Techdirt reported that an article from the piracy news site was shared by several accounts over the weekend, including the Columbia Journalism Review‘s Mathew Ingram, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and copyright professor Annemarie Bridy. Twitter, acting on behalf of Starz, then served the accounts with a DMCA takedown despite no links to actual pirated content. Starz later apologized on Monday for inadvertently taking action on tweets that linked to news articles about online piracy.

The irony didn’t escape the users whose tweets were targeted. The TorrentFreak story they shared was about Twitter forcing the outlet to take down a link to its story about recent leaked Starz tv shows. Copyright lawyers had sided with TorrentFreak, arguing that news articles about online piracy aren’t the same as online piracy; and shouldn’t be subject to a DMCA takedown.

Following backlash on Twitter after several users accused Starz of overzealous copyright infringement, Starz issued an apology and said it was working to review the removed tweets.

This is Kafka-esque: I posted yesterday about Twitter removing a tweet from TorrrentFreak because it contained a link to an article about pirated copies of Starz shows appearing online (with no links to said content). Twitter has now removed my tweet linking to that story pic.twitter.com/pKF4VCRSit

— Mathew Ingram (@mathewi) April 14, 2019

So, it looks like @STARZ sent a DMCA takedown notice for my tweet linking to the @torrentfreak story documenting the original takedown. This would be a great story for @techdirt. cc: @mathewi pic.twitter.com/GHhMe51EdZ

— Annemarie Bridy (@AnnemarieBridy) April 14, 2019

This weekend, @STARZ used a bogus copyright notice to take down our tweet about THEIR bogus copyright notice to @torrentfreak, who had the audacity to report on leaked episodes of TV shows.

Say it with us: It’s Not Infringement To Report On Infringement. https://t.co/dVUx7DfiPD

— EFF (@EFF) April 15, 2019

“STARZ takes piracy and copyright infringement very seriously and must take steps, when necessary, to protect our content and creative IP as it is the core of our business. As such, we engage a third­party vendor to seek out and remove social media posts that provide access to illegally acquired content. The techniques and technologies employed in these efforts are not always perfect, and it appears that in this case, some posts were inadvertently caught up in the sweep that may fall outside the DMCA guidelines. […] ” wrote a Starz spokesman in an email to Engadget.

Twitter appeared to have restored some of the tweets in question on Monday afternoon. In a direct message on Twitter, Ingram told Engadget that he believed his tweets were back online. Other tweets by Variety and EFF were also restored.

Jon Fingas contributed to this story.

The expected news service, meanwhile would reportedly cost $10 per month and provide access to more than 200-plus magazines (such as Glamour and People) as well as newspapers. It would amount to an extended version of Texture in that sense. Apple might have a particular focus in mind, too. The WSJ‘s sources understand that Apple will focus primarily on that paper’s “general news, politics and lifestyles” rather than its traditional business news, and that the outlet will hire more reporters to “help feed” Apple’s service.

Provided this is what Apple announces on March 25th, it’s potentially a good deal. HBO Now, for instance, charges $15 per month by itself. If the services are comparable, you might be saving a third on the price. Whether or not it’s compelling beyond that is another story. Apple will have to show that its mix of originals and third parties is enough to justify another subscription or two on top of existing streaming heavyweights like Amazon and Netflix.