Google has filed a federal lawsuit against two Vietnamese men who they say have created numerous fake accounts to lodge thousands of frivolous copyright infringement complaints against 117,000 websites, simply to harm their competitors .
The defendants, Nguyen Van Duc and Pham Van Thien, created at least 65 Google accounts "so they could submit thousands of fraudulent notices of copyright infringement against more than 117,000 third-party website URLs," the lawsuit states. " Defendants appear to be connected with websites selling printed t-shirts, and their unlawful conduct aims to remove competing third-party sellers from Google Search results."
The practice violates both federal and state law, Google maintains in the lawsuit.
The federal Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) of 1998 has a "notice-and-takedown” provision that establishes legal guidelines for copyright holders and website providers to handle alleged copyright infringement, the lawsuit states.
"Defendants have maliciously and illegally exploited Google’s policies and procedures under the DMCA to sabotage and harm their competitors," the lawsuit states. "As an online service provider that each year receives millions of takedown requests targeting more than 600 million URLs, Google often must rely - as the DMCA contemplates - on the accuracy of the statements submitted by copyright claimants."
Initially, Google removed a "significant number" of URLS that were reported by the defendants, before it "figured out what was going on and took appropriate steps to reinstate the URLs," the suit states.
It seeks an injunction against the two men from continuing the alleged practice, plus damages and legal fees.
Google is represented by attorneys Rhett O. Millsaps II and Mark A. Lemley of Lex Lumina PLLC, of Los Angeles.
Google LLC v. Nguyen, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, 3:23-cv-05824