google to remove links to websites that allegedly harbour content that infringes copyrights. However Microsoft recently issued a DMCA notice to Google that included links to the BBC, CNN and Wikipedia among many other websites.

In Microsoft's DMCA notice to Google it claimed the BBC's Cbeebies and CBBC website infringed the Windows 8 Beta copyright. The firm also cited URLs from Wikipedia, including wikis on the US Air Force 45th Fighter Squadron and Britain's Got Talent, neither of which have anything to do with Microsoft's Windows 8 operating system.

Thankfully Google's system for dealing with DMCA takedown notices is not quite as useless as the system used by Microsoft to generate the requests, and the BBC and Wikipedia URLs incorrectly identified by Microsoft have not been removed from the firm's search engine.

Microsoft is not alone in misusing DMCA takedown notices, however the system Microsoft uses to identify allegedly infringing URLs seems only to add to the mockery that is the DMCA and its goal of censoring the internet. µ