they should change the DMCA that if a copyright troll purposely sends false/automated requests, forfeits their rights and can’t claim anything anymore for the next century. And google should automatically reject any request that contains any reputable website like bbc, microsoft or nasa. And hopefully flag the copyright troll so any future request has lower priority/automatically rejected
Since even inadvertent or unintentional copying can be punished as infringement, any takedown should be subject to the same level of scrutiny and false claims should be awarded statutory damages matching infringement of registered works, collectible by the party who’s non-infringing work was blocked, but actionable by any party who is denied access. So if you can’t get to content due to DMCA you can sue, but you cannot recover damages or expenses - if you win, the $175k(?) per fraudulent take down is payable to the content owner. In that way, it’s recognized that an individual looking for content is injured by the takedown, but there is no financial incentive for take-down vigilantism.
I mean, they do have to put in the notice that it’s accurate under penalty of perjury. Presumably if you received the notice and can be bothered, you can not only contest it but bring charges against them if it’s false.
I got false DMCAed on a mod a while back by someone I literally hired to do development and server hosting for me who then violated our contract and ran off with a month’s fees after shutting down the server. The code he tried to DMCA me over (which was made to my specifications at my request and adjusted by me) was written under a paid contract. So not only could I have gone after him for the false DMCA, I probably could have gotten a year of server fees out of him.
But like, why? He’s that kind of petty, certainly, but I can’t be bothered with that shit. It was a blip. We recoded his tiny little half-assed mod that was already 90% a pre-existing mechanic, reuploaded, and waited the couple of weeks to be able to get our original back up. Whatever.
I think most people who are targeted by false DMCAs just don’t feel like wasting their time in the court system over some petty (if malicious) inconvenience.
The DMCA is so fucking contradictory about these subjects too. For example, per the DMCA, a party that misrepresents themselves in a takedown claim:
shall be liable for any damages, including costs and attorneys’ fees, incurred by the alleged infringer, by any copyright owner or copyright owner’s authorized licensee, or by a service provider, who is injured by such misrepresentation, as the result of the service provider relying upon such misrepresentation in removing or disabling access to the material or activity claimed to be infringing, or in replacing the removed material or ceasing to disable access to it.
This should mean you can sue the person for absolutely every bit of damage you suffered + whatever legal costs you encouraged in the process when you are delivered an illegitimate takedown. Reality is though, when regulatory duty is foisted onto private actors like this, that's just making it harder to get access to your rights.
The DMCA limits liability for platforms that host infringing content so long as the platform does not have knowledge the content infringes... but it provides NO guidance for how the platform should ascertain that an infringement claim is legitimate -- and waives their liability for making an erroneous determination.
It mandates a counter-notification process, but in this process the content will stay down for 10-14 days -- which in the world of social media can be an absolute death sentence. In no small part because the service provider's own algorithms will now bury that content when it is restored. And of course, DMCA has zilcho recourse for algorithmic burying (of course the writers weren't even aware of these potential effects).
And you cannot have an anonymous of pseudonymous counter-notification. Must be your full name, address, and phone number on it. Which will theoretically get handed off to the person that put in the fake claim against you as part of the process! Fucking madness! I don't know if this is enforced as written, but as written this is what it says.
There's probably a lot more to be said, but christ it is a poorly written law. And this is all from Section 512, which is often viewed as the only "good part" of the DMCA.
This isn’t remotely true. You contest the claim by submitting information through the host and basically telling the complaintant to sue you or go away. There’s no obligation for the host to do this, though; they’re free to just take your content down because of course they are.
DMCA takedown notices protect server hosts from copyright lawsuits.
What are you claiming is untrue about what I said? The part where I directly quoted the statute, or something else? Fuck off with this "not remotely true" bullshit.
I mentioned the counter notification process. Extensively. It's a bad process.
There IS an obligation for the host to do something with the counter-notification, by the way. Their liability waiver for damages goes away if they do not participate in the process. But same as other parts, it puts the legal onus on the victim, meaning little guys get fucked.
“[F]or unsuspecting merchants who may be unfamiliar with the DMCA, a sudden onslaught of takedown notices can result in the termination of their entire store under Shopify’s repeat infringer policy,” Shopify explains.
First of all, the person doing this is an asshole. Filing false DMCA claims is a dick move and can fuck with people’s livelihoods.
Second, if this is something that causes harm due to your policy, perhaps it’s time to review that policy and the ways you enforce it.
And third, the DMCA itself needs a serious review of how it needs to be handled and how to reduce harm on the innocent people affected by false claims.
One of the biggest problems with IP law, the DMCA included, is that it’s all built on a foundation of presumption of guilt. Unlike the rest of our legal system that presumes innocence by default, IP law does the opposite. Once an accusation is made, guilt is presumed, and the target must prove they aren’t guilty, with punishments being enacted first. Get a takedown notice, and you must comply, THEN you can challenge it. But in the meantime, your store, your video, your song, etc. is offline if-and-until you can prove the takedown is wrong. All assuming you CAN fight it, that you have the resources to do so, and that the platform you’re on has sensible avenues of recourse.
All of it protects the wealthy and powerful who can lob takedown requests with impunity since few are going to be able to fight back. We need a complete overhaul. We need to change the presumption of guilt in IP law. And we need to allow people to fight back and defend themselves before their shit is taken down.
Unlike the rest of our legal system that presumes innocence by default, IP law does the opposite.
The criminal legal system is built on the presumption of innocence. The civil legal system, which the DMCA falls under, certainly does not put presumption of innocence first in MANY circumstances.
DMCA takedown notices are there to remove responsibility from server hosts. When a notice is sent, adhering to it protects the host from legal liability. If the individual who posted the content believes it was in error, they can typically contest it by sending information to the person abusing takedown (through the host) and essentially saying sue me or leave me alone. The host is of course under no obligation to go further than the takedown.
The takedown itself is by no means ‘punishment’, but is a warning for the host to protect themselves.
You don’t actually have any right to force a third party company to put itself at risk for you or host your content.
You know its kind of surprising it took this long for someone to challenge it, but then again in this case the defendant isnt a major entertainment or recording company.
Well, the fiscal position of the streaming industry was not favorable compared to the copyright lobby’s a decade ago. Things are probably a bit more balanced now.
Still a bite the hands that feed them proposition. Unless there are anti-trust laws forcing the RIAA members to sell on all platforms, they could pull songs from any one service, and seriously damage the user base.
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